-No, this is a commercial office. Excuse me. Goodbye. The life of María Alicia Uribe Gómez remains a mystery to this day. In her statements before the courts, she has reiterated that her residence is an apartment located on Calle Santa Rosa, and it is there that the Investigations Police (PDI) contact her whenever they require her testimony for human rights violation cases.

However, in this telephone conversation, which took place on Tuesday, August 24, those who inhabit the old building where she claims to live deny knowing her. Furthermore, in this downtown neighborhood of Santiago, no neighbor knows who she is.

Perhaps this is because she has not appeared in that place for a long time, or, as she often does when walking down the street, she arrives there hiding her face with dark glasses and a scarf. In this way, she seeks to ensure that no one identifies her during her rare outings in the city.

The fear of being attacked for her past transformed her into a solitary figure, almost a hermit, who spends most of her time secluded in her home. Her fear stems from the fact that, from being a determined militant with military training in Cuba, she became, with the same vehemence, a fundamental collaborator for the military regime's security agencies.

There, the woman who was known as "Carola" by her former comrades in the MIR, began to call herself "Gloria Vilches." Like many other detainees, she did not withstand the torture sessions she suffered for a month at the Villa Grimaldi detention center.

But unlike most of them, this 62-year-old woman broke every emotional and ideological tie with her revolutionary past and integrated herself forever into the military world. First, she denounced those who had worked with her for years in the MIR, several of whom are now among the forcibly disappeared.

Later, for 25 years, María Alicia Uribe worked as just another official in the Army's intelligence services, until she retired from the institution as a civilian employee in the year 2000. María Alicia Uribe was an atypical political cadre within the MIR.

She did not wear the artisanal attire characteristic of young female MIR members and stood out for her concerned look. Ángeles Álvarez, who shared militancy with her, remembers that she was "a bit frivolous." This is the most extreme case among those considered a symbol of disloyalty within the ranks of the left.

Unlike former PS militant Luz Arce, and, to a lesser extent, former MIR member Marcia Merino, "Carola" never showed the slightest hint of remorse. Nor did she want to collaborate with the justice system each time she was summoned to testify.

In 2001, when questioned by the Investigations Police, she said: "I already betrayed once in my life. I will not do it again." Her story is the most unknown and disconcerting regarding the subject of denunciation during the military government, and for that reason, it was among the sources of inspiration for creating Irene, the main character in the novel La Vida Doble by Arturo Fontaine.

There are many coincidences between Carola and Irene. Both went through torture and turned in many people. But, furthermore, they justify their betrayal to a greater or lesser extent. In one of the paragraphs, the book's protagonist says: "There is something undignified in repentance and the desire for forgiveness, something Christian-like that bothers me.

The devil, even in defeat, remains faithful to himself and to his own contradiction." Between makeup and weapons María Alicia Uribe Gómez always led a solitary life. From her time as a student at the Liceo Darío Salas until she entered the Social Work program at the Universidad de Chile, she had to get used to spending her nights in different boarding houses in Santiago.

Her father did not recognize her for many years, and her mother, who worked as a live-in domestic worker, could not live with her. Her former schoolmates do not remember having met her maternal family, as they say that "Carola" avoided talking about her personal history. "She was ashamed of her social origin and the fact of being the daughter of a single mother," one of them specifies.

In 1969, while in her first year of university, she joined a student brigade of the MIR, where there was much reflection on class differences and the paths that existed to overcome inequality and capitalism.

This made her feel welcomed, and "her social reality ceased to be a source of complex for her for a time," according to her university peers. Despite the harmony she achieved with revolutionary ideas, María Alicia Uribe was an atypical political cadre in this movement.

She did not wear the artisanal attire characteristic of young female MIR members and stood out for her concerned look. Ángeles Álvarez, who shared militancy with her, remembers that she was "a bit frivolous.

She liked to wear a lot of makeup and be the center of attention." From her perspective, Uribe joined the MIR more attracted by the adventure than by deep ideological conviction. Nevertheless, Álvarez admits that she had "a high level of dedication to the revolution." The latter, however, is interpreted by those who investigated her history as the result of "an excessive aspiration for power," which would have determined her conduct throughout her political life.

In any case, "Carola" stood out for her skills as part of the information team of the movement founded by Miguel Enríquez. There, she had an important role in the "Tarea en F" unit, the entity that sought, among other things, to infiltrate the Armed Forces.

Furthermore, during her military and intelligence training in Havana, she demonstrated great skill with weapons. After six months of training, she returned to Chile having become a trusted woman for the MIR leadership.

Subsequent to the military coup, this status led her to assume a leadership position in the unit where the most confidential records of the insurgent organization were classified. And although paradoxical, this led her to prison and saved her from death.

From fear to denunciation Around 11:00 a.m. on November 12, 1974, "Carola" was walking along Irarrázaval when, suddenly, panic took hold of her. In front of her was her friend Marcia Merino, who was already collaborating with the security services.

Her first impression was not wrong. Almost immediately, the feared "Flaca Alejandra" pointed at her with her hand, and a group of DINA agents pounced on her to capture her. Her last vision in freedom was a red Renault 4, into which they loaded her after covering her eyes with tape. "There is a period when one is detained in which one says nothing.

Then, due to pressure and torture, one begins to speak, and subsequently, an absolute breakdown occurs. That is what happened to me at the end of December 1974," recounted María Alicia Uribe. The first image she would see again was the face of a soldier who interrogated her while she suffered electric shocks.

She spent about a month like that in Villa Grimaldi, until the fear of physical pain ended up destroying her loyalty to the MIR. María Alicia described the horror experienced during those weeks in a statement she gave to the courts six years ago: "There is a period when one is detained in which one says nothing.

Then, due to pressure and torture, one begins to speak, and subsequently, an absolute breakdown occurs. That is what happened to me at the end of December 1974." "Carola," however, omits in this testimony a fact that her former political comrades consider key to her determination to work for the agency directed by General Manuel Contreras.

In those days, Brigadier Pedro Espinoza brought Uribe's mother to the detention center located in Peñalolén. It was never known what happened in that meeting, but after that, "Carola" decided to join the security agency.

As the weeks passed, Espinoza established a very close bond with "Carola." At first, the military officer realized the privileged information she held, not only about the MIR but also about the Communist Party.

And that was the main reason why he decided not to make her disappear. Later, that bond between the two turned into a romantic relationship, according to various sources who knew this situation closely.

The other detainees in Villa Grimaldi noticed the turnaround she experienced at the beginning of 1975, when she moved from the dark dungeons to a small cabin located in the courtyard of that facility, where Luz Arce and Marcia Merino also lived.

From that place, María Alicia Uribe would return to the cells occasionally, dressed in prisoners' clothing. "She would walk around wearing a sweater of mine and seemed not to care," recalls Ángeles Álvarez.

Her former comrade-in-arms was not too surprised by the complete turnaround of her former comrade. But many were shocked by the cruelty of her actions during the interrogations of the detainees. They remember, for example, a recurring phrase.

When someone did not collaborate, she would say: "This one needs to be gone over." Carola's new life "Carola's" laughter inside Villa Grimaldi was unmistakable to several of the detainees. It was a "shameless" laugh, they say, amidst the foul language she used with Pedro Espinoza and with officer Ricardo Lawrence, who weeks earlier had been in charge of her torture.

By the beginning of 1975, she was fully integrated into that new life and avoided coming face-to-face with those who had been her friends and were then prisoners. Due to her capacity as an analyst, her first job in the DINA was to decipher negative microfilms containing strategic information about the MIR.

Later, she assumed duties in the Operations Directorate, the entity where it was decided who to detain. It was 1976, and María Alicia Uribe already enjoyed a certain influence over the intelligence agents.

Two years later, her loyalty was rewarded: they allowed her entry into the CNI as an analyst of subversive information and as a direct assistant to Navy officer Alejandro Campos Rehbein, at the security agency's central headquarters.

By then, "Carola" was a solitary woman. In her new duties, she spoke little with her coworkers, with whom she did not have a fluid personal relationship. Furthermore, she had lost all her old friendships formed in university political life.

Her closest bond was the one she had with Brigadier Pedro Espinoza, who was her main protector in the military world and, at times, also in the personal sphere. Socialist lawyer Pedro Matta, who has investigated security activities, relates that in 1975 the former MIR member was legally recognized by her father and stopped calling herself María Alicia Gómez Gómez to take the surname Uribe.

In this change, so important to her, according to the professional, the management of Pedro Espinoza was decisive. According to those who have investigated this story, the officer's intermediation consisted of pointing a weapon at "Carola's" father to force him to assume his responsibility.

In 1994, this woman, of medium height and brown hair, was recognized by a former MIR member on the street. Fortunately, he was one of the few militants who saw her as a victim of repression. In that encounter, Uribe told him that she had fully assumed her new life in the military world.

After the return to democracy, she remained linked to the Army Intelligence Directorate (DINE), first as an analyst and later in more administrative tasks. In the early 90s, it was common to see her walking along Calle República, the neighborhood where several offices of the intelligence agencies operated.

In 1994, this woman, of medium height and brown hair, was recognized by a former MIR member on the street. Fortunately, he was one of the few militants who saw her as a victim of repression. In that encounter, the former Universidad de Chile student told him that she had fully assumed her new life in the military world.

At that time, as Marcia Merino has commented on more than one occasion, María Alicia referred to the members of the MIR as terrorists. Today, "Carola" claims to live disconnected from the Army, although the Investigations Police state that she receives a monthly pension from the National Defense Pension Fund (Capredena).

This allowed her to care for her sick mother, to whom she dedicated most of her time in recent years. Unlike Luz Arce and "Flaca Alejandra," María Alicia Uribe did not start a family. According to a friend, she lives alone in an apartment near La Moneda.

Source: Que Pasa, September 3, 2010

"If there is no justice, there is Funa!" was the war cry or choral chant used since 1999 to carry out a series of public accusatory interventions by the masses, weary of this "justice to the extent possible" imposed by the Concertación.

The funas were an act of revelation and repudiation at the workplaces or homes of those who participated as agents, former uniformed personnel, torturers, and accomplices in the crimes, torture, and disappearances during the Dictatorship.

Human rights violators who still were (and are) holding public office, unpunished civilians who walk calmly under the sun of a Truth covered by the thick shadow of Impunity. For them, there is no forgetting and no forgiveness, we, the children of the political executions of the Pinochet regime, tell them.

This book, Las letras del horror: DINA, by Manuel Salazar, is a meticulous investigation into the names of your-cowardly-soldiers who enjoy a freedom that does not belong to them. I speak from rage and powerlessness, of course.

I was alarmed to hear the Minister of Defense say just a few months ago, in the face of the Juan Fernández tragedy, that he felt in his own flesh what these families were suffering, unable to find the bodies of their loved ones to bury them.

Once again, the dead and this sea that calmly bathes us. Such empathy, solidarity, and legitimate right to shock in the face of such a media-covered accident! And do different types of disappeared persons exist in Chile?

What is the scope of reparation for all citizens? Why are those same submarine robots not submerged off the coasts of Quintero, in the Quiriquinas, in Magallanes? What would they find? Will anything remain under those waves of oblivion?

We would have liked at least five sensitive minutes of catharsis on television or radio back then. Nothing. Only the sum of the victims, state economy in the face of mass graves. Human sacrifices in a country crossed from North to South by a scar that continues to fester. Crime does not pay.

The Concertación took it upon itself, more out of guilt than a desire for justice, to recover torture centers and houses, rebuilt dungeons, washed clean extermination camps, built gardens and plazas, erected monuments, placed memorial plaques, founded museums of commiseration, and even the TVN drama department enlisted to dress in the garments of those heroic compatriots who resisted military repression behind the altars of the Vicaría.

We appreciate the gesture, we say, but we question the syrupy paraphrase of those who took up arms, reduced to "pistol-toting Romeos" in late-night episodes. Playing at war, spitting in the hand that feeds them.

It is hard to look each other in the eye; the view blurs and ends up pooled with more lies and double meanings. History, mediated by the years, seeks to impose its Truth, believing it can remedy pain merely by verbalizing it.

There are no acts of contrition, much less reparation, when they are imposed by the powerful. The truth of the dispossessed remains the same; it has remained immutable because it does not obey deals, substitutions, or interpretations.

The history of the people becomes a nightmare for power when it cannot situate it, make it fit into its justifications, evasions, and urgent recriminations. Because for us, it is the reason of the facts that prevails.

Pain has nothing to do with pain. And that is what these pages published by LOM speak of, which, as anticipated, will be a first volume, followed by one dedicated to the no less brutal history of the CNI.

"I am the DINA"

Pinochet's harsh speech barely a month after the Coup d'État put the generals on alert, who saw, more than the intention of their comrade-in-arms, the secret hand of Jaime Guzmán behind statements such as "rebuilding is always more arduous than destroying.

Therefore, we know that our mission will not have the transience we might wish, and thus we set no deadlines nor fix any dates." The history from there is known, and it serves to gauge how the right-wing-military collusion was biased by ambitions greater than imposing arms.

One of the opponents was General Lutz, who died under strange circumstances after a routine intervention led to his death, with an investigation that was never clarified. Before that, he had confronted the then-Colonel Manuel Contreras over his conduct in the DINA.

So much so that he went to a council of generals prepared to record what was discussed there. Salazar's book, read like a novel of betrayals or a manual of conspiracies, can be revealing, though no less powerless or detached from this background: "The military officer (Lutz) entered the room with a tape recorder hidden in his tunic.

Together with General Bonilla, they confronted Pinochet with the crimes of the DINA. The shouting was recorded on the tape that Lutz later listened to alone, locked in his house, spied on through the living room door by his daughter Patricia.

-Gentlemen, I am the DINA –Pinochet shouted, hitting the table–. Does anyone else want to ask for the floor?"

In the absence of background information, the statement that appears as an appendix by Mr. Juan Manuel Guillermo Contreras Sepúlveda, aka Mamo Contreras, adds: "My relationship with General Augusto Pinochet as head of the National Intelligence Directorate, and his, first in his capacity as president of the Government Junta and later as president of the Republic, developed under the guidelines he indicated for the search for information, and as a counterpart to this, he was informed of the results of the work carried out by DINA personnel, which was done daily, for which I would go personally to pick him up at his residence and take him to the Diego Portales building; we would have breakfast and hold a conversation that lasted on average from half an hour to an hour, and sometimes it extended much longer." What was going through the minds—I don't know if the hearts—of these morning butchers? They knew or could have come to assume that Guzmán would be killed, that he would die of old age after being saved by the government coalition that should have put him on trial, and that Contreras would remain confined in an elite prison, more attentive to cable TV movies than to his own situation, which, like a nightmare, should not let him sleep peacefully.

Pinochet always knew everything, but when faced with Contreras's accusation, in one of his last pathetic statements, he allegedly said: "I don't remember, but it's not true. It's not true, and if it were true, I don't remember" (November 2005).

Reconcile over what? For what?

Unilateral efforts for truth cross the line of the absurd when the insistence matters to no one, and the other wing of the issue continues to deny or justify (without knowing which is worse) the abuses and outrages that today make up a heralded "splendid future." There is no politics of agreements.

Not for us, because the personal is political, and hence individual memory must extend—in its most sensitive understanding—to a social memory of reparative intent. I do not know if reconciliation exists.

It is hard for me to imagine that scenario of encounter, even more so when, as I write these lines, individuals like Colonel Labbé, currently mayor of Providencia, pays tribute to Miguel Krasnoff Martchenko as a hero, arguing that in a democracy, freedom of thought and expression should prevail.

And this is said by another DINA agent, a member of the class of sub-lieutenants who graduated in 1967 and who are believed to have been witnesses to the torture and death of Víctor Jara; everything is described on page 91 of Salazar's book dedicated to the mayor.

If it is not the time for justice or truth, it remains the time for FUNAR; wherever they go, we will follow them; they will be the stained pages of history. A few days ago, while walking by a high school occupied by the Providencia municipality, a sheet was displayed with a marker-written summary of who Labbé was.

The girls were perhaps not, as the right and the political class in general usually say, scratching at the past; they were responding with facts to the arrogance of a military state that still prevails as a practice and that, as a society, we continue to endorse.

Perhaps it is worth reading this book of terror. But not to convince us—we are already convinced—but so as never to forget again. Never. Never. Never.

EXTRACT FROM THE BOOK

4.3. Ollagüe, the José Domingo Cañas 1367 barracks

About eight blocks from the Estadio Nacional and about 300 meters south of Avenida Irarrázaval, in the commune of Ñuñoa, the DINA's Ollagüe barracks was located at Calle José Domingo Cañas No. 1367. The house was the property of the Brazilian sociologist Teotonio Dos Santos, who made it available to the Panamanian embassy between October 1973 and January 1974 to house about 400 asylum seekers.

The last refugees at that diplomatic mission left the country at the end of January, and then the DINA set its sights on it, probably keeping in mind that in that sector of Santiago, or very close to it, many of the MIR militants—who were the main target of the operational brigades directed by Manuel Contreras—had their homes, jobs, or studies.

DINA agents settled in Ollagüe at the beginning of August 1974, after abandoning the Londres 38 barracks, where too many eyes had already been fixed and the families of the forcibly disappeared began to show up at its doors.

Almost all the men and women who were kidnapped and tortured at Ollagüe belonged to the MIR, and their detentions coincided with the obsessive persecution of that party's secretary-general, the physician Miguel Enríquez, and his main leaders.

From that house, nearly 45 people were lost forever, mostly young students or professionals who were just beginning their working lives. Among them were four married couples ((The couples were composed of Lumi Videla Moya and Sergio Pérez Molina; Cecilia Bojanic Abad and Flavio Oyarzún Soto; Jacqueline Drouilly Yuric and Marcelo Salinas Eytel; and Cecilia Castro Salvadores and Juan Carlos Rodríguez Araya.)) and two of those wives were pregnant.

Several others were taken from the place and led to different facilities from which they also disappeared.

Ollagüe was a one-story house with a garden at the entrance and surrounded by a fence. On the right side was a garage where detainees were received. Inside, it had a courtyard through which it communicated with an adjacent three-story building.

During their stay at the location, the detainees were always blindfolded and tied or chained, deprived of food, water, and sleep. They were kept in a common room, relatively spacious, and in a place called "the hole," which apparently was a pantry, without windows or ventilation, approximately one by two meters, where up to more than ten people were held simultaneously in conditions of extreme overcrowding.

The length of stay at Ollagüe was variable, from days to weeks or months. Among the tortures mentioned by the detainees who were there are punches and kicks to the entire body, beatings with clubs or "rubber truncheons" and rifle butts, electric shocks on the "grill," sexual abuse, mock executions, "wet" and "dry" submarine torture, burns, insertion of objects into the anus, hangings, and psychological torture. ((In June 2002, the judge of the Fourth Criminal Court of San Miguel, María Teresa Díaz, prosecuted the retired Brigadier and former DINA agent Maximiliano Ferrer Lima as the alleged perpetrator of the kidnapping of the couple composed of Cecilia Bojanic Abad and Flavio Oyarzún Soto.))

The Ollagüe barracks was enabled almost simultaneously with Villa Grimaldi, but the former initially concentrated the work of interrogations and torture. Its first chief was Carabineros Captain Ciro Torré, who was replaced in October by Army Captain Francisco Ferrer Lima.

Almost daily, Major Marcelo Moren would arrive from Villa Grimaldi to direct and plan the work. The operational groups continued to function as they had in the Londres mansion: Halcón, led by Miguel Krassnoff; Águila, by Ricardo Lawrence; and Tucán, by Gerardo Godoy. From Grimaldi, Fernando Lauriani would come, who took charge of the Vampiro group.

One of the first forcibly disappeared persons to arrive at the José Domingo Cañas house, captured on August 5, was Mauricio Jorquera Encina ("El chico Pedro"), 19 years old, a Sociology student at the Universidad de Chile, whom Marcia Merino identified.

He was a member of the GPM5 and had been the head of the MIR's secondary school students. A former student of the Instituto Nacional, he had other appreciated characteristics for the men of the DINA: he was a friend of many important miristas, such as José Carrasco, Máximo Gedda, Martín Elgueta, Juan Chacón, María Isabel Joui, and Jacqueline Drouilly, among others; and, in his parents' house on Calle Ejército, the political commission of the MIR had often met for some time.

On August 13, Newton Morales Saavedra fell; he was single, an electrical engineer, a retired Navy petty officer, and also a member of the GPM5. On the 16th, they detained Carlos Salcedo Morales, 21 years old, married, a Sociology student at the Universidad de Chile, on the street without witnesses.

The collaborator Luz Arce, for her part, continued to identify and hand over members of the PS. On August 15, they caught Rodolfo Espejo Gómez ("Jano"), 18 years old, a secondary school student in charge of propaganda for the Socialist Youth. On the 16th, they grabbed Juan Mura Morales in the middle of the city center, as he was crossing Avenida Bernardo O’Higgins toward Calle Ahumada.

Another of the brigades dedicated itself to hunting miristas linked to the world of work. On August 22, Modesto Espinoza Pozo fell; he was married, a union leader at the Housing Corporation (Corvi), and a member of the MIR's Settlers' Front.

On the 27th, Marcia Merino identified Jacqueline Binfa Contreras ("Paulina") on the street; she was 28 years old, a Social Work student, and also a member of the Settlers' Front, where she had worked very closely with its top leader, Víctor Toro, until his detention by the SIFA in April, at which point the young woman went underground and disconnected from the party.

Krassnoff Marchenko and the agents of the Halcón brigade, meanwhile, tried to corner the leadership structures of the MIR from various flanks. On August 26, they detained Francisco Javier Bravo Núñez, married, a FIAT mechanic who obtained and repaired vehicles for some of the MIR's ringleaders; on September 2, they apprehended Luis Alberto Guendelman Wisniak, 25 years old, married, a graduate of Architecture from the Universidad de Chile.

From the beginning of September, DINA agents began to corner a resistance network that had set up a clandestine news agency that sent periodic reports abroad. On the 14th, they arrested one of its members, Sergio Hernán Lagos Hidalgo, married, a salesman for Editorial Millaray, a militant of the Movimiento de Acción Popular Unitario (MAPU), and a former editor of Chile Nuevo, a magazine that during the UP was directed by that party's leader, Óscar Guillermo Garretón, from the Undersecretariat of Economy.

The DINA took Lagos to his house in San Miguel to raid it, and there they fortuitously surprised Víctor Alfonso Martínez, 23 years old, a mechanical execution engineer from the Universidad de Concepción and a member of Miguel Enríquez's security team.

That same day, they captured two other components of that structure: José Hipólito Jara Castro ("Jaime Castro"), 29 years old, single, a graduate of Chemistry and Pharmacy from the Universidad de Concepción; and Luis Durán.

The former worked with an accountant whom he had asked to host a young man in her apartment on Calle Tenderini who, very secretly, was in charge of the security and protection of the MIR's secretary-general.

The woman was detained on the 16th, and in her apartment, the DINA set up a new trap, catching Mamerto Eulogio Espinoza Henríquez hours later on the 17th; he was a Technical Drawing student at the Universidad de Chile in Temuco, a native of Concepción, and in charge of Miguel Enríquez's custody.

In mid-1974, the DINA leadership realized that the miristas they were capturing possessed impeccably forged identities. Through their agents in the Civil Registry and the Investigative Police, they then began a careful search for data and clues that would allow them to locate those responsible for the adulterations. At the end of August, the hunt yielded results thanks to some betrayals.

On August 22, Antonio Teobaldo Tello Garrido ("Luis") was apprehended; he was 25 years old, a former detective, and the head of the network that manufactured documents for all the party members and was also in charge of microfilming various writings destined for abroad or for internal communications.

During the UP, Tello had belonged to the MIR nucleus within the civil police, supervised by Edgardo Enríquez, and whose operational chief was Claudio Rodríguez Muñoz ("Lautaro"), who would fall in a confrontation with DINA agents in the following days.

Antonio Tello was beaten until he was disfigured, and faced with his persistent silence, they decided to run a truck over his legs. Witnesses have recounted that the former detective could not stand, and yet they continued to torture him.

A few days later, on September 5, Sonia Bustos Reyes was captured; she was 30 years old, single, a former cashier at the Investigative Service casino, and a militant of the Christian Democratic Party (PDC) and the MIR.

Raúl Romo and other agents arrived at her home on Calle Catedral, in the Barrio Brasil, aboard a white truck, taking her to the Londres 38 barracks, where she became the last forcibly disappeared person from that facility.

A few hours later, Mónica Llanca Iturra fell; she was 23 years old, married, with one child, and an employee of the Identification Cabinet, a provider of the elements to forge identities, who was taken to José Domingo Cañas.

Following a chain, on September 10, they apprehended Carlos Pérez Vargas in his office; he was married and a publicist. He would be the first of five brothers to suffer repression; the other four also disappeared or were murdered.

On the 14th, they caught Bernardo de Castro López, a technical draftsman, married, with three children, and a militant of the PS. He was detained by DINA agents who arrived asking for "the gentleman who paints." They took him away along with some stencils for pamphlets that Bernardo had made with the face of President Allende.

Forty-eight hours later, they seized Vicente Segundo Palomino Benítez, a former Chemistry teacher at the Pedagogical Institute of the Universidad de Chile and a photographer. The agents took him to his photography studio on Calle Santa Genoveva.

The DINA commanders also verified during those days that many leaders of the structures..."

provinciales of the MIR were moving to Santiago, attempting to evade the cordons established by the repression in their respective cities. They then instructed two of their brigades to root out what the leftist militants had dubbed the “colonies” in the capital.

The DINA’s procedures did not always follow a strict operational logic; often, a brief mention of a name during a torture session was enough for the person mentioned, their family, and their closest friends to also be detained.

On September 6, Roberto Salomón Chaer Vásquez (“Francisco”) was arrested. He was single, a father of two, and a former Sociology student at the University of Concepción. He worked as a purchasing agent for the construction company TECSA in Puente Alto.

During his student years, Chaer had worked politically in the coastal sector of Concepción. While imprisoned, he and his friends Carlos Rioseco (“Marcelo”), Héctor González (“Genaro”), and Carlos Fernández (“Flaco Raúl”) formed a collective they festively named “The Three Little Pigs.”

On September 7, Néstor Alfonso Gallardo Agüero, 24, an accountant and regional leader of the MIR in Temuco, fell; on the 10th, Carlos Eladio Fernández Zapata (“Raúl”), married with two children, one of the former organization leaders of the MIR at the University of Concepción, was captured; and on the 16th, Héctor Cayetano Zúñiga Tapia, married and a former student of Chemistry and Pharmacy at the University of Concepción, was captured.

DINA agents took him to the house he shared with his brother, whom they showed—in order to intimidate him—tied up and thrown face down on the floor of the back of the pickup truck, severely beaten and bleeding profusely.

Around those days, Colonel Manuel Contreras appeared in Ollagüe. María Alicia Uribe Gómez, alias “Carola,” another MIR member who ended up collaborating with the DINA, declared years later before the courts that “while at José Domingo Cañas with my eyes blindfolded, a man with a harsh but not rude demeanor spoke with me, asking me about the motivations for why I was a MIR member.

After this conversation with this man, the treatment changed; I was no longer tortured and I was given medical attention. In time, I learned that this person was Manuel Contreras Sepúlveda, with whom I continued to have contact, and on one occasion he told me that he had freed me from the treatment given to the other detainees because I was not his enemy but a ‘poor girl’ who wanted to change the world.”

Source: carcaj.cl/, November 28, 2011

Marcia Alejandra Merino, the Flaca Alejandra, was a prominent leader of the MIR until the coup d'état. Afterward, she was detained twice, and although she requested permission to seek asylum, warning that she would not be able to withstand torture, the MIR did not allow it.

In 1974, the DINA kidnapped her, subjected her to brutal torture, and “broke” her. From then on, she and two other leftist militants became collaborators for the security services. Friends and militants were murdered thanks to the information they provided.

They inspired the character in Los archivos del cardenal who lives with Fabián in the Torres San Borja and urges him to collaborate with the dictatorship.

In 1990, President Patricio Aylwin created the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, and judicial cases regarding human rights violations slowly began to be dusted off. Lawyers from the Commission and investigative police, by order of certain judges, began the search for information.

Thus, they found the whereabouts of Marcia Alejandra Merino, the Flaca Alejandra, at the end of 1991. The former MIR leader acknowledged, from her first statement, that she had turned in her comrades under torture, several of whom were forcibly disappeared, and that she later became a collaborator for the DINA and the CNI, with a salary and paid vacations provided by those security services.

In November 1992, Marcia Merino offered a press conference at the Chilean Commission for Human Rights. “I ask for forgiveness,” she said that day, but today, almost twenty years later, the request continues to cause discomfort and divide the men and women to whom it was directed.

The Flaca, the tough one

Marcia Merino is a native of Concepción, the youngest of three siblings. Her father died when she was four years old. Her mother, a primary school teacher, placed her older siblings in a boarding school.

Marcia grew up amidst many economic difficulties as a sickly, lonely, and shy child. Her personality only changed when she entered the University of Concepción in the mid-sixties to study anthropology and archaeology.

There, she discovered the MIR and embraced militancy with complete and unreserved commitment. In her book Mi verdad… Más allá del horror; yo acuso (My Truth… Beyond the Horror; I Accuse), she admitted that she had become “a rigid and tough militant,” for whom any gesture of hesitation from her comrades constituted a “betrayal.”

When the movement asked her to, she abandoned her studies and moved to Santiago, semi-clandestinely. By the late sixties, she had already become one of the few female leaders of the MIR. Santiago had been divided into four Political-Military Groups (GPM). She was named the head of GPM-1, which covered the southern zone of Santiago.

“She was a very assertive woman, with impressive political discourse and oratory,” recalls a former militant, then under the orders of Marcia Merino, on condition of anonymity. “She was always surrounded by a group of boys, her favorites, to whom she granted the privileges of her trust.

She was tough and had no life outside the party. With the high-ranking leaders, it was the opposite: affectionate, warm.”

Enérico García, who was a member of the GAP and in charge of the security of MIR leader Miguel Enríquez, recalls that Marcia Merino had direct access to the house where the Political Commission (CP) of the movement operated. “The Flaca Alejandra had a tremendous capacity for organization.

Even before the coup, not everyone had access or knew where the CP met. Marcia Merino was one of the few who arrived there freely. She was the partner of Alfonso Chanfreau, with whom she at one point made a kind of public commitment, which was ‘sanctified’ by Bautista van Schouwen.”

Gladys Díaz, then a leader in another GPM in Santiago, recalls that there were barely three women with that level of relevance in the leadership of the MIR: Merino, Lumi Videla, and Gladys Díaz herself. They were a benchmark and a source of pride for the movement.

From prisoner to collaborator

Marcia Merino has related that in the first days after the coup, she was detained, but she was not tortured, nor did her captors seem to know about her militancy, so she was soon released. After a brief period in which the MIR kept her “frozen,” she was ordered to reorganize the party structure between Curicó and Chillán.

On May 1, 1974, she was arrested again and taken to Curicó, where she was tortured with electricity on the orders of military prosecutor Lautaro Bache. It was then that she began to yield and admitted to the prosecutor that she was a MIR militant, stated what her responsibility in the zone was, and acknowledged that her party had two conscripts infiltrated in the Army.

“When I first admitted the information to Bache, I felt that I had betrayed my party. My world was absolutely collapsing. Just as my dedication to the revolution and the party had been total and absolute, having given information, even if known to them, meant an absolute breakdown for me as well,” Merino recounts in her book.

The prosecutor subsequently transferred her to the Curicó jail. There, she wrote, on cigarette paper, a report to the Political Commission of the MIR stating that “I had not been able to tolerate the torture and had acknowledged some of the things they asked me; that I was desperate.” The MIR, whose policy was that its militants should not seek asylum, remained silent.

Marcia Merino remained in jail until August 1, when she was “released” by the prosecutor and kidnapped at the same location by civilians who took her to the clandestine detention center known as Londres 38, where she experienced the most extreme forms of torture.

A group commanded by Osvaldo Romo—one of the DINA’s most bloodthirsty agents—interrogated her by applying electric current, particularly to her genitals. Other times they would hang her or put her on the grill face down. Until she began to talk.

“The truth is that I was desperately searching my mind for something to say to stop the torture. I gave the addresses of María Angélica Andreoli Bravo (…) I also gave the address of Muriel Duckendorf Navarrete.” Both were friends of Marcia Merino and are currently forcibly disappeared.

Additionally, she mentioned the name of Adriana Urrutia, who survived. The DINA forced her to identify their addresses and to collaborate in the arrests of the three of them.

Then the spiral began. She gave new addresses, and when she had no more information that she knew personally, the DINA agents took her out to “bean-count” (porotear). That is, they took her to meeting points of MIR leaders.

As soon as she recognized someone she knew, she would begin to tremble. Thus, the agents confirmed the information they needed. In this way, dozens of people were kidnapped, many of whom are currently forcibly disappeared. Among them, her friend Lumi Videla.

After several months of torture and providing information about the militants she knew, Marcia Merino was installed in Villa Grimaldi along with her friend María Alicia Uribe Gómez, the “Chica Carola,” who belonged to the MIR’s information structure, and Luz Arce (a former socialist militant).

The three began to receive privileges (better food, a bathroom, an end to the “grilling”) in their capacity as collaborators. Marcia Merino relates that whenever they could, the agents boasted of their collaboration in front of the prisoners, as a way to demolish the morale of the detainees.

Each of the collaborators fell under the protection of a DINA hierarch: Luz Arce, under Rolf Wenderoth; the “Chica Carola,” under sub-director Pedro Espinoza; and Marcia Merino, under Miguel Krassnoff Marchenko, the operational agent in charge of eliminating the MIR.

In July 1975, they were “released,” but at the Belgrado offices, the DINA’s central headquarters, Manuel Contreras personally offered them to continue working as employees of the structure he commanded, to eliminate leftist parties.

The three accepted and were sent to live together in the apartment seized from former GAP member Max Marambio in the Torres San Borja, very close to the Diego Portales building. By 1978, Marcia Merino moved to another apartment with Alicia Uribe, the “Chica Carola,” “in Tower 4 or 5 of the San Borja redevelopment, No. 194, which belonged to Federico Willoughby.”

“There were events that were destroying me more and more and that made me feel like ‘the traitor.’ This was exacerbated by the DINA, which constantly showed me MIR pamphlets in which they lied regarding my ‘privileges’ and sentenced me to death,” Marcia Merino states in her book.

Merino, Arce, and Uribe lived together for a long time and were visited monthly by Contreras. During that period, the women became romantically involved with agents, drafted documents proposing ways to strengthen social support for Augusto Pinochet, attended intelligence courses funded by the Army, and were awarded in a ceremony. “Mónica Madariaga participated in the graduation, and she presented me with the award corresponding to second place or second seniority.” In 1977, Mónica Madariaga was Minister of Justice.

The fact is that these collaborators gained such a level of trust that they were entrusted with intelligence tasks abroad. Their work was paid, and they went on vacations, like any other civil servant.

The former prisoners, Marcia Merino states, feared the possibility of being summoned to testify, and as far as she was concerned, she always refused to collaborate with judicial investigations when the opportunity arose.

Until democracy arrived and, despite the fact that she was still controlled by the Army Intelligence Directorate (DINE), she dared to take the step. The former socialist Luz Arce did the same. Alicia Uribe, the “Chica Carola,” remained submerged in the shadow of protection of the former security apparatuses.

The liberating conference

One day in November 1992, the journalist Gladys Díaz—now a psychologist—received a strange call at her home. It was the president of the Chilean Commission for Human Rights, Jaime Castillo Velasco (the Vicariate had dissolved in 1990), ordering her to appear at the headquarters of that entity the following day very early. He did not tell her why.

“I arrived a little late, and upon entering the room where I was expected, I found myself with a cloud of photographers and journalists. At the head table, a woman had begun to speak, sitting next to Jaime Castillo. I didn't recognize her. Only when she said ‘I ask for forgiveness’ did I realize it was her, the Flaca Alejandra,” she recalls.

Díaz enjoyed great prestige among her comrades for having had the opposite conduct to that of Marcia Merino. Although her partner disappeared and she had been brutally tortured in the feared “Tower” of Villa Grimaldi, she refused to collaborate with her captors.

Even when, on one occasion, they brought the Flaca Alejandra to her cell to convince her to talk, Gladys Díaz responded with disdain: “This is a collaborator. What influence could she have over me? How could you think that she is going to convince me of anything?” On another occasion, Marcia Merino put a cigarette in her mouth, and Gladys Díaz spat it out.

“Sitting there, at that press conference, I realized that any gesture I made would have enormous consequences. I made a tremendous effort to discern what it was that I felt I had to do. At that moment, it was an almost functional consideration.

I realized that she had very valuable information to give us, and that if I didn't welcome her, she would be left in no man's land. So I stood up and hugged her. For her, it was a very impactful moment. Everything was said in that hug,” Díaz relates.

Over time, the former MIR leader states, she has processed the gesture she made with greater depth, and although it cost her the criticism of many of her former comrades, she continues to defend it. “I think what she did was tremendous. I don't justify it. It had a very high cost for us, but I cannot stop seeing that the breakdown she suffered was primarily due to torture,” she says.

Díaz, who endured the worst torments without denouncing her companions, states that facing torture stoically does not depend on willpower, nor on the political commitment of individuals, but on something that is normally outside their control, such as their biographical characteristics. “She was a very fragile woman.

She sent word to the MIR after the first torture she suffered that she knew she would not be able to withstand a second session and asked for permission to seek asylum, but we didn't listen to her. The slogan ‘the MIR does not seek asylum’ prevailed. In her breakdown, we are all responsible,” she adds.

According to the professional's analysis, the emotional deficiencies of childhood, the absence of a father, made Marcia Merino an easy prey for the DINA, which conducted a study of her weaknesses to exploit them. “I refuse to believe that this is a story between the brave and the cowards,” she emphasizes.

The cursed life

For Díaz, the period in which Marcia Merino, Luz Arce, and María Alicia Uribe became paid employees of the security services is explained by fear. The corrosive and immense fear of death.

To make matters worse, she says, the MIR sentenced Marcia Merino and other former militants who had collaborated with the intelligence services to death. Among them were Hernán González, Humberto Menanteaux, Cristián Mallol, and Hernán Carrasco, who, in 1975, were forced to give a press conference in which they declared the defeat of the MIR and asked for an end to the armed resistance.

When they were released, Menanteaux and Carrasco informed the MIR leadership about the way in which they were forced to give that press conference—in which the journalist Bernardo de la Maza acted as interviewer—and tried to ask for help to go into exile.

Their communications were intercepted by the DINA, which recaptured them, and they were murdered by having their entrails ripped out while alive, according to the judicial testimony of the former collaborators.

Marcia Merino was in therapy for four years after breaking her ties with the DINA, the CNI, and the DINE. The therapist who treated her relates, on condition of anonymity, that the former MIR member suffered from constant anxiety and panic attacks, as she feared that if the DINA or CNI didn't kill her, her former comrades would.

She adds that the fear haunted her even after she decided to testify publicly. Only when she was confronted with Krassnoff and accused him as her victimizer did she manage to break with the contradictory feelings of fear and security that he provoked in her.

However, there are still those who do not believe in the sincerity of her repentance. “Life is not built on the basis of speeches and convictions,” states a former MIR member and former prisoner, who has known Marcia Merino since before the coup d'état. “Life is made up of small, daily experiences.

I can understand that she broke under torture, like many. What I don't understand is what came after. How she managed to earn the trust of the DINA to the point that they paid her a salary and let her take vacations.

What she said to them when they went out partying, when she slept with them. Why she didn't take any of the opportunities that were presented to her to escape. And why, if she became aware of the damage she did, she didn't get sick, nor go crazy in the contradiction between what she supposedly believed and what she did.”

Enérico García says that he would not have the courage to look Marcia Merino in the face: “I don't feel capable of forgiving her. I don't have the authority to forgive on behalf of the dozens of people who fell because of her.”

Like Luz Arce, Merino made long judicial statements providing information about the prisoners who fell because of her and those she saw in different detention centers, many of whom are currently forcibly disappeared. She also provided names of agents and their positions in the structure of the security services.

Nevertheless, the former militants who welcomed her back could be counted on one hand. For example, Viviana Uribe and Erika Hennings, former prisoners and relatives of the disappeared, paid a high price among their friendships for having protected her and today prefer to refrain from granting new interviews on the subject.

Marcia Merino currently lives on Easter Island with her husband. Luz Arce moved to Mexico with her husband and children. Alicia Uribe remains hidden somewhere in Santiago, probably with a false identity.

Source: casosvicaria.cl, 2014

Case file 8725, dated April 21, 2008, in which she maintains that as a militant of the MIR, she was detained by the DINA in 1974 at the José Domingo Cañas barracks and later at Villa Grimaldi, a place where she worked in a photographic workshop near the “Tower,” where she photographed nearly fifty detainees.

In June or July 1975, she moved to the senior staff of the Purén brigade, where she remained until early 1976, the date on which she began working with Brigadier Pedro Espinoza. At Villa Grimaldi, the group that captured the detainees was the same one that interrogated them; they were the owners of the detainee and the information they obtained, usually applying beatings and electric shocks.

Espinoza was the Director of Operations of the DINA, who was in charge of all intelligence, operational, repressive, and counterinsurgency units during 1976, that is, the Caupolicán and Purén brigades.

Brigadier Espinoza was the chief of operations and worked at the General Headquarters, which did not prevent him from appearing at the barracks where the units under his command were located, especially at Villa Grimaldi.

The Metropolitan Intelligence Brigade was under the command of Pedro Espinoza, whose center of operations was at Villa Grimaldi, whose chief at that time was Commander Carlos López Tapia, an officer upon whom the Caupolicán and Purén brigades depended.

Every day, Commander Carlos López Tapia went to the DINA general headquarters to deliver his reports to Brigadier Espinoza, reports that accounted for investigations, lists of detainees, and the background information obtained to locate other people, which involved the activities of both the Purén and the Caupolicán brigades.

Orders for raids and arrests came from the Directorate of Operations with the approval of Contreras. When the leadership of the MIR was located, the work focused on the Socialist Party and, in 1976, as those in charge of repressing members of the Communist Party, especially its directive leadership, she identifies Garea, Lawrence, and Barriga; a time when agents approached Brigadier Espinoza's office to receive direct orders from him to carry out work.

In May 1976, Garea told her that he knew where they were holding the leadership of the Communist Party, naming several detainees, among whom she remembers Víctor Díaz. Meetings aimed at the repression of the Communist Party were held at the general headquarters, as they were coordination meetings attended only by officers in charge of the area; in the case of the Communist Party, Lawrence, Barriga, Salinas, López Tapia, and Morales Salgado attended.

Source: Case No. 2.182-98 Episode “Conferencia C” or “Conferencia 1”; November 30, 2018

Alongside the consummate torturers, among the cruelest agents in the torture chambers appear the women who placed themselves at the service of terror. A very significant number were in administrative roles that allowed the repressive apparatus to function, but there were also those in direct operational functions, in kidnappings, torture, executions, and the disappearance of prisoners.

This is a sample. The important case of the kidnapping of Miguel Angel Sandoval joins the one known as "the 119," due to the number of those who were attempted to be made to appear as dead in internal fights in Argentina in the so-called "Operation Colombo." Witnesses to Sandoval's kidnapping recount having seen him at Villa Grimaldi until February 10, 1975, the day he was taken out along with María Isabel Joui Petersen, María Teresa Eltit Contreras, Renato Sepúlveda Guajardo, Jorge Herrera Jofré, and Claudio Silva Peralta, all of whom were forcibly disappeared.

The testimony of María Isabel Matamala provides another detail: she was detained by Osvaldo Romo and taken to Villa Grimaldi, tortured for 15 days by Romo and Basclay Zapata himself, and interrogated by Moren, Krassnoff, Laureani, Ricardo Lawrence, Ferrer, and a woman nicknamed "the commander," whose name was Rosa Humilde Ramos.

The DINA torturers Survivor María Salinas Farfán points out that she saw many detainees who are now forcibly disappeared and that, among the agents, she can recognize Romo, Laureani, Krassnoff, Moren Brito, Luz Arce, Marcia Merino, and Alicia Gómez (María Alicia Uribe Gómez), "la Carola." Osvaldo Romo acknowledges that among the torturers at Villa Grimaldi were César Manríquez, Wenderot, and Palmira Almuna.

Basclay Zapata, alias "el Troglo," declares that "in 1975 he married Teresa Osorio Navarro, also an employee of the organization" and that he would go out with Luz Arce to "scout" in a vehicle through the streets of Santiago.

Teresa Osorio says she "entered as a civilian employee of the Navy in 1974, being assigned to work at the DINA, in the Villa Grimaldi barracks, as Krassnoff's secretary. She knew that the DINA agents were divided into groups, called ‘Halcón,’ ‘Purén,’ ‘Aguila,’ and others, with the set of these being called ‘Caupolicán.’ She reiterates her statements in a confrontation with Eugenio Fieldhouse (also an agent), insisting that she did not go out to make arrests." Fieldhouse, coming from the Investigations police, admits that among the agents at Villa Grimaldi were Teresa Osorio, Rosa Humilde Ramos, and Palmira Almuna. Meanwhile, survivor Raúl Flores Castillo recounts that he was detained "by armed subjects, one of whom identified himself as Osvaldo Romo; they put him in a vehicle in which there were more people, a woman they called ‘la negra’ (Teresa Osorio), and a subject they called ‘el Troglo’." Although many of the women who belonged to the DINA performed administrative tasks, there is a team that has been classified by survivors as "the most sadistic and cruel." Among them stood out the Carabineros sub-lieutenant Ingrid Felicitas Olderock Oelckers, who was an instructor of torturers as early as the initial school at Tejas Verdes. As a member of the Purén Brigade, she was a trainer of the dogs used in the sexual abuse committed against men and women at the secret barracks "Venda Sexy." Also a Carabineros sub-lieutenant, Palmira Isabel Almuna Guzmán, alias "la Pepa," was a member of the Purén Brigade and a torturer at José Domingo Cañas under the orders of Ciro Torré Sáez; she later worked under the orders of Pedro Espinoza Bravo. She was in charge of selecting and instructing future agents, who were infiltrated as frivolous and pretty women in various areas of national political relevance. She moved to the CNI and in 1985 returned to the Carabineros, serving in a juvenile correctional center in Iquique with the rank of commander of the female hierarchy. She was denounced at her home at 1000 Luis Beltrán, in Pudahuel, on May 31, 2003, after which she has not been seen in the neighborhood; she likely lives in Iquique. Nélida Gutiérrez Rivera was the private secretary and lover of Manuel Contreras. After the arrest of her boss, she continued as his part-time secretary in the offices he had on Ricardo Lyon street; the rest of the time she dedicated to her "Mané" boutique (Manuel and Nélida) in the Lyon and Providencia spiral mall. Although the role played by Viviana Pincetti Barra is not known with certainty, she appears receiving salaries from the DINA and is the daughter of Osvaldo Pincetti Gac, alias "charla"; her father took her for "visits" to Villa Grimaldi and other barracks of the repressive organization. Various testimonies speak of the terrible role played by Marcia Alejandra Evelyn Merino Vega, alias "la flaca Alejandra," as an agent after being a militant of the MIR. These days she lives in an insular area of Chile, from which she travels to Santiago to provide statements in the various trials against the DINA. Another woman turned agent was Luz Arce Sandoval, who went from being a PS militant to the DINA. Survivors remember her present at torture sessions at Villa Grimaldi, Londres 38, and Cuatro Alamos. She continued her work in the CNI and in 1990 she made herself available to the courts to testify in cases of the forcibly disappeared. Today she lives outside of Chile and returns circumstantially to provide data in judicial proceedings. María Alicia Uribe Gómez, alias "Carola," went from being a MIR militant to a DINA agent, then to the CNI, and after 1990 she was integrated into the DINE. Together with other collaborators, they carried out veritable "fashion shows" with the clothing of prisoners murdered in the DINA barracks. She was seen at Villa Grimaldi, Cuatro Alamos, and José Domingo Cañas. Rosa Humilde Ramos Hernández was known as "the commander," a torturer at José Domingo Cañas and Villa Grimaldi and a member of the Aguila Group of the Caupolicán Brigade. Her memory is indelible among survivors due to her masculine appearance and the sadism she applied in torture. Also cruel is María Teresa Osorio, alias "Soledad" or "la negra," wife of Basclay Zapata. In the Purén Brigade, dedicated to the repression of the PS, the PC, and the DC, the detective Ximena San Juan, Elsa del Tránsito Lagos Salazar, Francisca del Carmen Cerda Galleguillos, and Nancy Edulia Vásquez Torrejón, alias "Pelusa," appear with functions. In the Halcón II Group of the Caupolicán Brigade, a group that participated in the confrontation with Miguel Enríquez, was María Gabriela Ordenes, alias "Marisol," who was seen present at torture sessions. Agents in administrative functions were Mirtha Espinoza Caamaño, a DINA secretary who worked under the command of Augusto Deitchler in the Sub-directorate of Internal Intelligence. María Gabriela Coll Webar, secretary of the General Headquarters staff. Marta Smock Teixido, secretary of the General Headquarters staff in the Sub-directorate of Economic Intelligence. Sandra Montecinos Sepúlveda, secretary of the General Headquarters staff. Eliana Quilodrán, alias "Ely," an agent of the Directorate of Operations who acted under the command of Pedro Espinoza Bravo in the Education and Informatics section. Teresa Aburto, secretary of the C-2 Section, who continued working in the CNI and later in the DINE. Enriqueta Salazar Contreras, secretary of the Sub-directorate of Internal Intelligence with direct duties under Rolf Wenderoth and who would later be integrated into the Carabineros. Maribel Maringue Moya, secretary to the Sub-director after Wenderoth's departure, who subsequently continued to perform duties in the CNI directorate. Also appearing are Ana María Rubio de la Cruz, alias "Carmen Gutiérrez," an Army Non-Commissioned Officer and secretary of the Sub-directorate of External Intelligence, implicated in the assassination of General Carlos Prats and his wife. María Eliana Moncada Prieto, secretary of the Sub-directorate of External Intelligence, who later joined the Counterintelligence Department. Sara Aguila Márquez, social worker of the Personnel Sub-directorate. Carmen Avila Ferrada, secretary to Arturo Ureta Siré in the Sub-directorate of External Intelligence, subsequently moving to hold the same position in the CNI, under the command of Colonel Suau. Alejandra Damián Serrano, who used the alias "Roxana," was Michel Townley's secretary. The nurse María Eliana Bolumburú Taboada (Bolumburó according to the "Elissalde and Poblete" list) was part of the DINA Health Brigade, working in clandestine clinics alongside several doctors who advised on torture. The last information on her whereabouts placed her working in a pharmaceutical company on Ejército street and living in a villa in Maipú. The girl from the Comando Conjunto It seems that the only woman in the Comando Conjunto is the famous Pochi, who was seen dressed in a school uniform asking about people who would later be kidnapped. She was also active in the torture inflicted on dozens of prisoners in the clandestine torture centers known as Nido 20 and Nido 18. Viviana Lucinda Ugarte Sandoval was a (retired) soldier of the FACH, with an assignment to the DIFA and the Comando Conjunto. Wife of General Patricio Campos Montecinos, Director General of Civil Aeronautics until the denunciation made by the newspaper La Nación. Prosecuted during the dictatorship by Judge Cerda as the author of criminal illicit association and an accomplice to the disappearance of Reinalda Pereira and Edrás Pinto, she was amnestied by Judge Manuel Silva Ibáñez. These days she continues to be implicated in the proceedings being carried out against the Comando Conjunto.

Source: elsiglo.cl, December 12, 2005

The loves of the DINA: romantic relationships in times of blood

The death of Enrique Arancibia Clavel brought to light details of his romantic life, which he led intensely even when he was a repressive agent. A story that is repeated within the organization: former detainees who began romances with their torturers and others who found true love are part of this history.

THE HOMOSEXUAL AGENT

For the Argentine Federal Police, there are no doubts: the 34 stab wounds that killed Lautaro Enrique Arancibia Clavel had a motive of passion. These days, the investigations are focused on a 19-year-old youth who confessed to being the partner of the former agent of the defunct DINA.

The violent crime brought back the intense romantic history of Arancibia, which he carried out even with brazenness. He lived his homosexuality openly even in the most critical moments of his collaboration with the DINA (as head of clandestine information in Buenos Aires) and despite being part of a social circle that was conservative in terms of values.

At the beginning of 1974 (shortly after starting his work at the DINA), he met the hairdresser and dancer Humberto Zambelli, who worked for Susana Jiménez, one of the main stars of the Argentine artistic and TV scene to this day.

It all began at the exit of a show in which Zambelli was participating: "A young male person was waiting for me. He invited me several times to have coffee and chat. As the days went by, I accepted the invitation and even took him to my parents' house in Lanús.

That was how we entered fully into a friendly relationship with who turned out to be Enrique Arancibia Clavel," Zambelli once said, as recorded by journalist Mónica González in Ciper. Some time later, they went to live together in an apartment in Buenos Aires.

Also, and to rest, they built a house in the Tortuguitas sector about 40 km from the capital city. That year, 1974, would be important for Arancibia, not only for starting his work for the political police but because he had to face the preparation of the assassination (September 30) of the former commander-in-chief of the Army, Carlos Prats, and his wife Sofía Cuthbert.

For this crime, he would be sentenced to life imprisonment. Many years later, without Zambelli by his side, and once out of prison in 2007 (thanks to benefits from the trans-Andean justice system that counted his years in prison double), Arancibia continued with his life.

Regarding his death and the investigations that were carried out, several witnesses stated that Arancibia liked the bohemian life and frequenting young homosexuals.

WHEN "EL MAMO" FOUND LOVE

Juan Manuel Guillermo Contreras Sepúlveda had been married for 20 years when, in 1973, he took charge of creating the National Intelligence Directorate -DINA-. He had met his wife, María Teresa Valdebenito Stevenson, on a vacation in Quillota in 1949, fresh out of the Military School.

She gave him four children (three daughters and one son) and they led a normal life. However, once Contreras officially assumed the direction of the DINA (June 1974), everything changed. Not only because of the tasks he had to perform, but because he began a relationship with his secretary Nélida Gutiérrez Rivera.

Over time, she went from being a faithful collaborator (a member of Contreras's narrow inner circle at the DINA) to being the "official" mistress of the "boss." In the midst of deaths, torture, and cruelty, a strong relationship was born that over the years became consolidated and even encompassed the commercial sector.

Once the DINA was dissolved, Nélida became the private secretary of Contreras—still married—in the businesses he undertook. In addition, with money provided by him, she set up a clothing boutique called Mané (Manuel and Nélida) in the Lyon spiral mall, in Providencia.

In 1985 they took the step: they went to live together and Contreras abandoned his wife. In 2010, with Contreras in the Cordillera prison paying for his crimes, they decided to marry. Through a power of attorney and with separation of property, both said "I do." "We fulfilled a dream of any couple that has loved each other all their lives, through thick and thin.

We didn't want it to be said one day that we only lived together," Gutiérrez said at that time.

LOVING AFTER TORTURE

Luz Arce Sandoval; María Alicia Uribe Gómez ("Carola"); and Marcia Merino Vega (the "Flaca Alejandra") have several similarities: at the beginning of the 70s, they supported the Popular Unity (the first was from the PS, the last two from the MIR); after the 1973 coup d'état, they were detained and atrociously tortured; then, and to save their lives, they began to collaborate with the DINA, turning in several of their former comrades; and finally, they began romantic relationships with some of their captors.

Although they deny it, witnesses of the time maintain that they had more than one romance with men from the DINA. Luz Arce was the partner of Colonel (R) Rolf Wenderoth Pozo, a member of the DINA's Mulchén brigade who was at Villa Grimaldi and participated in the crime against the CEPAL official, Carmelo Soria.

María Uribe, who never showed remorse for her work at the DINA and who continued working for the Army's intelligence services well into the democracy, maintained a relationship with Brigadier (R) Pedro Espinoza Bravo, Director of Operations of the DINA, of whom (like the Arce and Gutiérrez cases) she was his secretary.

According to witnesses, the relationship between the two was quite paternal, especially because Uribe resented the hard childhood she had to live without her father, who did not recognize her, and without a mother who could not live with her.

In fact, the then-Colonel Espinoza played an important role in a key episode for the woman, when in 1975 her father decided to recognize her. It is said that Espinoza forced the man at gunpoint. Of the "Flaca Alejandra," it is said that she was related, among others, to Manuel Vásquez Chauán (of the Purén Brigade); Juan Morales Salgado (chief of the Lautaro Brigade and involved in the Prats crime); and with Eugenio Fieldhouse (one of the chiefs of Villa Grimaldi).

That is denied by Merino in a categorical manner. In a letter to La Nación, she maintained that "I deny having had any type of romantic or similar relationship with officers of high or low rank, or with any other member of the DINA while I was a prisoner. Never in that period did I have a relationship of that type."

Source: lanacion, May 8, 2011

The prosecution and detention of the former DINA collaborator "Carola"

This concerns María Alicia Uribe Gómez, "Carola," a former MIR militant, in her capacity as an accomplice to the assassination of José Carrasco Vásquez, perpetrated in December 1975, who before being murdered was at Villa Grimaldi.

Learn about the foundations of Judge Leopoldo Llanos and an interview with the widow of Humberto Juan Menanteau Aceituno, murdered on the same occasion along with Carrasco. The extraordinary visiting judge of the Santiago Court of Appeals for human rights violation cases, Leopoldo Llanos, prosecuted the former agent of the National Intelligence Directorate (DINA), María Alicia Uribe Gómez, for her responsibility—as an accomplice—in the homicide of José Carrasco Vásquez, an illicit act perpetrated in December 1975, in the Metropolitan Region.

In the case, Judge Llanos determined that the DINA collaborator bears responsibility for the death of Carrasco Vásquez and Humberto Menanteau Aceituno, leaders of the Revolutionary Left Movement (MIR), whose bodies were found in the Chada sector, Buin commune, in 1975.

According to the background information collected in the case, the magistrate was able to establish that: «on December 1, 1975, the deaths of José Hernán CARRASCO VÁSQUEZ and Humberto Juan MENANTEAU ACEITUNO occurred.

Both were leaders of the MIR and were detained by the DINA at the end of 1974. While in that situation, they participated along with two other leaders in a televised public statement and a press conference where they called on their fellow members to end the armed struggle.

Then they continued to be detained for some months at Villa Grimaldi, separated from the rest of the prisoners, until they regained their freedom in September 1975. Finding themselves in that situation, they were detained by members of the Purén brigade of the DINA: Humberto Menanteau on November 19, while he was at his parents' house, and José Carrasco the following day at the home of some friends, and were taken to Villa Grimaldi, guarded by personnel of the Purén Brigade, a place where they were tortured.

A week later they were executed and their bodies thrown on a hill. Their bodies were identified by their relatives on December 10 at the Legal Medical Institute, having been found in the vicinity of Buin.

They showed signs of having been tortured before being killed». Last May, Judge Llanos submitted to prosecution for the homicides of Carrasco and Menanteau the former DINA agents: Manuel Contreras Sepúlveda, Pedro Espinoza Bravo, Marcelo Moren Brito, Rolf Wenderoth Pozo, Raúl Iturriaga Neumann, Gerardo Urrich González, Adelina Ortega Sáez, and Elsa Lagos Salazar.

Source: villagrimaldi.cl, July 2, 2015

María Alicia Uribe Gómez, alias Carola: Judge Llanos prosecuted DINA informant

The extraordinary visiting judge of the Santiago Court of Appeals for human rights violation cases, Leopoldo Llanos, prosecuted the former agent of the National Intelligence Directorate (DINA) María Alicia Uribe Gómez, for her responsibility—as an accomplice—in the homicide of José Carrasco Vásquez and Humberto Menenteau Aceituno, leaders of the Revolutionary Left Movement (MIR), whose bodies were found in the Chada sector, Buin commune, in 1975.

The illicit act was perpetrated in December 1975, in the Metropolitan Region. María Alicia Uribe Gómez, "Carola," a militant of the Revolutionary Left Movement (MIR), became a collaborator for the intelligence services, DINA, CNI, and DINE.

The stories of collaborators Marcia Alejandra Merino Vega and Luz Arce are well known. However, Carola, unlike the two previous ones, never repented for what she did. Until 1991, Carola was a DINE official whose offices on República she attended daily.

In the first days of October 1974, the Social Service student at the University of Chile, Alicia María Gómez Gómez, with the political name "Carola" and a member of the MIR's information team, fell into the hands of the DINA.

The pressures and torture exerted on her led her to collaborate with her captors. A large part of the information provided by Marcia Merino would be corroborated by "Carola," with which the DINA would deal lethal blows to the MIR, which led to the fall of its own chief, the militant Emilio Iribarren Lederman, "Joel," who also in the first instance would be recruited by the DINA.

In the case, Judge Llanos determined that the DINA collaborator bears responsibility for the death of Carrasco Vásquez and Humberto Menenteau Aceituno, leaders of the Revolutionary Left Movement (MIR), whose bodies were found in the Chada sector, Buin commune, in 1975.

Both were leaders of the MIR and were detained by the DINA at the end of 1974. While in that situation, they participated along with two other leaders in a televised public statement and a press conference where they called on their fellow members to end the armed struggle.

Then they continued to be detained for some months at Villa Grimaldi, separated from the rest of the prisoners, until they regained their freedom in September 1975. Finding themselves in that situation, they were detained by members of the Purén brigade of the DINA: Humberto Menanteau on November 19, while he was at his parents' house, and José Carrasco the following day at the home of some friends, and were taken to Villa Grimaldi, guarded by personnel of the Purén Brigade, a place where they were tortured.

A week later they were executed and their bodies thrown on a hill. Their bodies were identified by their relatives on December 10 at the Legal Medical Institute, having been found in the vicinity of Buin.

They showed signs of having been tortured before being killed». Last May, Judge Llanos submitted to prosecution for the homicides of Carrasco and Menanteau the former DINA agents: Manuel Contreras Sepúlveda, Pedro Espinoza Bravo, Marcelo Moren Brito, Rolf Wenderoth Pozo, Raúl Iturriaga Neumann, Gerardo Urrich González, Adelina Ortega Sáez, and Elsa Lagos Salazar.

In addition, the sentence orders the state to pay compensation of $200,000,000 (two hundred million pesos) to the victim's relatives for moral damages.

Source: reddigital.cl, November 22, 2015

Widow of Humberto Menanteau, MIR militant murdered by the DINA, recounts the participation of "Carola" in the crime

Yazmín Menanteau has dedicated her life to fighting for human rights since she had to leave Chile for France. Upon hearing the news regarding the prosecution of María Alicia Uribe Gómez ("Carola"), she was so moved that she spent the night discussing the event with those who contacted her.

Yazmín has expressed a positive stance toward the possibility of providing her testimony against the woman who tortured her comrades from the MIR.

The news of the prosecution of María Alicia Uribe Gómez, alias "Carola," reached Yazmín Menanteau, widow of Humberto Menanteau Aceituno, one of the men whose death is linked to the former MIR member who later became an agent for the DINA and the CNI.

Humberto Menanteau was a leader of the Revolutionary Left Movement (MIR) and was detained by the National Intelligence Directorate (DINA) at the end of 1974. On that occasion, along with other detainees, he was made to participate in a press conference in which he was forced to call on his fellow party members to end the armed struggle.

Menanteau was held for more than nine months at Villa Grimaldi, until September 1975, when he was released. When this happened, he took the opportunity to marry Yazmín, as he knew that this "freedom" was a DINA maneuver.

On November 19, 1975, he was detained again, this time at his parents' house. On December 10 of the same year, his corpse and that of Hernán Carrasco were found in the vicinity of Buín, covered with branches; they had been shot in the back of the neck, not to shorten their suffering, but simply to immediately declare them executed by their own comrades.

They had to be identified by their relatives at the Legal Medical Institute and showed clear signs of torture.

A year later, the DINA published in the entire Chilean press the discovery of the "two corpses... executed by the MIR, with a bullet in the skull."

Yazmín Menanteau is currently the president of the human rights section in Dax, France, a French town and commune located in the Landes department, in the Aquitaine region. She has spent her life giving testimony about what happened in Chile during the dictatorship and has fought for the world to punish those who have been perpetrators of crimes against humanity and to eliminate all types of tributes to these individuals.

In an interview with Cambio21, Yazmín Menanteau, who presents herself as a woman who, despite everything she has suffered, always smiles at life (a comment made by her when sending the photo that illustrates this interview), recounted what the process of overcoming what she lived through during the dictatorship has been like: the death of her husband, the betrayal by "Carola," and the judicial process against her.

She also demonstrated confidence in the system and in the work that Chile has done to punish human rights abuses.

Who is "Carola" to you?

I always heard about her and her two friends, "la flaca Alejandra" and Luz Arce, whom her DINA colleagues called "Lucecita." They were the destroyers of the MIR and the terror of Villa Grimaldi. I learned a little more about Carola when my husband told me that when she turned him in, his first reaction upon seeing her was surprise at seeing that she was collaborating with such emphasis.

On several occasions, he told her, "please don't talk so much," and each time, almost immediately, he was taken to the parrilla (grill). That happened to Hernán (Carrasco) and to all the other comrades who tried to make her reason. They were systematically tortured.

What do you think happened to her to make her have such a drastic change and go to the other side?

It has been known since the darkest times in history that torture is a destructive weapon in every sense; however, Carola integrated herself quickly as a DINA professional, even living as a partner with one agent after another. It is enough to read the book by her friend Lucecita, where she tells in detail the love stories between them.

Over the years, and given her track record, many think that, in reality, she was an infiltrator in the MIR.

How has the process regarding Humberto's case been in the courts?

I saw my husband dead; I saw how they left him. His body was all destroyed, as if they had taken pieces out of him. They tore his right arm; only the hanging tendons could be seen. My pain was such that I took his feet, the only thing intact, and pressed them hard against my belly so as not to be separated from him anymore.

The young doctor at the morgue managed to pull me away and tried to console me as best he could.

With great difficulty, with his mother and Hernán Carrasco's relatives, we obtained power of attorney to take them out of there and bury them in the General Cemetery of Santiago.

Days later, I was forced to leave Chile; my house had already been raided, an event in which "la flaca Alejandra" was involved. My father confronted her: "You already took my two sons (Vladi and Toncho) and now you want to arrest my daughter.

You have no soul," he told her, and she replied, "You had better not get involved." I point this out because I know that woman also bears responsibility for the death of Humberto and Hernán.

For me, putting this in the hands of justice was fundamental. Because of my absence in Chile, my father was able to represent me, and thanks to Nelson Caucoto, who took my case (he has masterfully handled this process step by step for many years now). The case had been dismissed, but he continued filing appeals, even taking it to the United Nations and currently to the Inter-American Commission.

I received the ruling from the Court of Appeals, where the judge sentenced Contreras, among others, to life imprisonment for the murder of my husband. My emotion was so great that I wrote and shouted everywhere: JUSTICE EXISTS, MY LOVE.

How do you feel about the prosecution of "Carola" for the death of your husband?

The news about the prosecution of "Carola" is unprecedented. This has great relevance and will be decisive in future trials. She knows what happened to each one of our forcibly disappeared or executed people; that has always been my intimate conviction.

When I received the news, I felt that my body could not contain my heart. It was a shock. I spent the night sharing the information and responding to many people I don't even know, whose testimonies were to say that finally those women must be judged.

I have no doubt that "Carola" participated in the murder of Humberto and Hernán, which is why my heart almost exploded!

If it were possible, would you come to Chile to provide your testimony against "Carola"?

Absolutely, and I think other people will do so as well.

Do you maintain contact with any member of the MIR?

My whole family was militant; my brothers were militants of the MIR, and I was part of the FER (Revolutionary Student Front) structure.

After the coup, I became a militant in the MIR, and it is in that context that I met Humberto. In France, I continued to be a militant. Since that time, almost all my Chilean friends are former MIR members.

Together we have worked a lot for memory and have participated in all the processes; one of the most important took place in Paris, where Pinochet was convicted in absentia for the murder of comrades of French origin.

Today, the only thing I hope for is that the leaders of the MIR from that time do the same.

How was your departure from Chile to France?

I didn't want to leave; I only did it to protect my family. During the trip, I wondered how I would be able to love life again.

How has your life developed after everything you lived through in Chile?

When I arrived in France, I was 18 years old. I was received by comrades from the MIR, among them Marco Antonio Enríquez (Miguel's brother). They allowed me to go to Geneva before the International Commission of Human Rights, where I was able to give my testimony; there were representatives from 50 countries. I learned over time that this testimony was decisive in the Commission's decision.

Later, my only goal was to study as much as possible, thinking about my return. I only returned to Chile in December 1989 for the presidential elections; 14 years had passed.

In France, I had responsibilities, and the vicissitudes of life meant that I stayed. I have lived my life giving testimony whenever I am asked, in schools, universities, neighborhoods, and the press. It is my duty of memory.

What do you think of the progress Chile has made in terms of punishing crimes against humanity?

It is an example; in the world, there have been crimes that have never been judged. Justice is advancing in Chile. It has been long and difficult, but there are still witnesses left.

The work of lawyers and human rights organizations, even in the middle of the dictatorship, has allowed for this whole process of truth and justice. I have great admiration for them.

I hope this process reaches the end, just as I hope that Chile adopts a Memorial Law so that the atrocities of the dictatorship are never again called into question, and that no individual involved in crimes against humanity continues to live with impunity or be honored.

Source: cambio21.cl, July 2, 2015

DINA agents sentenced for the murder of a former journalism student from the University of Concepción

The minister on special assignment for the Santiago Court of Appeals for human rights violation cases, Leopoldo Llanos Sagristá, issued a first-instance conviction against seven former agents of the National Intelligence Directorate (DINA) for their participation in the crimes of simple kidnapping and qualified homicide of the former journalism student from the University of Concepción, José Hernán Carrasco Vásquez.

These crimes were perpetrated starting on November 20, 1975, for the former, and December 1, 1975, in the Metropolitan Region.

The magistrate sentenced the former DINA leaders, former Army Brigadier Pedro Octavio Espinoza Bravo and former Army Colonel Rolf Arnold Wenderoth Pozo, to a penalty of three years of minor imprisonment in its medium degree each, as authors of the crime of simple kidnapping; and to the penalty of 15 years and one day of major imprisonment in its maximum degree, as authors of the crime of qualified homicide.

Likewise, he sanctioned former Army General Raúl Eduardo Iturriaga Neumann and former Army Lieutenant Colonel Gerardo Ernesto Urrich González to the penalty of 18 years of major imprisonment in its maximum degree, each, as authors of the crime of qualified homicide of Carrasco Vásquez.

Similarly, the former civilian Carabineros agents, Adelina Transito Ortega Sáez and Alicia de Fátima Muñoz Gatica, and the former MIR militant (who became a DINA collaborator) María Alicia Uribe Gómez were sentenced to the penalty of 5 years and one day of major imprisonment in its minimum degree, as accomplices to the crime of qualified homicide.

Meanwhile, Minister Leopoldo Llanos acquitted Miguel Krassnoff Martchenko and Basclay Zapata Reyes of the accusations of being authors of the crime of simple kidnapping perpetrated against the person of José Hernán Carrasco Vásquez, starting on November 20, 1975.

Likewise, Manuel Contreras Sepúlveda and Marcelo Morén Brito, who were also prosecuted and accused of this crime, were dismissed due to death.

According to the information gathered in the investigation, the following facts were proven:

"José Hernán Carrasco Vásquez, 27 years old and a former journalism student at the University of Concepción, was a leader of the MIR and was detained by DINA agents at the end of 1974, being taken to Villa Grimaldi, where he was interrogated and tortured.

While in that situation, in the month of February 1975, he participated along with three other leaders in a televised public statement and a press conference where they called on their fellow party members to end the armed struggle.

He then continued to be detained for some months at Villa Grimaldi and Cuatro Álamos, separated from the rest of the prisoners, until he regained his freedom in September 1975."

The ruling adds that: "While in that situation, he was detained by DINA agents, among whom were members of the Purén Brigade, on November 20, 1975, and taken to Villa Grimaldi, guarded by personnel from said Brigade, where he was tortured.

In the following days, he was executed and his body was abandoned in the place called 'Chada,' in the vicinity of Buin. His date of death was determined, according to his death certificate, as December 1, 1975. His body was identified by his relatives on December 10 at the Legal Medical Institute. It showed signs of having been tortured before being killed."

Finally, it adds: "Previously, and while he was still detained, the press published information that the MIR had sentenced the participants in the statement and the press conference to death. Once dead, the relatives received a letter informing them that he had been executed by the MIR, accused of having betrayed the working class."

In his resolution, Minister Llanos states that the evidence shows that the kidnapping and homicide of José Carrasco Vásquez correspond to the classification of crimes against humanity, as "they were punishable acts executed by State agents, in the context of a systematic persecution against the civilian population for political reasons."

As has been reported, another of the imprisoned MIR members who participated in the forced statement and conference of February 1975, Humberto Juan Carlos Menenteau Aceituno (24 years old), met the same fate as José Carrasco Vásquez; he was also re-detained in November and murdered on December 1, 1975, by DINA agents.

For this crime, last January, the Supreme Court ratified the sentences against Pedro Espinoza Bravo and Rolf Wenderoth Pozo that Minister Llanos had previously issued.

Source: resumen.cl, February 20, 2016

Exile and search: Documentary released on the death of MIR members murdered by the DINA

This Thursday, the documentary Venían a buscarme (They Came to Look for Me) will be released, a work that addresses the death of Alejandro de la Barra and Ana María Puga. This project was carried out by the couple's son, who, through a first-person narrative, tells of his childhood in exile and his subsequent encounter with Chile.

There were never any photographs that accounted for a family. Nor were there memories, faces, scents, or familiar voices. On the contrary, for many long years, Álvaro de la Barra had to reconstruct the memory of his parents from fragmented images and stories that reached his ears during his childhood in Venezuela.

Most of these stories corresponded to epic narratives that spoke of clandestinity, commitment, and hope.

However, as time passed, this void began to be filled with data that Álvaro himself collected. First, he discovered that his parents, Alejandro de la Barra and Ana María Puga, had been militants of the MIR. Then, he learned that both were murdered by the DINA on December 3, 1974, at the corner of Calle Pedro de Valdivia and Andacollo, that is, 80 meters from where his kindergarten was located.

This search finally gave rise to the documentary Venían a buscarme, a film that starting this Thursday will be able to be seen in different national theaters.

In Venían a buscarme, de la Barra reconstructs the day his parents died as well as the exile he had to face when he was barely a month old. In this way, he arrives in France and Venezuela, two countries that gave him shelter.

"For me, the documentary was part of a search for identity," comments the director. "I always had to whisper my story, but once in Chile, I realized that what had happened to my parents was no longer a taboo. Here, they told me stories about them, and many times I was afraid. But I understood that I could already speak in a loud voice. Silence was no longer necessary," he affirms.

In this way, the documentary moves between testimonies of relatives and archives of the time. And in a certain sense, the film also captures what political commitment implied in those years.

"This was a crucial point. I needed to know what my father's motivations were for militancy, and for that reason, I had to address why they decided to join the MIR and lead a lifestyle based on clandestinity, especially why they decided to start a family," says de la Barra, who, once his parents passed away, was handed over to his grandparents, who immediately began the arrangements for the child to leave the country.

A childhood in exile

Álvaro de la Barra grew up between Venezuela and France. There, he shared with other children who played, innocently, at exchanging their relatives. "There is a story in particular with German Berger. He was with his mother, Carmen Hertz, passing through Caracas.

We were playing, and suddenly we started a trade: I would lend him Pablo, my father's older brother, who had become my guardian, and he would lend me his mother."

In those years, Chile did not represent much for Álvaro. For him, there was only a collection of stories, but personally, there was not much of a bond. Hence, today he affirms: "I feel very identified with Venezuela, and even more, I feel Venezuelan in my way of walking. I feel like a Venezuelan born in Chile with some French accent as well."

The first time de la Barra visited Chile was in 1990 in the context of the repatriation of the remains of his grandfather, Pedro de la Barra, one of the founders of the Experimental Theater of the University of Chile who died in July 1977 in Caracas.

That first visit was significant in every sense for Álvaro, since from it he managed to investigate for himself the stories that had accompanied him for years regarding Chile. The result was disappointing: he encountered a country completely different from the stories of his childhood.

"In exile, one grows up with the image that previous generations took with them of Chile. So, there was a change regarding that image, because I found that that communal, solidary Chile and that human society of which I heard so much no longer existed. I arrived and found a Chile turned toward materialism, individualism, and social climbing," says the director.

From the MIR to the DINA

In Venían a buscarme, the name María Alicia Uribe Gómez also appears, who for years was known as "Carola."

This woman was part of the MIR; however, once detained, she began to collaborate with the intelligence agencies.

"Carola worked very closely with my father's area. At that time, my mother also became her friend. They gave her so much trust that there were moments when she would look after me when my parents couldn't," points out de la Barra.

On more than one occasion, the director tried to communicate with her. However, each of his attempts failed.

"When Carola is detained, she immediately begins to denounce people. Two weeks after her detention, for example, many people from the MIR fell," comments de la Barra.

Once in the DINA, Carola goes from being an informant to a functionary. Currently, she is at liberty.

Searches and losses

For Álvaro de la Barra, an important process opens with the documentary, especially for that generation whose parents were victims of the regime. In this sense, he warns: "The children of the victims need to talk. We need to know what happened and ask ourselves our own questions."

"There is a tendency to cover up information, not to want to talk, because they don't want to remember the past, when in reality not remembering does not mean that we are healing, nor that we are recovering, nor that we are solving the problems. So, for our generation, it is important to know and talk in order to continue developing as individuals and also as a society," he says.

At the same time, the director maintains that beyond the death of his parents, his work points to a permanent investigation: "For me, healing is in the sense of the search for my origins, in the search for my identity, of knowing where my parents come from, where my family came from, of knowing that my grandfather was something more than my grandfather, because even if you get lost, the search is a path to finding yourself."

Source: radio.uchile.cl, June 6, 2018

Minister Mario Carroza sentences former DINA agent for the homicide of Fernando Valenzuela Rivera.

The minister on special assignment for human rights violation cases of the Santiago Court of Appeals, Mario Carroza Espinosa, sentenced former National Intelligence Directorate (DINA) agent Miguel Krassnoff Martchenko to a penalty of 10 years and one day of imprisonment, as the author of the crime of qualified homicide of Fernando Abraham Valenzuela Rivera, a crime perpetrated on November 19, 1974, on Calle Santa Filomena.

In the ruling, Minister Carroza also decreed the acquittal of Pedro Espinoza Bravo of responsibility in the death of the lawyer, leader of the Revolutionary Left Movement (MIR), and secretary of the Prosecutor's Office of the Production Development Corporation (Corfo).

In the investigation stage of the case, the minister on special assignment managed to establish the following facts: That the National Intelligence Directorate, DINA, was an organized, hierarchical structure, with its own means, detention centers, etc., in charge of a General Director, who exercised national command and to whom all its members were subordinate.

In charge of DINA Operations in the Metropolitan Region was the Metropolitan Intelligence Brigade (BIM), in charge of a high-ranking Army officer, who had a general staff that advised him on intelligence work.

Depending on this Chief were the different Brigades, among them the one called CAUPOLICÁN, whose objective at the date of occurrence of these events pointed to the combat of the Revolutionary Left Movement (M.I.R.), an entity related to the victim of this investigation, specifically the Halcón and Águila groups, which carried out operational work and were composed of members of the Army, Carabineros, and the Chilean Investigative Police;

That in that context of repression, in November 1974, Fernando Abraham Valenzuela Rivera, a member of the Central Committee and Chief of Information of the MIR, who at that time lived in clandestinity, on the 19th of that month went to the area of Calle Santa Filomena to have a contact point with another militant, without counting on the fact that agents of the Halcón group, Blascay Zapata and Osvaldo Romo, both deceased, dependent on the Caupolicán Brigade, were already aware of this situation and had gone to the meeting point, bringing with them for recognition the MIR militant María Alicia Uribe Gómez, detained at that time in Villa Grimaldi and a collaborator of the DINA;

That upon arriving at the contact area, Fernando Valenzuela Rivera noticed the presence of the agents and tried to flee, but one of them—Blascay Zapata—shot him twice and inflicted two bullet wounds, one transfixing the thorax and another, craniocerebral without an exit wound, which finally caused his death at the scene, which is confirmed because subsequently these agents picked up and loaded his lifeless body into the truck, and he was identified by María Alicia Uribe Gómez; his corpse was finally found by his relatives at the Legal Medical Service.

In the civil aspect, the ruling ordered the Treasury to pay compensation of $240,000,000 to the victim's relatives.

Source: diarioconstitucional.cl, September 29, 2018

The women of the DINA: loyal and unpunished

The detention of Adriana Rivas in Australia, after Chilean courts had been demanding her extradition for years, has brought back the topic of the women who made up the DINA and the CNI. If she decided to collaborate from her experience as Manuel Contreras's secretary between '73 and '76, there would be many significant questions.

What became of the pregnant prisoners?

Were children born in captivity? Or who were the business investors of the DINA's secret fund?

We know her image and words from the documentary El pacto de Adriana (Adriana's Pact), made by director Lissette Orozco, a niece who knew her as her aunt "Chany."

In the film, she answers Lissette

"Why do I tell you that they are the best days of my life? Because that part [...] of the life of the rich was forbidden to me. Do you think I would have been able, if I had been an executive secretary, to have gone to lunch at the Cousiño Palace?"

With calm and conviction, Adriana opines on the application of torture: "It was the only way to break people," while at the same time claiming to have "fond memories" of Contreras as a person and boss.

Only one woman imprisoned. Among the hundreds prosecuted and convicted for human rights violations, there is only one woman-agent imprisoned at the Women's Orientation Center of Vicuña Mackenna. She is Ema Ceballos Núñez, known as "la Flaca Cecilia," who is serving a sentence for the kidnapping of five members of the Manuel Rodríguez Patriotic Front (FPMR) in 1987.

At the same time, she was part of the CNI's Blue Brigade in Valdivia, where she was the author of the death of Juan José Boncompte in August 1984.

Women doing evil.

Could the condition of being women have inhibited the investigating ministers or the auxiliary police? The researcher on women's issues and memory, Tamara Vidaurrázaga, responds: "Essentialism says that we are naturally good; perhaps that is why it is difficult to see them as women who chose to do evil."

Ingrid Olderock Bernhard is a prominent figure in this Bestiary. She had leadership responsibility and stood out as an instructor of dogs that raped imprisoned women and men.

The December 2004 edition of El Siglo referred to the "female hierarchy" of torture. The doctor and survivor María Isabel Matamala has testified that she was detained and tortured by Osvaldo Romo and that among the male interrogators was a woman nicknamed "the commander," whose name was Rosa Humilde Ramos Hernández.

In October 1991, the journalist Gladys Díaz, a survivor of Villa Grimaldi, wrote for the magazine Análisis a chronicle titled ¿Dónde están hoy los dinos de ayer? (Where are the Dinos of yesterday today?).

In it, she referred to the female left-wing militants whom the DINA turned into collaborators "under atrocious duress": Marcia Merino, "la flaca Alejandra," and Luz Arce. Gladys established that those two had begun to collaborate with the procedural investigations, unlike "Carola"—María Alicia Uribe Gómez—who until that moment remained a functionary of the DINE.

Nurses causing death.

In the cross-referencing of lists of women-agents, there are easily a hundred names. But there are some that stand out and repeat. María Teresa Osorio Navarro, alias "Soledad" or "negra," who served as Miguel Krassnoff's secretary.

In the Purén Brigade, the detective Ximena San Juan, Elsa del Transito Lagos Salazar, and Nancy Edulia Vásquez Torrejón, alias "la Pelusa," appear with functions. In the Halcón II Group of the Caupolicán Brigade was María Gabriela Órdenes, alias "Marisol." In that extensive list are Nélida Gutiérrez Rivera, who was Contreras's secretary and mistress, and Viviana Pincetti Gaca, daughter of Osvaldo the hypnotist.

There were women-agents who officiated or were nurses. For example, María Eliana Bolumburú Taboada, who was part of the DINA's health brigade, and Gladis Calderón, who injected lethal drugs into the prisoners. Both were prosecuted, and despite the gravity of their crimes, today neither is serving a sentence.

Prostitutes and companions.

For journalist Manuel Salazar, the topic of the DINA-CNI women is still pending a thorough investigation. "For example, there was a FACH intelligence brigade headed by 'la Pochi'—Viviana Lucinda Ugarte Sandoval—formed to infiltrate and obtain information in exchange for sexual favors.

Furthermore, many of them later paired up with uniformed men." Another case is that of the agent Palmira Isabel Almuna Guzmán, alias "la Pepa," whose task at the torture house of José Domingo Cañas was to select and instruct women-agents who had to seduce to obtain information.

Protection networks.

In the concealment of these dozens of women-agents, not only have family networks functioned; others are also operating with multiplied means and capabilities. This is confirmed by investigative journalist Manuel Salazar. "I believe that several of the most important torturers have had very good protection networks, and in that, naval intelligence has stood out.

The Navy has made its personnel involved in abuses and human rights violations invisible."

When there is no justice, there is funa (public protest).

Julio Oliva of the Comisión Funa points out: "Next October we will celebrate 20 years of activism against impunity; of the nearly 300 funas, four have been against female torturers: Italia Vaccarella Gilio, Rosa Humilde Ramos Hernández, and Ema Ceballos. In addition to Luz Arce. And in Australia, coordinated with the community there, against Adriana Rivas."

With an average age lower than their male colleagues, surely with greater ease in altering their appearance, today they are simply "slipping through" among so many male agents.

It is even very possible that they collect their pensions as former functionaries of the uniformed institutions and are even devoted grandmothers, as is the case of the agent Luisa Mónica Lagos or "Liliana Walker," who enjoys her golden years in the United States.

Now, it only remains to be seen how the extradition request for Adriana Rivas will be resolved; at least her niece already knows who her aunt "Chany" really was.

Source: opinion.cooperativa.cl, February 25, 2019