While the vast majority of those who acted in the most violent, brutal, and terrifying episodes of the dictatorship were men, there were also women who participated in the military regime as torturers or "aides" to torture.

A very significant number were in administrative roles that allowed the repressive apparatus to function, but there were also those in direct operational roles, involved in kidnappings, torture, executions, and the forced disappearance of prisoners.

One of them is Zinaida Vicencio González, prosecuted for the murder of two young MIR militants in 1983, who is currently detained at the Army’s Battalion Number 1, awaiting her transfer to a prison within the penal system.

As of today, Punta Peuco has 70 inmates, following the imprisonment of 16 former CNI agents who murdered two young people in cold blood in 1983. However, there are still 34 military personnel waiting to enter the facility for murdering five young people in 1987.

Although, as a result of these new admissions, new questions arise regarding military prisoners and accomplices of the dictatorship and human rights violations: the prosecuted women.

Alongside the seasoned 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 in Chile, there were also those in direct operational roles, involved in kidnappings, torture, executions, and the forced disappearance of prisoners.

This is a sample.

Ingrid Felicitas Olderock Benhard. She was in charge of training the German Shepherd dog Volodia, which was used to rape several female prisoners at Venda Sexy.

Simultaneously with putting the Ollagüe Barracks into operation, the DINA also put this torture center into operation, known among the detainees as "Venda Sexy" (Sexy Blindfold), alluding to the fact that a significant portion of the torture carried out there involved rape and sexual aberrations, among which was the training of a German Shepherd dog—to which the agents gave the name Volodia, in reference to a writer who was then a high-ranking leader of the Communist Party—so that it would rape the female detainees, who were forced to assume a position that facilitated penetration by the animal.

Venda Sexy, like the Ollagüe Barracks, was previously a private residence in a middle-class neighborhood. This torture center operated continuously and systematically between the months of August and December 1974, although it continued to be used occasionally on later dates.

During the period in question, about thirty people were killed as a result of the torture applied to them, or were simply murdered.

Rosa Humilde Ramos. The significant case of the kidnapping of Miguel Angel Sandoval is linked to the one known as "the 119," due to the number of those they attempted to pass off as having died in internal fights in Argentina in the so-called "Operation Colombo."

Witnesses to Sandoval's kidnapping report 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, and interrogated by Moren, Krassnoff, Laureani, Ricardo Lawrence, Ferrer, and a woman nicknamed "the commander," whose name was Rosa Humilde Ramos.

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), alias "La Carola" (left).

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 official of the organization" and that he would go out with Luz Arce to "patrol" 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 collective name for these being ‘Caupolicán.’ She reiterates her statements in a confrontation with Eugenio Fieldhouse (also an agent), insisting that she did not go out to detain people."

Fieldhouse, who came 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 into a vehicle in which there were more people, a woman they called ‘la negra’ (Teresa Osorio), and a subject they called ‘el Troglo’."

While many of the women who belonged to the DINA performed administrative duties, there is a team that has been categorized by survivors as "the most sadistic and cruel." Among them, Carabineros Sub-lieutenant Ingrid Felicitas Olderock Oelckers stood out, 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 "Venda Sexy" barracks.

Palmira Isabel Almuna Guzmán, alias "La Pepa," also a Carabineros Sub-lieutenant, was a member of the Purén Brigade and a torturer at José Domingo Cañas under the orders of Ciro Torré Sáez; she subsequently 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 into 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 staff.

She was denounced at her home at Luis Beltrán 1000, in Pudahuel, on May 31, 2003, after which she has not been seen in the neighborhood again; she likely lives in Iquique.

Nélida Gutiérrez Rivera was the private secretary and lover of Manuel Contreras. After her boss's arrest, she continued as his part-time secretary at the offices he had on Ricardo Lyon Street; the rest of the time she dedicated to her boutique "Mané" (Manuel and Nélida) in the Lyon and Providencia shopping arcade.

Although the role played by Viviana Pincetti Barra is not known with certainty—who appears receiving salaries from the DINA and is the daughter of Osvaldo Pincetti Gac, alias "charla"—her father would take her on "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 MIR militant. 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.

Luz Arce Sandoval, having become an agent, 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 at the CNI and in 1990 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 was integrated into the DINE. Together with other collaborators, they carried out true "fashion shows" with the clothing of female 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 operational 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 roles were

– Mirtha Espinoza Caamaño, DINA secretary, who worked under the command of Augusto Deitchler in the Interior Intelligence Sub-directorate. – María Gabriela Coll Webar, secretary of the General Headquarters staff. – Marta Smock Teixido, secretary of the General Headquarters staff in the Economic Intelligence Sub-directorate. – Sandra Montecinos Sepúlveda, secretary of the General Headquarters staff. – Eliana Quilodrán, alias "Ely," an agent of the Operations Directorate who acted under the command of Pedro Espinoza Bravo in the Education and Informatics section. – Teresa Aburto, secretary of Section C-2, who continued working at the CNI and later at the DINE. – Enriqueta Salazar Contreras, secretary of the Interior Intelligence Sub-directorate with direct duties under Rolf Wenderoth, 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," Army non-commissioned officer and secretary of the Foreign Intelligence Sub-directorate, implicated in the assassination of General Carlos Prats and his wife. – María Eliana Moncada Prieto, secretary of the Foreign Intelligence Sub-directorate, 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 Foreign Intelligence Sub-directorate, 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 regarding her whereabouts placed her working at a pharmaceutical company on Ejército Street and living in a villa in Maipú.

The Girl from the Joint Command

It seems that the only woman in the Joint Command is the famous "Pochi," who was seen dressed in a school uniform asking for 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 soldier (ret.) of the FACH, assigned to the DIFA and the Joint Command. She is the spouse of General Patricio Campos Montecinos, Director General of Civil Aeronautics until the denunciation made by the newspaper La Nación.

She was prosecuted during the dictatorship by Judge Cerda as the author of criminal illicit association and an accomplice in the disappearance of Reinalda Pereira and Edrás Pinto, and was granted amnesty by Judge Manuel Silva Ibáñez. These days she continues to be implicated in the proceedings being carried out against the Joint Command.

Source: reddigital.cl, October 22, 2015

“On the day of their deaths, we celebrate their lives,” says the daughter of one of those murdered.

Between August 23 and 24, 1984, seven MIR members died in the cities of Concepción, Valdivia, and Los Ángeles in staged confrontations. The operation known as Alfa Carbón has only had two people held accountable before the justice system: Álvaro Corbalán and Marcos Derpich.

However, the families of the murdered men hope that the prosecution will be expanded to include 13 other former CNI agents. Today, their families and friends remember them in the south.

In the Vega Monumental sector of Concepción, at a monolith erected to remember the seven members of the MIR murdered 29 years ago, Tamara Lagos will be there today. Despite feeling that justice has not yet been served for her father's death, she will not commemorate the sadness. “These are days of remembrance, but above all of meeting, laughter, and much affection.

On the day of their deaths, we celebrate their lives,” says Tamara, daughter of Mario Lagos Rodríguez, one of those killed in the operation.

Mario's name is added to those of Luciano Humberto Aedo Arias (30 years old); Nelson Adrián Herrera Riveros (31), murdered in front of the Vega Monumental before numerous witnesses along with Mario Lagos.

Mario Ernesto Mujica Barros (32) was executed in his home in Los Ángeles. Rogelio Humberto Tapia de la Puente (31) and Raúl Jaime Barrientos Matamala (24) were murdered in a "confrontation" in Valdivia; the same as Juan José Boncompte Andreu (31), murdered in his home, also in Valdivia.

All of them were murdered between August 23 and 24, 1984, in the cities of Concepción, Valdivia, and Los Ángeles. The crimes were committed within the framework of Operation Alfa Carbón, which has also been known as Albania of the South, in allusion to the Corpus Christi massacre, in which the CNI murdered twelve members of the Manuel Rodríguez Patriotic Front in June 1987.

“For a long time, this case did not move because it was in the military justice system, and those who testified did so under false names, and in 1998 it was almost dismissed because the Military Prosecutor said it was almost impossible to find the identities,” says Javiera Herrera, daughter of Nelson Herrera.

Now they hope that the justice system will rule on the expansion of the prosecution for "illicit association" to 13 former CNI agents involved in the execution of the seven MIR members; a process in which, until now, only two of the accused were indicted on June 20, 2012: Álvaro Corbalán and Marcos Derpich.

THE PROCESS

Javiera details the development of the events of that day. On August 23, 1984, in front of the Vega Monumental in Concepción, the minibus where her father and Mario Lagos were traveling was intercepted by about thirty CNI agents, who, after intimidating those traveling in the vehicle, threw tear gas canisters inside.

That day, both Mario Lagos and Nelson Herrera got off the bus. The former with his hands raised. The autopsy report of Mario Lagos Rodríguez revealed that he received two bullet impacts fired from more than fifty centimeters away: one in the left axillary area—which proves that he raised his arms at the moment of receiving the impact—and another in the posterior part of the right thigh.

Mario Lagos was murdered in front of the Vega Monumental in Concepción, when about thirty CNI agents made him get off a bus. He died riddled with bullets when he got off. He had his arms raised.

It is in light of this evidence, and due to the premeditated and coordinated action, that the families of the murdered MIR members requested the expansion of the prosecution that had been decided by Judge Carlos Aldana; and at the beginning of this year, lawyers Magdalena Garcés and Patricia Parra presented two requests to expand the prosecution to JORGE CLAUDIO ANDRADE GÓMEZ and AQUILES MAURICIO GONZÁLEZ CORTÉS as authors of the qualified homicide of all the victims; JORGE CAMILO MANDIOLA ARREDONDO as author of the qualified homicide of Luciano Humberto Aedo Arias, Mario Octavio Lagos Rodríguez, Nelson Adrián Herrera Riveros, and Mario Ernesto Mujica Barros; HUGO JOSÉ HECHENLEITNER HECHENLEITNER and EGON ANTONIO BARRA BARRA as authors of the crime of qualified homicide of Mario Octavio Lagos Rodríguez; RAFAEL DE JESÚS RIVEROS FROST as author of the crime of qualified homicide of Mario Ernesto Mujica Barros; FRANCISCO JAVIER ORELLANA SEGUEL and JORGE FERNANDO RAMÍREZ ROMERO as authors of the qualified homicide of Rogelio Humberto Tapia De la Puente and Raúl Jaime Barrientos Matamala; and to the agents CARLOS ALBERTO EGUÍA LÓPEZ, LUIS RENÉ TORRES MÉNDEZ, PEDRO MARÍA ROJAS VÁSQUEZ, ZINAIDA LENA VICENCIO GONZÁLEZ, and AQUILES POBLETE PALOMINOS as authors of the crime of qualified homicide of Juan José Boncompte Andreu.

“It is more than proven in the files that more than a hundred agents participated in this massacre,” asserts Javiera, and continues: “Among those prosecuted, the head of the CNI in Concepción is not there, nor is the head of the CNI in Puerto Montt, nor Corvalán's second-in-command.

That is why we are asking for justice. There are at least 26 people who are the most evident.” by Alejandra Carmona López

Source: elmostrador.cl, August 24, 2013

Alfa Carbón 1: The Albania of the South Operation

The Court of Appeals is about to rule on the expansion of the indictment for "illicit association" against 13 former CNI agents involved in the execution of seven MIR members in 1984—murders that were presented at the time as "confrontations." The judge overseeing the case only indicted two of the accused for "illicit association": Álvaro Corbalán and Marcos Derpich.

The following text was sent to CIPER by the victims' families and reconstructs the events based on statements contained in the judicial file. Its authors aim to demonstrate that the "illicit association" included all the agents who acted in these operations.

The method of staged confrontations to eliminate opponents was a common practice used by the Central Nacional de Informaciones (CNI), the repressive agency of the military government. The detention, execution, and disappearance of prisoners—which the Dirección de Inteligencia Nacional (DINA), the CNI's predecessor, used intensely and massively during the first era of the dictatorship—was replaced in subsequent years by the public execution of "internal enemies" and their subsequent presentation as confrontations by the CNI.

The latter would detain and eliminate opponents in chosen locations, where the scene of the alleged confrontation would later be staged. Alternatively, opponents were executed in ambushes prepared in advance.

In both circumstances, the press covered the episodes with complicit enthusiasm. The courts of justice ignored the investigations demanded by the victims' families or processed the cases in a foolish and negligent manner; in any case, the country has had to endure decades of legal proceedings to achieve judicial progress.

What follows accounts for the responsibility held by the courts of justice in clarifying the murder of seven MIR members in the cities of Concepción, Valdivia, and Los Ángeles, which occurred on August 23 and 24, 1984, within the framework of Operation Alfa Carbón 1 or, as it has been called, the "Albania of the South," in allusion to the well-known Operation Albania or Corpus Christi Massacre, in which the CNI murdered twelve members of the Frente Patriótico Manuel Rodríguez in June 1987.

The background information we present below does not constitute, according to the investigating judge (ministro en visita) handling the case, Carlos Aldana Fuentes, sufficient evidence to establish well-founded presumptions that the defendants Hugo Salas Wenzel, Jorge Mandiola Arredondo, Jorge Andrade Gómez, and Aquiles González Cortés, among others, bore responsibility and participation as authors of the crimes committed under the charge of criminal illicit association.

Aldana also dismisses the responsibility as an accomplice and accessory after the fact held by Miguel Ángel Parra Vásquez, then a lawyer for the CNI and responsible for instructing agents to provide false statements to the courts after the events occurred.

According to Aldana, there is insufficient evidence to consider that these agents participated as authors, accomplices, or accessories in the crimes attributed to them, as required by Article 274 No. 2 of the Code of Criminal Procedure.

On August 23, 1984, the CNI team led by Luís Hernán Gálvez Navarro began the second stage of Operation Alfa Carbón 1. At around 11:00, several CNI teams and a Televisión Nacional crew arrived in Hualpencillo, now Hualpén.

Luciano Humberto Aedo Arias, a leader of the MIR in the Southern Theater of Operations, lived at 3346 Nápoles Street. After midday, at the intersection of Grecia and Nápoles, agents Raúl Hernán Escobar Díaz and Roberto Antonio Farías Santelices, along with Gálvez Navarro, got out of the vehicles in which they had been following him for months, shot him in the back, and finished him off on the ground.

Finally, according to witnesses, "after a while, many vehicles began to arrive; they checked his pockets, placed two short-barreled weapons near his body, some pamphlets, and some black objects like grenades" (p. 3907, case file 746-84).

Alfa Carbón 1 had begun at the start of 1984—or perhaps earlier—when Jorge Mandiola Arredondo, head of the CNI in Concepción, informed his superior Marcos Spiros Derpich Miranda, head of the CNI's Regional Division, that there was already sufficient data to confirm the presence of a subversive structure in the area: the Southern Theater of Operations (TOS) of the Movimiento de Izquierda Revolucionario (MIR).

Joaquín Molina Fuenzalida (+), Derpich's second-in-command in the Regional Division (see the organizational chart of the agents who participated in the operation and the files for each of them), had directed the intelligence work for what would be the definitive dismantling of the MIR leadership in southern Chile.

Derpich and Álvaro Corbalán Castilla, then head of the CNI's Anti-Subversive Division (DAS), based at the Cuartel Borgoño in Santiago, would be in charge of commanding the operation. The report submitted by Mandiola included names, addresses, and organizational charts of the MIR members, among which was the data on Aedo.

The autopsy report performed by forensic doctor César Reyes Contreras on August 24, 1984, at 8:30, confirmed that Luciano Aedo received seven bullet impacts—four in the back, head, left wrist, and left foot—and defined the precise and necessary cause of death as a projectile fired from a distance of more than fifty centimeters that entered through the back and exited through the chest, compromising the heart and lungs (p. 234; 292).

Likewise, in his statement of September 13, the doctor noted that the trajectory of the projectile suggests that Aedo was leaning forward, "like when running," and that the wounds in the back must have been inflicted when the thorax was very inclined, "almost horizontal to the ground" (p. 17954). Luciano Humberto Aedo Arias was 34 years old, a father of four, and a member of the MIR.

Subsequently, at around 16:00, in front of the Vega Monumental in Concepción, driver Pedro Aguayo Aguayo was forced to stop his bus. About thirty CNI agents and Carabineros personnel had surrounded the area.

In Talcahuano, Mario Octavio Lagos Rodríguez, military head of the TOS, and Nelson Adrián Herrera Riveros, political-military head of the TOS, had boarded the bus. A Televisión Nacional crew was also taking positions.

Jorge Octavio Vargas Bories, a former Army officer hired as a civilian employee of the CNI and second-in-command of the Special Brigade, ordered the passengers to get off. Only the driver did so. Faced with this, the officers began throwing tear gas canisters inside the vehicle, where about twelve people remained.

Ten got off. After a few minutes, Mario Lagos descended through the back door with his hands raised.

Egon Antonio Barra Barra, a second corporal of the Carabineros and member of the CNI's Special Brigade, got out of the vehicle in which they had been following the bus, carrying an AK rifle. Manuel Ángel Morales Acevedo, a first corporal of the Carabineros and member of the CNI's Special Brigade, did the same.

As stated on p. 3646, both fired several shots, "the subject falling face down and dying in that place." They acted under the orders of Hugo José Hechenleitner Hechenleitner, then an Army lieutenant and head of the team, in front of the stunned gaze of about 500 witnesses.

The autopsy report of Mario Lagos Rodríguez revealed that he received two bullet impacts fired from more than fifty centimeters away: one in the left axillary area—which proves he had his arms raised at the moment of receiving it—and another in the posterior part of the right thigh. Mario Octavio Lagos Rodríguez was 34 years old, a father of three, and a member of the MIR.

Upon seeing him on the ground, Nelson Herrera tried to flee but was intercepted. The driver, Pedro Aguayo, declared on September 10, 1984: "I went toward him and was a meter away from him. At that same moment, two agents arrived who lifted him by the arms.

The fallen man opened his eyes and looked at me directly. He had no blood anywhere on his body, except for a scrape on the right temple, which could have been caused by the fall or the graze of a bullet [...] The two men who had approached him grabbed him tightly by the arms, lifted him up, and said he was wounded and had to be taken to the hospital" (p. 18345).

José Abel Aravena Ruiz, a Carabineros non-commissioned officer and member of the Blue Brigade, commanded the team in charge of following Herrera and, together with Sergio Agustín Mateluna Pino, a civilian Army agent and member of the Concepción regional Anti-Subversive Division; Luis Enrique Andaur Leiva, a second corporal of the Carabineros and operational guard at the CNI's Cuartel Borgoño; and a fourth agent to this day unidentified, whose alias was "Cárdenas," put him in a car and drove him toward Santa Juana.

There, in a vacant lot, Luis Andaur Leiva fired a shot into his forehead.

Nelson Herrera's autopsy concluded that the cause of death was a cranio-cerebral wound resulting from a shot fired at point-blank range, which penetrated through the middle nasofrontal region and whose star-shaped appearance indicates it was inflicted from two or three centimeters away.

Furthermore, it revealed the presence of bruising with blood infiltration on his wrists, indicating they were tied at the time of death. Nelson Adrián Herrera Riveros was 30 years old, a father of one daughter, and a member of the MIR.

As stated on p. 4601—and established on p. 3089, 3419, 2700, and 2557—the day before the operation, "a meeting was held in which it was said who had to be detained and who had to be eliminated. In that meeting, photographs were placed, and those who had to be eliminated were marked with a cross; among these were Herrera and Lagos." The meeting was led by Derpich and Mandiola, and the entire command participated, meaning, in addition to them: Corbalán, González Cortés, Krantz Johans Bauer Donoso, and "the CNI officer known at the Cuartel Borgoño specifically as ‘don Oscar,’ who corresponds to Jorge Claudio Andrade Gómez." Krantz Bauer (+) was to be in charge of the teams that were going to operate in Los Ángeles, and for that reason, he moved that night to the regiment in that city.

At around 17:00 on August 23, Bauer Donoso received the order to operate and informed the teams under his command to proceed with the planned actions.

Bruno Antonio Soto Aravena, an Army non-commissioned officer and member of the Concepción DAS; José Artemio Zapata Zapata, a civilian Army agent and member of the Concepción DAS; and Rafael de Jesús Riveros Frost, a civilian Army agent and member of the Caupolicán, Red, and Blue brigades, arrived at 841 Bombero Carlos Vyhmeister Street in the Orompello neighborhood, where Mario Mujica Barros, a MIR leader and member of the TOS, lived.

As stated in the file, the three members of the team commanded by Soto Aravena had arrived in the city of Los Ángeles the first week of August to follow him. On the day of the events, the team waited for him to leave his home, but Mujica did not move.

About twelve agents positioned themselves in front of and to the sides of the house, and once the perimeter was secured, the team began the attack by entering the home. Simultaneously, the other teams fired into the air to give the impression of a confrontation.

But, as stated on p. 309, Mario Mujica was subdued inside his home, forced to his knees, and executed with a shot at point-blank range. Subsequently, and to continue the facade, the agents continued firing, climbing onto the roofs of neighboring houses and positioning themselves in the rear alleyway, while a large number of Carabineros provided perimeter support (p. 146; 191).

Mario Mujica's autopsy report indicated as the cause of death a bullet wound to the neck with involvement of the trachea and blood vessels, hemorrhage, and anemia. Likewise, Police Report No. 44 of the PDI's Criminalistics Department indicated that at the moment of receiving the homicidal impact, Mario Mujica could have been at a lower height than the person who fired the shot, either crouching or on the floor, or partially with his back turned, with his head and neck inclined (p. 390).

Mario Ernesto Mujica Barros was 32 years old, a father of one son, and a member of the MIR.

Just as in Concepción, and as stated on p. 392; 291, on August 22, 1984, a meeting was held in Valdivia to plan the operation in that city. The meeting was led by Patricio Lorenzo Castro Muñoz, an Army lieutenant and second-in-command of the Yellow Brigade; Luis Alberto Moraga Tresckow, an Army captain and head of the CNI in Valdivia; and Oscar Alberto Boehmwald Soto, an Army captain and head of the CNI in Puerto Montt.

There, the teams that would operate the following day and the day after in the city were assigned.

On August 23, 1984, around midday, the three teams led by Patricio Castro detained Rogelio Tapia de la Puente and Raúl Jaime Barrientos Matamala, MIR leaders and members of the TOS, in the center of Valdivia.

The three groups formed a caravan along with two other teams, one of which was commanded by Moraga Tresckow, and headed along the route to Niebla until they reached the Estancilla Bridge, where they stopped in the middle of an open field.

A red van was also in the caravan. There, one of the vehicles moved about two hundred meters toward Niebla to block traffic, while another did the same with the flow coming from Valdivia. The detainees, tied, blindfolded, and gagged, were forced to get out and were immediately murdered by about five or six shooters, the first of them being Patricio Castro.

He was followed by "Miguel Aliaga," Gerardo Meza Acuña, Francisco Orellana Segel, Fernando Ramírez Romero, Alberto Moraga Tresckow, and another agent to this day unidentified. Subsequently, these same agents fired at the red van that had parked nearby to simulate a confrontation.

Ernesto Arnoldo Barría Ordoñez, captain of the ferry Caupolicán, which followed an itinerary on the Valdivia River, noted that on that August 23, from midday, many vehicles with Santiago license plates began to pass, crossing from Las Mulatas toward Torobayo, and that in the afternoon, some people in civilian clothes who said they were from the CNI approached him, accompanied by several Carabineros.

They asked him to suspend service, and since there were orders from the Maritime Governorate, he had to obey. After approximately an hour and a half, a Carabineros chief told him to cross over to pick up a hearse to transport the bodies of two MIR members who had died in a confrontation. "The hearse was black, but it had the Carabineros logo.

I asked a known Carabineros officer for authorization to see the bodies." There he recognized Barrientos, because they lived in the same neighborhood (p. 287).

The autopsies confirmed that Rogelio Tapia received six bullet impacts in the face, thorax, and abdomen, and Raúl Barrientos, three impacts in the head and thorax. Rogelio Tapia de la Puente was 31 years old, a father of two daughters, and a member of the MIR. Raúl Barrientos Matamala was 23 years old and a member of the MIR.

The execution of Operation Alfa Carbón 1 culminated on August 24 at 643 Rubén Darío Street, in the Corvi neighborhood of Valdivia. The previous day, most of the teams that had moved to Valdivia were watching the home of Juan José Boncompte Andreu, a MIR leader and member of the TOS, waiting for him to leave so they could execute him.

Among them were the chiefs Boehmwald Soto, Ema Verónica Ceballos Núñez, and Luís René Torres Méndez. However, Boncompte did not leave that day. The agents returned on the 24th with the order to enter his home.

Patricio Castro Muñoz entrusted Boehmwald Soto to head the operation after midday. The team leaders, in addition to agents Patricio Castro, Pedro María Rojas Vásquez, Zinaida Lena Vicencio González, Aquiles Poblete Palominos, and Carlos Alberto Ejía López, among others, entered through the front door, while several teams surrounded the house and the entire block.

Eladio Washington Ilabel Poblete, a neighbor in the sector, noted that on the day of the events, he saw a black taxi park in front of Boncompte's house. Four individuals got out, knocked on the door, and entered.

After one or two minutes, he heard several shots: "Out of curiosity, I climbed onto the roof of my house and observed that a man came running out toward the lot (backyard) and was riddled with bullets by several people, as many were coming from the front of the house.

I also remember that an armed woman approached the body of the shot person and lifted his nose with her foot, hearing her say: 'He was cute, the jerk,' as if laughing, and then she fired at him with her weapon" (p. 286).

According to the autopsy, Boncompte had 22 bullet impacts: nine in the thorax, four in the arm, and two in the right forearm; three in the right thigh, three in the left leg, and one in the face. Juan José Boncompte Andreu was 31 years old, a father of two children, and a member of the MIR.

Narda Flandes, also a neighbor of Boncompte, noted on p. 279 that one of the subjects who shot him turned him over with his foot so he would be face up and, together with others, "threw his body into a bag. I left the place, running toward the corner to keep watching. In that interval, I saw when they took out a pregnant girl and put her in the van."

In the statement she gave on October 5, 1990, for the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, Inés Díaz Vallejos noted:

I, Inés Díaz Vallejos, born in Quillota, Chilean citizen, with date of birth April 25, 1952, identity card 7.152.059-5, Santiago, teacher by profession, with current address at Sodra Ledningsgatan 39, Lilla Edet, Sweden, come to declare that:

1) Approximately at 4:00 PM that day, a group of people dressed in civilian clothes appeared at our home. Some carried an armband that identified them as members of the Army. Those people entered our house when I opened the door.

My partner, Juan José, remained in the bedroom. I was assaulted by four or five of the people who entered and was thrown onto the floor of the living room. While lying there, I heard firearms being fired inside the house.

At those moments, I was subjected to mistreatment by a group of those individuals. They demanded answers to questions about where there might be weapons, explosives, etc. I replied that I had no knowledge of those things.

These people insisted that I answer, and for that, they subjected me to blows and kicks all over my body. I must emphasize that when this happened, I was 28 weeks pregnant. I lived with Juan José, and he is the father of my daughter.

After a while, I was removed from the house and taken to police facilities in Valdivia. That same day, almost at nightfall, I was transferred again, this time to the men's prison in Valdivia. I remained there, always incommunicado. This lasted six days (although I remained) detained until the week of the birth in November 1984, without being accused or convicted.

2) On November 28, 1984, my daughter Javiera was born, affected by generalized spastic tetraparesis. This implies a state of total physical impairment that is irreparable. My daughter is not in a condition to use her legs or arms, nor can she speak.

The impairment is physical in nature. My daughter's mental capacity is intact, with an evident degree of intelligence. All medical evaluations indicate without a doubt that the physical disability is due to the mistreatment I received on August 24, 1984.

The judicial history of this case begins on that same August 23, 1984, in the military prosecutor's offices of Concepción and Valdivia with proceedings against the 16 MIR members detained in both cities and those responsible for the "unnecessary violence" that caused the death of Luciano Aedo, Mario Lagos, Nelson Herrera, Mario Mujica, Rogelio Tapia, Raúl Barrientos, and Juan José Boncompte.

That same year, Monsignor José Manuel Santos, Archbishop of Concepción—whose denunciations were picked up by the magazine Cauce in a report titled "I Accuse"—requested an investigating judge from the Court of Appeals and, faced with its refusal, presented all the background information he could gather to the Supreme Court.

But the case remained in the military justice system, most of the time under the charge of prosecutor Pedro Marisio, the same one who took statements from the detainees when they left the CNI barracks and went to prison.

Marisio interrogated six agents knowing they were using false names instructed by the lawyer Miguel Ángel Parra. Claudio Rodrigo Rozas Fernández, Antonio Martínez López, Jaime Marinovic Palma, Juan Machuca Fuenzalida, Ricardo Labórquez Maturana, and Raúl González López are the "aliases" they used.

In 1998, prosecutor Marisio dismissed the case, declaring that it was not possible to find the true identities of those responsible. The lawyer representing the families of the MIR members murdered in Concepción and Hualpencillo appealed, but the Martial Court confirmed the dismissal.

The lawyer then filed a cassation appeal with the Supreme Court, which ordered the investigation to continue. Only in 2003 did military prosecutor Fernando Grandón, faced with a new attempt at dismissal, request that the Fifth Department of the PDI be ordered to investigate.

It was the detectives of this brigade who found the first two names: Hugo José Hechenleitner Hechenleitner and Víctor Muñoz Orellana. Finally, in 2007, lawyer Magdalena Garcés took charge of representing the majority of the victims' families and managed to have the case transferred to the civil justice system.

In 2009, Judge Aldana reopened the process for the death of Mario Mujica—which had been dismissed in 1998—and in 2011, he consolidated the three cases (Valdivia, Concepción, and Los Ángeles) into one (12-2009 of the Concepción Court of Appeals) for qualified homicide and illicit association against Marcos Derpich, Álvaro Corbalán, and others.

On June 20, 2012, Judge Aldana resolved to indict only ÁLVARO CORBALÁN CASTILLA and MARCOS DERPICH MIRANDA for illicit association and, for qualified homicide, in addition to them, 13 agents (see list below).

At the beginning of 2013, Magdalena Garcés and Patricia Parra (a lawyer for the Human Rights Program of the Ministry of the Interior, who also became a party to the process) presented two requests to expand the indictment.

The lawyers' requests are for the judge to expand the indictment for the crime of illicit association and to indict: JORGE CLAUDIO ANDRADE GÓMEZ and AQUILES MAURICIO GONZÁLEZ CORTÉS as authors of the qualified homicide of all the victims; JORGE CAMILO MANDIOLA ARREDONDO as author of the qualified homicide of Luciano Humberto Aedo Arias, Mario Octavio Lagos Rodríguez, Nelson Adrián Herrera Riveros, and Mario Ernesto Mujica Barros; HUGO JOSÉ HECHENLEITNER HECHENLEITNER and EGON ANTONIO BARRA BARRA as authors of the crime of qualified homicide of Mario Octavio Lagos Rodríguez; RAFAEL DE JESÚS RIVEROS FROST as author of the crime of qualified homicide of Mario Ernesto Mujica Barros; FRANCISCO JAVIER ORELLANA SEGUEL and JORGE FERNANDO RAMÍREZ ROMERO as authors of the qualified homicide of Rogelio Humberto Tapia De la Puente and Raúl Jaime Barrientos Matamala; and the agents CARLOS ALBERTO EGUÍA LÓPEZ, LUIS RENÉ TORRES MÉNDEZ, PEDRO MARÍA ROJAS VÁSQUEZ, ZINAIDA LENA VICENCIO GONZÁLEZ, and AQUILES POBLETE PALOMINOS as authors of the crime of qualified homicide of Juan José Boncompte Andreu.

An illicit association composed of only two people, as Judge Aldana intends, is laughable in this context. Indeed, Article 292 of the Penal Code provides that any association formed with the object of attacking the social order, good customs, persons, or property constitutes a crime that exists by the mere fact of organizing.

Likewise, Article 293 of the Penal Code sanctions with the penalty of major imprisonment in any of its degrees the leaders, those who have exercised command, and their provocateurs when the agreement of wills has had as its object the perpetration of crimes, as occurs in this case.

Added to this, Judge Aldana has decided to prosecute only the "material" authors of the case, ignoring both the rationality and hierarchy with which the repressive apparatuses functioned in Chile, as pointed out by advances in jurisprudence on the matter.

To be able to judge the crimes committed by the Nazis, international jurisprudence replaced the distinction between material author and intellectual author with one that allowed for accounting for the way complex organizations operate.

Currently, a distinction is made between the immediate author and the mediate author, who is, ultimately, the one who gives the order and "has control of the act." For this reason, the fact that Hugo Salas Wenzel (second-in-command of the CNI), Jorge Mandiola Arredondo (head of the CNI in Concepción), Jorge Andrade Gómez (second-in-command of the Anti-Subversive Division commanded by Corbalán), and Aquiles González Cortés (head of the Blue Brigade in charge of the extermination of the MIR) are not being prosecuted in this case, when their participation in the crimes is proven, constitutes sufficient proof to affirm that the courts lack the will and conviction to effectively investigate and punish the State agents who committed criminal offenses during the dictatorship.

The set of statements from witnesses, agents, and survivors is not sufficient for the judge, who seems to ignore that in human rights cases, obtaining the confession of the accused is almost impossible.

Therefore, the convictions in these cases are based not on conviction, but on the configuration of well-founded presumptions: the immediate and mediate authors have not confessed and will not confess their crimes, so if there are two or more statements that point out that an agent presided over a meeting and showed photographs marked with crosses; commanded a team and gave the order to execute; fired at a man who was in the street or inside his house, or occupies a place in the organizational charts that the agents themselves have created to map the operational command of the CNI—as happens throughout the 20 volumes that make up the case—that person should be being prosecuted for both illicit association and qualified homicide.

Finally, even if Judge Aldana were to indict all the most obvious commanders and immediate authors, as lawyers Garcés and Parra request, the convictions would be insufficient. Operation Alfa Carbón 1 involved around one hundred agents from Santiago, Concepción, Valdivia, Puerto Montt, and other cities in the south of the country in a massacre that ended the lives of seven people and for which, currently, only 15 individuals are being tried.

What do the judge and the Chilean justice system need to recognize the logic of extermination that prevailed in Chile between 1973-1990 and proceed accordingly?

Authors' note: We have written this text while waiting for the Santiago Court of Appeals to rule regarding the judge's refusal to expand the indictment. If its response is "no grounds," the Supreme Court will only be able to ratify, increase, or lower the proposed sentences, and several members of the CNI high command, responsible for the design and execution of Operation Alfa Carbón 1, will remain unpunished.

As they have until now.

Source: ciper.cl, June 4, 2013

While the vast majority of those who acted in the most violent, brutal, and terrifying episodes of the dictatorship were men, there were also women who participated in the military regime as torturers or "aides" to torture.

A very significant number were in administrative roles that allowed the repressive apparatus to function, but there were also those in direct operational roles, involved in kidnappings, torture, executions, and the forced disappearance of prisoners.

As of now, Punta Peuco has 70 inmates, following the imprisonment of 15 former CNI agents who brutally murdered two young people in 1983. However, there are still 34 military personnel awaiting entry into the facility for murdering five young people in 1987.

Although, as a result of these new admissions, new questions arise regarding military prisoners and accomplices of the dictatorship and human rights violations: the women who have been prosecuted.

While the vast majority of those who acted in the most violent and terrifying episodes of the dictatorship were men, there were also women who participated in the military regime. A very significant number were in administrative roles that allowed the repressive apparatus to function, but there were also those in direct operational roles, involved in kidnappings, torture, executions, and the disappearance of prisoners.

It is for this reason that human rights groups are putting forward their ideas so that they, too, can serve their sentences. One of the first to be prosecuted, and the one who opened the floodgates, is Zinaida Vicencio González, who belonged to the Army and is currently detained at the Army's Battalion Number 1 in the capital, along with other former CNI agents, while they are being sent to other locations.

Equal prisons for everyone

Faced with this scenario, the president of the Association of Relatives of the Forcibly Disappeared, Lorena Pizarro, asserted that "it is time for our country to start dealing with the prosecution of human rights violators as it should, whether they are men or women."

"It would be a grave mistake to think about sending them to a special prison. It is time for everyone to serve their sentences in common prisons," declared the candidate for deputy, adding that "without a doubt, it is a situation we are attentive to, but not worried about."

Furthermore, in a conversation with Cambio21, Pizarro said that "human rights violators today, speaking of their age, used to act with impunity; they have always had excuses, but it is time for them to fulfill their sentences for their responsibility."

Finally, the representative of the forcibly disappeared added that "they must go to the San Miguel prison or some penal facility where those who are in the status of prisoners can serve their sentences."

For her part, the president of the Association of Relatives of Political Executions asserted that "the only thing we hope for is that there is no special treatment for anyone. They must serve their sentences in prison like all other inmates."

"We do not want privileges; we have always wanted them to close Punta Peuco and avoid these forms of discrimination, especially regarding human rights violations," she stated. To this, she told Cambio21 that "one must be clear that more prosecutions will come."

The female list

In addition to Zinaida Vicencio, there are other women who appear in the Valech Report and who will possibly be prosecuted. Among them are: Ingrid Felicitas Olderock Benhard, who was in charge of training the German shepherd dog "Volodia," which was used to rape several female prisoners at the "Venda Sexy."

The "Venda Sexy," like the "Cuartel Ollagüe," was previously a private residence in a middle-class neighborhood. This torture center operated continuously and systematically between the months of August and December 1974, although it continued to be used occasionally on later dates.

During the period in question, about thirty people were killed as a result of the torture applied to them, or were simply murdered.

Rosa Humilde Ramos. The important case of the kidnapping of Miguel Ángel Sandoval is linked to the one known as "the 119," due to the number of those they tried to make appear as dead in internal fights in Argentina in the so-called "Operation Colombo." Witnesses to Sandoval's kidnapping report 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 himself and Basclay Zapata, and interrogated by Moren, Krassnoff, Laureani, Ricardo Lawrence, Ferrer, and a woman nicknamed "the commander," whose name was Rosa Humilde Ramos.

While many of the women who belonged to the DINA performed administrative duties, there is a team that has been categorized by survivors as "the most sadistic and cruel." Among them stood out 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."

Palmira Isabel Almuna Guzmán, alias "la Pepa," also a Carabineros Sub-lieutenant, 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, working in a juvenile correctional center in Iquique with the rank of commander of the female echelon.

She was denounced at her home at Luis Beltrán 1000, in Pudahuel, on May 31, 2003, after which she has not been seen in the neighborhood again; she likely lives in Iquique.

Nélida Gutiérrez Rivera was a private secretary and mistress of Manuel Contreras. After her boss's arrest, she continued as his part-time secretary at the offices he had on Ricardo Lyon Street; the rest of the time she dedicated to her boutique "Mané" (Manuel and Nélida) in the Lyon and Providencia shopping arcade.

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 on "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.

Luz Arce Sandoval, having become an agent, 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 made herself available to the courts to testify in cases of the 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 was integrated into the DINE. Together with other collaborators, they carried out veritable "fashion shows" with the clothing of female 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 with Rolf Wenderoth, 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 Foreign Intelligence, implicated in the assassination of General Carlos Prats and his wife. María Eliana Moncada Prieto, secretary of the Sub-directorate of Foreign 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 Foreign 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 list of "Elissalde and Poblete") 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 soldier (r) of the FACH, assigned 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 Minister Cerda as the author of criminal illicit association and an accomplice in 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.

by Teresa Frías

Source: edicioncero.cl, October 7, 2013

Authors of the massacre condemned: Night falls on Fuenteovejuna

The visiting minister for human rights violation cases of the Santiago Court of Appeals, Mario Carroza, handed down a sentence against twenty former agents of the National Intelligence Center (CNI) for their responsibility in the qualified homicides of Lucía Orfilia Vergara Valenzuela, Arturo Vilavella Araujo, and Sergio Peña Díaz, crimes perpetrated on September 7, 1983, on Fuenteovejuna Street, in the Las Condes commune.

Judge Carroza's ruling on January 17 sentences Brigadier (r) Roberto Urbano Schmied Zanzi, head—at the time of the events—of the general staff of the CNI's Anti-Subversive Division, to 15 years and one day in prison.

Meanwhile, Colonel (r) Aquiles Mauricio González Cortés ("El Caracha"), head of the CNI's Blue Brigade; Major (r) Alvaro Julio Corbalán Castilla ("El Faraón"), head of the CNI's Anti-Subversive Brigade; Captain (r) Norman Antonio Jeldes Aguilar ("El Gorilón"); and the former civilian army employee, Manuel Ventura Laureada Núñez ("Piolín"), must serve ten years and one day in prison as authors of the crimes.

The magistrate also sentenced the following former CNI agents to three years and one day in prison as accomplices, with the benefit of intensive supervised release: Lieutenant Colonel (r) Sergio María Canals Baldwin, second commander of the Anti-Subversive Division; Juan José Pastene Osses ("El Malambo"), Patricio Leonidas González Cortez ("El Gigio"), Luis René Torres Méndez ("El Negro Mario"), Manuel Angel Morales Acevedo ("El Baretta"), Luis Hernán Gálvez Navarro ("El Vitoco"), Sergio Daniel Valenzuela Morales ("El Peque"), Juan Modesto Olivares Carrizo ("El Negro Euson"), Raúl Hernán Escobar Díaz ("El Palta"), Eduardo Martín Chávez Baeza, Luis Eduardo Burgos Cofré ("Café"), Raúl Horacio González Fernández ("El Wally Chico"), Orlando Jesús Torrejón Gatica ("El Negro Miguel"), Rafael de Jesús Riveros Frost ("El Suave"), and Juan Alejandro Jorquera Abarzúa ("El Muerto").

THE CONTEXT

Judge Carroza's exhaustive investigation allowed for the reconstruction of much of the structure and operation of the CNI's Borgoño Barracks in the early years of the 1980s, even specifying the false identities and nicknames of the agents who constituted that repressive body.

The CNI's Metropolitan Intelligence Division was made up of six units. One was the Anti-Subversive Division, composed in turn of at least six operational brigades, named with different colors: Red, White, Green, Lead, Brown, Yellow, several of which closely followed the MIR's offensive in the so-called Operation Return.

The command of the repressive organization ordered the merger of the White and Red brigades, forming the Blue Brigade, with great operational capacity and specialized in the rebel group led in Chile by Hernán Aguiló.

In mid-1983, after a series of MIR assaults on banks and supermarkets, CNI agents managed to identify the military chief in Santiago, the Argentine Hugo Ratier Noguera ("José"), whom they followed until they located his safe house on Janequeo Street, in the Quinta Normal commune, where they set up fixed surveillance points.

On August 30, a MIR commando ambushed and killed the Intendant of Santiago, Army Major General Cárol Urzúa Ibáñez, and two of his bodyguards in the Las Condes commune. To this day, it is not known with certainty if some of the members of that MIR detachment were being watched by the CNI from before the attack on the uniformed officer.

What is clear is that a few days after the attack, Hugo Ratier left his refuge on Janequeo Street and was followed by agents from the Borgoño Barracks, who saw him meet with Jorge Palma Donoso, head of the MIR unit that had ambushed the intendant.

A few hours later, on September 6, Palma Donoso was arrested in the parking lots of the Parque Arauco shopping center, also in Las Condes, and taken to the basements of the Borgoño Barracks. Almost at the same time, Hugo Marchant and Carlos Araneda, two other members of the MIR unit that executed Urzúa Ibáñez, were captured.

Palma Donoso was interrogated and tortured at length by Alvaro Corbalán, Aquiles González, and Roberto Fuentes Morrison ("El Wally"), former operational chief of the Comando Conjunto, the main repressive body of the Chilean Air Force, who assisted the CNI in some operations.

Meanwhile, the military leadership of the MIR remained hidden in two safe houses. At Fuenteovejuna 1330, in Las Condes, Arturo Vilavella; Lucía Vergara, 32; and Sergio Peña Díaz, 37, were hiding. At Janequeo 5707, in Quinta Normal, Hugo Ratier, Alejandro Salgado Troquián, and his stepson Miguel Bustos, 15 years old, were hiding. All were closely watched by the CNI.

THE EVENTS

On the night of September 6, the CNI commanders decided to attack the two safe houses and exterminate their occupants.

Alvaro Corbalán picked up the phone and called Roberto Fuentes Morrison, operational chief at that time of the Anti-Subversive Command of the Air Force Intelligence Service (Sifa), to notify him that they would use all means to eliminate the leaders of the MIR resistance.

-We are going to operate tomorrow-, he told him. -Can I participate with my people?-, asked "El Wally." -Of course, compadre. Come on over!

At dusk on September 7, 1983, around 7:00 PM, about sixty security agents gathered in the parking lots of a supermarket located next to the Colón Avenue roundabout, in the eastern zone of Santiago, waiting for a jeep armed with a high-caliber machine gun.

When the vehicle arrived, the caravan set off to carry out its mission. Hours earlier, CNI agents had evacuated the inhabitants of the houses on Fuenteovejuna Street and taken positions in those houses.

In the jeep with the machine gun traveled three hooded men dressed in jumpsuits. Upon arriving at the indicated place on Fuenteovejuna Street, in front of a small chalet that had lights on, Corbalán ordered:

-There are three miristas in that house. I don't want any of them alive! That is the order! Did you understand?

He took the radio from his vehicle and asked: -Is the fire base ready? -Ready-, was heard on the other side. -Open fire!

The .30 caliber machine gun began to spit 500 bullets per minute, unleashing hell in the peaceful Colón neighborhood.

-Cease fire! -You are surrounded! Come out with your hands up! -Don't shoot! We are coming out!-, a man was heard shouting from inside the house.

The door opened and Sergio Peña Díaz appeared with his hands on the back of his neck; he was a veterinarian, married, with two daughters.

-Move! Move!-, they ordered him.

Peña stopped and spread his legs, waiting for them to search him.

Two CNI agents approached him and, without a word, unloaded their UZI submachine guns on the mirista.

-Murderers! Murderers!-, shouted a woman from inside who was watching the surrender.

Then, half a hundred men and the .30 caliber machine gun fired again.

Five fragmentation grenades fell on the house and then a flare that caused an immediate fire.

In seconds, Lucía Vergara Valenzuela, 32, married, with two daughters; and Arturo Vilavella Araujo, 38, an engineer, married, with one son, were killed.

THE RULING

"In the initial actions, the agents installed a fire base in front of the property, consisting of a Rheinmetall machine gun, 7.62 mm caliber (or .30 caliber), mounted on a jeep, which on that occasion was driven by Manuel Ventura Laureada Núñez, and the weapon operated by two people, one who fired, Norman Antonio Jeldes Aguilar, and the other in charge of passing the ammunition belt, with a firing capacity of 10 per short burst and a full firing capacity of 500 per minute," records Judge Carroza's ruling.

The resolution adds that: "already having the fire base in position, the officer in command orders it to be aimed and fired at the property for about a minute, that is, about 500 shots, then they stop their action and through loudspeakers order the occupants of the property to surrender."

"One of them –it continues–, Sergio Peña Díaz, decides to surrender and comes out with his hands on the back of his neck, but at the moments he was walking toward the agents, they shoot him and his wounds cause his death, which incites the reaction of the only woman in the group, who confronts them with a weapon; before this reaction, Alvaro Corbalán again gives the order to fire the fire base in the direction of the property, which causes not only the death of Lucía Orfilia Vergara Valenzuela, by gunshot wounds, but also the fire of the house and the calcination of the third member of the movement, Arturo Vilavella Araujo."

TOWARD THE WEST

The CNI and Air Force units then left for the other side of Santiago, heading to a house on Janequeo Street 5707, near Garín Square, in Quinta Normal, a house that had been under surveillance for a couple of months.

In the moments prior to the arrival of the agents, the Carabineros evicted about eighty people from an adjacent shelter and took them to a nearby church.

The repressive forces surrounded the house where Alejandro Salgado Troquián and Hugo Nolberto Ratier Noguera were hiding on three sides. Salgado managed to escape the house, but was killed in the street with bursts of submachine gun fire by CNI agents.

Ratier tried to resist. However, the firepower of the number of agents proved insurmountable.

In the following days, the government reported that security services had arrested the members of the MIR commando responsible for the assassination of Cárol Urzúa.

On October 10, 2013, Judge Miguel Vásquez Plaza resolved to prosecute and ordered preventive detention for the following CNI agents: Roberto Urbano Schmied Zanzi, Sergio María Canals Baldwin, Alvaro Julio Federico Corbalán Castilla, Aquiles Mauricio González Cortés, Fernando Rafael Mauricio Rojas Tapia, Jorge Octavio Vargas Bories, José Abel Aravena Ruiz, José Guillermo Salas Fuentes, Luis Arturo Sanhueza Ross, Egon Antonio Barra Barra, Norman Antonio Jeldes Aguilar, Manuel Angel Morales Acevedo, Raúl Boris Méndez Santos, Rodolfo Enrique Olguín González, and Zinaida Lena Vicencio González as authors of the crimes of qualified homicide of Hugo Ratier Noguera and Alejandro Salgado Troquián; and Raúl Hernán Escobar Díaz, Rafael Ricardo Ortega Gutiérrez, Luis Hernán Gálvez Navarro, and Eduardo Martín Chávez Baeza as accomplices to the crimes of qualified homicide of Ratier Noguera and Salgado Troquián.

ASYLUM SEEKERS

The balance of the events that occurred on Fuenteovejuna and Janequeo streets was impressive for the press. Just one week after the assassination of the Intendant of Santiago, security services had managed to kill five miristas—two of them from the movement's leadership—and arrest five others.

On December 29, 1993, at the corner of Andes and General Barboza streets, Quinta Normal, Juan Elías Espinoza Parra ("Yuri"), identified as one of those in charge of a MIR identity document forgery workshop, was killed by the CNI. His fall was the last alert for the survivors of the commando that executed Urzúa.

On the afternoon of January 16, 1984, two men and two women entered the French embassy armed and asked for asylum, claiming they were wanted by the CNI. Minutes later, the four—Jaime Yovánovic(1), José Aguilera, Elba Duarte, and Pamela Cordero—jumped toward the neighboring site, where the residence of the Apostolic Nunciature was located.

After a long discussion with the legation secretary, Antonio Sozzo, they handed over their weapons, two of which—according to the press of the time—had been used in the attack against Urzúa. The following day, Nuncio Angelo Sodano asked the government to grant safe conduct to the miristas so they could leave the country.

The CNI installed 24 of its agents in a neighboring house. Nine armed Carabineros were permanently stationed next to the doors of the Vatican representation, and groups of civilians, day after day, burned MIR flags and demanded the surrender of the asylum seekers.

All vehicles entering and leaving the embassy were carefully checked. In the streets, meanwhile, the CNI continued its task of extermination.

(1) Jaime Yovánovic Prieto has denied having been part of the commando that attacked General Urzúa. See: Juan Araya Díaz: “Las andanzas de un mirista. Habla acusado por crimen del general Urzúa”; El Mercurio, September 3, 2000.

by Manuel Salazar Salvo

Source: puntofinal.cl, edition No. 894, March 9, 2018

Human Rights: 23 former CNI agents condemned for fake confrontation during the dictatorship

In the ruling by visiting minister Miguel Vázquez Plaza, one of those condemned is Álvaro Corbalán Castilla, former operational chief of the dictatorship's National Intelligence Center, who adds another 20 years in prison.

The extraordinary visiting minister for human rights violation cases of the Santiago Court of Appeals, Miguel Vázquez Plaza, condemned 23 former agents of the National Intelligence Center (CNI) for their responsibility in the crimes of homicide of Alejandro Salgado Troquián and Hugo Ratier Noguera, illicit acts perpetrated in 1983 in a fake confrontation on Janequeo Street in the Quinta Normal commune.

In the ruling, the visiting minister condemned Roberto Schmied Zanzi, Álvaro Corbalán Castilla, and Aquiles González Cortés to 20 years in prison; meanwhile, former agents José Aravena Ruiz, José Salas Fuentes, Luis Arturo Sanhueza Ross, Egon Barra Barra, Jorge Vargas Bories, Norman Jeldes Aguilar, Fernando Rojas Tapia, Manuel Morales Acevedo, Sergio Canals Baldwin, and José Vidal Veloso must serve 15 years and one day in prison as authors of the crimes.

In the case of Raúl Méndez Santos, Rodolfo Olguín González, Ema Ceballos Núñez, Miguel Gajardo Quijada, Rosa Humilde Ramos Hernández, Francisco Orellana Seguel, Juan Carlos Vergara Gutiérrez, Raúl Escobar Díaz, Rafael Ortega Gutiérrez, and Luis Gálvez Navarro, they were sentenced to 10 years and one day in prison as accomplices.

In the case, Minister Vázquez Plaza decreed the acquittal of agents Zinaida Vicencio González, Jorge Ahumada Molina, and Eduardo Chávez Baeza, as their participation in the events was not proven.

According to the investigation, on September 7, 1983, a number of CNI agents, agents of the Chilean Investigative Police, and other repressive bodies went to the address located at Janequeo Street No. 5707, Quinta Normal commune, which had been under surveillance for a few weeks, "proceeding to surround and cordon off the place, and then, through the use of a fire base and other weaponry, to fire, without any provocation and with great firepower, against the property, as a result of which Hugo Ratier Noguera (José) died from various gunshot wounds in the backyard of the house."

In addition, the process established that "on the occasion of arriving at the same address where he resided, he was killed by multiple gunshot wounds, on the public road, that is, on Janequeo Street in front of number 5946, Alejandro Salgado Troquián."

Source: elmostrador.cl, July 22, 2019

Santiago Court condemns 23 former CNI agents for murders in a fake confrontation in 1983

The Santiago Court of Appeals confirmed the first-instance sentence handed down by Minister Miguel Vásquez Plaza on July 19, 2019, which condemned 23 former agents of the National Intelligence Center (CNI) for their responsibility in the crimes of qualified homicide of the Movement of the Revolutionary Left (MIR) militants Hugo Ratier Noguera and Alejandro Salgado Troquián.

The crimes were perpetrated on September 7, 1983, in a fake confrontation on Janequeo Street in the Quinta Normal commune.

In the ruling (case file 4741-2019), the Third Chamber of the appellate court—composed of Minister Verónica Sabaj Escudero, Alejandro Aguilar Brevis, and Rodrigo Carvajal Schnettler—resolved to reject the appeals and cassation resources filed by some of the condemned and to confirm the first-instance sentence with the declaration of reducing from 20 to 17 years in prison the sentences applied to the former Army officers and former CNI leaders Roberto Urbano Schmied Zanzi, Álvaro Julio Federico Corbalán Castilla, and Aquiles Mauricio González Cortés, in the capacity of co-authors of the crime.

The first of the condemned, Schmied Zanzi, served as head of the CNI's Metropolitan Division; Corbalán Castilla was head of the Anti-Subversive Division; and Aquiles González acted as head of the Blue Brigade, specialized in the repression of the MIR.

Meanwhile, former Army officers Sergio María Canals Baldwin, Luis Arturo Sanhueza Ros, Fernando Rafael Mauricio Rojas Tapia, Norman Antonio Jeldes Aguilar, and former agents José Abel Aravena Ruiz, José Guillermo Salas Fuentes, Egon Antonio Barra Barra, Jorge Octavio Vargas Bories, Manuel Ángel Morales Acevedo, and José Isaías Vidal Veloso must serve 15 years and one day in prison as authors of the crimes.

For their part, former agents Rodolfo Enrique Olguín González, Ema Verónica Ceballos Núñez, Luis Hernán Gálvez Navarro, Rosa Humilde Ramos Hernández, Francisco Javier Orellana Seguel, Miguel Fernando Gajardo Quijada, Juan Carlos Vergara Gutiérrez, Raúl Boris Méndez Santos, Raúl Hernán Escobar Díaz, and Rafael Ricardo Ortega Gutiérrez were sentenced to 10 years and one day in prison as accomplices to the crimes.

In the case, the acquittal of agents Zinaida Lena Vicencio González, Jorge Raimundo Ahumada Molina, and Eduardo Martín Chávez Baeza was decreed, as their participation in this event was not proven. Another person prosecuted in this case, former PDI agent Jorge Arnaldo Barraza Riveros, passed away during the course of the process; meanwhile, the prosecuted former Carabineros officer Miguel Ángel Patricio Soto Duarte remains a fugitive.

This fake confrontation was carried out by the CNI on the same day and immediately following the execution of three other MIR militants on Fuenteovejuna Street, in a criminal act also orchestrated as a fake confrontation. Judicially, both events are processed as separate episodes, in circumstances where it was a single repressive operation.

In the investigation of the repressive act, it was demonstrated that the dictatorship's repressive body developed a tracking and surveillance operation during the months prior on a group of MIR members who were acting in clandestinity in the resistance struggle against the tyrannical regime.

With the data obtained from that prior observation, the CNI orchestrated the extermination operation that meant the detention of a dozen people, the attack and murder of the three residents of the house on Fuenteovejuna Street, in the Las Condes commune, and then the attack and murder of two other militants in the house on Janequeo Street in the Quinta Normal commune.

On September 7, 1983, dozens of CNI, SIFA, Investigative Police, and other repressive body agents went to the address located at Janequeo Street No. 5707, Quinta Normal commune, which had been under surveillance for a few weeks, proceeding to surround and cordon off the place, and then, through the use of a fire base and other weaponry, to fire, without any provocation and with great firepower, against the property, as a result of which Hugo Ratier Noguera, 39 years of age, died from various gunshot wounds in the backyard of the house.

In addition, on the occasion of arriving at the same address where he resided, Alejandro Salgado Troquián, 30 years of age, was killed by multiple gunshot wounds and executed on the public road, that is, on Janequeo Street in front of number 5946.

A minor, an adopted son of Salgado and a resident of the house together with Salgado and Ratier, was a victim and witness to the events but, in the middle of the shooting, managed to flee to neighborhood houses, thus saving his life and later denouncing the criminal attack.

Source: resumen.cl, November 18, 2021