The DINA Lautaro Brigade established itself on the 9th floor of "Torre 5" in the San Borja Towers as an operational site and a transit point for detainees. This extermination unit was created on April 1, 1974, by General Manuel Contreras and directed by Army Major Juan Morales Salgado.

The Lautaro Brigade was composed of personnel from the various branches of the Armed Forces, who were later transferred to facilities at the intersection of Portugal and Diagonal Paraguay, Torre 5 in the San Borja redevelopment, and, in mid-1975, due to Manuel Contreras's change of residence to La Reina, to the "Simón Bolívar" barracks, located at Calle Simón Bolívar No. 8630, in the commune of La Reina, where they remained until the first quarter of 1977.

This transfer was carried out under the command of Army Captain Juan Hernán Morales, who was in charge of the Brigade both at "Torre 5" and at "Simón Bolívar."

The actions of this group of DINA agents known to date include the capture of the Communist Party leadership in 1976.

The brigade operated with a contingent of more than 70 members, whose operational staff carried out information gathering, arrests, interrogations/torture, executions, and the disappearance of the detainees' bodies.

For these purposes, they had access to a large infrastructure; in addition to the barracks themselves, they had a varied number of vehicles at their disposal, as well as access to Puma helicopters from the Army Aviation Command (CAE) that operated from Peldehue.

The members of the Lautaro Brigade came from the four branches of the Armed Forces, in addition to having some civilian agents attached to the various branches. Its composition was mostly non-commissioned officers.

The fact that there were at least seven agents from the Navy in this brigade makes it clear that the institution lied when it declared that the Navy withdrew all its personnel from the DINA in 1975.

Another characteristic of the Lautaro Brigade is that it had a large number of women, who, as has been discovered, were characterized by their coldness and cruelty regarding their crimes. Several of them, due to their knowledge of medicine and nursing, cooperated in the experiments carried out in the chemical laboratory at Michael Townley's house in Lo Curro.

Townley constantly attended the Simón Bolívar street barracks to experiment on detainees with the gas manufactured by the chemist Eugenio Berrios.

The information that has been recovered as of August 2007 emerged after the investigation of the "Calle Conferencia" case carried out by Judge Víctor Montiglio, who managed to establish the fate of a number of detainees from the Communist Party leadership, including the Secretary General of the PC in hiding, Víctor Manuel Díaz López, as well as Bernardo Araya Zuleta, María Olga Flores Barraza, Mario Zamorano Donoso, Onofre Jorge Muñoz Poutays, Uldarico Donaire Cortés, Jaime Patricio Donato Avendaño, Elisa Escobar Cepeda, Lenín Adán Díaz Silva, Eliana Espinoza Fernández, and Marta Lidia Ugarte Román.

To date, it has been established that Víctor Manuel Díaz López was arrested in the early hours of May 12, 1976, at the house located at Calle Bello Horizonte No. 979, in the commune of Las Condes, days after the arrest of several PC leaders detained in the operation known as the "Ratonera" at Calle Conferencia No. 1587.

Víctor Díaz was taken to the Villa Grimaldi torture center and subsequently transferred to "Casa de Piedra," another DINA torture center located in the Cajón del Maipo, a place where it is known that Augusto Pinochet visited Víctor Díaz and other PC leaders detained there.

At the beginning of 1977, Manuel Contreras gave the order to Juan Morales Salgado to eliminate Víctor Díaz. In compliance with that order, agents Sergio Escalona Acuña and Bernardo Daza Navarro took Díaz out of a cell and tied a plastic bag over his head, suffocating him, while the Army lieutenant (nurse) Gladys de las Mercedes Calderón Carreño injected him with cyanide.

Subsequently, they proceeded to put the body into plastic bags, tie it up, attach a piece of rail to it, and put it into potato sacks, then tie it with wire to ensure the bindings would not open.

The body was transported in vehicles to the Army regiment in Peldehue, where they had other executed victims brought from Villa Grimaldi and tied in the same way as Víctor Díaz.

They loaded the bodies into the Army Aviation Command's Puma helicopter and headed toward the coast of the Fifth Region to throw the bodies into the sea.

This modus operandi of the Lautaro Brigade agents demonstrates the brutality and dehumanization of all its members.

Below is the list of some of the Lautaro Brigade agents:

1 Acevedo Acevedo, Heriberto del Carmen - Carabineros - Sub-officer (Ret.) 2 Ahumada Despouy, Joyce Ana - Army - Sub-officer (Ret.) 3 Altamirano Sanhueza, Orlando del Tránsito - Navy - Sub-officer (Ret.) 4 Alvarez Droguett, Victor Manuel - Army - Sub-officer (Ret.) 5 Alvarez Vega, Hiro - Army - Sub-officer (Ret.) 6 Arriagada Mora, Jorge Hugo - FACH - Civilian employee (Ret.) 7 Aspe Rojas, Celinda Angélica - Navy - Sub-officer (Ret.) 8 Benavides Escobar, César Raúl - Army - General (Ret.) 9 Bermúdez Méndez, Carlos Justo - Army - Sub-officer (Ret.) 10 Bitterlich Jaramillo, Pedro Segundo - Army - Sub-officer (Ret.) 11 Cabezas Mardones, Eduardo Patricio - FACH - Sub-officer (Ret.) 12 Calderón Carreño, Gladys de las Mercedes - Army - Officer (Ret.) and nurse 13 Castro Andrade, Sergio Hernán - Carabineros - Sub-officer (Ret.) 14 Chaigneau Sepúlveda, Federico Humberto - Army - Lieutenant Colonel (Ret.) 15 Daza Navarro, Bernardo del Rosario - Navy - Sub-officer (Ret.) 16 Díaz Radulovich, Jorge Iván - FACH - Sub-officer (Ret.) 17 Díaz Ramírez, Guillermo Eduardo - FACH - Sub-officer (Ret.) 18 Escalona Acuña, Sergio Orlando - Navy - Sub-officer (Ret.) 19 Escobar Fuentes, Jorge Marcelo - Army - Brigadier (Ret.) 20 Ferrán Martínez, Guillermo Jesús - Army - Sub-officer (Ret.) 21 Garea Guzmán, Eduardo - Army - Civilian employee (Ret.) 22 Guerrero Aguilera, Gustavo Enrique - Carabineros - Sub-officer (Ret.) 23 Guerrero Soto, María Angélica - Army - Sub-officer (Ret.) 24 Gutiérrez Valdés, Pedro Antonio - Army - Sub-officer (Ret.) 25 Jaime Astorga, Rufino Eduardo - Carabineros - Sub-officer (Ret.) 26 Jímenez Escobar, Berta Yolanda - Navy - Sub-officer (Ret.) 27 Krassnoff Martchenko, Miguel - Army - Brigadier (Ret.) 28 Lagos Yañez, Luis Alberto - FACH - Civilian employee (Ret.) 29 Lawrence Mires, Ricardo Víctor - Carabineros - Lieutenant Colonel (Ret.) 30 López Tapia, Carlos José - Army - Colonel (Ret.) and Army Prof. 31 Magna Astudillo, Elisa del Carmen - Army - Officer (Ret.) 32 Manríquez Manterola, Jorge Lientur - Navy - Sub-officer (Ret.) 33 Marcos Muñoz, Carlos Segundo - Civilian - Attached to the Army 34 Meza Serrano, José Miguel - Navy - Sub-officer (Ret.) 35 Montre Méndez, Manuel Antonio - Carabineros - Sub-officer (Ret.) 36 Morales Salgado, Juan Hernán - Army - Colonel (Ret.) and Army Prof. 37 Navarro Navarro, Teresa del Carmen - Navy - Sub-officer (Ret.) 38 Obreque Henríquez, Manuel Jesús - Army - Sub-officer (Ret.) 39 Ojeda Obando, José Alfonso - Carabineros - Sub-officer (Ret.) 40 Orellana de la Pinta, Claudio Orlando - Carabineros - Sub-officer (Ret.) 41 Oyarce Riquelme, Eduardo Alejandro - Army - Sub-officer (Ret.) 42 Pacheco Fernández, Claudio Enrique - Carabineros - Sub-officer (Ret.) 43 Pichunmán Curiqueo, Jorge Segundo - Carabineros - Sub-officer (Ret.) 44 Piña Garrido, Juvenal Alfonso - Army - Sub-officer (Ret.) 45 Reyes Lagos, Eduardo Antonio - Army - Sub-officer (Ret.) 46 Rinaldi Suárez, Carlos Ramón - Army - Sub-officer (Ret.) 47 Rivas González, Adriana Elcira - FACH - Sub-officer (Ret.) 48 Riveros Valderrama, René Miguel - Army - Officer (Ret.) 49 Saavedra Vásquez, Orfa Yolanda - Army - Sub-officer (Ret.) 50 Sagardía Monje, Jorge Laureano - Carabineros - Sub-officer (Ret.) 51 Sarmiento Sotelo, José Manuel - Carabineros - Sub-officer (Ret.) 52 Silva Vergara, Marilin Melahani - Carabineros - Sub-officer (Ret.) 53 Sovino Maturana, Hernán Luis - Army - Captain (Ret.) 54 Torrejón Gatica, Orlando Jesús - Army - Sub-officer (Ret.) 55 Troncoso Vivallos, Emilio Hernán - Carabineros - Sub-officer (Ret.) 56 Urrutia Acuña, Luis Arturo - Carabineros - Sub-officer (Ret.) 57 Vaccarella Gilio, Italia Donata - Carabineros - Sub-officer (Ret.) 58 Valdebenito Araya, Héctor Manuel - Carabineros - Sub-officer (Ret.) 59 Vilches Muñoz, Ana del Carmen - FACH - Civilian employee (Ret.)

Sources: AFDD, La Nación, El Mostrador, Punto Final, Memoriaviva

Former DINA agent Italia Vaccarella Gilio is "funada" at her home in the San Miguel commune.

This Saturday, September 26, around 11:30 a.m., a group of approximately 60 people held a "Funa" (public protest) at the private residence of Italia Donata Vaccarella Gilio, a former member of the Lautaro Brigade, who was prosecuted for the disappearance and kidnapping of Víctor Díaz López, a leader of the Communist Party, and released on bail for the sum of 100,000 pesos.

The protesters, coordinated by the Comisión Funa, arrived at the San Miguel commune, at Calle Pedro Mira #821, with signs and slogans; the neighbors were dismayed, as they were unaware of Vaccarella's hidden past.

The retired Carabineros sub-officer, a member of the DINA's Lautaro Brigade, created by Manuel Contreras and directed by Army Major Juan Morales Salgado, was characterized by her cruelty and coldness. The Lautaro Brigade, mostly made up of women who had extensive knowledge of medicine and nursing, manufactured gases, among other things, at Michael Townley's house, and together with the chemist Eugenio Berríos, they experimented on detainees at the Simón Bolívar street barracks.

The Brigade was an extermination unit, and its members came from the four branches of the Armed Forces along with civilian agents, and it was mostly made up of non-commissioned officers.

Source: Comisión Funa, September 27, 2015

Case No. 2.182-98 Episode "Conferencia C" or "Conferencia 1"

XIV.- Nelson René Herrera Lagos, Héctor Raúl Valdebenito Araya, Federico Humberto Chaigneau Sepúlveda, Elisa Del Carmen Magna Astudillo, Orfa Yolanda Saavedra Vásquez, Celinda Angélica Aspe Rojas, Teresa Del Carmen Navarro Navarro, Berta Yolanda Del Carmen Jiménez Escobar, Jorge Hugo Arriagada Mora, Eduardo Oyarce Riquelme, Ana del Carmen Vilches Muñoz, Italia Donata Vaccarella Gilio, Jorge Lientur Manríquez Manterola, José Manuel Sarmiento Sotelo, Gustavo Enrique Guerrero Aguilera, Luis Alberto Lagos Yáñez, María Angélica Guerrero Soto, Sergio Hernán Castro Andrade, Pedro Antonio Gutiérrez Valdés, Joyce Ana Ahumada Despouy, Hiro Álvarez Vega, José Miguel Meza Serrano, Carlos Justo Bermúdez Méndez, Marilín Melahani Silva Vergara, Camilo Torres Negrier, and Juan Edmundo Suazo Saldaña are sentenced to three years and one day of minor imprisonment in its maximum degree as accomplices in the crime of qualified kidnapping of Víctor Díaz López, perpetrated starting May 12, 1976; and to the legal accessory penalties of absolute perpetual disqualification for public offices and positions and political rights for the duration of the sentence, and to the payment of court costs.

Source: Judiciary, April 24, 2023

Calle Conferencia: Sentences confirmed against 47 DINA agents for the qualified kidnapping of eight Communist leaders in 1976

The Sixth Chamber of the Santiago Court of Appeals ratified the sentencing of 49 agents (two of whom are already deceased) of the dissolved National Intelligence Directorate (DINA) for the crimes of qualified kidnapping of 8 Communist leaders perpetrated in April and May 1976 in Santiago.

The repressive episode is labeled as "Case Conferencia One" because, subsequent to these arrests, in December 1976, the DINA carried out the kidnapping of another group of Communist leaders in an episode judicially labeled as "Conferencia Two."

In the ruling (case file 2545-2019), the Sixth Chamber of the Santiago Court of Appeals—composed of judges Graciela Gómez Quitral, Andrea Díaz-Muñoz (s), and judge (s) Matías Felipe de la Noi—rejected the cassation appeals filed by some of those convicted in the first-instance sentence, issued in November 2018 by judge Miguel Vásquez Plaza, and confirmed the sentences of 49 former agents for their responsibility as authors or co-authors in the crime of qualified kidnapping of Mario Jaime Zamorano Donoso, Onofre Jorge Muñoz Poutays, Uldarico Donaire Cortez, Jaime Patricio Donato Avendaño, Elisa del Carmen Escobar Cepeda, Lenin Adán Díaz Silva, Eliana Marina Espinoza Fernández, and Víctor Manuel Díaz López; and for their responsibility in the homicide of the aforementioned Díaz López.

The resolution confirms the sentences of former Army officers Carlos José Leonardo López Tapia (already deceased), Pedro Octavio Espinoza Bravo, and Miguel Krassnoff Martchenko to 20 years in prison as authors of the crimes of qualified kidnapping of: Mario Jaime Zamorano Donoso and Onofre Jorge Muñoz Poutays, perpetrated starting May 4; of Uldarico Donaire Cortez and Jaime Patricio Donato Avendaño, committed starting May 5; of Elisa del Carmen Escobar Cepeda, perpetrated starting May 6; of Lenin Adán Díaz Silva, committed starting May 9; of Eliana Marina Espinoza Fernández, perpetrated starting May 12, and of Víctor Manuel Díaz López, perpetrated starting May 12, all in the year 1976.

Former Carabineros officer Ricardo Víctor Lawrence Mires (also already deceased) was sentenced to 20 years in prison as the author of the eight crimes of qualified kidnapping; plus 15 years in prison as a co-author of the qualified homicide of Víctor Díaz López, perpetrated on an undetermined day in the first half of January 1977.

Former Army officer and former head of the clandestine extermination center Cuartel Simón Bolívar, Juan Hernán Morales Salgado, must serve sentences of 8 years in prison as a co-author of the crimes of qualified kidnapping and 15 years in prison as a co-author of the qualified homicide of Víctor Díaz López.

Former Army officers Federico Humberto Chaigneau Sepúlveda and Jorge Claudio Andrade Gómez are sentenced to 6 years in prison as co-authors of the crime of qualified kidnapping of Víctor Manuel Díaz López.

Meanwhile, agents Emilio Hernán Troncoso Vivallos, Claudio Enrique Pacheco Fernández, Jorge Iván Díaz Radulovich, Orlando del Tránsito Altamirano Sanhueza, Eduardo Patricio Cabezas Mardones, Guillermo Eduardo Díaz Ramírez, Orlando Jesús Torrejón Gatica, Víctor Manuel Álvarez Droguett, Carlos Enrique Miranda Mesa, Carlos Eusebio López Inostroza, Lionel de la Cruz Medrano Medrano Rivas, Juvenal Alfonso Piña Garrido, José Alfonso Ojeda Obando, José Domingo Seco Alarcón, Leonidas Emiliano Méndez Moreno, and Roberto Hernán Rodríguez Manquel were sentenced to 15 years in prison as co-authors of the crimes of qualified kidnapping of Mario Jaime Zamorano Donoso, Onofre Jorge Muñoz Poutays, Uldarico Donaire Cortez, Jaime Patricio Donato Avendaño, Elisa del Carmen Escobar Cepeda, Eliana Marina Espinoza Fernández, Lenin Adán Díaz Silva, and Víctor Manuel Díaz López.

Meanwhile, agents Sergio Orlando Escalona Acuña, Gladys de las Mercedes Calderón Carreño, and Jorge Segundo Pichunmán Curiqueo were sentenced to 5 years and one day as co-authors of the qualified kidnapping and 12 years in prison as co-authors of the qualified homicide of Víctor Díaz López.

In addition, agents Elisa del Carmen Magna Astudillo, Orfa Yolanda Saavedra Vásquez, Celinda Angélica Aspe Rojas, Teresa del Carmen Navarro Navarro, Berta Yolanda del Carmen Jiménez Escobar, Ana del Carmen Vilches Muñoz, Italia Donata Vaccarella Gilio, María Angélica Guerrero Soto, Joyce Ana Ahumada Despouy, Marilín Melahani Silva Vergara, Nelson René Herrera Lagos, Jorge Hugo Arriagada Mora, Eduardo Alejandro Oyarce Riquelme, Jorge Lientur Manríquez Manterola, José Manuel Sarmiento Sotelo, Gustavo Enrique Guerrero Aguilera, Luis Alberto Lagos Yáñez, Sergio Hernán Castro Andrade, Pedro Antonio Gutiérrez Valdés, Hiro Álvarez Vega, José Miguel Meza Serrano, Carlos Justo Bermúdez Méndez, Camilo Torres Negrier, and Juan Edmundo Suazo Saldaña, all members of the groups that operated in the Simón Bolívar extermination barracks, were sentenced to 5 years and one day in prison as co-authors of the qualified kidnapping of Víctor Díaz López.

During the course of the trial, those convicted in the first instance, Heriberto del Carmen Acevedo, Héctor Raúl Valdebenito Araya, and Pedro Bitterlich Jaramillo, passed away, in addition to the aforementioned Carlos López Tapia and Ricardo Víctor Lawrence Mires. The accused René Miguel Riveros Valderrama was acquitted.

The facts During the investigation stage of the case, judge Miguel Vásquez managed to establish that on April 30, 1976, around 3:00 a.m., DINA agents went to the address at Calle Conferencia No. 1587, Santiago commune, knowing that a meeting of the leadership of the Communist Party acting in hiding would take place, and arrested its occupants, Juan Becerra Barrera, his spouse María Angélica Gutiérrez Gómez, and her cousin Eliana Vidal; they were taken to various secret detention and torture establishments in order to obtain information regarding the people who were going to or should attend their home and, in particular, regarding Mario Zamorano Donoso and Víctor Díaz López, among other Communist militants.

Once the information was obtained by the agents, the occupants were returned to the Calle Conferencia address to be forced to appear to live a normal daily life, but under the control of agents armed with submachine guns.

There, they set up an operation called "Ratonera," with 5 agents remaining inside the place, taking turns in silent and covert wait for the arrival of each of the members of the Communist Party who would attend the meeting, in order to arrest them.

An operation with similar characteristics was also set up at the home of Juan Becerra Barrera's mother, Mrs. María de las Mercedes Barrera Pérez, who on occasion hosted Mario Jaime Zamorano Donoso at her house located at Calle Alejandro Fierro No. 5113, Quinta Normal commune; an operation that was carried out simultaneously and in coordination with the one on Calle Conferencia, and in which at least 20 DINA officials participated together.

Under these conditions, at approximately 7:00 p.m. on May 4, 1976, Mario Jaime Zamorano Donoso arrived at the Calle Conferencia property. A friend of the tenant and a leather worker, he was pursued by the repressive apparatus and, after the military coup, became the National Organization Manager of the Communist Party.

Upon entering the house, as a result of a struggle with DINA agents, he was wounded by a bullet in the thigh. As he was bleeding out, he was taken to one of the rooms at the back of the house so as not to obstruct the operation; later, he was taken out at night, wrapped in a blanket, and transported to the Villa Grimaldi or Terranova detention barracks, located at Avenida José Arrieta No. 8200, La Reina commune, where he remained and was seen by other surviving detainees of that time.

Around 9:00 p.m. on the same day, May 4, 1976, Onofre Jorge Muñoz Poutays, a member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party, arrived at the Calle Conferencia property. Upon being identified as the husband of Gladys Marín, he was arrested, led inside the property, and finally transported to the Villa Grimaldi barracks, according to testimonies provided by former security agents Carlos Ramón Rinaldi Suárez, Eduardo Antonio Reyes Lagos, and Guido Arnoldo Jara Brevis, among other evidence.

The following day, May 5, 1976, Uldarico Donaire Cortez arrived at the aforementioned Calle Conferencia property around 9:00 a.m., and Jaime Patricio Donato Avendaño around 9:30 a.m.; both members of the Central Committee of the Communist Party, who were immobilized and arrested as soon as they entered; then taken out in vehicles, handcuffed, guarded by agents, and transported to the Villa Grimaldi barracks.

On May 6, 1976, between 1:00 p.m. and 2:00 p.m., the liaison Elisa del Carmen Escobar Cepeda, a member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party, was arrested by DINA agents at the same property and using the same procedure; she was also taken to the Villa Grimaldi barracks.

On May 9, 1976, around 9:00 a.m., Lenin Adán Díaz Silva, a member of the Communist Party's Technical Commission, in charge of contacts between members of the Central Committee and searching for houses for meetings or for the protection of Party members, was arrested by DINA agents at the property owned by his father-in-law, located at Calle Gaspar de Orense No. 993, Quinta Normal commune, from where he left for an unknown destination, together with the already arrested Elisa Escobar and a DINA agent, to be seen later as a prisoner in the Villa Grimaldi barracks by a surviving detainee (who shared a cell with Lenin Díaz on Tuesday the 24th, Wednesday the 25th, and Thursday the 26th of August 1976).

On May 12, 1976, Eliana Marina Espinoza Fernández, a member of the Communist Party's National Propaganda Commission and a liaison between Mario Zamorano and Víctor Díaz (who had already been previously sought by Elisa Escobar), upon learning of the raid on the home of some architects, decided to risk it and leave her refuge at Calle Adorno No. 648 in order to warn Víctor Díaz López.

In such a scenario, she left her house around 5:00 p.m., wearing her sister's clothes so as not to be recognized, and accompanied by her brother-in-law, who took her to the area of Independencia and Nueva de Matte to take public transport to a destination she did not reveal, at which point she was arrested at an undetermined point by DINA agents and taken to the Villa Grimaldi detention barracks.

In the early hours of May 12, 1976, DINA agents set up an operation they called "The Night of the Long Knives," raiding the home at Calle Bello Horizonte No. 979, Las Condes commune, at which time its occupants and eyewitnesses to the events were abruptly awakened with the phrase "We are from the DINA," intimidated with submachine guns, and forced to show the interior of the house, where they discovered the Secretary General of the Communist Party, Víctor Manuel Díaz López, nicknamed "Chino Díaz" and using the assumed name "José Santos Garrido Retamal," who had been in hiding since September 11, 1973, and had been sought for a long time by the security services, as evidenced by the various raids his family was subjected to.

Once Víctor Díaz López was discovered in one of the rooms of the property, he was forced to walk, revealing his limp, for which he was insulted and severely beaten with fists. After his arrest, Víctor Díaz López was taken to the Villa Grimaldi barracks, where he was interrogated and tortured in order to get him to hand over other members of the party, given the "Modus Operandi" of that time used to dismantle political parties.

The dictatorial government only responded to the search efforts made by the victims' families by stating the falsehood that Mario Zamorano Donoso and Onofre Jorge Muñoz Poutays had left the country for Argentina; which is illustrative of a preparation and concertation that escapes the scope to which operational agents can access, evidencing the participation of the higher echelons of the DINA in the planning of the intelligence and disinformation operation.

The DINA, on an unspecified date, but from late 1975 or early 1976, occupied and enabled the property at Calle Simón Bolívar No. 8800, La Reina commune, consisting of a country house, which was later conditioned for its purpose of confinement.

It had a single access gate, a guard booth to its right where the door guard was kept, a house at the back, a small soccer field, parking lots, and on the left side of the property a kind of gymnasium where there was a mess hall, kitchen, and some locker rooms and bathrooms, a property in which the Lautaro Brigade in charge of Major Juan Morales Salgado operated operationally, used as a secret and clandestine place of confinement, which operated in practice as an extermination barracks; a situation that is recognized by the agents themselves who were members of the National Intelligence Directorate, DINA.

At the end of August or the beginning of September 1976, the DINA groups in charge of officers Germán Barriga and Ricardo Lawrence also moved to the Simón Bolívar barracks, together with their operational agents, and formed a single unit, which continued the work of investigating, locating, raiding, pursuing, repressing, and dismantling the members of the Communist Party, especially its leadership, for which provisional facilities were enabled for their installation, consisting of offices, a gymnasium, and locker rooms that were confinement cells, where interrogations and duress were carried out; a facility to which Víctor Manuel Díaz López was transferred together with said brigades, remaining for at least four months in such a place, under a regime of confinement, permanently guarded, interrogated, and used by the agents who operated in said barracks.

All the victims of the process were arrested to be interrogated and tortured because of their political militancy, in order to obtain information about their party activities and, especially, the subsequent identification of other members of the Communist Party in hiding; duress that did not cease until the required information was obtained or until the victims became unconscious.

All the people arrested and kidnapped in these repressive operations became forcibly disappeared.

by Darío Núñez

Source: resumen.cl, April 26, 2023