Retired officer Aníbal Schaffhauser must go to prison for the qualified homicide of Jean Rojas Arce, an event that occurred in October 1973 in the town of Pachacamita.

The visiting judge for human rights violation cases of the Valparaíso Court of Appeals, Jaime Arancibia, sentenced retired Army captain Aníbal Schaffhauser Camposano to 15 years of effective imprisonment as the perpetrator of the qualified homicide of Jean Rojas Arce, a crime committed in the town of Pachacamita, La Calera commune, in October 1973.

In the ruling, the visiting judge also applied to the former officer the legal accessory penalties of absolute perpetual disqualification from public offices and political rights, and absolute disqualification from professional practice for the duration of the sentence, in addition to the payment of court costs.

The event During the investigation phase, Judge Arancibia established that on October 2, 1973, Jean Rojas Arce was detained inside a home located in the Corvi housing project in Quillota by PDI agents, who transferred him to the La Calera Carabineros Station. Subsequently, the detainee was transferred to Nogales, remaining under the custody of the then-Carabineros lieutenant Augusto Sobarzo.

Based on information received by the victim's relatives, they knew he was constantly beaten and tortured by an undefined number of people at the aforementioned police unit.

It is also known that on one occasion, Lieutenant Sobarzo indicated to the victim that he was free, which the victim did not believe, given that the order was given in the early hours of the morning.

This situation continued until October 10, 1973, when the victim appeared dead in the Pachacamita sector, La Calera commune, as a result of numerous bullet wounds to his head and thorax. This order was executed by the officers in charge of the patrol present at the scene, who claimed that the victim was executed by firing squad while attempting to place explosives on the railway line existing in the area.

Source: epicentrochile.com, November 17, 2017

More than 35 years after their execution and nine years after their second exhumation, the remains of three victims of human rights violations were handed over to their relatives. This is the Mamiña case, one of the most emblematic events that occurred during the civil-military dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet (1973-1990).

On the morning of Saturday, December 11, the mortal remains of Margarita Martín Martínez, María Paz Martín Martínez, and Isidro Salinas Martín were handed over. They were murdered between the night of June 30 and the early morning of July 1, 1986, by Carabineros, the Chilean militarized police.

More than three and a half decades after the crime, which was covered up as a suicide by its perpetrators and archived for years by the justice system, the Legal Medical Service of Chile (SML) ratified the cause of death for the three victims.

"They killed them; Carabineros de Chile murdered Margarita, María Paz, and Isidro. And we will remain firm in seeking the justice we have been demanding for 35 years," stated Matilde Martín Martínez, sister of the victims, upon leaving the SML in Santiago, the Chilean capital.

In conversation with Sputnik, Matilde Martín details what she experienced and values what happened to her relatives, despite the decades spent in search of truth and justice. "Today is a very important step, because it reaffirms what we have been claiming for 35 years, which is justice for their murder.

It is proven once again that it was carried out by Carabineros, as has happened in many cases now; they have 'suicided' people in police stations. We knew that was not the case."

More than 35 years after their execution by the Chilean police, the remains of three social activists murdered during the Chilean dictatorship were handed over to their relatives.

Murdered in their home

It was during the final hours of June 30 and the first hours of July 1, 1986, that three specialized groups of Carabineros raided the home of a renowned Chilean folklorist of the time, Benedicto "Piojo" Salinas, located in the La Cisterna commune, in the southern sector of the Chilean capital.

At the scene were his wife, Margarita Martín Martínez, 43; her sister-in-law, María Paz Martín Martínez, 30; and his son, Isidoro Salinas Martín, 18. All three were executed by gunfire by police officers. Present were Lieutenant Sergio Gajardo Giadach, Sergeant José Luna García, Majors Augusto Sobarzo and Julio Binimelli, and Corporal Nabih Soza.

"They enter Mamiña 150, which is where they kill them—María Paz, Margarita, and Isidro—and then they go to my house and arrest me. I had no idea what had happened, because they arrived at my house around 3 AM, took me into custody after raiding my house, and that was it," Matilde details.

That same day, June 30, at noon, Jorge Martín Martínez, another of the family's brothers, had also been arrested. He would later be imprisoned for four years and would escape from the Santiago Public Prison along with 48 other political prisoners in 1990.

The fact is that the arrest of the two Martín Martínez siblings and the execution of the other three family members occurred one day before the largest protest against the Pinochet dictatorship (1973-1990), called for July 2 and 3 of that year, 1986.

A demonstration that witnessed one of the most brutal acts produced during the Chilean dictatorial regime, when young people Carmen Gloria Quintana and Rodrigo Rojas Denegri were burned alive by a military patrol, a malicious crime that was added to the murder of Margarita, María Paz, and Isidoro.

Matilde recalls that she was never informed by any official or authority in charge of her detention about what had happened to her family.

"Once I was moved to the general population at the women's prison where the political prisoners were, which was in San Miguel, I found out from my comrades what had happened. Because until that moment, no coward from the military prosecutor's office who had interrogated me had told me what had occurred."

The cover-up According to the details of the official version from Carabineros, at midnight on Monday, July 1, 1986, members of three specialized units carried out a raid on the property at Calle Mamiña No. 150, following the alleged detection of an arms cache and a first-aid clinic.

The police report maintained that upon entering, they heard a gunshot, and upon moving inside, they found the corpses of sisters Margarita Eliana and María Paz Martín Martínez and the young Isidro Salinas Martín, son of one of them.

It was also reported that the three deceased were members of the subversive group Manuel Rodríguez Patriotic Front, "dead by self-elimination through shots fired from a short distance." It was detailed that one of the women carried a revolver with which she shot the other two in the temple, and then herself.

However, the autopsy reports performed on the three victims confirmed that in the case of Isidro Salinas, his body registered two impacts to the head, one from a long distance and one from a short distance. In the case of Margarita Eliana Martín, the cause of death was craniocerebral and thoracic trauma from bullets with exit wounds.

In the case of María Paz Martín, the cause of death was a "craniocerebral gunshot wound; the intracranial trajectory followed by the projectile is from right to left, bottom to top, and slightly backward. It is a shot with the barrel pressed against the skin."

A triple homicide that Carabineros tried to cover up as suicides, a version that, along with the autopsies, was completely discarded after the first exhumation.

"The first exhumation was done 40 days after they were buried, to check for gunpowder residue, because since they said one of them had murdered the others, it was proven that none of them had traces of gunpowder on their hands," Matilde details.

The deaths were investigated at the time by Judge Ariaselva Ruz, who conducted a reconstruction of the scene and determined the responsibility of Carabineros in the events.

"In the first instance, it was handled by the civil justice system, a visiting judge who was appointed, Ariaselva Ruz. When she declared the pacos [Carabineros] who participated in the murder as defendants, she then declared herself incompetent.

Because, of course, in those years, you couldn't be judged—and I believe that even now they are still being judged by military police. So she declared herself incompetent and it passed to the military prosecutor's office. And the military prosecutor's office is the one that archived the case," Matilde points out.

In 1988, Judge Ruz indicted Carabineros officials Sergio Gajardo Giadach, Julio Eladio Benimello Ruz, and José Luna García as authors of homicide, and Colonel Augusto Sobarzo Legido as an accessory. But when the case passed to the military justice system, they were dismissed in 1993.

Justice that has yet to arrive

Five years after the crimes, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission—created in April 1990 with the goal of clarifying human rights violations during the Chilean dictatorship—estimated that, according to the evidence gathered, the official information was not true, as at least two of the alleged suicides presented two bullet impacts and the weapons in their possession were in poor condition.

"Therefore, it has reached the conviction that Isidro Salinas and the sisters Margarita Eliana and María Paz Martín did not commit suicide, but were executed by Carabineros personnel, considering their deaths to be human rights violations for which state agents are responsible," the Commission's report details.

The police officers involved have not been punished; in fact, one of them, Sergio Gajardo Giadach, was promoted to colonel and became the Director of the Special Police Operations Group (GOPE), the same group that went to Calle Mamiña 150 that night.

Gajardo Giadach also appears on the list of those accused of the torture and subsequent death of the top leaders of the Manuel Rodríguez Patriotic Front, Cecilia Magni and Raúl Pellegrin, as stated in the judicial process, file 5004.

He was only asked to resign after the death of the young man with a disability, Manuel Gutiérrez, in the context of the 2011 student protests. Today, he receives a millionaire pension from the institution, as denounced by an investigative report.

The deaths of Margarita, María Paz, and Isidro were added to those of their older brother Pedro, who died in an FPMR action in April 1983. Their siblings Matilde and Jorge continued to demand justice, requesting the reopening of the case 12 years ago and a new exhumation, which was carried out nine years ago.

"We filed a complaint and asked for them to be exhumed again and for new investigations to be carried out, which was the result of what they gave us today. Today they gave us the result that it was irrefutably proven that they were murdered," Matilde explains.

After the remains were handed over, the procession with the three coffins moved from the SML to the General Cemetery in the capital of the South American country, where a tribute was paid to Margarita, María Paz, Pedro Martín Martínez, and Isidro Salinas Martín in a ceremony held at the Memorial for the Politically Executed.

There, various social and human rights organizations said goodbye to them alongside their relatives.

"Here we are, full of pain, impotence, and sadness, but also with great conviction that the flags today are higher than ever—the resistant flags of each one of us who have resisted, who have fought against the civil-military dictatorship, but also these 31 years," stated Alicia Lira, president of the Association of Politically Executed.

A resistance and a struggle also remembered by Carla Pellegrín, of the Collective of Relatives and Friends of Fallen Rodriguistas, and sister of Raúl Pellegrin: "Margarita, María Paz, and Isidro were at a health post; they were taking risks during their time in hiding; they were helpers; they were truly in a situation of absolute dedication and risk in a brutal dictatorship.

They are three heroes who fell, whom we also want to rescue today."

Matilde and her family will continue their fight to achieve justice. "We as a family have always been united and we will remain united until we achieve that each one of the murderous pacos pays for their guilt and ends up in jail (...) I wish it were life imprisonment because they have already enjoyed themselves enough all these years in freedom, and at least the last years they have left, let them pay for them in jail, because the pacos continue to torture, they continue to murder.

So, nothing more and nothing less than justice, justice, and justice."

Source: sputniknews.lat, December 15, 2021

The Association of Relatives of Politically Executed (AFEP) is preparing to launch the book 'Breaking the Silence', which accounts for the execution of 205 Chilean girls, boys, and adolescents at the hands of the civil-military dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet (1973-1990).

In the investigation, the stories and photographs of the murdered minors are revealed, as well as the accounts of their relatives who, to this day, continue to seek justice.

Yorka Salinas was 16 years old in 1986. On the night of June 30, due to family and fortuitous reasons, she was not at her home on Calle Mamiña No. 150, located in the La Cisterna commune, in the southern zone of Chile's capital.

Near midnight, Carabineros—Chile's militarized police—arrived at that property: Lieutenant Sergio Gajardo Giadach, Sergeant José Luna García, Majors Augusto Sobarzo and Julio Binimelli, and Corporal Nabih Soza.

During the night of June 30 and the early morning of July 1, 1986, sisters Margarita Eliana and María Paz Martín Martínez and the adolescent Isidro Salinas Martín—son of Margarita and older brother of Yorka, who lost three of her relatives in a matter of hours—were murdered at the property on Calle Mamiña.

Yorka, in conversation with Sputnik, recalls that Isidro "was a super intelligent boy; he had the best grades in his school. He was a good son and brother; he was a third-year high school student."

Isidro Salinas had just turned 18 when he was executed by Carabineros. He is one of the 205 children and adolescents who were murdered by the civil-military dictatorship. His story is found in the investigation carried out by the AFEP titled Breaking the Silence.

The pending debt to children and adolescents who were victims of state terrorism

The Association of Relatives of Politically Executed (AFEP) is a collective that was born in 1976, in the midst of the military dictatorship, and which seeks truth, justice, and reparation for the grave and indescribable crimes carried out by the Augusto Pinochet regime, most of which remain unpunished.

Alicia Lira, president of the AFEP, comments in conversation with Sputnik that "as an association, we have always tried to recover memory and history, not only of the politically executed, but also of the struggles that the relatives have waged through long decades for truth and justice."

"The first act we did was a book in homage to the Association, the relatives, those who formed the association in 1976; many of them have passed away, are ill. Later we realized that in the case of girls, boys, and adolescents, the topic was never touched upon," she adds.

The historic human rights leader explains to Sputnik that during the dictatorship, the association spoke of the defense of life, of the freedom of political prisoners, and mobilized for that. However, Lira comments, there was a large segment of children of whom no one spoke and who suffered the terror of the state apparatus.

In the democratic transition, the AFEP continued with the banners of freedom and justice for the crimes of the dictatorship, freedom for the remaining political prisoners, and the search for the forcibly disappeared, but there was no mention of the children either.

Lira comments that "we realized that this society and these relatives had a pending debt to them; we needed to make them visible, to show them; if there are photographs, if there are writings, we needed to make them known.

Because of the above, we presented a project more than two years ago to what was previously the Human Rights Unit, which later passed to the Ministry of Justice, where it was rejected."

The Ministry of Justice and Human Rights is headed by Hernán Larraín, and has been questioned on countless occasions for his unrestricted defense of Colonia Dignidad when he was a senator of the Republic.

Colonia Dignidad was a German sect located in Villa Baviera, 382 kilometers from Santiago, and its facilities were used to detain, torture, execute, and disappear opponents of the dictatorial regime. Its leader, Paul Schäfer, was accused of the rape of more than 20 children who were inside the compound.

The murder of Isidro Salinas along with his mother and aunt

The official version of Carabineros maintained that upon raiding the property at Calle Mamiña No. 150, they found the corpses of Margarita Eliana and María Paz Martín Martínez and the young Isidro Salinas Martín. According to the Police, they were "dead by self-elimination through shots fired from a short distance."

However, in the autopsies performed in August 1986, after an exhumation of the bodies, the version provided by Carabineros was completely discarded. Isidro Salinas's body registered two impacts to the head, one from a long distance and one from a short distance. The cause of death for Margarita Eliana Martín was craniocerebral and thoracic trauma from bullets with exit wounds.

In the case of María Paz Martín, the cause of death is a "craniocerebral gunshot wound; the intracranial trajectory followed by the projectile is from right to left, bottom to top, and slightly backward. It is a shot with the barrel pressed against the skin."

Judge Ariaselva Ruz, who was in charge of the investigation, indicted Carabineros officials Sergio Gajardo Giadach, Julio Eladio Benimello Ruz, and José Luna García in 1988 as authors of homicide, and Colonel Augusto Sobarzo Legido as an accessory. But when the case passed to the military justice system, they were dismissed in 1993.

Yorka comments that "since that time, we were a part of the family that has followed the case, and 35 years have already passed and we still do not have justice. What we have is part of the truth of what happened. The montage they made—that they had taken their own lives—fell apart, but it was not like that."

"We will continue to demand justice because that is what we want. We already know the truth and we have always said it, and now there are papers that support it: that Isidro did not commit suicide, that he did not kill my mom or vice versa, but that they murdered them in a brutal way," she adds.

Breaking the Silence

Despite the refusal of the Ministry of Justice and Human Rights, the AFEP continued its journey to be able to raise the funds to launch the book that compiles the stories of 205 minors executed by the dictatorship. They finally managed to qualify for a monetary fund from the Ministry of Cultures, Arts, and Heritage.

Alicia Lira explains that the investigation was based mainly on the Truth and Reconciliation Report. However, the association did not want to show statistics; they wanted to show the stories, and that is why they got in touch with the victims' relatives.

Of the 205 stories told in the book, 160 correspond to boys executed, 41 to girls, and four to unborn children who have a separate space due to the sensitivity of the topic, since there were four women detained who gave birth to their children during the endless torture sessions.

Alicia Lira comments that "although the project had funding, it was poorly supported by the government of Sebastián Piñera and only 500 copies of the book were printed, but as a result of the attitude of the concern, of the dissemination, of what people are asking for, they will be forced to seek to reprint the book, and we hope to count on the future government of Gabriel Boric to do so."

The book was going to be launched on January 27 in the Valparaíso Region. However, given the large number of COVID-19 infections shaking Chile, it was postponed until further notice.

Finally, Yorka Salinas comments that "a book like this is totally necessary, and may there be many, since we have to continue working on the memory of our fallen; that is part of our work, that memory continues to be made, that new generations know what was lived, what was lived until recently with the uprising, and what is lived to this day."

Source: larazon.cl, January 26, 2022

Santiago, July 1—With a pilgrimage to the General Cemetery of Santiago, relatives, friends, and political leaders commemorated the slaughter of three opponents of the Pinochet regime at the hands of Carabineros officials on July 1, 1986.

The facts During the final hours of June 30 and the first hours of July 1, 1986, repressive forces and personnel from the GOPE (Special Police Operations Group of Carabineros) violated the home of the popular artist and folklorist, Benedicto "Piojo" Salinas, located at Calle Mamiña No. 150, on the periphery of Santiago.

During that action, according to investigations, the uniformed officers murdered Margarita Martín Martínez, María Paz Martín Martínez, and Isidoro Salinas Martín; wife, sister-in-law, and son of the folklorist.

According to the version provided by Carabineros to the press of the time, at midnight on Monday, July 1, 1986, members of the Carabineros Vehicle Search and Assignment Section (SEBV), supported by other police units, carried out a raid on the property at Calle Mamiña No. 150, in the La Cisterna commune, finding the lifeless bodies of the Martín Martínez sisters and the young Isidro Salinas.

It was also reported that the three deceased were members of the FPMR, dead by self-elimination through shots fired from a short distance.

This version contrasts diametrically with subsequent inquiries. Carabineros tried to cover up the crime by saying that one of the women shot the other and the boy, and then eliminated herself, which was completely discarded, since the victims had no traces of gunpowder on their hands.

The autopsy reports state

-"The corpse of Isidro Salinas presented two impacts to the head, one from a long distance and one from a short distance." -In the case of María Paz Martín, the cause of death is a craniocerebral gunshot wound.

The trajectory followed by the projectile is from right to left, bottom to top, and slightly backward. It is a shot with the barrel pressed against the skin. -In the case of Margarita Eliana Martín, the cause of death was craniocerebral and thoracic trauma from bullets with exit wounds.

The examinations of the weapons found next to the corpses showed a Colt .38 caliber revolver in poor working condition and an unmarked 9mm D 64 model pistol, with one unfired cartridge in its chamber.

The haste with which the police announced the militancy of the victims makes evident a political persecution a priori, sharpened by the background of the death of Pedro Martín Martínez, a Rodriguista who died in a confusing accident after a railway line was blown up a year earlier.

The visiting judge of the San Miguel Court of Appeals, Ariaselva Ruz, identified and indicted the Carabineros officials who participated in the operation, but declared herself incompetent, allowing the military prosecutor's office to act, which dismissed the case without assigning responsibilities.

Among those indicated as guilty of these crimes and dismissed by the Military Prosecutor's Office are: Sergio Gajardo Giadach, current Director of the GOPE. An expert marksman who, in 1978, while a sub-lieutenant, was crowned Shooting Champion in an Inter-Institutional Tournament of the Armed Forces and Carabineros.

Subsequently, in 1985, at the International Shooting Championship held in Bophuthatswana, South Africa, with the rank of Lieutenant, he obtained first place individually with 584 points. This uniformed officer also appears on the list of those accused of the torture and subsequent death of the top leaders of the Manuel Rodríguez Patriotic Front (FPMR) (Cecilia Magni and Raúl Pellegrin), as stated in the judicial process, file 5004.

Julio Eladio Benimelli Ruz, Major. Died on January 26, 1988, as a consequence of the detonation of an explosive device. The Major, along with other police officials, went to a house located in the La Cisterna commune to investigate a report from the property owners regarding the existence of weapons.

At that time, he was Chief of the Special Police Operations Group of Carabineros (GOPE). José Luna García, Sergeant. Augusto Sobarzo Legido, Commander. As an accessory.

The prelude to the crime

The first months of 1986 were passing, and social movements made protest a permanent path of mobilization, seeking to deepen the political and social conflict with the use of all forms of struggle that would allow for the fall of the Pinochet Dictatorship, which had been perpetuating itself in power through bullets and blood since September 11, 1973, with the complicity of the Chilean right and the North American government.

The Military Dictatorship and its civilian collaborators on the right were preparing the institutional transition, ensuring it through two paths: Selective repression (kidnappings, floggings, and destruction of the "enemy") and mass terror (occupation of streets and neighborhoods, raids, censorship, and the use of the Fundamental Antiterrorist Unit (UFA)—operational units adapted to urban warfare, to confrontation with urban guerrillas).

The political center, strengthened by the alliance achieved with the signing of the "Great National Agreement" for the "transition to full democracy," would persist in a "negotiated exit." From the global demands ("No to Pinochet," "No to the Constitution," "Constituent Assembly," "Plebiscite and Resignation"), expectations had retreated to a meeting between civilian and military personalities to direct the transition.

Finally, in the spirit of negotiation, the idea of recognizing the 1980 Constitution would gradually spread, to attempt its transformation from within, which would turn the Protest Movement into an electoral base for an institutional transition.

For its part, the left, not without internal divisions, was at a moment of strategic decisions, accumulating forces "on the fly," bringing in human resources and means. They were preparing for confrontation, considering the Protest as a learning school.

To the occupation of streets and neighborhoods by repressive forces, they responded with barricades. To the raid, with booby-trap bombs. To conventional weaponry, with homemade weaponry. To the displacement of motorized units, with "Vietnamese" mines. To the closing of media outlets, with clandestine radios. And to the UFA (antiterrorist units), with small operational groups or urban militias.

The balance was becoming catastrophic. Thus, they arrived at an extraordinarily violent May 1st (1986). Moments of social explosion, of permanent confrontations, both peaceful and violent, were the response to the military strategy with which the regime acted, with the objective of Instilling Fear.

The protest called for July 2 and 3, 1986, was expected to be violent. But the dissent in the opposition continued to prevent the constitution of a strategic force that would put the regime in danger. The regime played on the attrition of the opposition and subjected the population to psychological warfare to break their state of mind.

Selective repression expanded; to the dead and wounded caused by shots from tinted-window cars, the appearance of bodies of opponents destroyed by dynamite explosions was added; simultaneously, dozens of young people, leaders in their communities, were beaten or intimidated.

Mass repression was suffered by the residents and the citizenry in general with prolonged raids. The cities had been militarized. The wait for the day of protest was tense. It was in that context that, in the early hours of July 1, repressive Carabineros forces murdered three alleged members of the FPMR after a raid on a property at Calle Mamiña No. 150, in the La Cisterna commune, in the southern sector of the capital.

This would mark the beginning of a terrifying escalation of murders, the maximum aberration of which was reached when two young people (Carmen Gloria Quintana and Rodrigo Rojas Denegri) were burned alive by a military patrol.

If Terror produces paralysis, the task was accomplished, so that confidently, the Minister of Defense of the time could declare 24 hours before the National Day of Protest... "we do not believe it is going to be a general strike."

However, the paralysis was total. But with a sad toll of human lives.

Source: Prensa OPAL (Chile), July 2, 2006