Ricardo Ernesto Lagos Salinas, married, father of two, accountant, and member of the Political Commission of the Socialist Party, was detained on June 17, 1975, in the Las Rejas neighborhood by agents of the National Intelligence Directorate (DINA).

Although there are no direct witnesses to his apprehension, there is evidence to suggest that it took place at his home, possibly alongside Michelle Peña (currently a forcibly disappeared person, a Socialist Party militant, and 8 months pregnant).

Juan Carlos Ruiz, also a socialist, stated that in 1975 he served as a liaison between the Party's top leader at the time, Exequiel Ponce Vicencio, and Ricardo Lagos, Michelle Peña, and Carlos Lorca (all of whom are forcibly disappeared).

In March of that year, he visited the house on Calle Tiros where the victim and Michelle lived—a home used for storing documents, housing a photographic workshop, and serving as a meeting point with Exequiel Ponce.

Around June 21, 1975, Juan Carlos Ruiz went to the victim's home and entered without realizing that the pre-arranged alert signal with Ricardo Lagos—an open window—was present. Inside, there was great disorder; the mattresses were slashed and belongings were scattered, with clear signs of a raid. The witness concluded that Ricardo Lagos and Michelle Peña had been detained there.

Days later, on June 24, 1975, Héctor Eduardo Riffo, also a socialist, went to a residence in Villa Ríos, Santiago, where he had arranged to meet with Ricardo Lagos. The witness arrived around 3:30 PM and saw a white and light blue Chevrolet parked near the house, with license plates from Quinta Normal.

The victim was inside the vehicle. The witness assumed Lagos had just arrived, so he went up to the apartment. He was immediately detained by two armed civilians—the place was being raided—and was later taken to a pale yellow MG car where Ricardo Lagos had been moved.

Both were then taken to the secret DINA detention and torture center known as Villa Grimaldi. According to Héctor Riffo, among the agents acting at that time was one they called "Alberto," who would later become a Captain in the CNI, approximately 38 years old, 1.70 meters tall, dark complexion, round face, dark brown eyes, graying hair, and a stocky build; and a conscript from the Command Unit of the Buin Regiment named Díaz, around 23 years old, 1.75 meters tall, dark-skinned, wavy black hair, elongated face, thin, brown eyes, and from La Pincoya.

Once at "Villa Grimaldi," both were subjected to torture (the parrilla, beatings, interrogations). The witness was intensely questioned about the activities of the victim, Exequiel Ponce, and Carlos Lorca.

On June 26 of the same year, Héctor Riffo saw Ricardo Lagos in the bathroom area as he was being taken into a room located in a corner of the courtyard. Two days later, when Riffo was taken to "La Torre," he recognized Michelle Peña's voice in a neighboring cell.

Luis Gormaz, also held at Villa Grimaldi, noted that the victim was hiding a bloodstained cloth under his bed and that his physical condition was very poor.

For her part, Luz Arce, a former socialist militant who became a DINA collaborator—following the torture and threats she suffered during her detention—testified in October 1990 before the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

She stated that while at Villa Grimaldi, she saw and spoke with Ricardo Lagos Salinas, who told her that Exequiel Ponce and Carlos Lorca were also being held there. This conversation took place after Luz Arce requested authorization to do so.

According to the witness, the permission was granted on the condition that she ask the victim to collaborate with the DINA. Lagos asked for sweets, and the witness obtained them from the Villa Grimaldi kitchen.

The conversation took place in the courtyard; the victim was wearing a blue suit, no tie, an open shirt, and was dirty. He did not look bad, but—as Luz Arce herself stated—electric shock does not leave physical marks unless something serious occurs. The witness had the impression that Lagos knew he was going to be killed.

When Luz Arce told General Manuel Contreras, Director of the DINA, that she had seen Ricardo Lagos among the detainees, he replied, "You are mistaken," and later told her he would look into it. Luz Arce pointed out to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission that the DINA Directorate must have been aware of these events, as each unit or barracks sent a daily report.

Furthermore, Marcelo Moren Brito was continuously summoned to the General Headquarters.

Later, in 1976, the witness asked General Contreras about Lagos, Lorca, and Ponce, and he told her they were free.

Ricardo Lagos had been sought since September 11, 1973. Civilians—identifying themselves as being from the Investigations police—had arrived at the home of his paternal grandmother, Ema Reyes, on more than one occasion asking for him.

On December 6, 1978, Division General and Director of Investigations Ernesto Baeza Michaelsen informed the Court that on September 27, 1973, an order had been issued to locate and detain Ricardo Lagos; that in February 1974 he appeared implicated in the manufacture of weapons; and that on July 25, 1974, he appeared on the National List of dangerous persons provided by the Undersecretariat of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Security Department.

Given this situation, the victim's wife, Patricia Paredes, had left the country for Germany with their two children in 1974. Previously, the victim's father, Ricardo Raúl Lagos Reyes, former mayor of Chillán; his stepmother, Sonia Ojeda, who was pregnant; and his brother, Carlos Eduardo Lagos, had been executed in the courtyard of their own home in Chillán (September 16, 1973) by military personnel.

The detention and disappearance of Ricardo Lagos is part of a DINA operation against Socialist Party leaders, members of the Political Commission, and their liaisons and couriers, carried out in June and early July 1975.

This operation involved the detentions, followed by disappearances, of Michelle Peña, Exequiel Ponce, Mireya Rodríguez, Carlos Lorca, and Modesta Carolina Wiff, in addition to the victim. In July, Rosa Soliz Poveda and Sara Donoso Palacios, who were under the party orders of Modesta Carolina Wiff, were also detained. All of them remain forcibly disappeared.

JUDICIAL AND/OR ADMINISTRATIVE PROCEEDINGS

On September 3, 1975, a recurso de amparo (writ of habeas corpus) was filed with the Santiago Court of Appeals on behalf of the victim, registered under No. 1072-75. After negative responses from the authorities consulted—the Minister of the Interior and Division General, Raúl Benavides Escobar, indicated that the victim was not being held by order of that Secretariat (September 1975)—the appeal was rejected, and the records were sent to the corresponding Criminal Court to initiate a summary proceeding (October 22, 1975).

Thus, on October 28, 1975, the 7th Criminal Court of Santiago opened the case registered under No. 77.497-7. During the proceedings in November 1975, information appeared in the newspaper "La Segunda" stating that the Chilean representative (no name given) to the Third Committee of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights had personally seen Ricardo Lagos having an aperitif in the delegates' lounge, claiming he was staying at the Hotel Tudor in New York.

This "news" (the newspaper did not report its source) led to a complaint for the kidnapping of the victim, which was filed in March 1976. On July 6 of that same year, Group Commander (A) Jaime Lavín Fariña, on behalf of the Minister of Foreign Affairs, informed the Court that the statements made by the Chilean Delegation to the United Nations referred to Ricardo Lagos Matus and not Ricardo Lagos Salinas.

For its part, the Department of Immigration issued an official statement saying that Ricardo Lagos Salinas had no record of leaving the country (March 20, 1976).

Furthermore, various authorities persistently denied the victim's apprehension. The Minister of the Interior, Raúl Benavides, did so on several occasions and always in the same terms: "He is not being held by order of this Secretariat." Only in October 1977 did he add that "upon consulting the Provincial Governor of Ñuble, he stated that inquiries made in the area allowed for the conclusion that the aforementioned citizen (Ricardo Lagos) had surreptitiously left the national territory immediately after September 11, 1973." Following various efforts to determine the victim's whereabouts, on June 28, 1979, the case continued under the investigation of Minister Servando Jordán López, who had been appointed by the Supreme Court in March 1979 to investigate cases of detention followed by disappearance reported in Santiago.

Without significant progress in the investigation, on December 11, 1979, Minister Jordán declared himself incompetent and referred the case to the Military Justice system, which assigned it to the 1st Military Prosecutor's Office of Santiago, registering it under No. 16-80 (January 1980).

The proceedings consisted mainly of consulting countless hospitals and health centers to inform the Court if they had any information regarding the victim. All responses were negative.

On June 17, 1982—without further action—the summary was closed, and on July 16 of the same year, the case was totally and temporarily dismissed. The Martial Court confirmed the resolution on May 3, 1983, after the plaintiff appealed.

In October 1989, Army Lieutenant Colonel and Interim Military Prosecutor General Enrique Ibarra Chamorro requested the application of the Amnesty Law (D.L. 2.191). On October 30 of that same year, the Second Military Court of Santiago accepted the request and dismissed the case totally and definitively.

The plaintiff appealed again, but on December 5, 1990, the Martial Court confirmed the definitive dismissal due to the application of the Amnesty Law. As of December 1992, a complaint appeal was pending before the Supreme Court.

Previously, on July 10, 1978, a preventive recurso de amparo had been filed with the Santiago Court of Appeals by Patricia Paredes Parra—the victim's spouse—on behalf of the couple's two minor children and Alicia Parra, the victim's mother-in-law.

The appeal was registered under No. 408-78. The filing stated that both Ricardo Lagos's wife and children had returned to Chile only on July 4 of that year. The following day, they had received a visit from two civilians who claimed to be Investigations officials.

On July 6, civilians also went to the apartment owned by the victim, located at Quirihue 90, and spoke with the tenant, suggesting it would be convenient for her to leave because "it is a dangerous place." Regarding this same point, a person who was the tenant of Ricardo Lagos's apartment in 1977 testified in the previously described process, reporting that an individual who claimed to have the same name as the victim had appeared before her, giving her one week to vacate the place.

The stranger was tall, thin, bearded, long-haired, and his face was barely visible. When the Court showed her a photo of Ricardo Lagos—who was short, 1.64 meters tall, reddish-haired, and had some freckles on his face—the witness did not recognize him. The Court rejected the amparo on July 12, 1978.

On August 1, 1978, the victim's family, along with the relatives of 70 other forcibly disappeared persons, went to the 10th Criminal Court of Santiago to file a complaint for the crime of kidnapping against General Manuel Contreras Sepúlveda, and Marcelo Luis Manuel Moren Brito and Rolf Gonzalo Wenderoth Pozo, Army Colonel and Lieutenant Colonel, respectively.

The judge declared himself incompetent, and the records were sent to the 2nd Military Court of Santiago, which assigned the case to the 2nd Military Prosecutor's Office, registering it under No. 553-78.

Without any proceedings being carried out for four years, on November 20, 1989, Army Lieutenant Colonel Enrique Ibarra Chamorro, Military Prosecutor General, requested the application of the Amnesty Decree Law (D.L. 2.191) for this case because the process had the exclusive purpose of investigating alleged crimes that occurred between September 11, 1973, and March 10, 1978, and because during the 10 years of processing, it had not been possible to "determine the responsibility of any person." On November 30, 1989, the request was accepted by the 2nd Military Court, which dismissed the case totally and definitively—which was still in the summary stage—because "the criminal responsibility of the persons allegedly implicated in the reported facts was extinguished." The plaintiffs appealed this resolution to the Martial Court, which confirmed the ruling in January 1992. A complaint appeal was then filed with the Supreme Court of Justice, which, as of December 1992, had not yet issued its resolution.

(Further information in the case of Eduardo Alarcón Jara, detained on July 30, 1974).

Source: Corporation report

The young Ricardo Lagos joined the Socialist Youth (JS) in Chillán in 1965, where he became president of the Student Center at the Instituto Comercial of that city, where he studied Accounting. Later, while studying Economics, he served as vice president of the Federation of Students of the University of Concepción.

From a young age, Ricardo Lagos Salinas demonstrated a natural tendency toward leadership: some of his family’s friends still remember that, at 11 years old and accompanying his mother, he climbed onto a platform during an assembly at a land occupation to speak to the people about their right to dignified housing.

Due to his militant capacity and responsibility, he was elected to the Ñuble Regional Committee of the Socialist Party (PS) and as a delegate to the XXIII National Congress, becoming a member of the Central Committee and the Political Commission of the Party at just 20 years of age.

The PS assigned him the responsibility of directing its National Secretariat of Political Education (EDUPOL), a position he held until September 11, 1973.

A year earlier, he had married Patricia Paredes. They met while both were studying at the Instituto Comercial. They married very young: she was 17 and he was 19. The couple soon moved to the capital, where their son was born. During that period, he balanced his party work with his studies at the University of Chile, where he had resumed his Economics degree.

In the Party Leadership

Based on his leadership roles in the PS, Lagos Salinas assumed the general direction of the Institute of Latin American Social Studies (INESAL), a type of outreach and political training center where intellectuals such as Marta Harnecker, Gabriela Uribe, Theotonio Dos Santos, and Carmen Sabaj collaborated.

The premises, located at Bustamante N° 12, were also the operations center for the party's so-called "Defense Commission."

Sergio Martínez, responsible for one of the areas of INESAL, remembers Ricardo Lagos Salinas with special affection: “He was a very particular person, in the sense of projecting different images. Because of his physical appearance, he looked younger than he actually was; one could be deceived, but it was enough to hear him speak to realize that he was someone with very clear ideas, very serious in his dedication to his work, and in demanding identical dedication from others.

But that did not necessarily mean he was somber; on the contrary, he was very affable and had a contagious smile, to the point that many female comrades found him charming, and it is known that he had several admirers in the PS. He was close to the eleno group and, in that capacity, was part of the Party’s political commission.”

As a center for studies and outreach, one of the main activities that INESAL carried out, under Ricardo’s coordination, was a seminar in July 1973 in the Conference Hall of the Gabriela Mistral Building (UNCTAD), in which Jorge Arrate, Armando Cassigoli, Theotonio Dos Santos, and Pedro Holtz participated.

At the same time, INESAL operated as an entity functional to the PS. For example, the Department of Political Outreach—coordinated by Sergio Martínez and Eduardo Charme—was, in practice, the Party’s School of Political Education, which in turn branched into two areas: one for political training proper (with courses on Marxism, history of the labor movement, fundamentals of economic theory, situational analysis, and public speaking workshops) and another "technical" one, linked to the teams coordinated by Arnoldo Camú and directed by Eduardo Charme.

All of this was under the periodic supervision of Ricardo Lagos Salinas.

The Murder of His Family

The three years of the Popular Government passed quickly for the young couple. A week before the 11th, Ricardo expressed to his partner his vision regarding the imminence of the coup. He persuaded her that it might be necessary for her and their son to leave the country, especially considering she was pregnant with their second child.

On September 11, the young couple left their home very early. After leaving their young son in the care of one of Ricardo’s aunts, the young man headed to FESA, a packaging company in the social sector, part of the Cordón Cerrillos, where the Political Commission was supposed to meet.

Rolando Calderón, Exequiel Ponce, Arnoldo Camú, Luis Lorca, and Hernán Coloma, among others, arrived. From the first moment, he joined the work of the Clandestine Leadership of the PS.

One of the main emotional blows he suffered was the news of the execution of his father, Ricardo Lagos Reyes, mayor of Chillán; his stepmother, Sonia Ojeda—who was pregnant—and his brother Carlos, who were executed by firing squad on September 16, 1973, in their own home.

Under those circumstances, he instructed his wife to leave the country. Shortly after, on January 20, 1974, he wrote the following letter:

Dear Patty and son

These lines contain neither recommendations nor literature. Nor the existential ruminations of a father who feels alone. They are just my suggestions for naming the baby.

The three of us want a little sister, don't we? But if another future rascal (read: little boy) arrives, it doesn't matter; we will love him just the same, agreed?

Now, my opinions: I don't want to hear about far-fetched names. Let them sound good, and that's it. Also, none of the usual names of my mother and my brother. Is that clear? I suggest (with much emphasis) that if it is a girl, she be named after her mommy, Patricia. To complete it, I like Patricia María, or Carmen Patricia, you will say.

If it is a boy, I want him to be Eduardo Agustín. I have reasons why both names mean a lot to me.

“Eduardo” and, above all, “Agustín,” were two of the political names that Arnoldo Camú had used.

In Clandestinity

Exequiel Ponce, head of the PS in Chile, decided that Ricardo should leave Chile to protect his safety and also to try to distance him emotionally from the painful situation experienced by his family.

The message was transmitted by Anita Corrales, who had served as Arnoldo Camú’s secretary until his murder and who later assumed the role of liaison between the members of the Political Commission. They met at the Estación Central and then walked toward the center, turning onto Calle Cumming. “We were walking in silence.

I dared to break it to communicate the leadership’s mandate. He rejected the order. His duty was in Chile. We both hugged each other, crying,” she recalls.

“Renato,” the name he used in clandestinity, not only did not accept leaving the country but also placed himself at the disposal of his party for whatever tasks the organization deemed necessary. Throughout 1974 and 1975, he stood out for his audacity and commitment.

In fulfillment of his clandestine work, Ricardo was one of the main authors of the “March Document.” Dressed as a high school student—so as not to arouse suspicion and to circulate freely through the streets—he distributed the text among the militants in the country.

He even visited members of the Central Committee and the Political Commission who had taken asylum in embassies. The deputy general secretary until the coup, Adonis Sepúlveda, was one of them: he opposed his proposals and had demanded the presence of a member of the Leadership to represent his points of view. Lagos Salinas visited him on repeated occasions.

In a letter addressed to his wife—who had taken asylum in the GDR—dated June 16, 1974, Ricardo Lagos summarized the harsh human and political conditions under which the attempts to reorganize the Party were developing:

The pain for every murdered comrade, the anguish for every comrade imprisoned and tortured, the responsibility toward family members that we must have morally and materially, the desperate void to fill in every front dismantled or touched by repression, make up a dramatic experience that hardens us more every day.

Not in the human sense: we have the obligation to be cold and serene, to continue advancing without flinching, but our sensitivity necessarily develops, seeking channels of expression. We feel more deeply and vibrate more intensely than before with all, absolutely all the pains and miseries, the joys and hopes, the heroic gestures of some and the breaking points of others, with the vital expressions of each one of our own in the Party, of the suffering and noble people who shelter us.

We harden ourselves, a particular way of maturing politically, in work styles, in the revolutionary and proletarian treatment of each of the daily problems that affect the movement’s progress.

We try to ensure that this evolution is reflected particularly in work standards, in security standards, and also in political matters, the intransigent defense of unity and the violent combat against defeatism and adventurism, wherever they may be.

We are troubled by not always knowing to what extent these lessons, which daily practice forces upon us with tragic insistence, are understood and assimilated outside. Particularly two things: the application of all security standards raised to the point of exaggeration and the need for a single political line for the entire Party, defined correctly based on principled positions.

The Capture

On June 17, 1975, in the Población Las Rejas, DINA agents arrested Ricardo Lagos Salinas, in the company of the young Michelle Peña Herreros.

Days later, on June 24, Héctor Eduardo Riffo, also a socialist, went to a residence in Villa Ríos, in Santiago, where he had agreed to meet with Ricardo. He arrived around 3:30 PM and saw that a white and light blue Chevrolet car, with a license plate from Quinta Normal, was parked near the house.

Inside was the young leader. Riffo thought he had just arrived, so he went up to the apartment. He was immediately arrested by two armed civilians. The place was being raided. He was taken to a yellow MG car to which Ricardo had been moved. Both were taken to Villa Grimaldi and tortured there.

Riffo was intensely questioned about the activities of Ricardo, Exequiel Ponce, and Carlos Lorca. On June 26, he saw Ricardo Lagos in the bathroom area and at the moment he was being taken into a room located in a corner of the courtyard.

Luis Gormaz, another person held at Villa Grimaldi, noted that Lagos was hiding a bloodstained cloth under his bed and that his physical condition was very poor.

Luz Arce recounted in her 1990 statement to the National Commission for Truth and Reconciliation that she had known her former party comrade was detained. She asked to speak with him; it was authorized as long as she asked him to collaborate with the DINA.

“Ricardo Lagos asked me for candy; I got some for him in the Villa Grimaldi kitchen. The conversation was in the courtyard. I remember it perfectly because I knew him from before. On that occasion, he was dressed in a blue suit, without a tie, shirt open, and dirty.

I have the impression that Lagos knew they were going to kill him. I never saw him again,” she recounted. She added: “He indicated to me that Exequiel Ponce and Carlos Lorca were also detained.”

When Luz Arce mentioned to General Manuel Contreras, director of the DINA, that she had seen Ricardo, he replied: “You were mistaken,” only to later tell her that he would find out. Luz Arce specified to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission that the DINA leadership necessarily had to be aware of these facts, since every unit or barracks sent a report daily.

Ricardo’s detention was part of a DINA operation against members of the PS Political Commission, their liaisons, and collaborators, carried out between June and July 1975, which culminated in dozens of socialist militants being forcibly disappeared.

On September 3, 1975, a recurso de amparo (habeas corpus petition) was filed with the Santiago Court of Appeals for the affected party; it was registered under No. 1072–75. After the negative response from the Minister of the Interior, General Raúl Benavides Escobar, who indicated that he was not detained by order of that State Secretariat, the appeal was rejected, and the records were sent to the Seventh Criminal Court of Santiago, which opened case No. 77.497–75 on October 28.

The process was just beginning when, in the evening newspaper “La Segunda,” information appeared on November 4, 1975, indicating that the Chilean representative to the Third Committee of Human Rights of the United Nations had stated that Lagos Salinas “is not only not in prison, but last week he was staying at the Hotel Tudor in this city (New York), and I personally saw him in the delegates’ lounge having an aperitif accompanied by some delegates of this Committee.” Only on July 6 of the following year did Group Commander (a) Jaime Lavín Fariña, on behalf of the Foreign Ministry, inform the Court that they were referring to Ricardo Lagos Escobar and not Ricardo Lagos Salinas.

Minister Raúl Benavides persistently denied the victim’s apprehension, always in the same terms: “He is not detained by order of this Secretariat.” Only in October 1977 did he add that “consulted, the Provincial Governor of Ñuble stated that inquiries made in the area allowed the conclusion that the aforementioned citizen had left the national territory surreptitiously, on a date immediately following September 11, 1973.”

On June 28, 1979, the processing of the case continued under visiting judge Servando Jordán López. Without any major progress, on December 11 of that year, the magistrate declared himself incompetent and sent the files to the Military Justice system, with the process being lodged in the First Military Prosecutor’s Office of Santiago, registered under No. 16–80.

On June 17, 1982—without further proceedings—the summary was closed, and on July 16 of the same year, the case was totally and temporarily dismissed. The Martial Court confirmed the resolution.

In October 1989, Army Lieutenant Colonel and Interim Military Prosecutor General Enrique Ibarra Chamorro requested the application of the Amnesty Law. The 2nd Military Court of Santiago accepted the request and totally and definitively dismissed the process, which was confirmed in December by the Martial Court.

Previously, on July 10, 1978, a preventive recurso de amparo had been filed with the Santiago Court of Appeals by Patricia Paredes, the couple’s two minor children, and Alicia Parra, Ricardo’s mother-in-law. The appeal was registered under No. 408–78.

The filing stated that Lagos’s wife and children had returned to Chile only on July 4 of that year. The following day, they had received a visit from two civilians who claimed to be Investigative Police officers.

On July 6, civilians had also gone to an apartment owned by Ricardo, located at Quirihue N° 90, and spoke with the tenant, telling her that it was better for her to leave since it was “a dangerous place.” During the process, a person who was the tenant of the place in 1977 appeared, reporting that an individual who claimed to have the same name as the affected party had communicated with her and given her a one-week deadline to leave the place.

The stranger was tall, thin, bearded, long-haired, and his face was barely visible. When shown a photo of Ricardo Lagos, the witness did not recognize him. The Court rejected the amparo on July 12, 1978.

At the time of his detention, Ricardo Lagos Salinas was 24 years old.

Letter from Ricardo Lagos from Clandestinity

DEAR CHILDREN AND PATTY

I am taking advantage of this unofficial mail to write these lines that you must have been waiting for for a long time. Despite the ups and downs and difficulties, we continue to struggle, and without any desire to please the enemies from within and certain “friends from outside.”

The working conditions are not much better than last year. We have lost some valuable brothers and comrades, but we feel that despite everything, we are advancing, and the heroic example of our tortured friends strengthens us and commits us not to waver.

I would like to convey to you in these lines everything that these last months mean, and this whole stage of clandestine struggle, in the overcoming of personal conflicts, in the reaffirmation of a militant commitment, in concrete learning, from the people, from the problems, from what is at the base of our revolutionary struggle in our homeland.

Countless blows have been received, dramatic, painful. Under their impact, some have broken, and many more have emerged better, stronger, more honest, clearer in their work, more mature and balanced.

I would like to make you feel with force all this new reality that one feels growing under the skin, and that translates into new contents in the work, in tasks that cease to feel routine, in creative capacity and new mysticism that greatly increase the quality of the contribution that one feels capable of making.

The bitter hours that our homeland has lived have meant new tasks, have demanded the reconstruction of our Party, categorically defining its construction in a revolutionary proletarian sense, which requires, as a fundamental condition, renewed cadres and revolutionized men to be capable of making a revolution.

There is much to do, but we are advancing. The great tasks, the political tasks that have to do with the very destiny of our people, have favorable conditions to be fulfilled: the dictatorship is living through extremely difficult days, its isolation is greater, in the great masses oppressed by fascism the attitude of resistance and struggle against the dictatorship is growing, there is an ever-greater awareness of the importance of unity and active struggle, clarity is being made about the path to follow, and one learns to fight according to the circumstances.

The Leninist (revolutionary and proletarian) definition of the Party, defeating within its bosom the predominance of petty-bourgeois conceptions, does not look so clear… The underlying conflict (petty-bourgeois conceptions against proletarian conceptions) manifests itself in the differences between the Interior Leadership and the groups that act outside.

The validity of the principle of Interior Leadership is decisive. Even if all the leaders elected in the last Congress fall, whoever the leaders may be (it is not a problem of names), the real Leadership of the Party must be in Chile, and the exterior organization must only be for support.

All the theses of Shared Single Leadership, etc., are nothing but contraband to displace the real Leadership abroad. On that, we will not compromise, even if the economic boycott is even greater and the Interior Leadership is discredited and attempts are made to isolate it. Our opinion is the opinion of the Party in Chile.

We also have to overcome and correct many things here. Work styles, incorrect methods of action that do not help. However, we are convinced that the revolutionary vitality of the Party will define things in the proletarian sense.

We know that outside there are those who, honestly mistaken, accuse us of denying the validity of the Party. We have shown that this is not so. Our practical conduct, defending the validity of the Party with our own skin, is worth much more than the grotesque verbiage of the gangs of immoral people who manage to boycott and divide the Party.

The cadres, the concrete men needed to fulfill our objectives, are not exceptional beings; they are ordinary human beings, they are living a process of personal transformation that begins with ideology, and that must come to encompass everything: habits, work, personal relationships, everything.

It is the experience we are living, the formation of the Marxist-Leninist cadres that the party needs, in the heat of daily struggle, without adequate material backing, without much support for their theoretical formation, but with a revolutionary conviction, with an enthusiasm to do things at all costs.

That is how things are here, according to our possibilities, and it is necessary to count on you. It is the task that commits all the honest militants of the Party who are outside. A general task that, for you, personally means a greater commitment that, I fully trust, you will be capable of fulfilling.

You cannot forget that you are there by decision of the Party, that there is a militancy that imposes concrete tasks, efforts, sacrifices, and that the outcome of the revolutionary struggle in Chile also depends on the fulfillment of these tasks.

Many lives are committed to this, and many have already been lost because the enemy is powerful and brutal, but also because at some point we have not known how to fulfill our obligations. The possibilities for personal development that your stay there gives you are very great.

It is fundamental to understand that international solidarity is not an obligation for anyone. One must know how to be grateful for it and contribute as much as one can. Do not forget that you are in a socialist country, the one with the greatest development in the socialist camp, which has behind it and its material achievements the overwhelming effort of its people in production, and the defense against the permanent aggression of imperialism, that this people lived the rigors of war, and that it has conquered everything by working and studying.

And one cannot expect them to share their effort if there is no consistent attitude on our part. You are representatives of the working class and the people of Chile and must become the vanguard of what our socialist homeland will be.

I am worried about knowing if you have achieved a certain integration into the properly German way of life (Patty in production, Carlos and Ricardo in some Kindergarten or something like that). It would be unproductive if you remain isolated as a “Chilean colony,” and not only because of the language.

It is extremely important that when you arrive in the liberated Chile that we are seeking, you bring the cultural baggage that you can obtain, mainly the language, the Marxist-Leninist ideological formation, acquired directly from its sources (Marx and Engels, in German). We will be happy ignoramuses willing to learn from you.

Source: pschile.cl undated

This Wednesday, September 16, marks 47 years since the mayor of Chillán, Ricardo Lagos Reyes, was murdered by State agents after the bloody 1973 Coup d'État. In this scenario, the communal president of the Socialist Party of Chillán Viejo, José Antonio Silva, lamented the events that occurred and called on the community to defend Democracy as a form of government.

José Antonio Silva highlighted that "we cannot forget the mournful events that occurred and the way in which the mayor of Chillán was murdered along with part of his family."

"That fateful day of September 16, 1973, the mayor of Chillán, our comrade Ricardo Lagos Reyes, was savagely murdered along with his pregnant wife, Sonia Ojeda, and his son Carlos Lagos in an event that should never have happened in our society," Silva stated.

The president of the PS of Chillán Viejo valued the human and professional qualities of the mayor, who came to be respected and loved in local society.

"His example, his figure, are a reference for us because he was a person who always fought to generate a more fraternal, solidary, and egalitarian society, values that are very present in our country," noted José Antonio Silva.

Silva added that, this year, due to the special circumstances of the pandemic, we can only hold a short tribute by placing a floral offering where his house used to be, which will be in charge of comrade Rafael Palavecino.

Palavecino took the opportunity to remember that on June 17, 1975, his eldest son, Ricardo Lagos Salinas, was also murdered—a young man who had been president of the Student Center of the Instituto Comercial of Chillán and later Vice President of the Federation of Students of the University of Concepción, and at the time of his death at the age of 24, was a member of the clandestine leadership of the PS.

Ricardo Lagos Salinas left behind two children and his wife, the comrade Patricia Paredes, who lives in the city today, to whom we offer our respect.

Source: diarioelitihue.blogspot.com, September 16, 2020

Date: 09-16-2020

Patricia Paredes: “As long as I don’t find his remains, Ricardo is alive”

She was only 13 years old when she met Ricardo Lagos Salinas, who was 15 years old and studied at the Comercial, in the city of Chillán. Even then, the teenager was an outstanding student, appreciated and respected by his teachers and classmates.

His leadership gifts were also emerging, and that is how he became president of the Student Center of his school and later of the Federation of Students of Ñuble. By then, his political choice was clear, embracing socialist principles.

It was at the end of 1970 when Patricia Paredes Parra and Ricardo Lagos Salinas married. She was 17 and he was 19.

They were dizzying times. Ricardo had not yet turned 21 when he joined the Political Commission of the Socialist Party. Shortly before, he had begun studying Economics at the University of Concepción, but his new political responsibilities forced him to move to Santiago.

In the midst of the Popular Unity government, his first child was born, and given the complex moments being lived, he began to prepare Patricia for what might come.

By the coup of September 11, 1973, the couple’s second child was on the way, but Ricardo had to submerge himself in clandestinity because he was intensely sought after. A hard blow would strike his family when his father, Ricardo Lagos Reyes, mayor of Chillán, his brother Carlos, and his stepmother Sonia Ojeda were brutally murdered in their home.

The repressive net threatened the young couple, and that is when Ricardo decided that Patricia should leave the country with their children. That is how she left for exile, while he stayed in Chile, assuming the risks that this entailed.

But his fate was sealed. On June 24, 1975, he was arrested by the DINA and taken to the Villa Grimaldi torture center. It is also said that he was at Colonia Dignidad.

It was in 1978 when Patricia returned from exile to begin the painful search for her husband, along with her young children.

"The only thing I wanted was to return to Chile immediately. I spoke with Clodomiro Almeyda and other leaders, but I didn't have support. Only in 1978 was I able to return, and from then on, I dedicated myself to looking for my husband.

For 8 years, I made the Vicaría de la Solidaridad our second home; I worked at the Chilean Commission for Human Rights and tried to give my children a normal life. In 1986, we returned to Chillán,” she relates 40 years after the experience that marked her life forever.

Over the years, the search remains, and she is clear that her husband was arrested in an apartment he shared with another socialist militant, Michelle Peña Herreros, who is also disappeared. At the time of his arrest, Ricardo Lagos was alone, and they took him to Villa Grimaldi.

But that is not where his trail is lost. There are several versions, Patricia acknowledges, but she affirms that there is testimony from a former socialist militant, René Muñoz, who did not resist the torture and became an informant.

“He later continued collaborating with the DINA, and in 1979, because he could no longer bear his conscience, he went to the Vicaría to tell everything he knew in exchange for them finding him asylum in some embassy.

There, he gave details and said that Ricardo, Carlos Lorca, Exequiel Ponce, Ariel Mancilla, and another 100 detainees had passed through Colonia Dignidad and were subjected to torture and chemical experiments by Paul Schäfer and the Nazi doctor Josef Mengele. Even at that moment, Muñoz believed that they could be alive, in very poor conditions, but alive.”

She adds that Muñoz was murdered with 17 stab wounds the day after the interview, but the proceedings that Judge Mario Carroza has recently carried out give credit to that version.

Patricia acknowledges that to this day, she goes to Colonia Dignidad every month. And she says it clearly: “For me, as long as I don’t find his remains, Ricardo is alive. Sometimes it happens to me that I go down the street and see a beggar and think it could be him.

It’s not that I’m crazy; it happens to many of us relatives of the forcibly disappeared. I dream of him; he asks me for help. He is the love of my life; we were very happy together, since we met at the Insuco, when I was 13 years old,” she recalls.

That is why, after 40 years, the only thing she hopes for is to know the truth and find his remains, if he is dead. And she adds: “Only then will I have peace.” by V. Yéber and M. E. Vega

Source: tribunadelbiobio.cl, June 22, 2015

Date: 06-22-2015

Correspond to the forcibly disappeared of La Moneda

Visiting Minister Amanda Valdovinos, in charge of verifying information from the Dialogue Table regarding the location of the remains of some 20 forcibly disappeared persons inside the Justo Arteaga Regiment in Colina, discovered the exact place where the bodies were clandestinely buried after the military coup of September 11, 1973.

An exclusive source confirmed to La Voz that the remains are in a 15-meter-deep well.

Last January, excavation work on the land—which was donated by the Catholic Church to the Army for war exercises before the military coup—focused on a 15 by 13-meter pit, from which more than 400 bone fragments scattered at a depth of nearly three meters have been extracted to date.

However, soil studies carried out by a botanist and the National Geology and Mining Service (Sernageomin) made it possible to specify that the fragments correspond to the remains left by the removal of the bones at the end of the 1970s.

The precision of the specialists is such that it was determined that, due to their location, they were dragged from one of the ends of the excavation site using a backhoe, the characteristics of which (make, model, and ownership) are accredited in the process.

Well equivalent to six floors

The fragments, which include skulls, phalanges, vertebrae, teeth, and dental arches, come from a well about five meters in diameter and about 15 meters deep—equivalent to a six-story building—where the bodies were thrown after the detainees were executed by firing squad and dynamited (using grenades) inside.

In the coming days, the excavations will focus on that place, and it is not ruled out that findings of great magnitude of bones will be verified.

So far, with the collections made, the Legal Medical Service has been able to approximate about ten people whose remains were at the site. However, with the dental pieces and the background information available in the process, five identities have been confirmed, which will only be officialized once the proceedings are exhausted.

The relatives of the alleged victims have been informed periodically by Judge Valdovinos. The latest report delivered by the minister to the Supreme Court also confirms the errors in the report delivered by the Army to the Dialogue Table, since the place has been located thanks to testimonies from locals and former uniformed personnel who have voluntarily approached the court.

All the background information gathered by Minister Amanda Valdovinos will be referred to the corresponding Criminal or Military courts to determine those responsible for the homicides and the illegal inhumations and exhumations accredited in the investigation.

Who are they?

According to the Rettig Report, 21 were the detainees from La Moneda who ended tragically in Colina. President Allende’s advisors: Eduardo Paredes Barrientos, former director of Investigations; Enrique París Roa, Jaime Barrios Meza, general manager of the Central Bank; Sergio Contreras, Daniel Escobar Cruz, Enrique Huerta Corvalán, Claudio Jimeno Grendi, Dr.

Georges Klein Pipper, Héctor Pincheira Núñez, and Arsenio Poupin Oissel, Deputy General Secretary of Government. The members of the GAP: José Freire Medina, Daniel Gutiérrez Ayala, Oscar Lagos Ríos, Juan Montiglio Murúa, Julio Moreno Pulgar, Luis Rodríguez Riquelme, Jaime Sotelo Ojeda, Julio Tapia Martínez, Héctor Urrutia Molina, Oscar Valladares Caroca, Juan Vargas Contreras, and Oscar Luis Avilés Jofré.

Source: Primera Linea, April 4, 2002

Date: 04-04-2002