Fabián Ibarra Córdova, single, auditor, a member of the MIR, and Sonia Ríos Pacheco, single, a Chemistry student at the Universidad de Concepción, who were living together, were detained on January 17, 1975, around 9:00 PM, at the home of Rina Mónica Medina Bravo, Jackson 870, Chorrillos, Viña del Mar, by agents of the National Intelligence Directorate (DINA), who had traveled specifically from Santiago to suppress the activities of the regional MIR.

Hours earlier—at noon—Rina Mónica Medina had also been detained, but in Santiago, by DINA agents who had set up a "trap" in an apartment in the Torres de San Borja. She had been taken to Villa Grimaldi, from where she was removed around 6:00 PM to be transferred to Valparaíso and admitted to the N°2 "Maipo" Regiment in Playa Ancha.

About half an hour later, the agents put her in a camouflaged vehicle and took her to her home on Calle Jackson, where Fabián Ibarra and Sonia Ríos were located. Both were detained. Everyone was taken to the "Maipo" Regiment.

The following day—as testified by Reinaldo Antonio Erick Zott—Sonia Ríos was taken out of the Regiment and brought to her home. Zott saw her there when, on January 18, he was taken to that address along with Alfredo García (forcibly disappeared), who had just been detained by Army Lieutenant and Head of the DINA operational group Fernando Adrián Laureani Maturana, alias "Lieutenant Pablo." Sonia Ríos showed visible signs of having been tortured.

Army Major Marcelo Moren Brito forced her to answer the phone and summon the callers. In that house, Alfredo García and Zott were confronted, interrogated, and tortured by DINA agents in the presence of Laureani and Moren.

The next day, January 19, the MIR militant Alejandro Villalobos Díaz, "el Mickey," arrived at the home of Sonia and Fabián Ibarra and was immediately executed by the agents who were there. For his part, Fabián Ibarra was taken out of the Regiment on January 21 to witness the detention of Horacio Carabantes.

At the Regiment, both Fabián and Sonia were seen by witnesses. Rina Mónica Medina declared that, on January 21 of that year, she was transferred to Santiago along with Sonia Ríos, and both were admitted to Villa Grimaldi.

This fact was corroborated by the testimonies of 12 other people who remained detained in that military facility, all of whom declared in the proceedings that they had seen Fabián. Liliana Castillo—detained on January 21 and wife of Horacio Carabantes, also forcibly disappeared—said that upon arriving at the "Maipo," Ibarra was already there.

Sergio Alejandro Vesely and Hernán Brain Pizarro, among others, stated the same. On January 28, 1975, the detainees who remained in the Regiment were loaded into a refrigerated truck and taken to Villa Grimaldi in Santiago, a secret DINA detention center located in Peñalolén.

Fabián Ibarra Córdova was among them. Upon arriving at this detention center, the victims were locked four at a time in small wooden cells called "casas-corvi." Reinaldo Antonio Erick Zott was placed with Fabián Ibarra, Alfredo García (forcibly disappeared), and Horacio Carabantes (also forcibly disappeared).

For her part, Sonia Ríos shared a room where there were 20 detained women—who slept three to a bunk—with Alicia Hinojosa, María Teresa Villalobos, Marta Adriana Muñoz, Nubia Becker, and others. María Teresa Villalobos declared that Sonia Ríos told her she had been detained in Valparaíso along with Fabián Ibarra.

She appeared—according to the witness—psychologically unwell and nervous because a person had been killed in her house (referring to the execution of Alejandro Villalobos). Fabián Ibarra and Sonia Ríos used to see each other at Villa Grimaldi.

According to the 21 witnesses of their detention, he was in charge of distributing food, an occasion they both used to look at each other. At the same time, when they took roll call and called Fabián's name, she would lift her blindfold slightly, managing to see him.

Ariel Sanzana Reyes, who was also in a room with Fabián Ibarra and Carlos Rioseco (forcibly disappeared), said that they used to see Sonia every time they went to the bathroom. Subsequently, around February 12, Fabián Ibarra, Sonia Ríos, and other detainees were taken to the sector of Villa Grimaldi called "La Torre," where they were also seen by witnesses until February 20, 1975, the date on which both, along with other detainees, were taken out of the DINA facility to an unknown destination.

In that same month of February 1975, four MIR leaders who remained detained in the power of the DINA were forced to give a press conference at the Diego Portales Building ("Balance of the MIR," acknowledging their defeat), and among the information provided, Fabián Ibarra appeared as one of the detained militants.

This conference was broadcast on a national radio and television network. In January 1975, a group of DINA agents traveled to the Valparaíso and Viña del Mar area to suppress MIR activities. The result of this action was the detention of about twenty people—among them Fabián Ibarra and Sonia Ríos—linked to the MIR, of whom 8 remain forcibly disappeared and one was killed, Alejandro Villalobos Díaz. (Further background in the case of Horacio Neftalí Carabantes Olivares).

JUDICIAL AND/OR ADMINISTRATIVE ACTIONS

Amparo petitions were filed for both Fabián Ibarra and Sonia Ríos. In February 1975, the amparo petition roll 62-75 was filed in the Valparaíso Court of Appeals, in which Enrique Ibarra (Fabián's father) stated that he had learned of his son's detention through the national television broadcast given by the 4 detained MIR militants.

From that moment on, the father—he adds in the petition—carried out a series of actions that led him to interview Reinaldo Antonio Erick Zott and Rina Mónica Medina, who confirmed the detention of Fabián and Sonia.

However, in response to the Court's official inquiries, the authorities of the time reported having no information regarding both victims. This was stated on March 7, 1975, by the Intendant of Valparaíso, Vice Admiral Horacio Justiniano Aguirre.

This petition was rejected on March 12, 1975, a ruling that was confirmed by the Supreme Court on May 14 of the same year. On March 3, 1975, a new amparo petition was filed before the Santiago Court of Appeals for both victims (roll 320-75), in which the press information regarding the press conference given by the 4 MIR detainees was attached, informing that Fabián Ibarra was imprisoned.

Despite this being official information provided from the Diego Portales Building, the Minister of the Interior and Division General Raúl Benavides Escobar indicated to the Court that neither Fabián Ibarra nor Sonia Ríos were detained by order of that Ministry (March 6, 1975).

On April 17, General Benavides insisted that both victims had no records in the Secretariat he presided over. On June 16 and July 7, Benavides would report exactly the same thing. Based on this information, the Court rejected the amparo on July 11, 1975, and ordered the corresponding summary investigation to be initiated.

The aforementioned information was then sent to the Fourth Criminal Court of Valparaíso, where the case for the alleged disappearance of Fabián Ibarra and Sonia Ríos, roll N°93.299, was opened, which would be consolidated with roll N°11.226 of the same Court, covering the situation of the 8 forcibly disappeared persons from Valparaíso in January 1975.

Subsequently, different amparo petitions were filed for the 8 people detained-disappeared in January 1975 in Valparaíso. During the processing of one of them, Roll N°1-77, the DINA, through its Director Manuel Contreras, would recognize for the first time the detention of the victims.

In an official letter to the Court, Contreras acknowledged the detention of the 8 disappeared persons from Valparaíso, as a result of a "confrontation with the second-in-command of that MIR Regional, Alejandro Villalobos Díaz (a) 'Mickey,' who was killed." Carabantes and subsequently the rest of the Regional, integrated, according to Contreras, by María Isabel Gutiérrez, Elías Villar, Abel Vilches, Carlos Rioseco, Alfredo García, Fabián Ibarra, and Sonia Ríos, were released immediately in Valparaíso, while Horacio Carabantes was released in Santiago.

Despite the evident contradictions between this information and that provided by high authorities, the Supreme Court confirmed the ruling of the Valparaíso Court rejecting the petition. In August 1975, a complaint for alleged disappearance was initiated in the 4th Criminal Court of Valparaíso, covering the situation of the detention and disappearance of Fabián Ibarra, Sonia Ríos, Horacio Carabantes, Abel Vilches, Alfredo García, María Isabel Gutiérrez, Elías Villar, and Carlos Rioseco.

In September 1976, the Supreme Court, at the request of the relatives, ordered the Valparaíso Court of Appeals to appoint a Visiting Minister, René Clavería Lisboa, so that he could continue the investigation into the 8 people.

Ultimately, the Minister declared himself incompetent (January 1977), sending the information to the Military Justice system, which dismissed the case totally and definitively, due to the application of DL 2.191 of 1978 (Amnesty Law).

Six years later, on November 15, 1989, and after the corresponding appeals, the Martial Court confirmed that ruling. This resolution was appealed, and the case is currently before the Supreme Court. (Further background in the case of Horacio Neftalí Carabantes Olivares).

Source: Rettig Report / Corporation report

On Avenida Gran Bretaña in Playa Ancha, in front of the gates of the Maipo Regiment, the mural displaying the eight MIR militants who were detained at that facility at the beginning of the civil-military dictatorship led by Pinochet, only to be transferred to Santiago and forcibly disappeared by the DINA, was "re-inaugurated." A focal point of memory that has been exposed there, observed and visited by hundreds of people who circulate through the area and tourists.

An initiative that was captured by students of this establishment a couple of years ago and that today was restored and "re-inaugurated" by the high school, with the support of the "Caminos Olvidados" collective of Playa Ancha and the Parque Cultural de Valparaíso.

Synthetically, the history of the eight young people remembered in this place is as follows: On January 17, 1975, in the afternoon, the following were detained: Fabián Enrique Ibarra Córdova , 27 years old, single, auditor, MIR militant, and his girlfriend Sonia Ríos del Tránsito Pacheco , 30 years old, single, student of the Licentiate in Chemistry at the Universidad de Concepción, at their home on Calle Jackson Nº 870, Chorrillos, Viña del Mar.

On January 18, 1975, at 11:00 AM, the following was detained: Alfredo Gabriel García Vega , 30 years old, married, one child, professor at the Universidad Católica de Valparaíso, MIR militant, in the vicinity of the Quinta Vergara, in Viña del Mar, while driving his "Ford 30" vehicle, being abruptly pulled out and thrown into the interior of a pickup truck in which his captors were traveling.

On January 18, 1975, at 6:00 PM, the following was detained on Calle Montaña, in front of a school and an artisan fair: Carlos Ramón Rioseco Espinoza , 26 years old, married, one child, Dentistry student at the Universidad de Concepción, MIR militant.

On January 21, 1975

Horacio Neftalí Carabantes Olivares , 21 years old, married, four children, was detained on a public street, near the Municipal Market of Viña del Mar, while driving a vehicle. Moments later, his spouse, eight months pregnant, and a two-year-old daughter were apprehended; the mother gave birth to twins in the Maipo Regiment.

On January 24, 1975, at 6:00 PM, on Calle Covadonga in Quilpué, the following were detained: María Isabel Gutiérrez Martínez, 26 years old, graduate of the Licentiate in Geography at the Universidad Católica de Valparaíso, single, MIR militant, and her boyfriend Hernán Brain.

On January 27, 1975, at 12:00 PM, on a public street, the following was detained: Elías Ricardo Villar Quijón , 19 years old, single, student of Laboratory Technology at the Universidad de Chile, Valparaíso branch, MIR militant.

On January 27, 1975, at 6:00 PM, the following was detained: Abel Alfredo Vilches Figueroa , 27 years old, married, 5 children, laborer, MIR militant, while walking along the hills of Cerro Chorrillos in Viña del Mar.

The agents had set a "trap" at his home located in the Población Osmán Pérez Freire, block B, Lot Nº 1, Cerro Mariposa, Valparaíso, one day before his apprehension. All the detainees were transferred to the facilities provided by the N°2 Maipo Infantry Regiment and were interrogated, tortured, and locked up there.

On January 29, 1975, some detainees (survivors) were taken to the "Almirante Alberto Silva Palma" Order and Security Barracks, while the rest, about thirty people, had been taken the day before, in refrigerated trucks, to the clandestine DINA barracks known as "Villa Grimaldi," a facility where they were seen by a large number of witnesses.

The testimonies coincide that the group of "the eight from Valparaíso" was taken inside "Villa Grimaldi" to the place called "La Torre"; as well as that on February 20, all or most of them were taken out of the detention center, without any news of any of them ever being heard again.

In addition, others were kept in prison at the barracks called "Cuatro Álamos," from which they were taken back to "Villa Grimaldi" to continue their interrogations under duress, as happened with Horacio Neftalí Carabantes Olivares, María Isabel Gutiérrez Martínez, Fabián Ibarra Córdova, Sonia Ríos Pacheco, and Carlos Rioseco Espinoza.

The consequence of these apprehensions and illegitimate deprivations of liberty was that the eight people identified above are in the status of forcibly disappeared, with all traces of them lost to date, without the detainees having made contact with their relatives, carried out administrative procedures before State agencies, without registering entries or exits from the country, and without any record of their respective deaths.

On the occasion, a ceremony was held at the high school, with the presence of teachers, students, and relatives. Juan Sagredo, in charge of school coexistence, made an emotional recognition of the motivation and work of the students who built the mural with teacher Miriam Pérez initially, and also of those young people who restored it today.

The panel, refurbished once again, remained in view of the citizenry, the Regiment, and the sea.

Source: ojoconellente.cl 25/6/2022 Date: 25-06-2022

U. de Chile grants posthumous degrees to student victims of the dictatorship

This is the first stage of a process that will continue next September when a new delivery of posthumous degrees will take place. The objective is to recognize all those students who were forcibly disappeared or executed during the Military Regime.

In their hands, a red carnation; on their chest, a black and white photo with the exact date of the disappearance or homicide. This is how the relatives of the students of the "Casa de Bello" who were victims of the violence of the dictatorship arrived at the Universidad de Chile.

The reason? To celebrate one of the first deliveries of posthumous degrees by the institution. During the activity, which took place at the Central House of our University, one hundred students were recognized who, in their time, intended to graduate in careers such as Biology, Architecture, Engineering, Basic Education, English Pedagogy, History, Medicine, and Sociology, among others.

The ceremony was led by actors Alejandro Goic and Luz Croxatto. In addition, the activity was attended by Ennio Vivaldi, Rector of the Universidad de Chile; Faride Zerán, Vice-Rector of Extension and Communications of the "Casa de Bello"; Lorena Pizarro, president of the Association of Relatives of Forcibly Disappeared Detainees; and Alicia Lira, president of the Association of Relatives of Political Executed Persons.

For the rector of the "Casa de Bello," Ennio Vivaldi, the delivery of posthumous degrees is part of a commitment that the institution has with society. "This is a way for the University to say that it does not accept the fact that these young people were killed.

Furthermore, we had the responsibility to accompany the young people until they graduated," he said. For her part, academic Faride Zerán, 2007 National Journalism Award winner, stated that this milestone allows for the generation of memory. "In that sense, we are telling the new generations that memory is also the present, because those students who are not here, who were forcibly disappeared or executed, are indeed part of this community, and I would say they represent the best of our community," she pointed out.

A committee for memory This delivery of posthumous degrees was the result of an investigation carried out by the Vice-Rector of Academic Affairs, the Andrés Bello Central Archive, the institution's Legal Unit, the Human Rights Chair, the Association of Relatives of Forcibly Disappeared Detainees, and the Association of Relatives of Political Executed Persons.

Regarding this work, Alejandra Araya, director of the Andrés Bello Central Archive, pointed out that this is the first stage of a process that is still in development. "We have the entire process after the year '81, when the Universidad de Chile ceased to be a national institution and was dismembered into regional branches.

So, we have to be very emphatic: the cases we recognize today are not all of them, because the process is not closed," she said. "We hope that the University will institutionalize the delivery of posthumous degrees until we are sure that we have managed to deliver them to everyone who was part of our community," added the researcher.

In turn, Lorena Fríes, former director of the National Institute of Human Rights, maintained that this milestone "contributes to a 'never again'": "The fact that the university community becomes aware of what happened, of the practically complete liquidation of an entire generation, is moving and painful.

But it is gratifying that these types of acts are carried out, and hopefully, it will have repercussions at all levels, because what we cannot accept is that, seeing this, being here, there are attempts at impunity regarding those who were behind all these acts," commented the lawyer.

Next September, a new delivery of posthumous degrees will take place. The objective is to recognize all students who were victims of the dictatorship in Chile.

Source: radio.uchile.cl 11/4/2018 Date: 11-04-2018

Protest at the Maipo Regiment in Valparaíso

43 years have passed since that summer of 1975 when a DINA (National Intelligence Directorate) brigade installed itself inside the Maipo Regiment of Valparaíso to carry out a relentless hunt for MIR militants in the region.

The Non-Commissioned Officers' Casino was transformed into a detention and torture center where around 30 comrades ended up, 20 of whom were subsequently transferred to Villa Grimaldi in Santiago, from where 8 of these MIR militants, six men and two women, were taken to unknown locations, murdering them and making their bodies disappear, becoming Forcibly Disappeared Detainees whose fate remains unknown to this day.

For this reason, a group of Human Rights organizations from Valparaíso, based on a proposal made by the "Bordadoras de la Memoria" Collective, to which the Gilberto Victoriano cell of the PC, the Association of Political Executed Persons, and the Human Rights Coordinator of the V Region adhered, called for a protest at the entrance of the Maipo Regiment for Wednesday, January 24.

Different Human Rights organizations and collectives of the region adhered to this call, as well as former comrades of the disappeared militants. Around thirty protesters gathered outside the Maipo Regiment, along with a series of banners and placards placed at the site, before the astonished gaze of soldiers and guards of the regiment and the curious observation of passersby and vehicles passing through the place, who even stopped in front of the banners and placards to find out what the mobilization was about.

With shouts and slogans such as

"No justice, no truth, only impunity"; "The sea and the land scream the truth, the pacts of silence will end"; "Brave soldiers, only in the song, you are cowardly accomplices of the dictator"; "Conscript of the Maipo, now please, free your conscience and provide information," which, amplified through a megaphone, reverberated in the facilities of the regiment.

The situation was manifestly uncomfortable for an officer in a beret, who, with a cell phone permanently to his ear, paced nervously from one side to the other, surely reporting "live" what was happening to his superiors.

The names of the 8 comrades of the MIR were voiced energetically, each followed by a powerful "Present!" shouted in chorus by the protesters. Subsequently, the call for this demonstration of denunciation and protest was read, which textually states: "Between January 17 and 28, 1975, the following were detained, kidnapped, and tortured in the facilities of the N°2 Maipo Regiment of Valparaíso: Sonia Ríos Pacheco, Fabián Ibarra Córdova, Carlos Ríosecos Espinoza, Alfredo García Vega, Horacio Carabantes Olivares, María Isabel Gutiérrez, Abel Vilches Figueroa, Elías Villar Quijón.

In those days of January 1975, soldiers of the regiment in conjunction with the DINA detained nearly thirty people in the city of Viña del Mar and Quilpué, all resistors to the civil-military dictatorship; they were transferred to the Maipo Regiment where tortures were practiced according to the usual methods of the DINA.

On January 28, 1975, a group of about 20 people who remained in the Maipo Regiment, among whom are the eight comrades mentioned, were transferred to 'Villa Grimaldi,' where they were seen by numerous witnesses.

On February 20, they were taken out of Villa Grimaldi to an unknown destination and since that day they are Forcibly Disappeared Detainees." After about an hour in which the protesters denounced the atrocities committed in this detention and torture center, expressing that Memory is a powerful weapon, because "nothing is forgotten, no one is forgotten," the mobilization was concluded, constituting the first protest held at the gates of this well-known regiment in Playa Ancha, making another of the slogans voiced by the protesters a reality: "Ole ole, ole ola, just like the Nazis, it will happen to you, wherever you go we will protest against you!"

Source: resumen.cl 30/1/2018 Date: 30-01-2018

Another former DINA agent who was a fugitive is captured

The former soldier was convicted for the homicide of eight people in January 1975 and had been a fugitive since April of this year. On Avenida San Martín in Viña del Mar, the former DINA agent Rubén Fiedler Alvarado was captured this afternoon, who had been a fugitive since April 14 of this year , the date on which the Supreme Court sentenced him to five years and one day in prison as an accomplice to the homicide of eight people during the military dictatorship.

For approximately two months, a special team of the Investigative Police had been tracking this former agent, who fled from justice after the highest court confirmed the sentence imposed on him by Judge Alejandro Solís.

This is the same police group that arrested former prefect Daniel Cancino Varas two weeks ago. The detention took place around 6:00 PM this Thursday, without Fiedler Alvarado offering resistance at the moment the police group intercepted him on the well-known coastal artery.

During all this time, he hid thanks to the support of a brother, a former Army officer, of the subject who lives in the area. The former agent was part of a DINA group also composed of Rolf Wenderoth Pozo and Daniel Cancino Varas (captured two weeks ago).

The latter were sentenced as authors of the kidnapping and homicide to 10 years in prison. In addition, Fernando Lauriani Maturana, as an author, to three years (he obtained benefits). The victims of this group of criminals were Horacio Neftalí Carabantes Olivares, Alfredo Gabriel García Vega, María Isabel Gutiérrez Martínez, Fabián Ibarra Córdova, Sonia del Tránsito Ríos Pacheco, Carlos Ramón Rioseco Espinoza, Abel Alfredo Vilches Figueroa, and Elías Ricardo Villar Guijón.

Their case was known as that of "the eight from Valparaíso." All of them were savagely murdered during January 1975, in various parts of the country's main port. Thus, Fiedler becomes the third agent captured in recent months.

Previously, Alejandro Adonis Sepúlveda (April), Patricio Kellet (June), and Daniel Cancino Varas were arrested. Still remaining a fugitive is the retired Carabineros colonel, Ricardo Lawrence Mires, a former member of the DINA's Purén Brigade, and those recently convicted for the crime of the DINA chemist, Eugenio Berríos.

They are Arturo Silva Valdes and Manuel Provis, both retired officers, members of the Army Intelligence Directorate (DINE).

Source: 24horas.cl 20/8/2015 Date: 20-08-2015