In yesterday’s edition of La Prensa Austral, the former mayor of Punta Arenas and regional councilor for Renovación Nacional, Jorge Vega Germain, stated that in the event that Sebastián Piñera wins the runoff election next Sunday, “he must generate a general amnesty and the absolute freedom of the military personnel who are unjustly imprisoned, because they only enforced the sovereign will of the people,” were part of his controversial statements.

This polemical proposal caused human rights organizations in Magallanes to erupt, with former political prisoner and president of the Program for Reparation and Comprehensive Health Care (Prais), Manuel Aguilante Barrientos, being the one to confront the regional councilor’s remarks. “Jorge Vega is one of those responsible for compiling the lists of those who had to be eliminated, fired from their jobs, sent to concentration camps, tortured, and taken before war councils, before which even children were brought.

This is not something to congratulate those who carried out those public policies for. It is shameful to comment on the statements of Jorge Vega, who is so compromised in Magallanes with human rights violations.

One only needs to ask the thousands of people who have demonstrated for dignified healthcare, for the right to education and a dignified pension, whose rights were lost because of the Dictatorship,” he expressed indignantly.

INDH

The statements by Vega Germain resonated strongly at the level of the National Institute of Human Rights (INDH), and it was the regional director of the organization, Cristián Figueroa Fuentealba, who pointed out that there is already a consensus in the world regarding what the human rights violations were during different periods of history and that what matters—in his view—is to advance systematically in human rights education. “Beyond the words the councilor uses and which may seem legitimate to him, there is an international consensus here on what human rights mean for countries, and Chile has advanced in different areas and treaties it has ratified regarding childhood, as well as regarding the elderly; as well as regarding torture and what the protection of individuals means. Therefore, I feel that beyond the particular opinions that some groups may have, the important thing is to understand that the Chilean State has advanced significantly and the issue of human rights is not attached to a particular theme, but is broader. That is why, as an institute, we are committed to advancing on a plane of human rights education and the installation of a culture that is respectful of them,” emphasized the regional authority of this organization in Magallanes.

Regarding the former military personnel imprisoned in penitentiary facilities, Figueroa added that “the INDH has a clear position that has been pointed out in recent years, and it has not changed, which has to do with this international view that crimes against humanity are different from genocide, that they must be treated differently, and that is the position.

Punta Peuco is a different penitentiary center than the rest; we have pointed out that the rest of the prison system should have the benefits that exist there. Therefore, one must level up and not down. I believe it is a pending issue that we have constantly pointed out.”

Source: Prensa Austral, December 12, 2017

Councilor Jorge Vega: "The funas are childish antics of old people dragging along spoiled kids"

Last Monday, he was subjected to a funa [public protest/shaming] by a group of people linked to human rights organizations. Two weeks earlier, he had received the scorn of the communist regional councilor Dalivor Eterovic. The reason: the active participation that Vega Germain had in the Government of Augusto Pinochet.

Jorge Vega Germain, 75, received a funa at the last session of the Regional Council, an instance he arrived at less than a month ago when replacing former councilor Rodolfo Moncada, who is running for mayor of the Cabo de Hornos commune.

Vega had already been attacked in his first CORE session by the communist representative Dalivor Eterovic. The reason: the active participation the former mayor had in the Military Government.

In his memories, something related to the Chilean right always comes up, of which he does not hide that it is the sector that has represented him politically his entire life: “I studied primary school at the Colegio San Pedro Nolasco.

I was a boarder for a couple of months. Later, I continued my secondary studies at the Sagrados Corazones and there I was a schoolmate, though not in the same class, of Jaime Guzmán,” he recalls.

In those comings and goings, he met and became a lifelong friend of José Andrade Urzúa, who would arrive in the region in 1978 as a retired Army lieutenant and who would be mayor of Río Verde, Puerto Williams, and Punta Arenas a couple of years later.

In politics After putting his Agronomy degree on hold at the Universidad Católica, Vega relates, he traveled to the city of Victoria; he supported and worked to bring the engineer Jorge Alessandri, a friend of his father, to the Presidency of the Republic for the second time and, later, began to weave political networks with the liberal and conservative sectors of the area and the country, mentioning Francisco Figueroa, Rina Fuentes, and other figures from the liberal and conservative sector of the southern zone.

Following his mother, he arrived in Punta Arenas “and I was able to know the region in its entirety. I was amazed by the landscapes, by its people. And I valued, as future wealth, the spaces, the air, and the pure waters, and even then I made the promise that in the Beagle zone, which I now represent in the CORE, I would never contribute to the installation of an industry with chimneys,” says Vega.

“Later would come the ratification of Allende in the Full Congress by the Christian Democrats, in exchange for constitutional guarantees. The Government of the Unidad Popular (UP); the visit of Fidel Castro. The Thousand Days and everything that meant in Chilean life,” he adds.

“The poorly written history of our country makes no mention that Allende was a minority. Two-thirds of Chileans did not share his Marxist ideas and positions, but the DC betrayed its principles, those of the 1964 election, and that is how he was able to assume the Presidency,” explains Vega Germain.

Things get worse

His narrative of those years continues: “The Government of the former Unidad Popular applied its formula to accentuate its power and generated citizen resistance which, in Punta Arenas, allowed a murder to be committed, because that was the death of the merchant Manuel Aguilar, in the course of incidents that caused him a heart attack since he was defending the ‘takeover’ of the Cofrima supermarket, on Lautaro Navarro street, threatened by a violent mob led by Carlos González, then a deputy, and the head of the Dirinco, whose name I do not remember,” asserts Vega.

The Frente Chile Libre had been formed, which, upon dissolving, gave way to “Patria y Libertad,” in which Vega Germain said he had not been a member, but had sympathized with.

Later, however, together with other young people from Magallanes, he gave life and form to the Comando Rolando Matus, in memory of a small farmer murdered by Unidad Popular groups in the Puerto Montt area.

September 11 And September 11, 1973, arrived: Vega recalls that “the Armed Forces and Order, with the majority support of Chileans, assumed a power they did not ask for nor seek because the Chileans asked them to.

After that would come his time in the Youth Secretariat, initially in the hands of Fernando Yutronic, who died in Porvenir a couple of years ago; and his designation as mayor of Punta Arenas, between March 1979 and October 1983, “when I resigned,” he recalls.

“Chile was saved from the establishment of a communist society thanks to the intervention of its Armed Forces and Order; they saved the Fatherland,” reiterates Vega.

“I feel proud to have contributed to a work as important as the one carried out by our Armed Forces and Order, headed by General Augusto Pinochet. When the true history of Chile is written, it will be valued as it deserves, because Chile, as the left writes it, was not born on September 11.

Chile is much, much more than that. It has real history, it has traditions, principles, and values that the communists—Gramscians who took over Education since Aylwin assumed office—have tried to tear from the national soul,” maintains Vega Germain.

• And the dead…?

“Those who were preparing to seize power by force of arms were contained by the action of our Armed Forces and Order. Those who returned from Cuba and other places returned trained to kill other Chileans.”

• And what do you think of the funa they did to you last Monday at the CORE?

“They are childish antics of old people dragging along spoiled kids. They do not affect me and I do not grant them any value.”

The profile of Vega

Jorge Vega Germain is not fond of electoral forecasts.

Source: elpinguino.com, September 11, 2016

RN TO NOMINATE FORMER PUNTA ARENAS MAYOR JORGE VEGA AS SENATORIAL CANDIDATE

The candidates for Parliament for Renovación Nacional are expected to be defined in the first days of July. Among them is the former mayor Jorge Vega.

According to sources within the party, there are advanced conversations with three possible applicants, among them, as has already been mentioned, the lawyer Juan José Arcos, who would compete for a seat in the Lower House.

Meanwhile, as applicants for the Upper House, the name of former Punta Arenas mayor Jorge Vega Germain is added to that of the current senator Jorge Martínez Busch.

It is said that the name of the man who was mayor during the military government emerged from the ranks of the most traditional right, as a way to add votes to the Alianza list, in favor of Sergio Fernández, the UDI candidate.

According to RN sources, Vega could obtain some four thousand votes, the ones necessary for the current parliamentarian to be re-elected for Magallanes.

On the other hand, it is also reported that there are preliminary conversations with a fourth person who could run as an independent within the Alianza list in a seat for this party.

Source: Radio Polar.cl, June 1, 2005

Regional councilor of Punta Arenas accused of being a "snitch" for the dictatorship is subjected to a funa

A funa was carried out this Monday as the session of the Magallanes Regional Council was opening, when, through a cultural intervention, the theater company “Pata Elefante” confronted the member of that body, Jorge Vega Germain, who has been accused of being linked to acts of threats and political persecution during the military dictatorship.

“We are the memory of Chile! Jorge Vega Germain!, where are they?” the actors shouted at the former mayor of Punta Arenas, who, after the incident, took the floor and maintained that “I believe and I am convinced of what happened, that the truth must be known, but not from September 11, but from before (…) because I have the obligation to tell the true history of Chile.”

Vega Germain was a leader of the Partido Nacional during the Unidad Popular government and, according to what the site Memoria Viva collects, “he acted as an informant and snitch at the time of the military coup, denouncing several militants and leaders of the left, which consequently ended in arbitrary detentions and torture of all kinds.”

Source: elciudadano, September 13, 2016