Date of Birth: 19-08-30, 43 years of age at the time of his detention. Address: 24 de Abril Settlement, Paine Marital Status: Married, seven children Occupation: Agricultural worker Repressive Status: Head of Finance and Supplies for the 24 de Abril Settlement. No known political affiliation. Date of Detention: October 16, 1973

REPRESSIVE SITUATION

Luis Silva Carreño, 43 years old at the time of the events, married, with 7 children, an agricultural worker with no political affiliation, and the person in charge of finance and supplies for the 24 de Abril Settlement in Paine, was detained at his home at approximately 03:30 in the morning on October 16, 1973, by uniformed military personnel from the San Bernardo Infantry School.

His home was raided, causing damage to the entrance gate. Once inside, he was ordered to identify himself; his name was checked against a list carried by the military, and they proceeded to detain him immediately.

The military personnel did not carry a warrant to justify such actions. He was taken to an unknown destination. His son, Luis Francisco Silva López, went to the San Bernardo Infantry School the following morning and spoke with Officer Enrique Galdames Carrasco, a relative of the young man.

After various inquiries, the officer stated that Luis Ramón Silva Carreño had not been brought as a detainee to the San Bernardo military facilities. Since October 16, 1973, Luis Ramón Silva Carreño has been a forcibly disappeared person.

On November 29, 1973, his brother, Manuel Silva Carreño, was also detained and suffered the same fate. On the night of October 16, in a vast operation carried out by military personnel under the orders of Army Lieutenant Andrés Magaña, 22 people were detained from their homes; in none of these cases was there the corresponding authorization to conduct raids and arrests.

These soldiers, dressed in field gear or gray uniforms with capes of the same color, wore armbands and used black berets or helmets, with their faces blackened or covered with balaclavas. They moved in at least one red truck with side railings and a jeep.

All were heavily armed; they illuminated the rooms with flashlights, preventing the residents from turning on the lights. The operation began in the early hours of October 16, 1973, and lasted until 04:00 in the morning.

The people who were detained, mostly settlers who had participated in the agrarian reform process, were listed on a document carried by the military. Their homes were raided, and they were taken from their houses, with the military warning their families that they would be returned after giving statements in San Bernardo.

All were loaded onto a truck waiting on the main road. The operation was carried out silently, and the victims' families were forbidden from looking out of their houses. The operation began with the detention of Andrés Pereira Salsberg, an industrialist and owner of a machine shop; then René del Rosario Maureira Gajardo, a merchant, was detained; immediately after, the military headed toward the sector corresponding to the 24 de Abril Settlement, where Patricio Loreto Duque Orellana, the brothers Raúl Antonio, Silvestre René, and Jorge Hernán Muñoz Peñaloza, their brother-in-law Basilio Antonio Valenzuela Alvarez, Germán Fredes García, Carlos Enrique Gaete López, Carlos Alberto Nieto Duarte, Laureano Quiroz Pezoa, Rosalindo Delfín Hernán Muñoz, and Ramón Luis Silva Carreño were detained. Next, they went to the El Tránsito Settlement, where Pedro Antonio Cabezas Villegas and Roberto Servando Galaz were detained. Finally, they went to the Nuevo Sendero Settlement, where Enrique Lazo Quintero, his brother Samuel Altamiro Lazo Quintero and his sons Luis Rodolfo and Samuel Lazo Maldonado, José Domingo Adasme Núñez, Luis Alberto Gaete Balmaceda, and José Ignacio Gaete Maldonado were detained.

On October 10, 1973, Carabineros from the Paine Sub-precinct had detained Samuel Altamiro Lazo Quinteros from his home in the El Tránsito Settlement; he had been released after 24 hours of detention at that unit.

This farmer was detained again in the early hours of October 16, 1973. Following his first detention, he informed his fellow settlers that he had been warned by the Carabineros that in the following days, military personnel from the San Bernardo Infantry School would come and proceed to detain the settlers.

The farmers of that settlement received the same information after having gone to the Sub-precinct, where they had a conversation with Sergeant Reyes regarding their situation.

The whereabouts of all the people detained on October 16, 1973, in any detention center remain unknown. To date, there are no witnesses regarding this. Judicial records indicate that they were taken that morning in the direction of the Codegua hills, near Melipilla, where they were executed. Their remains have not been found.

The detention and subsequent disappearance of Luis Ramón Silva Carreño are part of the repression in Paine in 1973. (Further background in the account regarding José Domingo Adasme Núñez).

JUDICIAL AND/OR ADMINISTRATIVE ACTIONS

On March 7, 1974, a writ of amparo (habeas corpus), case No. 194-74, was filed on his behalf before the Santiago Court of Appeals. It was rejected on March 29 of the same year, based on reports from the National Executive Secretariat of Detainees (SENDET), the Investigations Prefecture, and the General Prefecture of Carabineros, which stated that his arrest was unknown.

Once the amparo was ruled upon, an official response was received from the Director of the San Bernardo Infantry School and Chief of the Interior Zone of the San Bernardo and Maipo Departments, Colonel Pedro Montalba Calvo.

In that official letter, he stated: "it is noted that Manuel Silva Carreño was detained here, who fled from the Chena Prisoner Camp on the night of December 1, 1973, and his current whereabouts are unknown." This information contained two points to highlight: the letter responded regarding a brother of the victim who had been detained on November 29, 1973.

Furthermore, the person who had allegedly escaped at the time both were being executed at the Chena Camp was Daniel Navarro González, who was detained along with Manuel Silva Carreño, creating a situation that for a long time kept the military in confusion regarding the true identity of the prisoner they executed and the one who managed to escape.

On March 24, 1974, a mass amparo petition for 131 people was filed before the Santiago Court of Appeals, registered under No. 289-74. Luis Ramón Silva Carreño was included in it.

Authorities were consulted without being able to establish the specific situation of each of the individuals. On November 28, 1974, the amparo was rejected. The resolution was appealed. The Plenary of the Supreme Court confirmed the ruling on January 31, 1975, agreeing to appoint a Special Visiting Judge to conduct the corresponding investigation.

The appointment fell to Judge Enrique Zurita Camps, who on February 24 of that year initiated case No. 106657 before the First Criminal Court of Santiago. Silva Carreño's relatives were summoned to testify by Judge Zurita, leaving a new record of the circumstances of his arrest.

On September 25, 1975, without having delved into any of the reported cases, the summary was closed because "no further progress could be made in the investigation." On September 29 of the same year, the judge issued a ruling in the case of Silva Carreño as well as in 27 other cases of detainees from Paine, and the case was temporarily dismissed because the existence of a criminal act was not fully justified.

On May 10, 1976, the Santiago Court of Appeals approved Judge Zurita Campos's resolution.

On March 21, 1975, a complaint for alleged disappearance was filed before the Maipo-Buin Court following the detention and subsequent disappearance of 23 locals from Paine, the vast majority of whom were farmers detained on October 16, 1973.

The case of Luis Ramón Silva Carreño was included among them. The case for the group of victims was registered under No. 24005-1, under Judge Javier Torres. The first investigative steps were ordered three months later, once María Inés López Ahumada and Teresa Celinda López Moya—the complainants—appeared before the court to ratify the facts.

Starting in June, the first investigative measures were decreed; official letters were sent to the National Executive Secretariat of Detainees (SENDET) and the San Bernardo Infantry School. Both institutions stated in their official responses that they had no information regarding the people consulted.

The Legal Medical Institute, for its part, replied that the names of those 23 people did not appear in the registry of corpses admitted to that establishment. The court, in turn, issued a broad order to investigate to the Carabineros and the Investigations police.

The Carabineros limited themselves to taking statements from the two complainants, while the Investigations police, in addition to carrying out similar steps, informed the court that they had made inquiries to "locate and identify the people who apparently were dressed as military personnel on the day of the events, without favorable results." Without having decreed other measures, on November 26, 1975, the court decided to close the summary and definitively dismiss the case, as "no presumptions appeared from the summary that the reported events had occurred." On January 20, 1976, the Rancagua Court of Appeals confirmed the dismissal, establishing it as temporary. The case was archived. On March 23, 1977, the case was reopened after a request to that effect was accepted by the complainants. The request for reopening was based on the fact that 10 cases included in case 24005-1 appeared on a list of 63 people whom the Chilean government, at the 30th session of the United Nations (UN) in 1975, claimed were not "forcibly disappeared"—as their families denounced—but were dead people whose corpses were recorded in the entry index books of the Legal Medical Institute. This list of 63 names was included in the document titled "Current Situation of Human Rights in Chile" (Volume II, pp. 381, 382, 383). The information contained in the report was contradictory to what that court had received from the Legal Medical Institute itself when consulted by official letter. On May 23, 1979, a criminal complaint was filed in the Maipo-Buin Court against the personnel of the Infantry School who participated in the operation of October 16, 1973, in which Luis Ramón Silva Carreño was detained along with other farmers. From its inception, the investigation was consolidated with case 24005-1. On April 3, 1979, Judge Juan Rivas Larraín of the Rancagua Court of Appeals was appointed to continue overseeing the case, in response to a request presented by the Catholic Church to the Supreme Court so that Visiting Judges could address the cases of forcibly disappeared persons throughout the national territory. Thus, two years after the reopening of the case, upon assuming the case, Judge Rivas ordered the first investigative steps aimed at clarifying the information regarding 10 forcibly disappeared persons—the subject of the process—who appeared with contradictory information as previously noted.

Judge Rivas sent an official letter to the Chilean Ministry of Foreign Affairs, requesting information regarding the background and procedures that allowed them to compile the list of "Presumably disappeared persons" who had been located in the records of the Legal Medical Institute of Santiago.

The response was received on October 30, 1979, by the recently appointed Visiting Judge, Humberto Espejo Zúñiga, after the creation of the Presidente Aguirre Cerda Court of Appeals, which, for jurisdictional reasons, was responsible for continuing the investigation, and whose new case number was 1-79.

The official response, signed by the Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs, stated verbatim in one of its parts: "Such information was requested by your Honor in view of the fact that the Legal Medical Institute, when asked about the same matter, has not found official letters from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Legal Medical Institute regarding said list.

In this regard, I inform your Honor that the list contained on pages 381, 382, 383 of the aforementioned volume 2 appears with an illegible signature and a stamp that this Ministry understands corresponds to authorities of the Legal Medical Institute; otherwise, such a document would not have been circulated to international organizations.

Regarding how the list came into the possession of this Secretariat of State, it should be noted that there is no official documentation sent to the aforementioned Institute, so it must be concluded that it was requested verbally and delivered by hand to officials of this Ministry." Judge Rivas Larraín, at the time he left his visit in case 24005-1, established that said list was false and that the autopsy protocols assigned to the forcibly disappeared persons corresponded to unidentified (NN) corpses, whose identification had been impossible due to the lack of skin on their hands.

By December 1979, nine criminal complaints were consolidated into case 1-79 against the staff of the San Bernardo Infantry School for the crimes of kidnapping of Pedro Hernán Pinto Caroca, Ramón Luis Silva Carreño, Laureano Quiroz Pezoa, Ramiro Antonio Muñoz Peñaloza, Silvestre René Muñoz Peñaloza, José Ignacio Castro Maldonado, Luis Alberto Gaete Balmaceda, José Germán Fredes García, and Carlos Gaete López.

Five complaints against Army Colonel Jorge Dawling Santa María for covering up the crime of illegal arrest of Jorge Hernán Muñoz Peñaloza, Carlos Enrique Lazo Quinteros, Carlos Alberto Nieto Duarte, José Domingo Adasme Núñez, Samuel Altamira Lazo Quinteros, Samuel del Tránsito Lazo Maldonado, and Luis Rodolfo Lazo Maldonado.

A complaint for the kidnapping and qualified homicide of Juan Guillermo Cuadra Espinoza and Ignacio del Tránsito Santander Albornoz, perpetrated by members of the San Bernardo Infantry School.

A complaint against Army Lieutenant Andrés Magaña Bau for the crime of illegal arrest of René del Rosario Maureira Gajardo; a complaint for the kidnapping of Andrés Pereira Salsberg; and a complaint for the crime of kidnapping of Mario Enrique Muñoz Peñaloza against Carabinero Sergeant Manuel Reyes (further background regarding this last complaint in the account of Mario E. Muñoz Peñaloza).

Regarding the accused Colonel Jorge Dawling Santa María—who in 1979 served as Director of the San Bernardo Infantry School—an official letter was sent to him on September 26, 1978, requesting all information he possessed regarding the personnel of that unit who served in the months of September and October 1973.

The response did not arrive. The court reported this behavior to the Court of Appeals, which on November 14, 1978, resolved in Plenary that the aforementioned Colonel should comply with the provisions of Article 191 of the Code of Criminal Procedure (that is, depending on his rank, he must appear or report).

The official response finally arrived, signed by the new Director of the Infantry School, Carlos Meirelles Müller, in which he limited himself to stating that there was no intention to hide information, that there were documents with the requested information, and added that Colonel Dawling Santa María had handed over command and was no longer part of the institution.

On February 7, 1979, in a new official letter, Colonel Meirelles was requested to provide the list of the institution's personnel as of October 1973, to which he responded that he did not have the authority to provide that information and that it must be requested from the Minister of National Defense.

Starting in April 1979, with Judge Humberto Espejo in charge of the investigation after the creation of the Presidente Aguirre Cerda Court of Appeals, which was territorially responsible for continuing the case, official letters were diversified in order to establish the identification of those who participated in the operations that occurred in Paine and its surroundings.

The Minister of National Defense was sent an official letter, not only to inquire about the aforementioned personnel but also to request the appearance of Colonel Dawling Santa María, Lieutenant Andrés Magaña Bau—identified by the victims' families as the person in charge of the October 16, 1973, operation—and Colonel Pedro Montalva Calvo, Deputy Director of the Infantry School as of October 1973.

In April 1979, Lieutenant Andrés Magaña Bau appeared before the court, at which time he denied his participation in the October 16, 1973, operation, as well as any other that might have been carried out in Paine.

When confronted with relatives of the forcibly disappeared person, René del Rosario Maureira Gajardo, he denied knowing the members of that family, despite the fact that they affirmed having been with the uniformed officer on more than one occasion at social events prior to September 11, 1973, in the town of Paine.

Regarding Colonel Jorge Dawling Santa María, the court had been informed in an official response that since August 1978, he had been appointed Military Attaché at the Chilean Embassy in Uruguay, a position that would last for more than a year.

For his part, Colonel Pedro Montalva Calvo, upon appearing before the court on December 10, 1979, declared and affirmed the existence of a Detention Camp at Cerro Chena dependent on the Infantry School, which, according to his statement, ceased to function in December 1973 at the time he assumed the Directorship of the School.

Prior to that, its Director had been Colonel Leonel Köning Altterman, who gave written orders regarding who was admitted as a detainee. When the then-Director of the School, Colonel Köning, was summoned to testify, the court was notified that he had committed suicide on June 21, 1979.

On December 12, 1979, Judge Espejo declared himself incompetent and sent the records to the Military Prosecutor's Office, given that all the complaints and lawsuits contained in this case (1-79) attributed the authorship of the arrests to personnel of the Armed Forces and Carabineros from both the San Bernardo Infantry School and the Paine Sub-precinct, respectively.

On March 6, 1980, the Court revoked the incompetence and ordered some investigative steps in order to advance the investigation. As a result, Colonel Jorge Dawling Santa María was summoned to testify again.

On April 2, 1980, the Minister of National Defense, Lieutenant General Raúl Benavides Escobar, informed the court that Mr. Dawling Santa María held the rank of Brigadier General and, in accordance with Articles 191 and 192 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, must testify in writing.

The judge sent a list of questions that were erroneously formulated, which gave the Brigadier General the opportunity to respond: "in relation to questions 2 through 13, I do not have any information to provide."

On June 5, 1980, Judge Espejo declared himself incompetent for the second time, basing his resolution on the same terms as the previous time. This was appealed on July 25, 1980, and the Court of Appeals revoked the resolution, ordering the Visiting Judge to prepare a new questionnaire to be answered by the Brigadier General, based on the accusations made in the complaints against him that are part of the process.

In July 1980, the court received an official response from Brigadier General Dawling Santa María, the content of which did not provide any information, arguing that in 1977 there were no longer written records at the Infantry School regarding military maneuvers and operations.

His letter concluded by stating that he had brought the background of case 1-79 to the attention of the Army Commander-in-Chief, since he was accused in the transcribed complaints of participation as a cover-up in "alleged crimes" that he would have committed "in the line of duty."

On October 17, 1980, the records were definitively sent to the II Military Prosecutor's Office of Santiago; at that time, the jurisdictional inhibition took effect.

On May 24, 1982, the case was totally and temporarily dismissed: "notwithstanding that the investigation is exhausted, the perpetration of the events reported on page 1 and attributed to personnel of the Armed Forces and Order, subject to military jurisdiction, is not completely proven."

That resolution was appealed and revoked in March 1984 by the Martial Court, which ordered steps aimed at completing the investigation. During 1985, at least 26 officers and non-commissioned officers who served in the months of September to October 1973 at the San Bernardo Infantry School testified.

All of them denied their participation in operations in Paine and its surroundings, denied knowing about the presence of people in the Chena Detention Camp, and even denied the existence of such a facility.

On November 22, 1989, the Prosecutor of the II Military Prosecutor's Office, Enrique Ibarra Chamorro, appeared on behalf of the Military Public Ministry and requested the application of the Amnesty Decree Law 2191-78.

The Military Judge dismissed the case totally and definitively "because the criminal responsibility of the persons allegedly accused of the reported events is extinguished." That resolution was revoked in February 1992 by the Martial Court; this court instructed that the case return to the summary stage and ordered the exhumation of the six graves in Patio 29.

Said exhumation could not be carried out by order of this court, since in September 1991, in case 4449-AF of the 22nd Criminal Court of Santiago, the exhumation of all the remains of unidentified persons buried between September and December 1973 in the aforementioned patio in the General Cemetery had been carried out. As of December 1992, the case was still in process.

It should be noted that in this case, investigations were also carried out regarding Patio 29 of the General Cemetery of Santiago, starting in November 1979, when Monsignor Ignacio Ortúzar R.—in his capacity as Vicar General and Acting Vicar of the Vicariate of Solidarity—reported to the court the existence of mass and irregular burials of corpses in Patio 29 of the aforementioned cemetery, which would affect nearly 200 graves.

From the investigation, the court was able to conclude that at least 6 graves could yield information regarding forcibly disappeared persons included in the process. Between 1981 and 1987, on five occasions, the exhumation of those six graves was requested from the court, with the request being denied on the grounds that it was inconclusive given the time elapsed.

In August 1990, case 2-90-E was initiated before the Buin-Maipo Court with the appointment of Visiting Judge Germán Hermosilla by the Presidente Aguirre Cerda Court of Appeals. Said appointment was due to a request to that effect from the Vicariate of Solidarity of the Archbishopric of Santiago, given the existence of illegal burials of corpses in the town of Paine that affected forcibly disappeared persons.

The background information on Luis Ramón Silva Carreño was delivered to the court.

On March 15, 1991, Mrs. María del Tránsito Venegas Cortés testified before Visiting Judge Germán Hermosilla, in her capacity as the mother of Jorge Reyes Cortés, who in 1973 had to perform his military service at the San Bernardo Infantry School.

Her words, which account for the fate of the 22 detainees of October 16, 1973, were recorded in the file. Verbatim, in one of its parts, she said: "a few days after they took the husband of my cousin Luisa, Roberto Serrano, I went to visit my aunt Rosa's house and I saw that she was very desperate and crying over the fate of her husband.

Then I told her 'don't cry anymore Lucha, your husband was taken by the military, Jorge was with them.' I was referring to the fact that my son had to carry out this detention. My son Jorge had told me about this a few months later, I don't remember exactly when; I found out a few days later as I said before.

They kept them for months without leaving after the Coup, so when he went to the house, he told me. He was not calm, he was scared, desperate, and not only him but also his companions. My son did not know Roberto Serrano; when they went to their house, Jorge met Luisa.

He told me that these detentions were done at night. Yes, it is true that my son told me that it was his turn to shoot at Serrano, but that he asked a companion to change places with him. He also told me that if he said he wouldn't shoot, they would kill him.

It is true that I told Luisa this, since she was taking clothes to her husband at Cerro Chena and they would receive them there, when Serrano was already dead." Jorge Reyes Cortés currently serves in the Los Andes Regiment, and his military rank is unknown.

Although Mrs. María Venegas Cortés testified before the court that she did not remember having pointed to the hills near Codegua and Melipilla as the place of execution, the wife of Serrano Galaz did remember this, as recorded in her statements before Visiting Judge Humberto Espejo.

On April 22, 1980, Jorge Reyes Cortés appeared before the court in case 1-79. In his statement, he denied any participation in the events; verbatim, in one of its parts, he said: "I never participated in any operation in Paine, I never knew there were detainees at Cerro Chena, nor did I recognize any of the detainees in the few times I had to be on guard when they arrived." The Visiting Judge has carried out various ocular inspections in rural sectors around Paine, without positive results regarding the forcibly disappeared persons of October 16, 1973.

On August 22, 1991, case 4449-AF was initiated in the 22nd Criminal Court of Santiago, when the judicial investigation of the crime of illegal burial of corpses that remained buried as unidentified (NN) in Patio 29 of the General Cemetery was set in motion, by virtue of the background contained in the criminal complaint presented by the Vicariate of Solidarity of the Archbishopric of Santiago.

Anthropomorphic information on Luis Ramón Silva Carreño was delivered in that case. In September 1991, the exhumation of 108 graves in Patio 29 was carried out; as of December 1992, the extracted remains are at the Legal Medical Institute undergoing an identification process.

Source: (Corporation Report)