The 30th anniversary of the tragedy at the Pisagua prison camp was commemorated this weekend by survivors of the site, which was commanded by General Carlos Forestier as the primary military authority in the area.

Forestier faces charges for the ten forcibly disappeared persons—seven from Pisagua and three from Iquique—for which he is being prosecuted as the perpetrator of the crime of kidnapping. The activities, which took place in Iquique and yesterday at the mass grave in Pisagua, where 19 bodies were discovered in June 1990, were organized by the Association of Former Prisoners of Pisagua.

They were attended by various political and social leaders, as well as members of associations of relatives of the forcibly disappeared and victims of political executions from the region and the national level.

The recent history of Pisagua is linked to the seven main episodes that occurred in the months following the coup d'état. In these, under the senior command of Forestier, camp commander Ramón Larraín, and Army officers who remained active until recently, 25 prisoners lost their lives, having been murdered.

Attempts were made to cover up some of these crimes under the legal guise of a "war council," which was later proven to be "a farce," as one of those same officers, now retired, recently admitted during the proceedings led by Judge Daniel Calvo.

The "escape" of six detainees on September 29, 1973, was proven in court to be no such thing, and that the prisoners were coldly murdered. Officers who served on the camp's rotating guard duty acknowledged this during the proceedings.

The "war council" of October 11, 1973, where five other prisoners were killed, was also not a real "council," and even the military auditor for some of those supposed "war tribunals," Captain (Ret.) Enrique Sinn Bruno, acknowledged in court that the council was "another farce."

On October 30, 1973, four socialist leaders from the Iquique regional branch were killed, having allegedly been sentenced to death by another "war council." It is the same Sinn Bruno, who participated in that "council," who testified in court that they were forced to change the sentence already issued, which had condemned them only to a minor prison term, and to issue another that sentenced them to death.

The then-captain and later Army inspector, now General (Ret.) Sergio Espinoza Davis, participated in that "council."

In January 1974, Forestier issued a decree stating that six prisoners had been released from Pisagua. However, the judicial investigation established that the detainees were murdered on January 15 and 16 of that year.

The other four prisoners were likewise extrajudicially riddled with bullets, with other "war councils" being used as an excuse for three of them.

Source: October 27, 2003, La Nación