In two resolutions in which he prosecuted four retired high-ranking Army officers and one civilian, the minister visiting with exclusive dedication for human rights cases, Alejandro Solís, reported on the episodes of Chihuío and Liquiñe in the foothills of the Tenth Region, two of the most massive in terms of the number of victims of repression during the dictatorship.

In Chihuío, some 190 kilometers southeast of Valdivia, near the border with Argentina, 17 peasants were murdered on October 9, 1973, by personnel from the Cazadores and Maturana regiments of Valdivia, whose commanders were Colonels Santiago Sinclair (former vice-commander-in-chief of the Army and former designated senator) and Jerónimo Pantoja Hernández (former second-in-command of the DINA), respectively.

For this case, Judge Solís submitted Pantoja, now retired, to prosecution for kidnapping; as well as General (Ret.) Héctor Bravo Muñoz, who as of September 1973 was chief of the IV Army Division based in Valdivia and zone chief under a state of siege; the then-captain Luis Osorio Garardazanic, and a civilian.

The bodies of the 17 peasants were exhumed by Army personnel at the end of 1978 and remain forcibly disappeared. On June 17, 1990, the three pits where the peasants had been buried were discovered, and only small bone fragments were found, which allowed for the confirmation of the peasants' identities.

One day later, on October 10, 1973, an Army and Carabineros operation kidnapped and killed 15 peasants in the village of Liquiñe, a few kilometers from the town of Neltume, also in the foothills. For eleven of these victims, Solís prosecuted retired Army Lieutenant Colonel Hugo Guerra Jorquera as the perpetrator of kidnapping.

According to witnesses from the time, these peasants were executed on the Toltén River bridge and their bodies thrown into the river. For this case, Judge Juan Guzmán previously prosecuted the civilian Luis García, owner of the Termas de Liquiñe, who collaborated in the kidnappings.

Although General (Ret.) Sinclair has not yet been prosecuted for Chihuío, sources linked to the investigation state that he may yet be.

Source: La Nación, March 19, 2003

Former Senator Sinclair prosecuted for the homicide of five FPMR members

Minister Mario Carroza, who is substantiating the process for the kidnapping and disappearance of five FPMR militants in 1987 at the hands of CNI agents—with the participation of the Army—will prosecute two retired officers and one active-duty officer.

This concerns the man who was the last vice-commander-in-chief of the military regime, Santiago Sinclair—who became a designated senator at the beginning of the democratic transition—as a co-perpetrator of the homicide of Manuel Sepúlveda Sánchez, Gonzalo Fuenzalida Navarrete, Julio Muñoz Otárola, Julián Peña Maltés, and Alejandro Pinochet Arenas.

The magistrate's decision is based on the fact that the FPMR members were thrown from an institutional helicopter into the sea, following a coordination meeting at which Sinclair was allegedly present and which, by virtue of his superior authority, he could not have been unaware of the deaths.

Carroza will use the same judicial reasoning for the man who was the head of the Army Intelligence Directorate (DINE), the then-General Hugo Prado, along with a colonel currently on active duty with the surname Bustos.

The same crime will also apply to both. In the case of the official who is still in the ranks of the military institution—and as has been the trend for those involved in human rights violation cases—he will be removed from the institution.

The system used by Carroza has so far managed to establish not only that CNI agents kidnapped the FPMR members, but also that they lost their lives at the Borgoño barracks of the same repressive service and were thrown into the sea in an Army helicopter.

Pinochet's pilots, Hugo Barría Rogers—former military attaché in France—and "el Chino Campos"—both prosecuted—are the ones who participated in this operation, but without knowing what they were heading toward when they were ordered to take off and head to a property in Colina, the same one used by the DINA in the 70s to make leftist militants disappear.

Since 2002, the then-head of the CNI, General (Ret.) Hugo Salas Wenzel, Commander (Ret.) Krantz Bauer Donoso, Major (Ret.) Álvaro Corbalán, Captain (Ret.) Luis Sanhueza Ros; the non-commissioned officers (Ret.) Manuel Ramírez and René Valdovinos, and the Army civilian employees César Acuña, Manuel Morales, Luis Santibáñez, and Víctor Ruiz Godoy have been under prosecution.

Added to them are Carabineros Colonel (Ret.) Iván Quiroz, and agents Juan Orellana Morales, Hernán Vásquez, Raúl del Carmen Durán, José Salas Fuentes, Marco Antonio Pincheira, and Jorge Raimundo Ahumada Molina.

Also added to them is the former head of the Army Intelligence Battalion (BIE), General (Ret.) Julio Cerda. Santiago Sinclair was a prominent military figure during the military dictatorship. Along with reaching the position of vice-commander-in-chief until 1986, he was a member of the Military Junta in 1989, as well as a designated senator until 1997.

Source: El Mostrador, July 15, 2008

Judge prosecutes General (Ret.) Sinclair

The former strongman of Augusto Pinochet and former institutional senator was prosecuted along with former General Hugo Prado and active-duty Colonel Marcos Bustos for the death of five FPMR members in 1987.

Minister Mario Carroza prosecuted active-duty Colonel Marcos Bustos and former Generals Hugo Prado and Santiago Sinclair for the crime of qualified homicide regarding the disappearance of five members of the Frente Patriótico Manuel Rodríguez that occurred in September 1987.

The process, known as the "case of the five," is considered emblematic by the human rights community as it is one of the last crimes of the dictatorship. In the case, the magistrate is investigating the causes surrounding the murder of Manuel Sepúlveda Sánchez, Gonzalo Fuenzalida Navarrete, Julio Muñoz Otárola, Julián Peña Maltés, and Alejandro Pinochet Arenas, an investigation in which 18 other retired military personnel are also being prosecuted, including the former head of the Central Nacional de Inteligencia (CNI), General (Ret.) Hugo Salas Wenzel.

The resolution highlights the name of General Sinclair, considered at the time to be Augusto Pinochet's right-hand man and who even held the rank of vice-commander-in-chief of the Army. Sinclair was designated as an institutional senator representing the Army until 1997.

Source: La Nación, Thursday, July 17, 2008

Ruling establishes institutional responsibility of Army commanders

Minister Mario Carroza also indicted active-duty Colonel Marco Antonio Bustos as a perpetrator of the kidnapping of the five FPMR militants. The crime was coordinated between the Army leadership, its Intelligence Directorate, and the CNI.

The Aviation Command of this military branch also participated in the operation. There are now 27 retired officers and non-commissioned officers declared defendants for this crime. A coordinated action between the Army command-in-chief, the Army National Intelligence Directorate (DINE), and the Central Nacional de Informaciones (CNI), in addition to the institution's Aviation Command, was the operation to eliminate five militants of the Frente Patriótico Manuel Rodríguez (FPMR) in September 1987.

The coordination at the highest level was established in the judicial investigation by ministers Hugo Dolmetsch, Haroldo Brito, and Mario Carroza, who have had the case in their hands. The current magistrate in charge of the inquiry, Carroza, prosecuted yesterday the former vice-commander-in-chief of the Army and former member of the Military Junta, General (Ret.) Santiago Sinclair Oyaneder; the General (Ret.) and former head of the DINE, Hugo Prado Contreras; and the former member of the Military Intelligence Battalion (BIE), current active-duty Colonel Marco Antonio Bustos Carrasco, who is the head of the Planning Department of the Army's Logistics Division. The three were indicted as co-perpetrators of the crime of qualified kidnapping of the five FPMR militants. The two general officers and the senior officer were arrested and were interned in the Military Police Battalion in the commune of Peñalolén. With these three indicted, the number of retired officers and non-commissioned officers declared defendants for this crime reached 27. Within the framework of this coordinated operation, on September 21, 2006, Judge Haroldo Brito prosecuted the then-director of the CNI, General (Ret.) Hugo Salas Wenzel, and ten other former agents of that organization, among them operational chief Alvaro Corbalán and the head of the Anti-subversive Brigade, Kranz Bauer Donoso. In the investigation, it was established that the five FPMR members—Julián Peña Maltés, Alejandro Pinochet Arenas, Manuel Sepúlveda Sánchez, Gonzalo Fuenzalida Navarrete, and Julio Muñoz Otárola—were kidnapped between September 9 and 10, 1987, as possible exchange hostages for Army Colonel Carlos Carreño Barrera, who was kidnapped on September 1, 1987, by the FPMR. Carreño finally appeared on December 3, 1987, in the city of São Paulo, Brazil, after 93 days of captivity. Judge Carroza maintains in his indictment that the five militants were killed "once Colonel Carreño appeared." The detail is relevant, as it has never been possible to pinpoint the exact date they were murdered. That information adds coherence to the legal thesis that the dictatorship kept the five FPMR members alive for a possible exchange until the very last moment and that their death was decided only after Carreño was released by his captors. It is at this moment that, according to the case records, General Santiago Sinclair enters the case in his position as vice-commander-in-chief of the Army, or rather, as acting or executive commander-in-chief, given that Augusto Pinochet was serving as self-designated President of the Republic. Once Carreño was released, a meeting took place between Sinclair, who was conveying the voice of the dictator Pinochet, the head of the DINE, Prado, and the director of the CNI, Salas Wenzel. In that meeting, Sinclair ordered that the five prisoners had to be made to disappear. The reason was that by that date, and due to the restructuring that had been carried out, the CNI could not keep prisoners in its barracks. The five militants had already been kidnapped, interrogated, and tortured for three months, and the case could become another weapon against Pinochet one year before the 1988 plebiscite. When Carreño was kidnapped, the DINE, through its operational body, the Army Intelligence Battalion (BIE), formed a team in charge of the investigation into the colonel's kidnapping. The officers of that team, among whom was the current active-duty Colonel Marco Antonio Bustos and the then-head of the BIE, current General (Ret.) Julio Cerda Carrasco, also indicted, maintained a close link with the CNI throughout the entire time of Carreño's captivity. Its members were even at the Borgoño barracks several times. Sinclair's Imprisonment “My General, your Army is ready for whatever you need it for,” General Santiago Sinclair told General Augusto Pinochet on the night of October 5, 1988, when it was already known internally that the dictator had lost the plebiscite and would have to leave power. That episode accounts for Sinclair's close loyalty to his superior. At that time, as when the death and disappearance of the five FPMR members—for which he is now prosecuted and detained—was decided, Sinclair was formally the vice-commander-in-chief of the Army, but in practice, he was its highest authority, because Pinochet occupied the nation's highest office by the grace of his Constitution. Hence, his prosecution and detention are received in the human rights world as a signal that paves the way for other prosecutions of high-ranking commanders of that time. The news also has another institutional edge. Another of those prosecuted is still in the service of the institution. This is Colonel Marco Antonio Bustos, head of the Planning Department of the Army's Logistics Division. Minister Mario Carroza, in charge of the investigation, also indicted the then-director of the Army Intelligence Directorate (DINE), Hugo Prado Contreras, as a perpetrator of the kidnapping of the five FPMR militants. The magistrate established that the crime was coordinated between the Army leadership, the DINE, and the CNI, and that the Aviation Command of this military branch also participated in the operation. Aboard the Puma The method chosen to make the five militants disappear was the same one used by the DINA to make its victims disappear: kill them and throw the bodies into the sea. In this way, through Sinclair and with Pinochet's knowledge, the operation was authorized for an Army Aviation Command (CAE) helicopter to be used to throw the bodies into the sea. They were murdered in Borgoño and their bodies, properly bagged and tied to pieces of rails, were taken to the Peldehue military property, north of Santiago, where they were loaded aboard the CAE Puma helicopter commanded by officers Víctor Campo Valladares and Hugo Barría Rogers. The commander of the CAE in 1987 was Colonel Aquiles Navarrete Izanortegui, who is also indicted in the process. The last disappeared José Julián Peña Maltés: Single, 36 years old at the time of his kidnapping. He went into exile in France in January 1974. In 1985, his ban on entering the country was lifted. The exact date of his return to Chile is unknown, but it is known that he was in hiding at the time of his kidnapping. He was last seen alive on September 9. His family learned of his disappearance on September 15, 1987, through a phone call from a woman who did not identify herself. In November of that year, the Investigations police reported that he had no record of entry into the country, "so it is reasonable to assume that he has not yet returned." His writ of amparo (habeas corpus) was rejected. Julio Muñoz Otárola: Separated, 27 years old at the time of his disappearance. He was married to Cecilia Magni, "Commander Tamara," a member of the commando that attempted to assassinate Pinochet in September 1986, later murdered in Los Queñes along with "Commander José Miguel," both of the FPMR. According to Investigations, when he disappeared, he had two pending arrest warrants against him, "so it is presumable that he is in hiding trying to evade the action of justice." The writ of amparo in his favor was rejected. Manuel Jesús Sepúlveda Sánchez: Married, 27 years old at the time of his detention. He lived in the Ñuñoa commune, but his family resided in Valparaíso, where they saw him for the last time on September 8. His friends saw him in Santiago on the 9th in the morning and agreed to meet him in the afternoon; he never arrived. According to what the CChDH reported at the time, some witnesses reported that he was detained on September 10 at the corner of Catedral and San Martín by civilians who forced him into a utility van. His writ of amparo was rejected. Alejandro Pinochet Arenas: Single, 23 years old at the time of his disappearance. Also domiciled in Valparaíso and passing through Santiago, he was supposed to return home on September 18, but that did not happen. According to witnesses, he was kidnapped on September 10 while traveling on a public bus, from which he was forcibly removed by civilians at the corner of Compañía and Amunátegui. In 1986, he had been sought at his home in the port, by order of Prosecutor Torres, in relation to the attack against General Pinochet that occurred on September 7, 1986, in the Cajón del Maipo. Gonzalo Iván Fuenzalida: Single, 25 years old at the time of his disappearance. His girlfriend was the last person to see him, on September 8, when he stopped by to see her at a hardware store where she worked. They agreed to meet later at a restaurant in Estación Central, but they never saw each other again. In those days, the girlfriend was also detained for a "case about which there is a prohibition on reporting," maintained El Mercurio. Later it was learned that it was Patricia Cancino, detained on October 4. Her writ of amparo was also rejected.

Source: La Nación, Friday, July 18, 2008

38 YEARS AFTER THE CHIHUÍO PEASANT MASSACRE

The Chihuío peasant massacre occurred on October 9, 1973, in the commune of Futrono, Valdivia province (northeast of Lake Maihue), less than a month after the military dictatorship and its regime of state terrorism were established by blood and fire.

Executed within the framework of the regime's generalized and systematic political persecution against part of the civilian population, it stands as one more crime against humanity committed by the dictatorship.

According to the information gathered in the trial of those directly responsible for this aberrant crime, a military convoy left on October 7, 1973, from the "Cazadores" and "Maturana" regiments of Valdivia, which were under the command of Colonels Santiago Sinclair Oyaneder (who would later occupy the position of Vice Commander-in-Chief of the Army) and Jerónimo Pantoja Hernández (who would occupy the second-highest command hierarchy in the DINA), respectively.

It was composed of 90 men, including troops and officers, and 7 vehicles. In charge was Captain of the Cazadores regiment Luis Alberto Osorio Gardasanich and Lieutenants Patricio Keller Oyarzún, Marcos Rodríguez Olivares, Luis Rodríguez Rigorighy, and Lautaro Ortega.

They were accompanied by Américo González Torres, one of the owners of the Chihuío estate, a faithful exponent of the abject landowning bourgeoisie, who had drawn up the lists of people who were to be detained and eliminated.

The convoy headed toward Futrono, 130 km southeast of Valdivia, and traveled through the northern area of Lakes Ranco and Maihue, passing through Llifén, Arquilhue, Curriñe, and Chabranco, until reaching Chihuío in the high mountains, very close to the border with Argentina.

As it advanced, they completed the list of detentions. A total of 17 agricultural workers, belonging to the "La Esperanza del Obrero" Peasant Union of the Panguipulli Agricultural and Forestry Complex, were brutally seized by the caravan of assassins, being beaten until they bled in the presence of their families.

Among them was the minor Fernando Adrián Mora Gutiérrez, whose crime was asking where they were taking his father (Sebastián Mora Osses) upon seeing him along with other detainees aboard a military truck.

They were detained

In Futrono: Luis Arnaldo Ferrada Sandoval In Llifén: Rosendo Rebolledo Méndez and Manuel Jesús Sepúlveda Sánchez In Arquilhue: Narciso Segundo García Cancino and Ricardo Segundo Ruiz Rodríguez In Curriñe: José Rosamel Cortés Díaz, Rubén Neftalí Durán Zúñiga, Eliecer Sigisfredo Freire Caamaño, Juan Walter González Delgado, Pedro Segundo Pedreros Ferreira, and Carlos Vicente Salinas Flores In Chabranco: Carlos Maximiliano Acuña Inostroza, José Orlando Barriga Soto, Daniel Méndez Méndez, Fernando Adrián Mora Gutiérrez (minor), Sebastián Mora Osses, and Rubén Vargas Quezada At night, they arrived near Chihuío on October 9, in the rain, piled into trucks, beaten and wounded, stumbling with the irregularities of the road. Near their destination, the trucks and jeeps got stuck in the mud and could not continue. They took them down and made them walk in the dark, under the intense rain and guarded by troops with rifles pointed at them. An officer, showing off his sadism, forced them to sing. Several of them were evangelical; one began to sing a hymn. The rest followed him, and their songs turned into prayer, entrusting their destiny to God. They walked slowly, sinking their shoes into the mud, their clothes soaked and their bodies numb. Near midnight, the column arrived at the main house of the henchman González Torres. Some soldiers cut pieces of wire used to hang clothes and with them tied the wrists of each of the 17 peasants. Then they locked them in one of the rooms of the house. The military personnel dedicated themselves to eating and drinking. Meanwhile, in contrast, the peasants lay on the floor, with their wet clothes, hungry, frozen with cold, and with their hands tied behind their backs with wire, resumed their hymns of praise until they fell exhausted by fatigue and hunger. This would be the final prayer of these true martyrs of their faith who, due to their awareness, had chosen the path of the struggle for the social redemption of the poor in the countryside and the city, grouping together within their union. During the night, at an unspecified hour, an officer went to the conscripts and asked for 21 volunteers. Only 9 presented themselves; the rest were filled with permanent staff. Each one with their rifle was taken to where the prisoners were. They violently woke them up and threw them outside. Afterward, the officer ordered them to run. A few steps later, the platoon began the volleys and the massacre began. Most of them, wounded and dying in the mud, were finished off on the ground with knives. The screams were heartbreaking. (These testimonies were presented to the Rettig Commission, to magistrate Juan Guzmán Tapia in charge of the investigation of the massacre, and to the Human Rights Pastoral of the Bishopric of Valdivia by 3 conscripts who were present at the events). Thus, without even a War Council to feign a masquerade of a trial, the convoy led by Capt. Luis Alberto Osorio Gardasanich, following instructions from the commanders, treacherously and crazily murdered 17 modest peasants in a small forest adjacent to the tourist complex called Termas de Chihuío, in the high Valdivian mountains. During the investigation for the trial of those responsible for this massacre, it was determined that the following day a witness observed that the lifeless bodies of several of the victims had cuts on their hands and stomachs. Furthermore, it was proven that the victims' bodies remained for several days at the crime scene covered only with branches and logs, until some relatives, also risking their lives, proceeded to bury them. In 1978, clandestinely, and within the "Operation Television Removal" ordered by the dictatorship to make the evidence of its crimes disappear, military personnel in civilian clothes arrived to exhume the remains and, again with the help of the henchman Américo González Torres, they dug them up and made their bodies disappear by throwing them into the sea. Only recently, the Legal Medical Service (SML), after arduous investigative work, managed to identify, as part of the remains of 5 of the 17 murdered peasants, the scarce bone samples that were found in the pit from which the bodies were removed. Those few bone remains were handed over on July 15, 2011, to their relatives by the Regional Director of the SML of Valdivia, Patricia Benhe, and corresponded to: Luis Arnaldo Ferrada Sandoval, 42 years old, agricultural worker. Manuel Jesús Sepúlveda, 28 years old, lumber worker. Ricardo Segundo Ruiz Rodríguez, 24 years old, factory foreman. Carlos Maximiliano Acuña Inostroza, 46 years old, lumber worker. Daniel Méndez Méndez, 42 years old, lumber worker. On the other hand, at the end of January 2011, the Supreme Court issued a shameful sentence in this case, sentencing Luis Alberto Osorio Gardasanich to a penalty of only 10 years and one day in prison for his responsibility as the material author of the 17 qualified homicides. Meanwhile, the retired Carabineros officer Luis Eduardo Osses Chavarría was sentenced to 3 years and one day in prison for his responsibility as an accomplice to 4 of the 17 qualified kidnappings. For his part, the civilian Bruno Esteban Obando Cárdenas was acquitted for "lack of participation." Furthermore, the same Chamber, with the dissenting vote of Minister Dolmestch and the member lawyer Chaigneau, decided to dismiss the payment of compensation to the victims' relatives. Former Col. Jerónimo Pantoja Henríquez, who had already been convicted for the disappearance of communist militant Pedro Espinoza Barrientos, died before the final ruling of the Supreme Court. Former Gen. Santiago Sinclair, who gave the orders, was not convicted. Nor was the henchman Américo González Torres prosecuted. It is worth remembering that Santiago Sinclair was also submitted to prosecution as a co-perpetrator of the kidnapping and homicide in 1987 of 5 militants of the Frente Patriótico Manuel Rodríguez (FPMR): Manuel Sepúlveda Sánchez, Gonzalo Fuenzalida Navarrete, Julio Muñoz Otárola, Julián Peña Maltés, and Alejandro Pinochet Arenas, whose bodies, after being murdered, were thrown into the sea from a helicopter to make them disappear. Following the norm of conduct always confirmed by the high command of the dictatorship of: "the higher the rank, the greater the cowardice," former Gen. Santiago Sinclair Oyaneder took refuge in the authoritarian enclaves of the judiciary to avoid being convicted for those horrendous and treacherous crimes, following the example of the dictator who, in the height of his cowardice to avoid facing justice, opted to declare himself insane.

Source: g80.cl, November 4, 2011

General (Ret.) Santiago Sinclair was detained for the "Caravan of Death" case

The former member of the Government Junta during the final years of Augusto Pinochet's dictatorship and former designated senator is accused of participating in the death of 12 people. Retired General Santiago Sinclair and three other former uniformed officers have been detained since Thursday at the Military Police Brigade of the Peñalolén Telecommunications Regiment for their participation in the death of 12 people within the framework of the "Caravan of Death" case investigation, as reported by Radio Cooperativa.

The other detainees are Juan Carlos Michelsen, José Feliú Madinagoitía, and Mario Manterola Garrido, all arrested as perpetrators in accordance with the order issued by the minister of the case, Patricia González.

Only the detention of Hugo Guerra Jorquera remained pending. According to the investigation, the death of 12 farmers in October 1973 was coordinated by Sergio Arellano Stark, excluded from criminal proceedings due to dementia; the now-deceased former commander of the IV Army Division, Héctor Bravo; and General (Ret.) Sinclair.

Santiago Sinclair was part of the Government Junta representing the President of the Republic during the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet, from November 29, 1988, to January 2, 1990. Subsequently, upon the arrival of democracy, he occupied the position of designated senator from 1990 to 1998.

Source: La Nación, February 5, 2015

Government on the detention of General Sinclair: "Justice is slow, but it arrives"

Although the Executive branch did not wish to characterize the arrest of the former Vice Commander-in-Chief of the Army and one-time appointed senator for his alleged participation in the deaths of 12 people, it maintained that “we all hope for truth and justice.”

“Justice is slow, but it arrives, and if there is an investigation of that nature regarding human rights and that arrest exists today, it will be the courts that determine where the responsibility lies,” stated the spokesperson (s) for La Moneda, José Antonio Gómez, this Friday, when referring to the arrest of the retired Army general, Santiago Sinclair, in the context of the Caravan of Death case.

The order issued by Judge Patricia González against the former appointed senator and four other former state agents is linked to the death of 12 farmers in October 1973, which, according to the investigation, was coordinated by Sergio Arellano Stark, the now-deceased former commander of the IV Army Division, Héctor Bravo, and General (ret.) Sinclair.

The Minister of Justice stressed that the clarification of the events for which the former Vice Commander-in-Chief of the Army during the final years of the Augusto Pinochet dictatorship was arrested is something long-awaited so that “there is finally truth and justice.”

“In that sense, the progress being made in the courts is important so that the truth may be known. The specific case will be resolved by the corresponding institutions and the plaintiff lawyers,” the official concluded.

Source: La Nacion, February 6, 2015

Proceedings against Santiago Sinclair: The criminal implications of a protégé of Pinochet and the right wing

It was learned today that on January 16, the Fifth Chamber of the Santiago Court of Appeals decided to prosecute 5 retired military officers who held direct responsibility in the Valdivia Episode of the Caravan of Death.

The event refers to the series of homicides committed on October 3 and 4, 1973, against 12 people who were detained in the custody of the military and executed on Army premises in the city of Valdivia.

On that occasion, through summary executions, and following the arrival in the Valdivia area of the retinue of Sergio Arellano Stark, his helicopter, and his thugs, 12 MIR militants from the Lake Region were executed.

On the 3rd, José Gregorio Liendo Vera, the leader of the MCR and a MIR leader in the area of the Panguipulli Forestry and Lumber Complex, was executed. On the 4th, Pedro Purísimo Barría Ordoñez, José Barrientos Wagner, Sergio Bravo Aguilera, Santiago García Morales, Enrique Guzmán Soto, Víctor Fernando Krauss Iturra, Luis Pezo Jara, Víctor Rudolph Reyes, Rudemir Saavedra Bahamondez, Víctor Saavedra Muñoz, and Luis Valenzuela Ferrada were executed.

The first of those murdered had the particularity of being disabled and moving with the aid of crutches; almost all of them were workers of the CFMP.

On May 13, Judge Patricia González determined to prosecute former Army members Sergio Arellano Stark, Pedro Espinoza Bravo, Marcelo Moren Brito, Carlos López Tapia, and Juan Chiminelli Fullerton as authors of the homicide of José Liendo Vera; Antonio Palomo Contreras and Emilio De La Mahotiere González were prosecuted as accomplices.

In another resolution, the magistrate also prosecuted former Army members Pedro Espinoza Bravo and Marcelo Moren Brito as authors of the homicides of the 11 prisoners murdered on the 4th.

Now, the resolution of the Fifth Chamber of the Santiago Court has prosecuted Santiago Sinclair Oyaneder, Juan Carlos Michelsen Délano, José Feliú Madinagoitía, Mario Rafael Manterola Garrido, and Hugo Alberto Guerra Jorquera, thereby revoking the decision of Judge González, who had denied the prosecution of the aforementioned former Army officers last September.

According to the resolution: "on October 3, 1973, a 'Puma' helicopter landed in Valdivia with a group of military personnel under the command of the then-Army General, Sergio Víctor Arellano Stark, delegated by the person who was at that date Commander-in-Chief of the Army, Augusto Pinochet Ugarte, with the objective of carrying out tasks of coordinating institutional criteria of internal government and judicial procedures or of reviewing and accelerating the processes; That, as a result of the arrival of the aforementioned military personnel, on October 4, 1973, it was ordered to remove from the Valdivia Public Jail Rudemir Saavedra Bahamondez, Víctor Eugenio Rudolph Reyes, Víctor Segundo Valeriano Saavedra Muñoz, Santiago Segundo García Morales, Luis Mario Valenzuela Ferrada, Sergio Jaime Bravo Aguilera, Luis Hernán Pezo Jara, Víctor Fernando Krauss Iturra, Pedro Purísimo Barría Ordoñez, Enrique Del Carmen Guzmán Soto, and José René Barrientos Warner, who were taken to the Llancahue military property, specifically to the shooting range of the Valdivia Military Garrison, a place where they were executed by firing squad as a consequence of a sentence pronounced in a supposed War Council, the materiality of which does not exist."

For the case of Liendo Vera, it was determined that: "As a result of the arrival of the aforementioned military personnel, it was ordered to remove from the Valdivia Public Jail Gregorio José Liendo Vera, an agronomy student, militant of the MIR (Movement of the Revolutionary Left), and leader of the Revolutionary Peasant Movement, who was taken to the Llancahue military property, specifically to the shooting range of the Valdivia Military Garrison, a place where he was executed by firing squad as a consequence of a sentence handed down in a supposed War Council, the materiality of which does not exist."

The protégé of the right wing.

At the time of the crimes, Santiago Sinclair held the rank of colonel and commanded the No. 2 Cazadores Armored Regiment of Valdivia. The behavior of this individual in the repressive actions committed in Valdivia as well as in Chihuío and Liquiñe earned him the adulation of Pinochet and his entourage; in 1975, he was appointed military attaché in Korea, where he remained for a period of two years.

In 1977, he was named Director of Army Operations and later Director of Personnel; in 1979, he was designated as Minister Chief of the Presidential General Staff, a function and entity that is only understandable within the framework of a dictatorship, and in 1982, Pinochet appointed him Minister Secretary General of the Presidency, another entity and function arising from the dictatorial constitution and institutional framework.

The next step in the rise of the protégé was that of Vice Commander-in-Chief of the Army, a position to which he was assigned in 1985; on that occasion, he was promoted to the pompous title of lieutenant general of the army.

With both titles in hand, in November 1988, after the dictator and his entourage lost the plebiscite, Sinclair assumed the role of member of the Military Junta representing the dictator, remaining in that position until 1990.

In 1990, the protégé of Pinochet was appointed by the dictators as an Institutional Senator, occupying a seat in the enclave that dictators and right-wingers established in Congress to maintain their policies and control power. He remained in this situation until 1998, when the debacle of his master, who was arrested in London, began.

Until now, Sinclair had managed to preserve the impunity that he and his peers concocted in the institutional and judicial tangle to avoid answering for crimes committed under the protection of terror and the rule of arms.

In 2008, he was already prosecuted by Judge Mario Carroza for the responsibility he held in the forced disappearance of 5 FPMR militants that occurred in September 1987. It is to be hoped that this time, the infamous networks of impunity will not once again come to the aid of a miserable criminal.

Source: Resumen.cl, February 7, 2015

Caravan of Death: Former appointed senator Santiago Sinclair convicted for twelve executions in Valdivia

The Third Chamber of the Santiago Court of Appeals convicted four retired members of the Army, among them the former member of the Military Junta and former appointed senator Santiago Arturo Sinclair Oyaneder, for twelve crimes from the Valdivia episode of the "Caravan of Death," committed in October 1973 during the military dictatorship.

In the sentence (case file 2.070-2018), the chamber composed of judges Carlos Gajardo, Alejandro Madrid, and the acting lawyer Paola Herrera sentenced Sinclair to 5 years and one day in prison, as an author, as well as Juan Viterbo Chiminelli Fullerton.

Meanwhile, Pedro Octavio Espinoza Bravo was sentenced to 10 years in prison, and Emilio Robert de la Mahotiere González to 3 years and one day in prison, as an accessory.

The ruling corresponds to the crimes of qualified homicide of Gregorio José Liendo Vera, Pedro Purísimo Barría Ordóñez, Rudemir Saavedra Bahamondes, Víctor Eugenio Rudolph Reyes, Víctor Segundo Valeriano Saavedra Muñoz, Santiago Segundo García Morales, Luis Mario Valenzuela Ferrada, Sergio Jaime Bravo Aguilera, Luis Hernán Pezo Jara, Víctor Fernando Krauss Iturra, Enrique del Carmen Guzmán Soto, and José René Barrientos Warner.

The sentence established that the deaths correspond to “a homicide under the terms provided in article 391 No. 5 of the Penal Code, since one can only conclude that the decision to order the execution by firing squad of each of them, creating the appearance of the execution of a judicial resolution coming from a supposed War Council, reveals the existence of a previously conceived plan.”

In this sense, the appellate court recalled that “all the acts that ended with the execution of the victims began with the arrival in the city of the retinue led by Sergio Arellano Stark, and thus, in the brief span of their stay in the city, all the executions were carried out, proceeding in the same way in all those places where they were present.”

In the civil aspect, the ruling confirmed the sentence that accepted the lawsuit and ordered the state to pay a total compensation of $1,910,000,000 (one billion nine hundred and ten million pesos) to the families of the victims.

Source: elmostrador.cl, August 7, 2020

Former Vice Commander-in-Chief of the Army and former member of the Military Junta, Santiago Sinclair, prosecuted for the 1973 Chihuío massacre

The minister on special assignment for human rights violation cases of the Santiago Court of Appeals, Paola Plaza González, initiated proceedings against former Army general Santiago Arturo Ariel de Jesús Sinclair Oyaneder, as an author of the crime of qualified homicide of 17 workers of the Panguipulli Forestry and Lumber Complex, executed in the town of Chihuío on October 9, 1973, and illegally buried to make them disappear on the 10th of the same month.

In the resolution (case file 2182-98, "Chihuío Episode"), Judge Plaza González prosecuted the former military officer for the homicides of the forestry workers Carlos Maximiliano Acuña Inostroza, José Orlando Barriga Soto, José Rosamel Cortés Díaz, Rubén Neftalí Durán Zúñiga, Luis Arnaldo Ferrada Sandoval, Eliecer Sigisfredo Freire Caamaño, Narciso Segundo García Cancino, Juan Walter González Delgado, Daniel Méndez Méndez, Sebastián Mora Osses and his 17-year-old son, Fernando Adrián Mora Gutiérrez, Pedro Segundo Pedreros Ferreira, Rosendo Rebolledo Méndez, Ricardo Segundo Ruiz Rodríguez, Carlos Vicente Salinas Flores, Manuel Jesús Sepúlveda Rebolledo, and Rubén Vargas Quezada.

It is worth mentioning that in August 2020, the former Vice Commander-in-Chief of the Army, former chief of Pinochet's presidential staff, former member of the Military Junta during the dictatorship, and former appointed senator (between 1990 and 1998), was sentenced by the Third Chamber of the Santiago Court of Appeals to a penalty of five years and one day in prison for his responsibility in the murders of 12 other prisoners of the Panguipulli Forestry and Lumber Complex executed in the city of Valdivia at the beginning of October 1973, as part of the passage of the so-called Caravan of Death through the south of the country. A sentence that the former officer has not yet begun to serve.

In the current resolution regarding the Chihuío episode, the visiting judge notes that, at this procedural stage, the following facts are considered established:

"In the commune of Futrono, Arquilhue estate sector, in the hamlets of Curriñe, the administration and company store of the Panguipulli Forestry and Lumber Complex operated, in the town of Chabranco, in the vicinity of the Chihuío hot springs, where at that same time the headquarters of the 'Esperanza del Obrero' union was located, to which the workers of the Lumber Complex belonged.

Moving about 16 kilometers toward the mountain range is Chihuío, where as a result of the violence directed against a specific sector of the civilian population supporting the regime deposed by the military forces, starting on September 13, 1973, in an organized manner, peasants were deprived of their liberty by Carabineros officers.

On October 7, 1973, new deprivations of liberty were carried out against the civilian population of that sector. Likewise, on the 9th of the same month and year, military personnel from the No. 2 'Cazadores' and 'Maturana' Cavalry Regiments of Valdivia left for Futrono under the command of an officer and seconded by other officers, in a caravan composed of several vehicles, including jeeps and trucks, with a contingent of approximately ninety people.

Said military caravan headed toward the southern sector of the Panguipulli Lumber Complex, with the purpose of depriving of liberty in a precise and determined sector peasants belonging to the civilian population (...).

All the detainees from the route of the military caravan were taken in that capacity to the Chihuío Hot Springs, and from that place on October 9, 1973, the military personnel, in the night hours, took the civilians out of the main house of the Chihuío Estate where they were being held deprived of their liberty and transported them to the vicinity, about 500 meters from the aforementioned property, a place where they were all executed by firing squad, without any prior process, events that were reported to the Commander of the Cazadores Regiment with a garrison in Valdivia at the time, with the rank of lieutenant colonel, who at all times was aware of the execution of the 17 civilians of the Chihuío Hot Springs, being the same person who ordered that the bodies of the deceased be buried.

Additionally, it is established that Mario Silva Navarro received the order from Captain Osorio Gardasanich to move to Futrono and Chihuío, indicating that said orders came from the commander of the Cazadores regiment, Santiago Sinclair, who asked Captain Osorio for an account of the results of the operation, an occasion in which the aforementioned commander was informed that the bodies had been left lying on the pampa, which caused him annoyance, ordering that a patrol head to the place in order to locate the bodies and bury them."

Given the ongoing health emergency, the judge ordered the house arrest of the accused.

Source: resumen.cl, June 5, 2021

Judge Álvaro Mesa prosecutes Army general (ret.) for illegal coercion of detainees in the so-called “Plan Z” in Valdivia

The minister on special assignment for human rights violation cases of the jurisdictions of the Temuco, Valdivia, and Puerto Montt Courts of Appeals, Álvaro Mesa, initiated proceedings against retired Army general Santiago Arturo Sinclair Oyaneder for his responsibility in the crime of illegal coercion of nine political prisoners, an illicit act perpetrated after September 11, 1973, in the city of Valdivia.

In the resolution (case file 3-2012 Valdivia), Judge Mesa, in consideration of the former military officer's age, ordered the house arrest of the accused as the author of the inhuman, cruel, and degrading treatment applied to: Sandor Arancibia Valenzuela, Juan Yilorm Martínez, Víctor Hormazábal Rozas, José Daniel Gallardo Saldivia, Rogers Delgado Sáez, Joel Asenjo Ramírez, Luis Díaz Bórquez, Uldaricio Manuel Figueroa Valdivia, and Carlos Jaime Bahamondez Hormazábal, who were detained in the Valdivia public jail.

«Plan Z» During the investigation stage, the visiting judge managed to establish the following facts: A.- That as a result of the events that occurred on September 11, 1973, Sandor Arancibia Valenzuela, Juan Yilorm Martínez, Víctor Hormazábal Rozas, José Daniel Gallardo Saldivia, Rogers Delgado Sáez, Joel Asenjo Ramírez, Luis Díaz Bórquez, Uldaricio Manuel Figueroa Valdivia, and Carlos Jaime Bahamondez Hormazábal, among others, were detained in various cities of the country and especially in the commune of Valdivia.

Some of them held public office or were members of political parties of the government of President Salvador Allende Gossens until that date. All of them were accused of being the ringleaders of a fanciful plan of extermination of the members of the Armed Forces and Order, known to this day as «Plan Z».

All the detainees, on different dates after September 11, 1973, were taken to the Valdivia Public Jail by order of the existing Military Prosecutor's Office.

Said detentions were decided by the military authority of the time, without a judicial order, and there is no record in the process of their being carried out under a procedure adjusted to the norms in force at that time.

B.- That in the Cazadores regiment of the commune of Valdivia, after the military pronouncement, by order of General Héctor Bravo Muñoz (currently deceased), the Second Section of Information and Intelligence was reinforced with the addition of officials from the same military unit, among them Hernán Soriano Ávila; a member of the Investigative Police of Chile, Germán Jesús Borneck Matamala; and personnel from the "José Gil de Castro" Carabineros Station of the same commune, among them Lieutenant Rubén Aracena González and Corporal Juan Bautista Yáñez Ruiz, nicknamed "es bante grande." This group was in charge of Army Lieutenant Patricio Kellet Oyarzún and had the mission of interrogating those detained for political matters, who after that date were admitted to the Valdivia jail.

C.- That also, at the end of September 1973, Bernardo O’Higgins de las Mercedes Puga Concha was called to join the Army, who until that date served as an auxiliary lawyer for the State Defense Council, who assumed functions as legal advisor to the Military Prosecutor's Office, in charge until then of Mr.

Mario Piraíno Valenzuela (currently deceased). Some defense lawyers even went to the office of the Military Prosecutor's Office, interviewing said advisory lawyer, who identified himself as a Military Prosecutor.

D.- That in order to comply with the order given by the superior command, the gymnasium of the Cazadores regiment was enabled, placing desks to interrogate the political detainees. In this way, the detainees were taken to and from the jail to the regiment by military personnel of the section led by Patricio Kellet Oyarzún, being interrogated in the Military Prosecutor's Office and physically coerced in the gymnasium facilities before and/or after these interrogations.

In the gymnasium or torture room, there were implements to tie up the detainees and apply electricity to different parts of the body, in addition to applying other types of torment such as kicks and punches.

All the members of the group led by Lieutenant Patricio Kellet Oyarzún participated in this task, in addition to the detective from the Investigative Police and Carabineros officials who were attached there and mentioned above.

Once the people were interrogated in the aforementioned Regiment, they were taken back to the Valdivia jail. In that place, their own cellmates and one of the prison's infirmary officials confirmed their poor physical state as a result of the interrogations under torture.

E.- That following the line of letter B above, Division General Héctor Bravo Muñoz, in addition to reinforcing the intelligence unit, gathered the commanders of the Cazadores and Maturana regiments, which operated in the same military compound known as "cantón Bueras" in the commune of Valdivia, and verbally instructed that Colonel Pantoja (currently deceased) take charge of the entire operational part in order to find the presence of subversives, this in the presence of the commander of the Cazadores regiment, whom he designated to perform patrol functions in the city of Valdivia and assume security in the Urban area of Valdivia, as well as government delegate at the Austral University of Chile. Despite his designation as education authority, the commander of the Cazadores regiment continued to perform his duties daily in the unit under his command - since, as indicated, he had to assume security in the commune of Valdivia and because his residence was located inside the military compound - going to that place daily, learning that Colonel Pantoja had control of the regiment's gymnasium and a registry of the detained persons. He also knew about the supervision that Pantoja carried out in the search for information. All of the above by observing on more than one occasion, both day and night, people who were taken to the aforementioned gymnasium to be interrogated.

In addition, the same commander of the Cazadores Regiment ordered Hernán Soriano Ávila, an official of the unit under his dependency, to join the group led by Lieutenant Patricio Kellet Oyarzún, as has been said previously.

Source: tuvoz.cl, 2020

Judge Mesa prosecutes general (ret.) and 4 former Army members as authors of the crime of qualified homicide of a young conscript from the Cazadores Regiment

In the case, the magistrate Judge Mesa Latorre ordered the precautionary measure of total house arrest for the five prosecuted individuals, this, considering “the nature of the crime, the assigned penalty, the age of the prosecuted, and the health situation in which the country finds itself.”

The minister on special assignment for human rights violation cases of the Temuco, Valdivia, Puerto Montt, and Coyhaique Courts of Appeals, Álvaro Mesa Latorre, initiated proceedings against Santiago Sinclair Oyaneder, Hernán Agustín Rodriguez Leyton, Victor Hugo Hermosilla Reinoso, Luis Edmundo Riveros Soto, and the person with the initials H.W.C.R, as authors of the crime of qualified homicide, in its character as a crime against humanity, of José Gastón Buchhorsts Fernández.

An illicit act perpetrated on the slopes of the Villarrica volcano, between September and November 1973.

In the case (File 13-2013), the magistrate Judge Mesa Latorre ordered the precautionary measure of total house arrest for the five prosecuted individuals, this, considering “the nature of the crime, the assigned penalty, the age of the prosecuted, and the health situation in which the country finds itself.”

The resolution also indicates that “Attending to the merit of the background information, from which it is clear that the freedom of the prosecuted constitutes a danger to the security of society; taking into account, also, the probable legal sanction of the crimes in which their participation is attributed; and having seen the provisions of article 363 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, the benefit of provisional release will not be granted to them.”

In the investigation, Judge Álvaro Mesa was able to establish that:

A.- That José Gastón Buchhorsts Fernández, 18 years old, was performing his Compulsory Military Service in the Cazadores Regiment of Valdivia in 1973, assigned to the mortar squadron of that military unit.

On September 11, 1973, José Gastón was at his parents' house, as his leave had been authorized days prior. However, with the passing of the days and the situation that prevailed in the country, José Gastón did not report to his military unit in a timely manner, so his father decided to accompany him to excuse this situation, which happened days after September 11, 1973.

Upon arriving at the guard of the Cazadores Regiment, José decided not to enter it, with his father stating that he would go to do some shopping, not returning to the military unit.

B.- That as a result of the non-presentation or non-entry into the Cazadores Regiment of Valdivia - which at that time was under the command of Colonel Santiago Sinclair Oyaneder - José Gastón Buchhorsts Fernández was considered a “deserter,” with this situation being commented on among the conscript soldiers and Officers.

As a result of this, a patrol in charge of Lieutenant Luis Rodríguez Rigo-Richi [deceased], and composed of approximately 8 or 9 conscript soldiers, went out in search of José Gastón, detaining him in the commune of Villarrica, transporting him to the Regiment, being seen in the capacity of a detainee by several of his companions who were also fulfilling military service, observing that he was guarded by other soldiers, entering with his hands tied behind his back and thrown on the floor of a military vehicle inside that compound.

C.- That in the military unit there was a patrol under the command of Rodríguez Rigo-Richi, pointed out as his group of trust and which was designated especially to carry out orders for patrolling, detention, and raids that were ordered by the regiment commander, Colonel Santiago Sinclair Oyaneder.

In the afternoon hours of the following days, the same patrol under the command of Lieutenant Rodríguez Rigo-Richi was in charge of transporting José Gastón to the commune of Villarrica, with the purpose of searching for weaponry in the sector, since Buchhorsts himself had allegedly indicated that, traveling through several sectors on the slopes of the Villarrica volcano, without finding what was sought.

Faced with this situation, Lieutenant Rodríguez ordered the young José Gastón to dig and at certain moments required him to enter inside it, since the purpose was to make his own grave. Once finished, he ordered the conscript soldiers to fire against Buchhorsts, with all the soldiers present doing so, executing him and burying him in that same place.

D.- That some time later, several conscript soldiers from the same Cazadores Regiment of Valdivia found out about the death of José Buchhorsts Fernández in the surroundings of the commune of Villarrica, with some of them remembering that they even gathered the entire Mortar squadron and informed them of his death.

E.- That despite the above and even when his father went on repeated occasions to find out about the situation of his son, in the Cazadores Regiment of Valdivia, no information was given to him about him, giving him evasive, erroneous, or ambiguous answers.

They even told him that he would be in another military compound in the same commune of Valdivia, going to that place, not finding his son among the detainees. With the passing of time and having no news of José Gastón, several other relatives traveled on repeated occasions to Valdivia, interviewing a Military Prosecutor with the surname Manterola [deceased], who indicated to them that José had been taken to a sector on the road to the Villarrica Volcano, but upon attempting to escape, the "Ley de Fuga" (Escape Law) had been applied to him, being executed at the place and that his body had remained buried in that same site, not informing them of the location, nor allowing them to search for his body.

F.- That to this date, no public official of the Armed Forces, especially the command of the Army of Chile that served at the time of the events, has given any information to the respective authority in relation to what happened to José Gastón Buchhorsts Fernández and the location of his body, maintaining to this day the concealment of all types of information about the events that have been mentioned in the preceding paragraphs.

Likewise, according to the background of the process, there was no instruction for investigations regarding the events that surrounded the detention and execution of José Gastón Buchhorsts Fernández, despite the fact that, according to the death registration certificate, the same Lieutenant Luis Rodriguez Rigo-Richi and other officials of the same Cazadores Regiment of Valdivia went to verify it.

Source: pdju.cl, April 27, 2022