Address: Alonso de Ercilla No. 1189, Población Martin Luther King, Renca, Santiago Marital Status: Married, 4 children Occupation: Laborer Repressive Context: Former leader of the Central Unica del Trabajo (CUT); former President of the Renca branch of the Communist Party; former candidate for Councilman for the Communist Party in the commune of Renca. Date of Detention: December 15, 1976

REPRESSIVE SITUATION

Héctor Véliz Ramírez, 43 years old, married, father of four, a laborer, former CUT leader, and Communist militant, was detained on December 15, 1976, on a public street.

Between November 29 and December 20, 1976, thirteen people were detained and remain in the status of forcibly disappeared to this day.

The disappeared persons are: Santiago Edmundo Araya Cabrera, MIR militant, detained on November 29, 1976; Armando Portilla, Communist Party militant, detained on December 9, 1976; Fernando Alfredo Navarro Allende, detained on December 13, 1976; Lincoyán Yalú Berríos Cataldo, Horacio Cepeda Marinkovic, Luis Segundo Lazo Santander, Juan Fernando Ortiz Letelier, Reinalda del Carmen Pereira Plaza, Waldo Ulises Pizarro Molina, and Héctor Véliz Ramírez, all Communist militants, detained on December 15, 1976; Lizandro Tucapel Cruz Díaz, Communist Party militant, and Carlos Patricio Durán González, MIR militant, both detained on December 18, 1976; and Edras de las Mercedes Pinto Arroyo, a Communist, detained on December 20, 1976.

Héctor Véliz Ramírez left his home on December 15, 1976, at 09:00 hours, to look for work, an occasion from which he was never seen again, despite all the efforts his family members made before Carabineros police stations, hospitals, emergency clinics, the Legal Medical Institute, etc.

It should be noted that after the Military Coup, between 1974 and 1975, he was intensely sought after by individuals dressed in civilian clothes who identified themselves as belonging to the Carabineros and the Army.

Subsequent to the victim's disappearance, the press reported news indicating, according to the Argentine Ministry of the Interior, that four Chileans—Héctor Véliz, Luis Lazo, Horacio Cepeda, and Edras Pinto—had entered Argentine territory on January 6, 1977, in a vehicle with Chilean license plate HG-19.

The aforementioned communication did not correspond, at least with what was reported to the Courts in the case of Héctor Véliz, as it was always reported regarding him that he had no record of leaving the country.

On the other hand, in relation to Luis Lazo, Horacio Cepeda, and Edras Pinto, who were also disappeared since December 1976, the Chilean government had indeed reported that they left the country bound for Argentina on January 6, 1977, but that they did so through other means, and in no case in a vehicle with Chilean license plate HG-19, as the press report claimed (see the cases of these three individuals).

That same information proved even more contradictory, as it was judicially determined that license plate HG-19 was never sold by the Municipality of Santiago to which it had been assigned; the plate was therefore annulled.

To date, the victim remains forcibly disappeared.

JUDICIAL AND/OR ADMINISTRATIVE ACTIONS

On December 22, 1976, Mrs. Abelina Marihuán Quinchavil filed a writ of amparo (habeas corpus) on behalf of her spouse, Héctor Véliz, before the Santiago Court of Appeals, registered under No. 1088-76, in which she stated that he had left his home on December 15, 1976, at 09:00 hours, and that nothing more had been known of him since that date.

In said writ, in addition to requesting a report from the Ministry of the Interior, she also requested one from the National Intelligence Directorate (DINA).

Only after more than 20 days had passed since the request for the respective report to the Ministry of the Interior was the response from that Secretariat of State certified in the file, which stated: "he is not detained by order of this Ministry." On January 18, 1977, the Court rejected the amparo and ordered the records to be sent to the Criminal Court to investigate the possible commission of a punishable act regarding the disappearance of the subject.

The Supreme Court, hearing the appeal of the resolution that rejected the amparo, confirmed that ruling on January 25, 1977.

Another judicial action taken by Héctor Véliz's spouse consisted of requesting the Supreme Court in January 1977—together with the families of the other 12 forcibly disappeared persons from late 1976 named above—the appointment of a Minister in Extraordinary Visit to hear the cases of the disappearance of these thirteen detainees, due to the evident connection between their cases.

The Supreme Court agreed to that appointment, which led to the opening of criminal case file 2-77, which was in the charge of a Minister in Extraordinary Visit, an investigation in which, ultimately, only ten of the cases were included, excluding those of Héctor Véliz, Carlos Durán González, and Fernando Navarro Allende.

It should be noted that, based on the tenor of the Supreme Court's resolution, it is impossible to know why the majority of its Ministers were not in favor of including Héctor Véliz and the other two forcibly disappeared persons.

In any case, because Héctor Véliz and the other forcibly disappeared persons were a group of people detained in the same period, ideologically aligned, and affected by common procedures, it is important to consider what was investigated in case file 2-77, which is discussed in the case of Reinalda Pereira Plaza, detained on December 15, 1976.

On the other hand, Héctor Véliz Ramírez's spouse, on February 16, 1977, filed a criminal complaint before the 10th Criminal Court of Santiago for the crime of kidnapping the victim, which entered processing under file 4.474-8.

In the course of its processing, the complainant requested as a matter of urgency that it be established whether or not her spouse had abandoned the country, indicating that she made this request in "direct relation to the spreading of rumors of a certain official nature, emanating from the Argentine Ministry of the Interior, in which my husband is pointed out as one of the Chileans who had entered Argentine territory." The response from the International Police of the Investigations of Chile was: "no record of trips abroad." The Ministry of the Interior, for its part, indicated: "...there are no records in this Secretariat of State, nor has any order or resolution been issued that affects him: Héctor Véliz Ramírez..." (the Chilean government had forms to respond to the Courts, in which it could include, depending on the case, several people; hence the letters in parentheses that have been transcribed).

This criminal case was temporarily dismissed on two occasions by Judge Carla Figueroa Hevia, in April and September 1977, and the Santiago Court of Appeals, in separate resolutions, ordered the reopening of the summary proceedings because the investigation was incomplete; finally, the aforementioned judge temporarily dismissed the case for a third time in February 1978, and the Santiago Court of Appeals approved the actions, finally ordering the archiving of the case.

Also, the victim's spouse filed a criminal complaint for the crimes of kidnapping, illegal arrest, and improper incommunicado detention against officials and other civilians and military personnel belonging to and attached to the State Security Services, especially the National Intelligence Directorate (DINA), on March 10, 1977, before the 8th Criminal Court of Santiago, entering under file 14.826-3.

In this filing, it was pointed out that it was appropriate for the aforementioned complaint to be consolidated with the one mentioned above and that, furthermore, once that was done, everything should be consolidated into case file 2-77, alleging the commonality of evidence that existed regarding the other cases.

The day after the aforementioned complaint was filed, the judge of the 8th Court, Alfredo Pfeiffer Richter, declared himself incompetent, ordering that the records be sent to a Military Prosecutor's Office to hear the matter, as the complaint in question was filed against DINA officials, a department dependent on the Armed Forces.

Immediately, Judge Pfeiffer himself—without waiting for his resolution to become final—sent the file to the Military Tribunal, and it happened that when the lawyers for the plaintiff appealed against said resolution, the case was no longer in the 8th Court, making it impossible to resolve the appeal.

Ultimately, the jurisdiction was only resolved in September 1977 by the Supreme Court, which declared that the competent Tribunal to hear the case was precisely the 8th Criminal Court; that is, from that moment on, and with almost six months having passed since the criminal complaint was filed, Judge Pfeiffer would begin to investigate the fate of a forcibly disappeared person.

The Supreme Court's resolution in the noted sense was preceded by the report of the Prosecutor of that same Tribunal, Gustavo Chamorro, who considered: "...it is the Judge of the Eighth Criminal Court who must order the practice of the proceedings requested in the complaint, and if from their fulfillment it results that any member of the Armed Forces or the former National Intelligence Directorate (DINA) had participation in any of the crimes, it would then correspond to issue a pronouncement regarding their jurisdiction..." (also found, in turn, was the resolution by the Military Tribunal: "Given the merit of the records and especially the fact of not accompanying any other evidence to the mere appreciation of the complainant, the jurisdiction declined by the 8th Court is rejected...").

In the complaint, Héctor Véliz's spouse asked that a report be requested from Army Colonel Manuel Contreras Sepúlveda, head of the DINA, and from the Chiefs of Intelligence of the Armed Forces and Order regarding any information they had on the victim, and specifically about who had detained him.

The judge of the 8th Court did not agree to this proceeding, nor did Minister Servando Jordán, who ended up hearing this case in an Extraordinary Visit. In the process, a simple order to investigate was dispatched to the Investigations Police, which, reporting to the Tribunal, indicated that "active inquiries were carried out tending to the location of the indicated person, visiting Assistance Posts, Hospitals, the Legal Medical Institute, and the Archives and Registries of the General, Catholic, and Metropolitan Cemeteries, not locating the aforementioned Héctor Véliz Ramírez to date, who also, in the Border Control Section of the Department of Immigration and International Police of our institution, has no record of leaving the country."

It was also not agreed to consolidate the criminal complaint filed before the Tenth Criminal Court of Santiago, already mentioned, nor to consolidate the present case into case file 2-77, in which the cases of the other forcibly disappeared persons were being investigated.

Minister Jordán only had this process (file 2-77) in view. The political background of Héctor Véliz pointed out by his spouse was corroborated by a report from the Investigations Police that Minister Jordán requested from this institution.

Indeed, said department in April 1980 indicated certain political background information on the victim that it obtained after reviewing "the files of our Information Department." On this point, it is interesting to explain that when the Minister in Extraordinary Visit Carlos Cerda, in case file 2-77, asked for similar information about the people whose disappearances he was investigating, the Director of the Investigations Police, Army Brigadier General Fernando Paredes Pizarro, informed him: "In this regard, I allow myself to communicate to Your Honor that in this Institution, political files of persons are not kept." This response was given to Minister Cerda in November 1983.

Three years earlier, the same Service had provided the political background of Héctor Véliz.

Ultimately, the case processed before the 8th Criminal Court of Santiago was temporarily dismissed by Minister Servando Jordán in May 1980, a resolution that was confirmed by the Santiago Court of Appeals.

Source: Vicariate of Solidarity

Date: Eleven of them belonged to the Communist Party—some members of its Central Committee—and two to the Revolutionary Left Movement (MIR). The procedures used to detain them bear similarities to each other, particularly in the fact that their arrests were carried out on public streets, except in one case, and that the bulk of the detentions took place on December 15, 1976, with seven people kidnapped on that day alone.

The other common note in their situations was the information officially provided by the military government, to the effect that practically all of them had records of leaving Chile for Argentina between late December 1976 or early January 1977, which was subsequently judicially established to be false.

This is a list prepared by the law firm Estudio Jurídico Caucoto Abogados, which includes 14 criminals, among whom stand out individuals linked to the homicide of Víctor Jara, the execution of 38 peasants in the main Paine Case, and the assassination of the Spanish diplomat Carmelo Soria.

This Friday, the law firm Estudio Jurídico Caucoto Abogados made official the updated list of former uniformed personnel who are fugitives from justice, convicted of various crimes against humanity.

It involves 14 people, some of them involved in the crime of Víctor Jara and Littré Quiroga, in the execution of 38 peasants in the main Paine Case, and the assassination of the Spanish diplomat Carmelo Soria, among other investigations, details a statement from the office specializing in human rights.

Regarding the list, it is made up of former military personnel, Carabineros, former Navy officials, and civilians who were members of the dictatorship's repressive apparatuses, such as the National Intelligence Directorate (DINA), the National Intelligence Center (CNI), and naval intelligence, who are accused as authors and co-authors of aggravated kidnapping, aggravated homicide, illicit association, and the application of torture, among other illicit acts.

Specifically, it is composed of

1. Jorge Octavio Vargas Bories (retired Army officer, CNI), sentenced as a co-author of the assassination of Federico Álvarez Santibáñez to 10 years and one day. 2. Rubén Aroldo Morales López (retired Carabineros officer), sentenced to 10 years and one day of major imprisonment as the author of the aggravated homicide of Jorge Vásquez Matamala. 3.

Luis Enrique Barrueto Bartning, a businessman sentenced to 10 years and one day as a co-author of seven aggravated kidnappings (forced disappearances) perpetrated in the commune of Santa Bárbara.

To these are added four convicted in the Conferencia II episode:

4. Federico Humberto Chaigneau Sepúlveda (retired Army officer, DINA) 5. José Miguel Meza Serrano (retired Navy official, DINA) 6. Eduardo Alejandro Oyarce Riquelme (retired Army non-commissioned officer, DINA)

All of them are sentenced as co-authors of the crimes of aggravated kidnapping of Fernando Navarro Allendes and Héctor Véliz Ramírez, to a penalty of 12 years of imprisonment each, to which are added the crimes of simple kidnapping of Juan Fernando Ortiz Letelier, Horacio Cepeda Marinkovic, and Lincoyán Berríos, for which they were sentenced to three years of imprisonment, respectively.

7. Víctor Álvarez Droguett (retired Army official, DINA), sentenced as a co-author of the crimes of aggravated homicide of Juan Fernando Ortiz Letelier, Horacio Cepeda Marinkovic, and Lincoyán Yalú Berríos Cataldo, to the penalty of 15 years and one day of major imprisonment in its maximum degree.

Additionally, he is sentenced as a co-author of the crimes of aggravated kidnapping of Fernando Alfredo Navarro Allendes and Héctor Véliz Ramírez, to the penalty of 12 years of major imprisonment in its medium degree.

Additionally, he was sentenced as the author of the crimes of simple kidnapping of Juan Fernando Ortiz Letelier, Horacio Cepeda Marinkovic, and Lincoyán Yalú Berríos Cataldo, to the penalty of three years of minor imprisonment in its medium degree. Finally, Álvarez Droguett faces a 10-year prison sentence for the aggravated kidnapping of Marta Ugarte Román.

8. Alberto Roque del Sagrado Corazón Badilla Grillo, retired Navy officer, who was sentenced as the author of the aggravated homicide and the application of torture against Enrique López Olmedo, to penalties of 12 years and 541 days respectively.

9. Juan Dionisio Opazo Vera (former conscript) sentenced as a co-author of 38 aggravated homicides to the penalty of 10 years and one day, in the Paine Case, Main Episode.

10. Nelson Edgardo Hasse Mazzei (retired Army officer) 11. Juan Renán Jara Quintana (retired Army officer), who together with Hasse Mazzei is convicted as a co-author of the aggravated kidnappings and aggravated homicides of Víctor Jara Martínez and Littré Quiroga Carvajal.

For these crimes, a penalty of 10 years and one day was established for the kidnappings, in addition to 15 years of imprisonment for the crimes.

12. Guillermo Salinas Torres (retired Army officer) 13. Pablo Belmar Labbé (retired Army officer) 14. René Patricio Quilhot Palma (retired Army officer)

In the case of these three fugitives from justice, they were convicted as co-authors of the crimes of aggravated homicide of Carmelo Soria Espinoza, and as authors of an illicit association. For the first charge, a penalty of 15 years and one day was imposed on Salinas Torres, and 10 years and one day on the other two, while for the crime of illicit association, all were sentenced to the penalty of 541 days of imprisonment.

«Sentences must be fulfilled»

Regarding this list, lawyer Francisco Bustos asserts that it is a worrying situation that should be a priority for the authorities.

“States have the duty to investigate, judge, and punish crimes against humanity,” he maintains.

“This duty does not end with the mere issuance of a conviction; these sentences must be fulfilled, and in that sense, the existence of fugitives for any crime, and especially 14 fugitives for crimes against humanity, represents a serious failure of state duties,” he adds.

Finally, he stressed that “the judiciary and the plaintiffs in processes for crimes against humanity must take extreme measures, including the imposition of precautionary measures, in order to avoid this form of impunity.”

Source: eldesconcierto.cl, November 24, 2023 Date: 11-24-2023

Conferencia II: Santiago Court convicts former DINA agents for kidnapping and homicide of the second clandestine leadership of the PC

In the second-instance resolution, former DINA chiefs Pedro Espinoza Bravo and Juan Morales Salgado are sentenced to 34 years of imprisonment for the crimes of homicide and kidnapping of Communist militants.

The Fifth Chamber of the Santiago Court of Appeals issued a final second-instance sentence in the case known as “Conferencia II Episode,” an operation at the hands of the “Lautaro brigade” belonging to the National Intelligence Directorate, DINA, and responsible for the kidnapping and homicide of leaders Fernando Navarro Allendes, Lincoyán Berríos Cataldo, Horacio Cepeda Marinkovic, Juan Fernando Ortiz Letelier, Héctor Véliz Ramírez, and Waldo Pizarro Molina, all members of the second clandestine leadership of the Communist Party, made to disappear in 1976.

The capital's appellate court, whose chamber was presided over by Minister Omar Astudillo and integrated by ministers Mireya Eugenia López and Jenny Book, revoked the first-instance sentence, issued by the special minister Miguel Vázquez, which had acquitted former agents Guillermo Díaz, Teresa del Carmen Navarro, Celinda Aspe, and Camilo Torres, and instead, resolved to sentence them to the penalty of 10 years and one day as authors of the crimes of aggravated kidnapping of Fernando Navarro Allendes and Héctor Véliz Ramírez; and to the penalty of 541 days of imprisonment as authors of the crimes of simple kidnapping of Juan Fernando Ortiz Letelier, Horacio Cepeda Marinkovic, and Lincoyán Berríos Cataldo.

The chamber also applied the measure of prescription—with the dissenting vote of Minister Astudillo—and reduced sentences, sentencing Juan Morales Salgado and Pedro Espinoza Bravo to 20 years of major imprisonment in its maximum degree as authors of the crimes of aggravated homicide of Juan Fernando Ortiz Letelier, Horacio Cepeda Marinkovic, and Lincoyán Yalú Berríos Cataldo.

Likewise, penalties of 14 years of major imprisonment in its degree were set as authors of the crimes of aggravated kidnapping of Fernando Navarro Allendes, Héctor Véliz Ramírez, and Waldo Pizarro Molina; and 3 years of minor imprisonment in its medium degree as authors of the crimes of simple kidnapping of Juan Fernando Ortiz Letelier, Horacio Cepeda Marinkovic, and Lincoyán Yalú Berríos Cataldo.

In addition, sentences of 10 years and 1 day of major imprisonment in its medium degree were imposed on agents José Alfonso Ojeda Obando, Federico Chaigneau Sepúlveda, Gladys Calderón Carreño, Jorge Sagardía Monje, Héctor Valdebenito Araya, Sergio Escalona Acuña, Jorge Manríquez Manterola, José Meza Serrano, Luis Lagos Yáñez, Jorge Pichunmán Curiqueo, Orfa Saavedra Vásquez, Elisa Magna Astudillo, Eduardo Oyarce Riquelme, Sergio Castro Andrade, José Sarmiento Sotelo, Gustavo Guerrero Aguilera, Jorge Arriagada Mora, Berta Jiménez Escobar, Carlos Bermúdez Méndez, Orlando Altamirano Sanhueza, and Carlos Miranda Mesa, as authors of the crimes of aggravated kidnapping of Fernando Navarro Allendes and Héctor Véliz Ramírez.

The same convicted individuals were sentenced to 541 days of minor imprisonment in its medium degree as authors of the crimes of simple kidnapping of Juan Fernando Ortiz Letelier, Horacio Cepeda Marinkovic, and Lincoyán Berríos Cataldo; and a penalty of 61 days of minor imprisonment in its minimum degree to María Angélica Guerrero Soto, as author of the crimes of simple kidnapping of Juan Fernando Ortiz Letelier, Horacio Cepeda Marinkovic, and Lincoyán Berríos Cataldo.

In the same ruling, the first-instance sentence is revoked, and José Ojeda Obando is acquitted as an accomplice to the crimes of aggravated homicide of Juan Fernando Ortiz Letelier, Horacio Cepeda Marinkovic, and Lincoyán Berríos Cataldo.

And Luis Lagos Yañez and Sergio Castro Andrades are acquitted of being authors of the crimes of aggravated kidnapping of Fernando Navarro Allendes and Héctor Véliz Ramírez.

For the plaintiff lawyer, Nelson Caucoto, with this ruling “the penultimate chapter of a 43-year history begins to be written. We are not satisfied with the application of the prescription measure, which reduces the penalties until it denatures the punishment of the perpetrators.

We trust that the Supreme Court will correct this sentence, attending to the gravity of the facts, leaving without effect the prescription measure which, in this type of crime, is inapplicable.”

Caucoto, together with lawyer Francisco Ugás, both representatives of the victims' families, filed a cassation appeal before the Supreme Court, so that it is the highest court that pronounces on the matter.

It should be noted that in this case, it was not possible to issue a sentence against Ricardo Lawrence because he is a fugitive. A similar situation occurs with Adriana Rivas, also a former DINA agent and secretary to Manuel Contreras, who is in Australia and for whom an extradition process is currently being processed.

Regarding both agents, the sentence confirmed the temporary dismissal issued by Minister Vázquez.

Along with this case, in a separate file, is that of Reinalda Pereira, also a Communist leader, detained in 1976, 5 months pregnant, and who to this day remains forcibly disappeared. Her case is also substantiated by the special minister Miguel Vázquez and has members of the “Lautaro brigade” of the DINA as those responsible.

Source: caucoto.cl, June 3, 2020 Date: 06-03-2020

Renca commemorates International Human Rights Day with a commemorative plaque

This Saturday, December 9, the Municipality of Renca, in conjunction with the Communal Human Rights Coordinator, will hold a commemorative act for the International Day of the subject, which is celebrated worldwide on December 10.

As a main milestone, the act will remember with a plaque Humberto Fuentes Rodríguez, Mario Juica Vega, Julio Vega, and Héctor Véliz Ramírez, former workers and councilmen of this municipality, who were victims of human rights violations during the military dictatorship. This event will take place at 18:00 hours in the central hall of the municipality.

In addition to this main milestone, the activity includes information booths from groups linked to civil and social causes, such as the Observatory Against Street Harassment, Service for Peace and Justice, Huamachuco Women's House, and Biodanza Renca, among others. To finish, a cultural artistic meeting will be held starting at 18:30 hours.

The activity will take place in the Plaza Mayor of Renca, between 12:00 and 21:00 hours.

Source: renca.cl, December 2, 2017 Date: 12-02-2017

Final destination: from Cuesta Barriga to the bottom of the sea

Once the bodies were delivered to the Peldehue airfield and loaded onto the Puma helicopter, Pete returned to Cuesta Barriga with some of his men. Before ascending the hills, they looked for dogs along the side of the road and shot them.

They threw them into the vehicles and, back at the mine, tossed them into the bottom of the shaft. Since the CNI knew that information was in the hands of human rights organizations, they sought to mislead any potential future searchers who might come poking their noses around those parts. "If they come looking, they’re only going to find dog bones," Sandoval told his men, and they left.

The agent looked at him mockingly

"You’re a bigger idiot; to set that mine off you’d need at least ten crates of dynamite." Pete El Negro felt offended and could only manage to respond: "The idiot is Pantoja, he gave me the order."

Blasting the mine at Cuesta Barriga in the hills west of Santiago would cause a magnitude three or four earthquake. The epicenter would then be registered on the sensors of the University of Chile’s Seismology Service. That was what the explosives expert told Pete.

It was the early days of the summer of 1979. At the beginning of December 1978, the alarm had sounded in the barracks following the discovery of the bodies of 15 peasants in a mine in Lonquén. The dictator's order was immediate: "Clean out the graves in the country where people are buried and make them disappear!"

They were all clandestine graves. To this end, Pinochet had a cryptogram drafted and sent to the barracks. The encrypted message was decrypted by the Section II Intelligence units in each location. Thus was born Operation "Retiro de Televisores" (Removal of Televisions), as the Army General Command called it.

The operations were overseen by the head of the National Intelligence Center (CNI), General Odlanier Mena.

Captain Enrique Sandoval Arancibia, "Pete El Negro" to his friends and using the alias "Roberto Fuenzalida Palma," spoke again with Jerónimo Luzberto Pantoja, who was acting as director in Mena's stead. It was summer, and Mena was vacationing in the cove of Mehuín, north of Valdivia. He explained to Luzberto about the earthquake caused by the dynamite.

"Then use chemicals to burn the bodies; I want them incinerated, and clean up the ashes."

Pete El Negro did not get along with Pantoja, who had at one time been the second-in-command of the DINA. He also refused to use chemicals to clean the mine. He told Luzberto that he did not know how to use them and feared that he and his men would be harmed. Especially if they used them without ventilation, fifteen or twenty meters deep in the mine shaft.

Sandoval had the nerve to confront his superiors. He had forged a reputation as a tough and implacable man in action. For that reason, he picked up the intercom and communicated directly with General Mena at his home in Mehuín. He called him from the general headquarters at Belgrado 11, very close to Plaza Italia in Santiago. This had been the DINA headquarters, but the CNI continued to use it.

Mena asked him if it was urgent enough to interrupt his vacation. Pete told him yes. "Then don't do anything. I'm flying to Santiago tomorrow and we will resolve the cleanup."

At the Tobalaba airfield itself, east of Santiago, Mena asked Pete for his opinion on how it should be done. The latter replied that they should remove the bodies from the mine by any means necessary. Mena agreed and ordered him to prepare the operation with his men from the Rojo Brigade.

Because of the location, a hunter's dogs sniffed out the stench of the decomposing corpses and went down to the bottom of the shaft, which had a diagonal incline. The hunter found the entrance to the abandoned mine and checked the site.

He had no doubts. The dogs went crazy over the decomposed human flesh. The CNI's ears and arms were long and fine, and the information reached Belgrado 11. Mena informed Pinochet, and the latter ordered him to accelerate the removal operation.

With Mena, Pinochet felt secure… more than secure, calm, after the onslaught from the United States government over the assassination of Orlando Letelier in Washington. The DINA, its chief Manuel Contreras, and the assassinations abroad were in the past. But now, with the CNI, the other phase of the repression was being deepened—the one that was much more selective.

In the bloody Mena-Contreras battle, the first victory went to the colonel: he managed to get Pinochet to remove General Mena as head of the Army Intelligence Directorate (DINE). At that time, Mena was "mopping the floor" with Contreras and his agents. He commented to Pinochet and other generals that the DINA had turned the orthodoxy of intelligence into a gang of thieves and ruthless murderers.

Not a few members of the Army's general corps held the same opinion.

Months before Pinochet dissolved the DINA in August 1977, he called Mena and offered him an "honorable exit" from the DINE: "Negro, you are going as ambassador to Uruguay," Pinochet told him.

But his revenge came soon, in November 1977. Pinochet called him to Montevideo and informed him that he would remove Contreras as director of the National Intelligence Center, created on August 13, 1977, to replace the DINA. "I want you in command of the CNI," he told him.

Contreras chewed on his defeat, and it was the end of his reign… but not the end of his power.

From Malloco to Peldehue

With the hand-drawn map that Pantoja gave him, Pete went to check the mine shaft with a couple of men. It did not take him long to find the entrance to the deserted mine. He entered through the gallery to a fork, turned right, and found the deep shaft.

On the edge of the shaft entrance, he found traces of lime. Pete entered a few meters into the diagonal shaft to look. He shone a flashlight, saw mice and bats, and sniffed the unmistakable smell of putrid death.

He focused the flashlight and distinguished skulls, hands, and exposed legs. He left and set off to inform Luzberto. The latter demanded proof. "Bring me photos," he told him. Pete returned with a CNI photographer who recorded the discovery. Suspicious, Pete demanded to witness the developing of the shots in the darkroom. He showed them to his boss, Luzberto, again.

Early one morning that summer of 1979, Pete and a team from his Rojo Brigade set off for Cuesta Barriga. There were ten of them with him. They brought one hundred potato sacks, enough rope, and above all, abundant ammunition and weaponry just in case.

Guards cordoned off the perimeter to operate away from prying eyes. Pete chose two of his men to go down to the bottom and remove the bodies. One of them was "Siete Fachas," thinner, handsome, and a braggart, always ready to take a step forward. "Siete" went down with another, equipped with flashlights and sacks.

After about twenty minutes, Pete heard shouts: "Target found!" A shocking spectacle. The ground was strewn with bodies, some wrapped in plastic, others simply naked. Some were already in the process of skeletonization. Others were in advanced decomposition. Pete assessed that several had been thrown to the bottom on different dates, by different teams.

Once bagged, they began pulling the bodies up with ropes, but the brute force caused several to fall apart. The order was that the sacks should not reveal the shape of the contents. That they should be as flat as possible. "Ready, pull!" they were shouting from below.

One by one, the sacks were brought to the surface. In the judicial investigation, Pete recalled that they brought up about fifty sacks, without saying that each one corresponded to a single person. The sacks contained parts of one and another and some clothing. His assessment was that, in total, the remains belonged to at least more than twenty people.

The second group of agents loaded them onto a three-quarter-ton truck, white, open, and protected by wooden railings. They arranged the sacks between layers of grass and bags of oats that they had expressly brought to reduce the stench and hide the bundles.

At the bottom of the shaft, "El Siete Fachas" and his companion swept the damp dirt floor with branches to collect the last pieces of bone left from the removal and erase traces. Then they left. They did the same on the surface to undo the signs of their presence, where there were also the tracks of the three vehicles in which they had arrived. They had worked for three days and three nights.

They started the engines, which in the silence of the night roared like hungry lions. The convoy set off in the direction of a plot of land in Malloco, a rural town southwest of Santiago.

On October 16, 1975, a DINA commando stormed the plot where the clandestine leadership of the MIR was hiding, following the assassination of its leader Miguel Enríquez a year earlier. In the assault, the sociologist Dagoberto Pérez and the plot's employee Enriqueta Reyes died. Nelson Gutiérrez fled wounded. Pascal Allende escaped unharmed.

Pete and his agents spent the night there. Upon arriving, they met with Major Heraclio Núñez Yáñez. Pantoja sent him to guard the bodies aboard the truck for what would happen the next morning. They had dinner there, commented on the events, and went to sleep exhausted.

They had breakfast at dawn and left with their cargo in the direction of the rural town of Peldehue, north of Santiago. There, the Army maintained a training camp and an airfield. They made the trip with checking maneuvers, diverting other vehicles to confirm they were not being followed.

At the airfield, Colonel Jerónimo Pantoja was waiting for them, still acting for General Mena, who was on vacation. Major Núñez reported the arrival to Luzberto. Pete handed over the cargo. Minutes later, an Army Aviation Command helicopter arrived at the airfield. They loaded the sacks and, as happened with almost all those who are today forcibly disappeared, they threw them into the sea.

Without having been in the Lautaro Brigade or the Delfín Group, at the DINA extermination barracks Simón Bolívar in the commune of La Reina, Pete El Negro had reasoned correctly at the edge of the Los Bronces mine shaft.

Indeed, the bodies had been thrown there from the Simón Bolívar barracks in different periods and by different teams. That is how it happened. The following were the trips to that destination… which would not be the final one.

With the hand-drawn map that Pantoja gave him, Pete went to check the mine shaft with a couple of men. It did not take him long to find the entrance to the deserted mine. He entered through the gallery to a fork, turned right, and found the deep shaft.

On the edge of the shaft entrance, he found traces of lime. Pete entered a few meters into the diagonal shaft to look. He shone a flashlight, saw mice and bats, and sniffed the unmistakable smell of putrid death. He focused the flashlight and distinguished skulls, hands, and exposed legs.

Knocks at the door

At the Simón Bolívar barracks, "El Viejo Valde" approached Fernando Ortiz and asked him why he had been captured. He answered him quietly and with a broken voice. He told him it happened when he was heading to a "point" (meeting) with another clandestine leader of the Communist Party.

Ortiz was sitting in a chair. He did not finish answering and fell to one side dead… beaten to death. "El Elefante" and "Mario Primero" beat him until he died. "El Viejo Valde" heard his long, heartbreaking screams.

A few meters away, those from the Delfín Group were torturing the communists Horacio Cepeda and Reinalda Pereira. All were already dying. Lieutenant Gladys Calderón finished them all off with her deadly syringe: pentothal or cyanide, it made no difference.

"El Viejo Valde" went home to rest from the fatal day. Upon leaving the barracks, to the side of the shed that served as a soccer field, he spotted four or five wrapped bodies. At ten o'clock at night, Roque Almendras knocked on his door. "My commander wants you to show the Delfín people the route to the Cuesta Barriga mine," said Almendras, assistant to the head of the Lautaro Brigade, Juan Morales Salgado.

The Lautaro provided support to "Los Delfines." Héctor Valdebenito Araya, "El Viejo Valde," a Carabineros non-commissioned officer and member of the Lautaro, was afraid. The "Delfines" of Army Captain Germán Barriga Muñoz and the "paco" (cop) Ricardo Lawrence Mires were to be feared since they arrived from Villa Grimaldi to Simón Bolívar in mid-1976. Ruthless criminals.

Valdebenito and Almendras left the house to board the car in which the latter was traveling. As they passed by the two vehicles of the "Delfines," they smelled from inside the human flesh burned with a blowtorch to erase fingerprints and facial features.

In those two vehicles were the bundles that "El Viejo Valde" had spotted that afternoon upon leaving the barracks. They were guarded, among others, by Juvenal Piña Garrido, "El Elefante," and Eduardo Reyes Lagos, "Mario Primero."

Without setbacks, "El Viejo Valde" fulfilled the task entrusted by "El Loco Morales," as some called the head of the Lautaro. Lit by the headlights of the three vehicles, they entered the mine with flashlights and located the mouth of the shaft.

Without further ado, they threw in the bodies of Cepeda, Ortiz, and Reinalda Pereira. The identity of the other body or bodies was not mentioned in Valdebenito's statements in the trial. What he does remember is that he traveled to the mine at least three times to dump bodies.

The arm of "El Chancho"

The lady of the house picked up the receiver and listened to her employee's conversation. She had been spying on her for a while. The employer thus learned that her assistant was going to meet her nephew, a militant of the MIR. She reported the call, and the information reached the Simón Bolívar barracks.

"El Viejo Valde" and Army Lieutenant Hernán Sovino Maturana went out in a vehicle to arrest the young man. They captured him on Antonio Varas Street in Providencia. Others supporting the arrest put the aunt in a car, but they released her after a few blocks.

Sovino and the "paco" Valdebenito arrived with the young man at Simón Bolívar and handed him over to "Los Delfines." The men of Barriga Muñoz and Lawrence left him dying… but he was still alive. Morales called "El Viejo Valde" and gave him the mission: "To the mine with him," he said, giving a thumbs down like a Nero in the Colosseum.

"El Viejo Valde" gathered Morales's favorite team: the Marine Infantry commandos Bernardo Daza Navarro, Sergio Escalona Acuña, and José Meza Serrano. With Morales Salgado, they had come from the Torres de San Borja, in the center of Santiago, in the first days of the coup, when they covered the back of Manuel Contreras and his family. The DINA was already being born.

They left in broad daylight from Simón Bolívar in two vehicles. Before entering the mouth of the mine, "El Chancho" Daza wanted to suffocate the prisoner by cutting off his breath at the neck. Ángel Guerrero Carrillo, the young man from the MIR, reacted by kicking despite his condition.

Then "El Viejo Valde" held him by the feet and the other Marine Infantrymen immobilized him standing up. Daza came at him and brutally twisted his neck. He broke it. They did not take the care to wrap the inert and warm body, and they threw it to the bottom of the shaft, darker than a moonless night.

From sarin to the shaft

Two Peruvian citizens went to the Ministry of Defense in 1976. They inquired about detained persons. They said they came from the Peruvian embassy in Santiago. The questions were considered "suspicious," and the information reached Simón Bolívar.

In October 1976, "El Viejo Valde" received the order to arrest them at their homes and take them to the barracks. Already at night, he was accompanied by "El Chancho" Daza and Sergio Escalona. The arrests took place on Avenida Independencia in Recoleta and on Matucana Street, further west of Santiago. Both were young men between 20 and 25 years old.

The Peruvians were not involved in anything, but they remained detained for a few days.

One morning, Simón Bolívar was shaken. "Jefe Mamo" arrived, surrounded by other officers external to the barracks. Suddenly, the central character of the story that would unfold in those minutes appeared, because it was a matter of minutes.

The "gringo" Michael Townley arrived smiling like a child with a new toy. With the "Andrea" project and together with the chemist Eugenio Berríos, they had developed the deadly sarin gas. They did it in the laboratory at Vía Naranja 4925 in Lo Curro, east of the capital, a house rented for that purpose by the DINA.

Sarin is a highly toxic nerve agent presented as a transparent and odorless liquid, of rapid gasification.

Townley performed the demonstration for those present with the two Peruvians, while they were standing outdoors with their eyes blindfolded. Quickly, the effect of the spray on their faces threw the two prisoners to the ground.

They died of asphyxiation as their respiratory muscles became paralyzed. But "El Gringo" was reached by the gas, and the agent Gladys Calderón, also known as "La Dama de la Jeringa" (The Lady of the Syringe), had to inject him.

According to all the agents who have referred to the episode, she injected him with "an antidote." In any case, it was never clarified to this day if the DINA had indeed also discovered an antidote for sarin, or if Townley was injected with another medication.

Together with "El Chancho" Daza and Escalona, that same night "El Viejo Valde" left Simón Bolívar with the bodies of the two Peruvians in sacks, heading to the Cuesta Barriga shaft.

Sacks of lime

"Scapinni" of the Lautaro Brigade remembered it well. For a long time, the smell of burned human flesh tormented his memory. The three bodies he went to dump in the shaft in 1976 from Simón Bolívar were freshly burned, and the smell was penetrating. Along with him went the agents Manuel Montre Méndez, Jorge Arriagada Mora, Jorge Sagardía Monje, and Elisa Magna.

During the body removal operation, Pete had detected lime at the edge of the shaft mouth.

"Scapinni" maintains in the trial that they took quicklime to the mine as ordered by the head of the Lautaro, Juan Morales Salgado. On the way to the mine, they stopped to buy some sacks at a hardware store.

With that, they would finish burning the bodies in a chemical reaction. In the DINA, Claudio Orellana de la Pinta was called "Scapinni" because of his second surname, De la Pinta, associating him with the famous "Scapinni" suit line of the time. But they also called him "Freddy Rojas Aguilera," his alias.

More "packages"

Pedro Bitterlich Jaramillo was a "Delfín" at Simón Bolívar, an Army non-commissioned officer. Before, like everyone else, he was part of several other operational groups and brigades. But the "Delfines" were select.

Not just anyone got there. The fundamental requirement: impeccable cold-bloodedness and a criminal mind of excellence. He remembers that he took "four packages" to Cuesta Barriga, as the bodies of the prisoners in sacks were known in DINA language.

They left very early from Simón Bolívar, together with "Mario Primero," "El Elefante," and another group of agents. This time, the first and second-in-command of "Los Delfines," Germán Barriga and the "paco" Lawrence, attended.

The trips to the shaft carrying bodies were by day and by night.

Mónica Fritz did it in the dark. This time it was a large group of agents, and she remembers their names. The same ones as always, but on different trips. Orfa Saavedra Vásquez, "Mónica Fritz," her alias in the DINA as a civilian employee of the Army, made the trip together with Sagardía, "El Viejo Valde," Escalona, Elisa Magna, José Sarmiento Sotelo, and "Scapinni."

They left in three pickup trucks from Simón Bolívar.

Flashlights, lime, the lacerating smell of burned human flesh, and the cloak of night. But, above all, absolute power and all the protection of the State machinery and the Armed Forces as institutions.

One of the biggest lies of these institutions, maintained to this day, is that, under the tyranny, the military organizations were not guilty of the crimes as institutions, maintaining that it was only some of their members acting "on their own." That is like maintaining that Saint Thomas Aquinas fought alongside Fidel and "Che" in the Sierra Maestra.

Mónica does not remember in the judicial investigation how many "packages" they took, but there were several. Afterward, upon returning from the Cuesta, the routine, which at night ignited the desire for a kind of celebration in the heat of alcohol. At the home of some agent, or in some nightclub where they arrived "like Pedro in his house" (like they owned the place).

The last flight

In those days, Simón Bolívar was a maelstrom of terror and death. Between the smell of burned human flesh, the agents' barbecues, the bloodbaths from wounds inflicted by daggers, the screams of torture, and the sandwiches, cookies, and coffee that "El Mocito," Jorgelino Vergara, brought to the agents at the very place of the torture while they took a break to eat.

One afternoon, the great chief Manuel Contreras visited them. The barracks were revolutionized, and the visit ended in a cocktail party at night, well-watered and fed. Very close by, the prisoners were suffering.

The Cuesta Barriga mine began to be used as a destination for the bodies starting with the arrival of "Los Delfines" to Simón Bolívar, in mid-1976. The "experts" in human suffering arrived. From Villa Grimaldi, they left with chairs, tables, desks, shelves, and the head of the Lautaro, Juan Morales, found space for them.

The order for the transfer came directly from Manuel Contreras, to concentrate in that barracks the combat and annihilation of the clandestine leaderships of the Communist Party in 1976.

"Los Delfines" took over Simón Bolívar, subjecting the Lautaro Brigade to their orders. But "Los Lautaro" did not turn their noses up at blood either. "Los Delfines" began to train Morales Salgado's people not only with gymnastics to refine their physical condition, but also in classes to carry out good raids, surveillance of people, construction of "barretines" (hiding spots) to hide and discover documentation and short weapons, and to search for information in open and closed sources.

There was the hand of the boss, Captain Germán Barriga, more than that of the "paco" Lawrence.

At that time, "Don Jaime," the nickname of Captain Germán Barriga in the DINA, did not imagine that, being already a retired colonel, his last flight would not be in a helicopter throwing bodies to the bottom of the ocean like all those he prepared.

His last flight was the one he undertook from the 18th floor of a building in Las Condes on Monday, January 17, 2005, when he committed suicide under the weight of his conscience.

The earth spoke

On January 26, 2001, Judge Héctor Carreño confirmed to the press the discovery of numerous small bone fragments at the bottom of the mine shaft. They had been searching for fifteen days. The information came from the 2000 Human Rights Dialogue Table under the acronym "Coordenadas" (Coordinates), to allow the location of the bodies of Lincoyán Berríos Cataldo, Horacio Cepeda Marinkovic, Luis Lazo Santander, Fernando Ortiz Letelier, and HECTOR VELIZ RAMIREZ.

All militants of the Communist Party and members of its second clandestine leadership, detained on December 15, 1976, by the DINA.

The cleanup by "Siete Fachas" and his companion was not so neat. And as in many of the crimes under State Terrorism, after years, the earth spoke. The identification was long and difficult based on the small remains found.

But finally, and to this day, the Legal Medical Service, with the support of foreign laboratories, managed to certify that the remains found belong to only eleven people: Fernando Ortiz, Horacio Cepeda, Lincoyán Berríos, Héctor Soto Gálvez, Jorge Troncoso Aguirre, and Ricardo Ramírez Herrera, of communist militancy.

It also certified the identities of Ángel Gabriel Guerrero Carrillo, Jenny Barra Rosales, and Hernán Pérez Álvarez, militants of the MIR. Furthermore, it was established that the bone fragments found belong to Jacobo Stoulman Bortick and Matilde Pessa Mois, without militancy.

The cases of Ramírez Herrera, Stoulman, and Pessa are closely linked to Operation Condor and the financial apparatus of the PC in clandestinity. They were arrested in Buenos Aires in May 1977 and brought to Chile by DINA agents.

Jenny Barra and Pérez Álvarez were arrested on October 17 and 19, 1977, respectively, with the CNI already created and the DINA dissolved. However, their bodies arrived at the shaft. This leads to the presumption that it was either one of the first crimes of the CNI using the same methods as the DINA, or that the latter continued to operate for some months after its dissolution.

The dogs

How many bodies were actually thrown to the bottom of the shaft from the Simón Bolívar barracks?

Pete believes that there were more than twenty that they took out in about fifty sacks, most of them dismembered in the brutality of the clearing. But they could also have been dogs that had entered the bottom of the shaft, tearing apart some of the bodies, as mentioned by inhabitants of some plots near the area, maintaining that the dogs arrived near their houses with pieces of human bodies in their muzzles.

Although at the end of the third night, the "rake" cleanup on the floor of the shaft by Pete's men was improvised and only done with branches, it would have achieved its objective. Because if we stick to what Sandoval Arancibia maintains, he says that there were more than 20 bodies, some dismembered, that they managed to extract.

Pete's calculations do not seem exaggerated, if one considers the number of former agents who have admitted that they went several times to drop bodies from Simón Bolívar to the bottom of the shaft.

Despite the disputes over the dates on which this episode of the so-called Operation "Retiro de Televisores" took place, Sandoval provides a relevant piece of information in his judicial statements: "The remains of Lonquén had recently been discovered…" And that happened at the beginning of December 1978. This confirms that the removal of the bodies occurred at the beginning of 1979.

Former agents consulted for this chronicle refrained from speaking. "As things are today regarding human rights, we would be idiots if we started talking," two of them agreed. I was therefore unable to learn the identities of those who participated in this operation under the command of Pete El Negro.

In the trials where there is information about the Cuesta Barriga operation, those identities do not appear, except for that of Sandoval Arancibia. There are also no people prosecuted for the crime of illegal exhumation.

That is why it is an unfinished story. I only learned from the mouth of one of them that "El Siete Fachas" was there. However, I was unable to speak with him, and for that reason, I name him only by his nickname.

Once the bodies were delivered to the Peldehue airfield and loaded onto the Puma, Pete returned to Cuesta Barriga with some of his men. Before ascending the hills, they looked for dogs along the side of the road and shot them.

They threw them onto the vehicles and, back at the mine, tossed them into the bottom of the shaft. Since the CNI knew that information was in the hands of human rights organizations, they sought to mislead any potential future searchers who might come poking their noses around those parts. "If they come looking, they’re only going to find dog bones," Sandoval told his men, and they left.

Source: ELMOSTRADOR.CL 9/9/2015 Date: 09-09-2015

Judge issued indictment against 53 former DINA agents for disappearance of PC leadership

The visiting judge Miguel Vásquez issued an indictment against 53 former agents of the National Intelligence Directorate (DINA) for the disappearance and death of the clandestine leadership of the Communist Party in 1976, in the case known as "Calle Conferencia Dos." Vásquez is thus preparing for the final stage of the trial in the old criminal procedure, to then issue a first-instance sentence in the investigation into the repression and extermination of the second clandestine leadership of the PC.

According to the investigation, starting on December 13, 1976, in different parts of the capital—mainly the eastern zone—the former agents arrested Fernando Navarro Allendes, Lincoyán Berríos Cataldo, Horacio Cepeda Marinkovic, Fernando Ortiz Letelier, Héctor Véliz Ramírez, and Waldo Ulises Pizarro Molina, all communist militants.

The leaders were transferred to the secret barracks at 8800 Calle Simón Bolívar in the commune of La Reina, where they were interrogated under brutal torture and subsequently forcibly disappeared.

The DINA relied on the Lautaro Brigade and the Mehuín and Delfín units with the primary objective of repressing, detaining, and dismantling the PC, an action in which several women participated in the illegitimate coercion, such as Gladys Calderón, nicknamed "doctora Hoffmann," who administered lethal injections to the detainees.

Also appearing as defendants are Adriana Rivas, Berta Jiménez, and Celinda Aspe, alleged secretaries of the DINA director, Manuel Contreras, but who took an "operational" part in the execution of the crimes.

"Historic decision"

Judge Vásquez requested to expand the extradition of Adriana Rivas, currently in Australia.

The plaintiff lawyer Eduardo Contreras stated that he trusts that the Oceanian country will send the repressor to Chile so that she faces Justice. "This decision by Judge Vásquez shows how the courts are acting now.

In this new situation, it seems to us to be a historic decision, since Adriana Rivas—who participated in the extermination of the entire leadership of the Communist Party in the fateful Simón Bolívar barracks—is a central figure, both for her own responsibility and for the information she handles," said Contreras. "In accordance with the current institutional framework that unites the countries of Chile and Australia, this is a perfectly viable extradition," stated the jurist.

In January, Judge Vásquez had already requested the extradition of Rivas for the disappearance of the PC general secretary, Víctor Diaz.

"The pact of silence continues"

The person who provided the most accounts in the case about what happened in the Simón Bolívar barracks was Jorgelino Vergara Bravo, the so-called "mocito" (errand boy) of the DINA, who asserts that the detainees were executed, put in sacks, some were fitted with rails to be thrown into the sea, and others were made to disappear in the lime mines of Lonquén or Cuesta Barriga. "The mocito" relates in the case that Fernando Ortiz begged to be killed, because his legs had been broken with clubs.

One of the victims of Calle Conferencia is Waldo Pizarro, father of the president of the Association of Relatives of the Forcibly Disappeared, Lorena Pizarro. The woman is skeptical about the possibility of justice, especially considering the recent known benefits for those convicted in the "Degollados case." "Today, I still don't know exactly what happened to him.

I know generalities, because the pact of silence continues among the uniformed officers, because Justice 'to the extent possible' continues to be present, and because we have a State that pardons or gives prison benefits to those who committed such barbarity (...) I hope no one has to live through it again," said Pizarro.

Source: cooperativa.cl 7/2/2014 Date: 07-02-2014