A lawsuit regarding the criminal liability they may bear for covering up the murder of six leftist militants by DINA agents—in November 1975—in the case known as Rinconada de Maipú, will be filed this week by lawyer Hugo Gutiérrez against journalists Claudio Sánchez, Julio López Blanco, Vicente Pérez Zurita, Roberto Araya Silva, and Manfredo Mayol.

Lawyer Gutiérrez told La Nación that "after the Ethics Tribunal of the Journalists' Association sanctioned these professionals, considering that they bore ethical responsibility in their conduct regarding these crimes—the Association even issued a public apology—we believe that the justice system must rule regarding the criminal culpability that may correspond to them." Gutiérrez stated, "We maintain that they bear responsibility as accomplices to these crimes, but that must be established by Judge Alejandro Solís, who is investigating the case regarding these events." For the plaintiff lawyer, "a significant portion of the citizenry feels that these individuals must face a tribunal and that it should decide whether or not they are guilty." Until now, Sánchez, Pérez, and Mayol have not provided testimony in the proceedings, which, following the filing of this lawsuit, they should do "in the capacity of the accused," as Gutiérrez will request. Julio López and Roberto Araya have already done so. This would be the first time in a case involving human rights violations that an attempt is made to have a tribunal establish whether press professionals held criminal responsibility for crimes against humanity. In the ethical summary opened by the Journalists' Association, Julio López acknowledged that he went to Rinconada de Maipú along with DINA agents, as did Roberto Araya, who was also a member of that organization. In that investigation, it was established that agents picked them up at TVN, where both were working at the time alongside Vicente Pérez and Manfredo Mayol. In the case of Claudio Sánchez, Canal 13—the station where he worked in 1975—confirmed in a letter to the Association that Sánchez appears reporting on the event in a video, material they did not provide due to pending "labor issues" with the journalist. The five mentioned were sanctioned with the suspension of their professional memberships and public censure, except for Araya, who was expelled. Sánchez received his sanction for refusing to testify. He appealed to the Court of Appeals against the ruling that sentenced him, but lost unanimously in the Ninth Chamber of that tribunal. The fake shootout of Rinconada de Maipú consisted of disseminating through those media outlets the information that the six leftist opponents died in a shootout with DINA agents. However, Judge Solís established that the six people were tortured and riddled with bullets at the clandestine center of Villa Grimaldi and that the alleged shootout was a setup to justify the crimes. The victims were Catalina Gallardo, Mónica Pacheco, Manuel Reyes, Alberto Gallardo, Luis Ganga, and Pedro Cortés.

Source: La Nación, Monday, June 30, 2008

They were sentenced to a one-year suspension of their professional membership and public censure. Sánchez was condemned for refusing to testify, while Canal 13 denied the existence of the video where he reported on the setup.

This is how the murder of six opponents was hidden. The Ethics and Discipline Tribunal of the Metropolitan Regional of the Journalists' Association of Chile sanctioned journalists Claudio Sánchez Venegas and Julio López Blanco with a one-year suspension of their professional membership and public censure.

Sánchez was sanctioned for refusing to appear to testify before the prosecutor of that body, Doris Jiménez, in the case of the DINA setup in Rinconada de Maipú, broadcast in November 1975 by Televisión Nacional (Channel 7) and Canal 13 of the Universidad Católica, where López Blanco and Sánchez, respectively, worked and reported on the setup.

In this episode, the DINA prepared the ruse to inform the citizenry that six "terrorists" from the MIR and the Communist Party, murdered in the hours prior to November 19, 1975, at the clandestine center of Villa Grimaldi, had actually died on the morning of that November 19 in the Rinconada de Maipú sector south of Santiago, in a shootout with DINA agents and civil police officers.

The six people died in Villa Grimaldi at the hands of DINA agents who, before shooting them, burned their bodies with hot water and oil, while Catalina Gallardo Moreno had her eyes removed. Mónica del Carmen Pacheco Sánchez, another of the victims, was three months pregnant.

A witness to the state of the bodies that appeared in the morgue was the priest José Aldunate, as he reported then to the families and now to the criminal court investigating these crimes. The other victims are: Manuel Reyes Garrido, Alberto Gallardo Pacheco (PC), Luis Andrés Ganga Torres, and Pedro Cortés Jeldres (PC).

Also witnessing the torments that these people suffered on the night of November 18, 1975, in Villa Grimaldi were former prisoners Lelia Pérez Valdés and Patricia Medina who, by chance, heard and saw their corpses lying there. "We heard screams asking for hot water and hot oil (...) The guards passed by carrying kettles and things like that," declared Lelia Pérez to prosecutor Jiménez, just as she has done before Judge Alejandro Solís, who is investigating the case that already has several defendants, among them the fearsome "Ronco" Marcelo Moren Brito.

The Ethics Tribunal also sanctioned the former TVN professionals: Roberto Araya Silva (journalist) with public censure and expulsion from the Association; and Vicente Pérez Zurita and Manfredo Mayol Durán with a one-year suspension of their professional membership.

Pérez was the head of news and Mayol was the general manager of TVN, but with authority over all programming. The facts The ruling of the Ethics Tribunal is the culmination of a summary opened by a complaint filed with the Journalists' Association against Claudio Sánchez and López Blanco by Isabel Gallardo Moreno on behalf of the survivors of the Gallardo and Ganga families.

The complaint originated from a report in La Nación Domingo on June 15, 2003, where a former DINA agent revealed the setup. Both in the judicial investigation and in the inquiry of the aforementioned Ethics Tribunal, it is established that DINA agents arrived at Televisión Nacional to pick up Araya and López Blanco, as well as two cameramen, taking them to Rinconada de Maipú to record the setup, providing them with the script of what they were to report.

This is admitted by Araya and López Blanco in their statements before prosecutor Jiménez, although the latter insists that he "never knew" it was a setup, despite saying he did not see "corpses or blood" resulting from the alleged shootout.

Former prisoner Lelia Pérez states that on the night of the fake shootout, the agents turned up the volume of the television that could be heard from her place of detention at the moment the official information was being broadcast. "What terrified us with Patricia (Medina) is that while they were reading on the television, the guards were reading the same report in Villa Grimaldi.

They went in unison and laughed a lot." Regarding Vicente Pérez, then head of news at TVN, he told prosecutor Jiménez that he did not remember that episode. But the Ethics Tribunal resolved that "witness statements indicate that he eventually authorized or at least must have been aware of the departure of the team of journalists and cameramen" to cover the fake shootout. "In this case, the head of news is responsible for negligence by refraining from consulting sources other than the official one," the ruling states.

LN

Source: La Nación, May 14, 2007

Claudio Sánchez lost in Rinconada setup case

By unanimous vote, the Ninth Chamber of the Court of Appeals rejected the appeal of journalist Claudio Sánchez, who had turned to that body against a resolution of the Ethics Tribunal of the Journalists' Association, which suspended his professional membership and applied public censure in 2007 for refusing to appear to testify regarding his participation in the DINA journalistic setup known as Rinconada de Maipú.

Sánchez, like journalist Julio López Blanco, participated in that setup in coordination with DINA agents, as revealed by two videos in which they appear delivering the news of a fake shootout that occurred on November 19, 1975, in Rinconada de Maipú, where the DINA had a barracks.

With this ruse, they intended to justify the murder in Villa Grimaldi of six militants of the MIR and the Communist Party, who, before being shot, were burned with hot oil, while Catalina Gallardo Moreno had her eyes removed.

A witness to the state of the bodies in the morgue was the priest José Aldunate. At least Julio López acknowledged in the summary that DINA agents picked him up at the channel and gave them the prepared script.

In this case, the Association also sanctioned the journalists (from TVN in 1975) Roberto Araya Silva, Vicente Pérez Zurita, and Manfredo Mayol Durán. Canal 13 refused to hand over the video with Sánchez recounting the setup, alleging pending labor conflicts with him.

Source: La Nación, June 9, 2008

The kings of the screen: the cover-up press during the dictatorship

It was the time of a television of starlets who went out with torturers and entertainment programs. TV was another battlefield for Pinochet's agents and the "other journalists." What happens when the State murders citizens and reporters, instead of covering the news, participate in a setup?

Here is the memory of a history of indifference. His smile said it all; microphone in hand, he tried to captivate an audience fearful of terrorists and reluctant to ask questions. It was November 1975, and the repression was increasing its intensity through torture and disappearances.

Claudio Sánchez established himself as the mobile reporter of the moment, and at the same time, here and there, the story of an image was told: the detainees stationed on the stands of the National Stadium, dejected men who quenched their hunger with a cigarette.

Sánchez claimed that exercises were done there and that the prisoners were having fun. -"Are the detainees having a very bad time at the National Stadium? Are they very distressed? No. Because they even have time to form improvised orchestras," the journalist concluded.

Immediately, the prisoners were shown singing "El patito chiquito," the iconic song of those who supported Augusto Pinochet. When in the nineties people began to talk about the "Rinconada de Maipú Setup," Claudio Sánchez, Carlos Araya Silva, and Julio López Blanco began to be investigated as possible cover-ups for these crimes.

A decade later, Araya was indicted during the investigation by Judge Alejandro Solís. The case was made known to public opinion in June 2003 by journalist Jorge Escalante, when the investigation was already underway.

Catalina's eyes Isabel Gallardo has fair skin and curly hair that she tames with a half-ponytail. She is in the dining room of her house and rubs her hands to ward off a cold morning in the Renca commune.

She brings a tray with two cups of coffee and water crackers. While she distributes the spoonfuls of sugar, she remembers that Catalina, her older sister, was vain and taught her manners, such as how to walk straight by balancing on a plank with short steps.

Isabel admired her. "She had slanted but dark and deep eyes and wore her hair short 'garçon style'... Her eyes were very beautiful," she repeats and drinks a sip of coffee straight. Isabel says that Catalina was in love, had gotten married, and already had little Alberto, six months old; she had previously suffered a miscarriage, which is why she felt that at 29 her happiness was almost complete.

Almost, because sometimes "Cathy" suspected that streak of good luck. -"They tore my sister's eyes out during the torture, they left her eye sockets empty, did you know?" Isabel asks. Ofelia, the mother, is by her side; she is 88 years old, wears an ash-colored hair bun, and a hearing aid in her left ear.

She remembers that Alberto, her husband, was a big man with a good-natured smile who worked as a mechanical turner. That week he had the night shift. According to the documents of the Villa Grimaldi investigation, on November 17, 1975 , a shootout occurred between members of the Revolutionary Left Movement (MIR) and some military personnel, which ended with the death of Hernán Salinas, an army official, and Roberto Gallardo (son).

The following day, the Investigative Police went in search of Roberto's parents. They took Ofelia, Alberto (father), their sisters Catalina and Isabel, their brother-in-law Guillermo, and their nephews: little Alberto and nine-year-old Viviana.

Ofelia was told that her son had died and that the rest of the family would be in the hands of the DINA. "We didn't know that torture centers existed; I saw my husband pass by in the hallway with his eyes squinted, as if dazzled; I never believed they would take them to Villa Grimaldi..." remembers Isabel's mother.

Of the Gallardo family, only they, little Beto, and Catalina's husband, Rolando Rodríguez, survived; he was shot to death in the street a year later. "My sister-in-law Mónica del Carmen Pacheco was three months pregnant when they killed her, and they identified her with clear signs of an abortion caused by the beatings," adds Isabel.

That same dawn, Ester Torres was arrested in her home along with her children Renato, Mauricio, and Francisco Javier by DINA agents, who were looking for her son Luis Andrés Gangas. The night of November 18 was one of the most horrifying in that torture center.

Witnesses remember that the dim light that reached them under their blindfolds was filled with noises: screeching cars, weeping, and the screams of men asking for hot water and hot oil to burn the victims.

They also remember having seen the next morning the bodies of two women and an old man lying in the courtyard. The faces of the news On April 25, 2006, and while Judge Alejandro Solís was carrying out the judicial process, Isabel Gallardo demanded an investigation from the Ethics and Discipline Tribunal of the Journalists' Association (TRED).

The resolution requested the expulsion and public censure of Carlos Araya, plus a one-year suspension of membership for Julio López Blanco and Claudio Sánchez, and a one-year suspension of professional membership for Vicente Pérez Zurita, head of news at TVN at that time, and Manfredo Mayol Durán, director of the channel in 1975.

In June 2008, the Journalists' Association apologized for this case and that of Operation Colombo. The last thing known about Julio López Blanco at Mega was that he was preparing a pilot for a program for the elderly called "Vivan las canas," which did not prosper.

Now, on the phone, he says that everything he had to say, he confessed in the Journalists' Association investigation. "I don't talk about that subject; today I work on some magazines with some friends and I don't know if I will continue at the private university where I am," he comments.

Until the military coup of September 11, 1973, Carlos Araya worked as a radio announcer for Sargento Aldea in the port of San Antonio and was the owner of the newspaper El Pelícano. With the dictatorship installed, he dedicated himself to denouncing union and political leaders from his position.

Thus, he quickly gained the friendship of Manuel Contreras, head of the nearby Tejas Verdes Regiment. Araya arrived at Televisión Nacional as his trusted man and joined the Journalists' Association. This is supported by the 405 pages of Judge Alejandro Solís's ruling against Manuel Contreras—and others—for torture in Tejas Verdes, dated August 9, 2010.

In the investigation, the journalist recounted that he was contacted by Pinochet's agents. Also that from those hands he received the scripts to make the reports. This is corroborated by a DVD copy of the video broadcast by TVN.

One can see the hot day in the dry grasslands, the microphone cable, the journalist dressed in a suit. "Here on the ground are the testimonies of the violent shootout," says Julio López Blanco, and he continues with his comments on the extermination of "small groups surrounded by DINA agents." On the other hand, at Channel 13, Claudio Sánchez also allegedly participated in situ in the report with the Dinacos script for Corporación Canal 13, a competitor of TVN.

This video has blurrier quality and it is difficult to distinguish the audio. The video continues; Julio López, crouching, displays the bullets that the enemies had supposedly fired. There are no corpses or blood, only empty casings, stones, bushes, and the dry weeds of the hill. "The latest information says that other small groups of the MIR and the outlawed Communist Party are surrounded, at this moment, by DINA forces.

And let us move now to our mobile unit two, where Carlos Araya is in the same place where the extremists fell..." concludes López Blanco. Araya appears; he has a notebook in his hand, opens it, and gives the names of the fallen: "Mónica del Carmen Pacheco Sánchez, Roberto Gallardo Moreno, Catalina Gallardo..." At home, Isabel and her mother die while living.

Last week, Isabel learned that Carlos Araya passed away two months ago from a heart condition. "Today there is talk of forgiveness; I don't know if one can forgive someone who tortures your family in that way; after so many years, there is only an indictment order... No, it cannot be done," she says and returns to her silence.

Source: eldinamo.cl, September 10, 2013

Court ratified ethical conviction against journalist Claudio Sánchez

The Ninth Chamber of the appellate court decided unanimously to dismiss the appeal of the former Canal 13 reporter and current face of MEGA, who appealed the sanction that the Journalists' Association applied to him for endorsing a DINA setup.

The Ninth Chamber of the Santiago Court of Appeals ratified the resolution of the National Ethics and Discipline Tribunal (Trined) of the Journalists' Association, which in May of last year sanctioned Claudio Sánchez for endorsing a DINA setup in a kidnapping and homicide case in 1975.

The appellate court issued a statement indicating that "by the unanimity of all its members," the chamber "rejected the appeal presented by journalist Claudio Sánchez Venegas to the resolution (...) that sanctioned him with public censure and a one-year suspension of his rights" in the Association.

The event refers to a set of "murders that occurred in November 1975, a case that was later known as the 'Rinconada de Maipú Video Setup' and which is being investigated by the justice system in a case titled 'Kidnapping and Homicide, Gallardo-Gangas Families'." The original resolution, dated May 10, 2007, "sanctioned with expulsion from the Association the member Roberto Araya Silva, who at the date of the events worked at Televisión Nacional de Chile and acknowledged having been aware of the setup, since he participated actively as a collaborator of the DINA." On that occasion, also admonished with the suspension of their professional memberships for one year were "journalists Julio López Blanco, Vicente Pérez Zurita, and Manfredo Mayol" -all from TVN- and "Claudio Sánchez Venegas, who at the date of the murders worked at Canal 13 TV and was the one who broadcast on that station the DINA setup that presented the deaths as the product of a shootout." According to the statement, "Sánchez was the only one of those sanctioned who appealed to the national ethical instance of the journalists. His case was reviewed by the Trined, which, after making some corrections, ended up confirming the sanction," it concludes.

Source: Vozciudadana.cl, February 4, 2014

Supreme Court ratifies convictions of DINA agents in the Rinconada de Maipú case

The ruling was adopted with the dissenting vote of Judge Lamberto Cisternas. The Supreme Court confirmed the ruling that sentenced three agents of the National Intelligence Directorate (DINA) to 20 years in prison for their responsibility in the qualified homicides of six members of the Gallardo family, crimes perpetrated under the cover of a setup carried out by State agents known as the "Rinconada de Maipú" case.

The DINA had the complicity of journalists such as Julio López Blanco and Claudio Sánchez, now ethically sanctioned by the professional association, who disseminated a presumed shootout that on November 19, 1975, had ended the lives of Alberto (63) and Catalina Gallardo (30), Luis Ganga, and Mónica Pacheco (26), who was three months pregnant, all of whom were classified as members of "small groups" that had engaged in a shootout with military members.

The Second Chamber of the highest court—composed of judges Milton Juica, Carlos Künsemüller, Haroldo Brito, Lamberto Cisternas, and Jorge Dahm—confirmed the sentences that the agents must serve: Miguel Krassnoff Martchenko, Basclay Zapata Reyes, and Rolf Wenderoth Pozo, in the capacity of co-authors of the homicides of Alberto Gallardo Pacheco, Catalina Gallardo Moreno, Mónica Pacheco Sánchez, Luis Ganga Torres, Manuel Reyes Garrido, and Pedro Cortés Jélvez.

The story in Rinconada de Maipú On November 18, 1975, a shootout occurred on Bío Bío Street in which a military man and MIR militant Roberto Gallardo Moreno were killed. In the hours following the previous event, that same day, all members of the Gallardo family were arrested in their homes and taken to the Investigations Barracks on General Mackenna Street, where they were interrogated and tortured.

In the early hours of November 19, some of the family members were released, with the exception of Alberto Recaredo Gallardo Pacheco, Catalina Ester Gallardo Moreno, and Mónica del Carmen Pacheco Sánchez, who were placed at the disposal of the DINA and transferred to the "Villa Grimaldi" facility.

In the early hours of November 19, Ester Torres was arrested along with three of her children, Renato, Mauricio, and Francisco Javier Ganga, by DINA agents who were looking for her eldest son, Luis Andrés Ganga, and they were taken to "Villa Grimaldi"; after being tortured and interrogated, the information regarding the whereabouts of Luis Andrés was obtained; he was apprehended moments later and taken to that facility, where he was tortured.

Witnesses who were detained in "Villa Grimaldi" declare that that was the worst of all nights; they describe a great movement of cars, heard the agents asking for hot water and hot oil, and the screams of lament from the tortured.

The next day, several corpses were observed in the courtyard, lying on the ground, and two women, Catalina and Mónica, in very poor physical condition. That same day, the corpses of Mónica Pacheco Sánchez, Catalina Gallardo Moreno, Alberto Gallardo Pacheco, Luis Andrés Ganga Torres, Pedro Blas Cortés Jéldez, and Manuel Lautaro Reyes Garrido were transferred from Villa Grimaldi by DINA personnel under the command of Army Captain Germán Barriga Muñoz and Carabineros Captain Ricardo Lawrence Mires to the facility known as Rinconada de Maipú, with the purpose of feigning a shootout between these detainees and DINA personnel. As Alicia Lira, president of the Association of Relatives of Political Executions, has declared, "There was a cruelty as was done with every woman and man they tortured in this country. That also meant that by demonstrating cruelty to the people and leaving some alive, it was to terrorize. That message is sent when they stage this fake shootout in Rinconada de Maipú; they make a whole apparatus because they already bring them dead to the place, and there comes the sinister machinery, which has no excuse: the journalists who could see what was really happening and preferred to lie," said the AFEP leader when the trial began in 2013, referring to the actions of journalists Carlos Araya, Vicente Pérez, Manfredo Mayol, Julio López Blanco, and Cristián Sánchez Venegas.

Source: elciudadano.cl, August 9, 2016