Enrique Vicente was confronted with former members of the Zorro 2 group, who identified him. Furthermore, Vicente must clarify three years of active service as a naval prosecutor that he concealed from the justice system.

Former security agent Guillermo Peña González was sitting next to the chief prosecutor of the State Defense Council (CDE) for the Valparaíso Region, Enrique Vicente Molina, when he delivered his damning testimony: "He is the Navy officer who appeared to have a great deal of power at the Silva Palma barracks and would move about inside the interrogation zone.

Generally, I would see Mr. Enrique Vicente, sitting here next to me, also circulating through the Naval War Academy [AGN], where the detention center and the offices of the Sicajsi [Intelligence Service of the Command of the Jurisdictional Area of Internal Security, also known as the Silva Palma Barracks] were located."

The former agent's damning statement hit Vicente hard; he was facing the confrontation in his capacity as a former naval prosecutor of Valparaíso and a corvette captain on active duty during the dictatorship.

This is because, to this day, the former naval prosecutor has denied for years, in all his judicial statements, ever having even set foot in these two centers of political imprisonment and torture that the Navy maintained after the coup d'état. Both are located next to each other, at the end of Pedro León Gallo street, on the Playa Ancha hill in Valparaíso.

Among the open cases against him for crimes against humanity are those of the priest Miguel Woodward, the brothers Dragomir and Guillermo Kegevic, and Nina Reyes, among others.

"I never went to those places where detainees were held; this man is mistaken!" Vicente retorted, insisting that while he was a naval prosecutor, he never left his office in the Headquarters building of the First Naval Zone, in Plaza Sotomayor in Valparaíso.

But Peña González, a Carabineros non-commissioned officer who in 1973 was part of the Zorro groups—attached to the Naval War Academy and the Silva Palma Barracks to detain people and decide their fate under the orders of the Sicajsi—was not alone in refuting Vicente.

His boss in the Zorro 2 group, Carabineros Lieutenant Colonel Alejandro Vargas Goas, also confirmed to the justice system the presence of Vicente at the "Palace of Laughter," as the prisoners ironically christened the AGN and the Silva Palma.

"Among the Navy officers who performed duties at the Naval War Academy, and specifically at the Sicajsi, were Commander Barra, who was the head of the Sicajsi, Commander Mackay, Commander Soto-Aguilar, a Lieutenant Riesco, of the Marine Corps, and a reserve lieutenant with the surname Vicente."

Those who accompanied Vicente, according to Vargas, were notorious figures in the repression. Vicente was the only officer of the Judge Advocate General's Corps with that surname in the Navy at that time.

Sergio Barra von Kretschman was not only the head of the Sicajsi and the War Academy, but soon moved to the DINA. The then-corvette captain and current Vice Admiral (Ret.) Juan Mackay Barriga was another relevant piece of the Sicajsi, as was the now Captain (Ret.) Ricardo Riesco Cornejo.

All three were indicted last April by Judge Eliana Quezada as authors of the crime against the priest Miguel Woodward. Mackay and Riesco, at the very least, were among the group that tortured him at the AGN.

A police report existing in the cases against Vicente establishes that the men of the Zorro 2 group—Vargas, Peña, and the former agent Óscar Correa Correa, who now lives in the United States and has yet to testify via rogatory commission—carried out "instructions given by naval prosecutor Enrique Vicente Molina" at the Sicajsi.

Before the two former Zorro agents, whose confrontations and statements mentioning Vicente date back to 2007, his name had only been indicated by the former prisoner Nina Reyes, who had been accusing him since 2004.

In the complaint against him, Reyes alleges that the CDE prosecutor was in the room at the Silva Palma where she was tortured by four people, and when her blindfold slipped, she said she saw a "blond officer with a ring with the initials EV" present during her torture.

At the naval prosecutor's office, she later identified him as Enrique Vicente and stated that she recognized the same ring. But when Nina Reyes was confronted with Vicente in June 2007, he, after denying the accusation, said: "I have never worn a ring because it hurts me."

Furthermore, and as ordered by a resolution of the Third Chamber of the Valparaíso Court of Appeals in May 2008, Vicente must now explain what he did in the Navy as a naval prosecutor, with the rank of corvette captain, between 1975 and 1977.

Until now, Vicente insists in his procedural statements that he only served as a naval prosecutor as an active-duty officer between September 12, 1973, and December 31, 1974.

But a document from the Navy's Personnel Directorate (official letter 1600/0320, of March 2007), addressed to the judges investigating the cases against him, contradicts this: "I can indicate to Your Honor that the records indicate that the final retirement from the institution of Corvette Captain (Ret.) Enrique Vicente Molina was on January 1, 1978."

What did Vicente do in the Navy during the three years he does not acknowledge having been on active duty? In October 2004, the Navy sent the judges a similar document (confidential official letter 1595/S/63) accounting for the duration of Vicente's time as an active officer: "The aforementioned officer [Vicente] remained on active duty until December 31, 1974, the date on which his retirement was processed."

Therefore, the Navy also entered into contradictions regarding the dates that the Valparaíso Court now requires them to clarify. Between 1975 and 1977, Vicente was the Regional Ministerial Secretary (Seremi) of Justice in the V Region, appointed by Augusto Pinochet.

Now, plaintiff lawyers in these cases against Vicente want to know if the lawyers defending him through a power of attorney he granted them, Juan García Bilbao and Helga Goecke Saavedra—both professionals of the CDE in Valparaíso—are doing so using their official hours and salary, or if, on the contrary, they are performing their defense duties outside of those hours and paid with Enrique Vicente's own money.

Source: lanacion.cl, July 13, 2008

The fiscal attorney for the State Defense Council (CDE) of the V Region, Enrique Vicente Molina, is in trouble. Last Monday, his indictment was requested from the minister of the Valparaíso Court of Appeals, Eliana Quezada, for the crimes of "illicit association, kidnapping, and torture resulting in death" of Guillermo Kegevic Julio, events that occurred in 1974 when Vicente was a naval prosecutor.

Judge Quezada is investigating other cases of human rights violations, such as that of the priest Miguel Woodward, in which the prosecutor is a defendant.

The indictment of Vicente, which had not been resolved as of last Friday, was requested by the lawyer Guillermo Kegevic Ahumada, the victim's son. His father was detained for a month at the Navy's Silva Palma Barracks in Valparaíso.

In Kegevic's 2003 complaint against Vicente, it is stated that his father never recovered from the torture and therefore died in 1980.

Vicente is a Corvette Captain (Ret.) of the Navy's Judge Advocate General's Corps. He was a naval prosecutor in Valparaíso between September 11, 1973, and December 31, 1974, in charge of several cases.

He was the dictatorship's Seremi of Justice between 1975 and 1977, and since that time, he has been the head of the CDE in the V Region. Additionally, he is a councilor for the Judicial Assistance Corporation of Valparaíso.

He refused to answer LND's inquiries last Thursday. He also denied an interview at the end of 2005 to discuss the long list of complaints against him in Valparaíso, all for crimes against humanity. LND is aware of at least six, but there are more.

Who accuses him

Vicente denies, before the court and in an interview with "El Mercurio" of Valparaíso on August 3, 2003, having ordered the detention of Kegevic Julio in 1974 and sending him to the Silva Palma. He also denies interrogating him, torturing him, or ordering the torments applied to Kegevic, who was involved due to the possession of a weapon.

However, Carabineros Lieutenant Colonel (Ret.) Marcelo Vargas Goas declared in 2004, during the process, that he detained "20 people" on Vicente's orders. "The proceedings we carried out at the Cajsi were ordered by the Naval Prosecutor's Office, with Captain Enrique Vicente as prosecutor." He says the detentions were due to "an order to investigate signed by the aforementioned captain." That time, he denied having detained Kegevic.

But on April 11, 1974, in an old file of the Naval Prosecutor's Office, roll A-217, and testifying before Vicente himself, he acknowledged it.

In the same vein, Carabineros non-commissioned officer (Ret.) Guillermo Peña González testified in 2004.

Vargas and Peña admit that they belonged to the "Intelligence Service of the Command of the Jurisdictional Area of Internal Security" (Sicajsi, or Cajsi for some). This service depended on the First Naval Zone and operated, according to the declarants, at the Naval War Academy of Playa Ancha, next to the Silva Palma. And the orders were allegedly issued by Vicente, as both acknowledge.

A "German" with a ring

The prosecutor denies that at that time he dealt with prisoners outside his office at the prosecutor's office in Plaza Sotomayor. But Nina Reyes, another plaintiff against him, contradicts this. Detained in 1974 by the same order from Vicente, she was taken to the Silva Palma, where she spent six months.

"Once, when they were interrogating and torturing me at the Silva Palma, I pulled up my hood and saw who was interrogating me. He was blond, like a German, with a Navy commando uniform (camouflage). I was struck by a nut-type ring he wore, made of gold, with the initials E.V.," she declared in the process on March 31, 2004.

When she was released, she went to the Naval Prosecutor's Office for a proceeding. "I went to get authorization regarding a property. I recognized Prosecutor Enrique Vicente, who was now wearing a blue Navy uniform, as the one who interrogated me under physical duress when I pulled up my hood."

Strange suicide

The strange death of the Prefect of Investigations of Valparaíso at the time of the coup d'état, Juan Bustos Marchant, also haunts Vicente. His daughters Gloria and Pamela filed a complaint against him.

The representing lawyer, Héctor Salazar, says that "to request Vicente's indictment, I am waiting for Judge Quezada to deepen the investigation." According to the official version, the prefect committed suicide in the early hours of May 2, 1974, at the Investigations Prefecture of Valparaíso.

But the plaintiffs do not believe it. No autopsy is known, but they are looking for it. "If necessary, we will request the exhumation for a new autopsy," says Salazar.

Vicente denies having ordered the prefect's detention to interrogate him for alleged charges against him, but a telegram from April 25, 1974, with the arrest warrant for Bustos sent to the "Director of Investigations," signed by Vicente, contradicts this. The document is in file A-158 of 1974 of the Naval Prosecutor's Office.

Supposedly, Bustos reached Vicente's hands on Tuesday, April 30, 1974, who allegedly interrogated him. The interrogation was signed by Vicente, Bustos himself, and Lieutenant Patricio Schiavetti, the prosecutor's assistant. The prefect died a little more than 24 hours later.

Source: lanacion.cl, May 21, 2006

More than five years have passed since lawyer Guillermo Kegevic took charge of the complaint against the current Fiscal Attorney of the State Defense Council in Valparaíso, Enrique Vicente Molina, for his alleged participation in the death of the Prefect of Investigations, Juan Bustos Marchant, in May 1974.

Until now, the case advanced and stalled, but the pressure from the former prefect's daughters and the work of the lawyer has allowed the case not only to be reopened, but they have taken a step that will allow the real causes of the policeman's death to be elucidated.

Enrique Vicente Molina is a lawyer and holds a degree in Legal Sciences from the Pontifical Catholic University of Valparaíso, and since 1986, he has served as Director of the Judicial Assistance Corporation of Valparaíso, representing the State Defense Council (CDE).

He is now implicated in the alleged homicide of Juan Bustos Marchant, who was the Prefect of Investigations in the V Region during the government of President Salvador Allende Gossens.

The dark history of the Fiscal Attorney came to public light in 2006, when the journalist writing this article denounced these facts publicly. Finding the corresponding naval files, to which she had exclusive access, it is established that Enrique Vicente had a direct relationship with the detention and subsequent death of Prefect Juan Bustos Marchant.

HE DID NOT COMMIT SUICIDE

On May 2, 1974, Juan Bustos Marchant, Prefect of Investigations of Valparaíso during President Allende's government, died from a gunshot to the head at the civil police barracks in that city.

The official version, until 2006, was that he had committed suicide with a weapon he had in his possession, despite being detained. Neither the family nor the public opinion of the port city accepted the explanation.

Until that year, the irrefutable thesis that the former prefect had committed suicide had been maintained.

However, there was also a rumor that the Prefect of Investigations could have been forced to shoot himself. The naval file remained locked away for years, without anyone being able to access a part of the truth of this story, and after it was revealed, more than 40 years later, his family began to retrace the episodes of the Prefect's death, although they never managed to fully know all the information and dark passages that make up, to this day, this story.

Since 2006, new information gathered by investigations carried out by experts and by Guillermo Kegevic, the lawyer representing the Prefect's daughters, Pamela and Gloria Bustos, has given rise to a new look at the last moments when their father was alive and in captivity, in the power of the Chilean Navy, in Valparaíso.

Today, investigations indicate that the possibility of suicide is doubtful, as there are new and compelling arguments to think that his death was simply a homicide perpetrated within the facilities of the Investigations [police] of the Region.

This is evident in the request for the exhumation of the body of the ill-fated detective, with which the family intends to determine exactly the causes of death and the way in which Bustos Marchant was killed.

CHRONICLE OF THE DEATH OF BUSTOS MARCHANT

Upon the military coup of 1973, Prefect Juan Bustos Marchant was removed from his post and placed at the disposal of the new director of Investigations, General Pedro Palacios, and later General Ernesto Baeza Michelsen.

Bustos Marchant, however, maintained his status as a civil police official.

A month later, in October 1973, he was kidnapped by a commando of three individuals dressed in sailor jackets.

He was taken from his house, put into a vehicle where they tied him up, gagged him, and covered his head with a blanket. He was tortured. They applied electricity, put a pistol in his mouth threatening to shoot him, and with a knife, they simulated castrating him.

The questions revolved around his relationships with the previous director of Investigations, who by then had already been murdered (the doctor Eduardo Paredes Barrientos). Also about his eventual participation in the flogging of opponents of President Allende's government, alleged arms smuggling, theft of service badges, and political archive files.

They also asked him about his possible status as an activist of the Popular Unity and threatened to harm his family.

After several hours, he was released. They left him in a ravine.

Bustos walked to the Valparaíso Prefecture, where they provided him with a vehicle that took him to his home. There, he told his wife what had happened, but decided to keep silent to the rest of the family, friends, and colleagues, because of the threats from the commando that had all the hallmarks of belonging to the naval intelligence service or to Patria y Libertad, a terrorist group that acted with the tolerance of the Navy.

«INTERROGATED FOR NON-EXISTENT DRUGS AND WEAPONS»

The former prefect tried to lead a normal life, but six months later he was summoned and detained by the naval justice system.

Naval prosecutor Enrique Vicente would become his stubborn persecutor.

However, Juan Bustos Marchant decided to inform the director of Investigations, General Ernesto Baeza, about what had happened. On that same occasion, Bustos Marchant reiterated his willingness to appear before the courts as many times as required, demanding respect for his physical and mental integrity. Bustos Marchant's letter to Baeza was made available to prosecutor Enrique Vicente.

Lawyer Enrique Vicente Molina did his military service in the Navy and was commissioned as a reserve officer. In the Popular Unity, he consolidated relationships with the naval officer corps. As a corvette captain, he was summoned, after the coup, to provide services in the Naval Prosecutor's Office.

Vicente Molina argues that if he had not appeared, he would have been considered a "deserter in times of war."

His behavior indicates, however, that he did not need threats: He acted with zeal and a predisposed spirit against the supporters of the Popular Unity, as indicated by various complaints that involve him.

Between 1975 and 1977, he was the regional secretary of Justice. He did so in his capacity as an official of the State Defense Council. He has had a long career in that institution, which he is culminating as a fiscal attorney in Valparaíso.

Juan Bustos was subjected to extensive interrogations. According to Vicente, the former prefect was interrogated about drugs and weapons. However, the naval file, roll A-158 of 1974, says otherwise. There is evidence that Enrique Vicente ordered the detention of Bustos Marchant in a case submitted to a War Council for arms trafficking.

There is evidence in the file dated April 30 of that year. Prosecutor Vicente requested a report from the General Directorate of Investigations on possible charges involving former prefect Bustos.

It is also recorded that Juan Bustos Marchant denied the accusations of arms smuggling or any type of material contemplated in Law 17.978, on the control of weapons and explosives. It is noted that Bustos directed his actions especially to the control of terrorist groups, of Patria y Libertad.

A normal responsibility within his obligations, because those groups intended to alter the institutionality of the time.

Later, a curious situation occurred. Bustos Marchant was authorized, on a holiday (May 1st), to visit his mother. During the visit, he was permanently under guard. However, he managed to whisper a warning to his wife that was also a request for help: "They have liquidated me," he said. The next day, Bustos Marchant appeared "suicided."

The family was told that the former prefect had died from a gunshot he inflicted on himself in what was his office, in the Investigations facilities, using a pistol he had in his possession.

The official version is implausible: How could a detainee subjected to a War Council have a firearm?

"It was the easiest answer to justify his death," said his daughter Pamela Bustos. Her father's body was delivered in a sealed coffin. Fifteen days later, the former prefect's wife, Nelly Veloso, now deceased without finding the truth and much less justice, was summoned by prosecutor Vicente himself to ask her about the motives her husband might have had to commit suicide, "since nothing had been proven against him," he told her at that time, according to her account.

BUSTOS WAS FOLLOWED BY THE NAVAL INTELLIGENCE SERVICE

The appointment of Juan Bustos Marchant as Prefect of Investigations of Valparaíso, in April 1972, was considered a recognition of his professional merits and professional responsibility.

His work in the port was especially delicate. Apart from the effort that the criminal universe demands, there was a complex political situation. The city had become the center of the naval conspiracy to overthrow President Salvador Allende.

The US Naval Mission also operated there, and there was intense activity by Patria y Libertad and other far-right groups, linked to the assassination of General René Schneider, commander-in-chief of the Army, in 1970.

Bustos worked with the legal advisor of the Valparaíso Intendancy, Luis Vega Contreras, detained on September 11, tortured on the Esmeralda, and sent to Dawson Island.

Also with Vice Admiral José Toribio Merino, when he—as head of the First Naval Zone—assumed the Intendancy as a substitute. Then, it is estimated, the Naval Intelligence Service began to follow his steps.

For service reasons, he maintained fluid relations with his director general, Eduardo Paredes Barrientos—assassinated almost immediately after the coup—and with the official of the Ministry of the Interior, Arsenio Poupin, detained in La Moneda and executed by firing squad in Peldehue.

The responsibility of Investigations in Valparaíso was greater than in other cities, because Carabineros acted with weakness. Its prefect was General Arturo Yovanne, who turned out to be the head of the conspiracy in the uniformed police.

Since the beginning of 1973, it was no mystery that there were links and agreements between Patria y Libertad and the Navy. Bustos even had an incident with Vice Admiral Ismael Huerta, when the boyfriend of one of the officer's daughters appeared involved in an attack carried out by Patria y Libertad. Huerta tried to pressure Prefect Bustos, but he rejected the intimidation.

Evidently, Juan Bustos was not a welcome character for the right and the high command of the Navy. He was in the sights of the coup plotters who did not let much time pass without collecting the debt.

CHARGES FOR HOMICIDE

The case of Juan Bustos Marchant is surrounded by strange circumstances. The questions and investigations point to lawyer Enrique Vicente Molina, at that time naval prosecutor, with the rank of corvette captain and current fiscal attorney of the State Defense Council in Valparaíso, who ordered the detention and participated in the interrogation.

On November 19, 2010, the plaintiff lawyer, Guillermo Kegevic, managed after repeated attempts and obstacles to have the request for the exhumation of Bustos Marchant's remains declared admissible, emphasizing that there are solid arguments to determine that the cause of death was not suicide, but homicide, perpetrated by uniformed officers of the national navy, whose greatest responsible party would be, then, the fiscal attorney of the CDE of Valparaíso, Enrique Vicente Molina.

Indeed, in case ROL 143.578-2004, the jurist states that according to statements made both by his daughters and the investigations carried out subsequently (pages 74 and 76), both point out that the only thing they had information about at that time was that the bullet impact was perpetrated through the left temple, in circumstances where the prefect was right-handed, and the angle of entry of the bullet is from top to bottom, difficult for him to have self-inflicted.

It is necessary to highlight that the family did not have access to see the corpse since it was delivered to them in a sealed coffin.

On the other hand, in the exhumation, lawyer Kegevic states, "we seek to determine the firearm used to kill him, because the reports of the Investigations Summary and the Autopsy Protocol are contradictory."

Indeed, the summary carried out by Investigations (page 96) determines that the weapon used would be 7.65 millimeters in caliber, but the autopsy protocol (page 161) reports that the caliber of the weapon would be 32 millimeters and that it was fired with a pistol whose projectiles are protected by a lining or metallic jacket different from lead and, therefore, can completely pierce the skull.

Kegevic is emphatic in the clarification of this case, since—the lawyer states—"both the family and the country need to know the real background of the cause of death of a high-ranking official as was Mr. Juan Bustos Marchant."

It is necessary, he points out, to determine with exactitude if the victim was tortured before dying, since according to the autopsy protocol, the prefect presented some abnormalities that make this case one more death with great similarity to the death of Mr. José Tohá González, of whom they also reported that he had committed suicide and today a truth is appearing that discards that hypothesis."

For Kegevic, the important thing is to determine with precision the background of the autopsy and that is only achieved by exhuming the body to extract the greatest amount of information that allows reaching the truth that the prefect's family, his daughters in this case, demand.

For example, says the jurist, there are reasonable doubts in the autopsy report dated June 21, 1974, performed by the forensic doctor Carlos Sotomayor Pozo, which indicates that the prefect "presented an entry hole of the projectile situated in the most common place used by suicides, situated in the right temple, between the tail of the eyebrow and the ear pavilion, contrary to what the report that was made on May 2 of the same year says." As well as ensuring that Bustos Marchant's body "did not present signs of struggle or other injuries that could be attributed to the action of third parties." He also reported that according to the expert report, the weapon used could be a 32 caliber, where—also—no signs of support of the weapon used were found on the skin, because it had been erased when cleaning the wound.

But, the autopsy report carried out in Viña del Mar, on May 2, 1974, that is, one day after the prefect's death, states that Bustos Marchant arrived alive at the public assistance (Van Buren Hospital) and that after approximately four hours he died. Furthermore, in this report, it is read that Prefect Juan Bustos Marchant presented an incomplete set of teeth, missing a large number of upper teeth.

For Kegevic, "this is a really important piece of data, as well as the contradiction between one report and another about the caliber of the weapon used." That is, there are really compelling elements to start a new investigative process that is attached to the one we have carried out so far and that we will only obtain with the exhumation and the practice of new expert reports on the body of Prefect Juan Bustos Marchant."

PROMPT EXHUMATION

On November 29, 2010, lawyer Guillermo Kegevic appealed against the refusal to allow the exhumation of Bustos Marchant's body by the Valparaíso Court of Appeals, in the first instance by Minister Eliana Quezada Muñoz; however, on January 13, the same Court of Appeals revoked Minister Quezada's decision, returning the file to the Minister and exhorting her to rule on the execution of all pertinent proceedings that allow clarifying the policeman's death.

The exhumation proceeding, in principle, would be planned for these days in March.

One of his daughters, Pamela Bustos, who lives abroad, has already traveled to Chile to witness the exhumation and provide statements to the justice system to collaborate with everything she knows and remembers from the period in which her father began to be involved in a cruel pursuit that ended with his death and the dismemberment of the family, who were forced to sink into silence for fear of losing their lives as well.

This procedure is interpreted as a blow to the current fiscal attorney of the CDE, Enrique Vicente Molina, since the case has changed its heading, remaining under ROL IC-816-2010, roll 143578-2004, based in the former second criminal court of Valparaíso, followed against Enrique Vicente Molina and another, for the crime of Homicide, article 391 N°2, even though he continues to hold his position as a State official.

Source: elciudadano, March 17, 2011

Juan Bustos Marchant: a dark crime of the dictatorship.

On May 2, 1974, Juan Bustos Marchant, Prefect of Investigations of Valparaíso during the government of President Allende, died from a gunshot wound to the head at the civil police headquarters in that city.

The official version was that he had committed suicide with a weapon he had in his possession, despite being in custody. Neither his family nor the public in the port city accepted this explanation. To this day, they maintain that the former prefect was murdered: either directly or by being forced to shoot himself.

His case is surrounded by strange circumstances. The questions point to the lawyer Enrique Vicente Molina, at that time a naval prosecutor with the rank of corvette captain and currently the fiscal procurator lawyer of the State Defense Council (CDE) in Valparaíso, who ordered the detention and participated in the interrogation.

After years of silence, although the case was presented to the Rettig Report, the family has begun to take action to clarify the facts. With the support of FASIC, through the lawyer Héctor Salazar, they have initiated a criminal process to determine the responsibility of "all those who may be responsible for the death of Juan Bustos Marchant."

AFTER THE COUP

Upon the occurrence of the 1973 military coup, Prefect Juan Bustos Marchant was removed from his post and placed at the disposal of the new Director of Investigations, General Pedro Palacios, and later General Ernesto Baeza Michelsen. Bustos Marchant, however, maintained his status as a civil police official.

A month later, in October 1973, he was kidnapped by a commando of three individuals dressed in sailor jackets. He was taken from his home, placed in a vehicle where he was tied up, gagged, and had his head covered with a blanket. He was tortured. They applied electricity, put a pistol in his mouth threatening to shoot him, and simulated his castration with a knife.

The questions revolved around his relationships with the previous Director of Investigations, by then already murdered (the physician Eduardo Paredes Barrientos). They also concerned his possible participation in the flogging of opponents of President Allende's government, alleged arms smuggling, and the theft of service badges and political archive files.

They also asked him about his possible status as an activist for the Unidad Popular and threatened to harm his family. After several hours, he was released. They left him in a ravine.

Bustos walked to the Valparaíso Prefecture, where they provided him with a vehicle that took him to his home. Bustos told his wife what had happened, but decided to remain silent due to the threats from the commando, which had all the hallmarks of belonging to the naval intelligence service or to Patria y Libertad, a terrorist group that operated with the tolerance of the Navy.

"THEY HAVE FINISHED ME"

The former prefect tried to lead a normal life, but six months later he was summoned and detained by the naval justice system. Naval prosecutor Enrique Vicente would become his persistent persecutor.

Juan Bustos Marchant decided to inform the Director of Investigations, General Ernesto Baeza, of what had happened. He reiterated his willingness to appear before the courts as many times as required, demanding respect for his physical and mental integrity. Bustos Marchant's letter to Baeza was made available to prosecutor Enrique Vicente.

The lawyer Enrique Vicente Molina performed military service in the Navy and was commissioned as a reserve officer. During the Unidad Popular, he consolidated relationships with naval officers. As a corvette captain, he was summoned after the coup to serve in the Naval Prosecutor's Office.

Today he says that if he had not appeared, he would have been considered a "deserter in times of war." His behavior indicates, however, that he did not need threats: he acted with zeal and a predisposed spirit against the supporters of the Unidad Popular, as indicated by various complaints involving him.

Between 1975 and 1977, he was Regional Secretary of Justice. He did so in his capacity as an official of the State Defense Council. He has had a long career in the CDE, which is culminating as a fiscal procurator lawyer in Valparaíso.

Juan Bustos was subjected to extensive interrogations. According to Vicente, the former prefect was interrogated about drugs and weapons. However, the naval file, roll A-158 of 1974, to which Punto Final had access, says otherwise. There is a record that Enrique Vicente ordered the detention of Bustos Marchant in a case submitted to a War Council for arms trafficking.

There is evidence in the file that on April 30 of that year, prosecutor Vicente requested a report from the General Directorate of Investigations regarding potential charges implicating former prefect Bustos. It is also recorded that Juan Bustos Marchant denied the accusations of arms smuggling or any type of material covered by Law 17.978, on the control of weapons and explosives.

It is noted that Bustos focused his actions especially on the control of terrorist groups, such as Patria y Libertad. A normal responsibility within his obligations, because those groups intended to alter the institutional order.

Later, a curious situation occurred. Bustos Marchant was authorized, because it was a holiday (May 1st), to visit his mother. During the visit, he was permanently under guard. However, he managed to whisper a warning to his wife that was also a plea for help: "They have finished me," he said.

The next day, Bustos Marchant appeared "suicided." The family was told that the former prefect had died from a gunshot he inflicted upon himself in what was his office at the Investigations facilities, using a pistol he had in his possession. The official version is implausible: how could a detainee subjected to a War Council have a firearm?

"It was the easiest answer to justify his death," says his daughter Pamela. Her father's body was delivered in a sealed casket. Fifteen days later, the former prefect's wife, Nelly Veloso, was summoned by prosecutor Vicente himself to ask her about the motives her husband might have had to commit suicide, "since nothing had been proven against him."

BUSTOS FOUGHT FOR DEMOCRACY

The appointment of Juan Bustos Marchant as Prefect of Investigations of Valparaíso, in April 1972, was considered a recognition of his professional merits and professional responsibility.

His work in the port was especially delicate. Apart from the effort demanded by the criminal underworld, there was a complex political situation. The city had become the center of the naval conspiracy to overthrow President Salvador Allende.

The North American Naval Mission also operated there, and there was intense activity by Patria y Libertad and other fascist groups, linked to the assassination of General René Schneider, Commander-in-Chief of the Army, in 1970.

Bustos worked with the legal advisor to the Intendancy of Valparaíso, Luis Vega Contreras, who was detained on September 11, tortured on the Esmeralda, and sent to Isla Dawson. He also worked with Vice Admiral José Toribio Merino, when the latter—as head of the First Naval Zone—assumed the Intendancy as a substitute.

At that time, it is estimated, the Naval Intelligence Service began to follow his steps.

For service reasons, he maintained fluid relationships with his Director General, Eduardo Paredes Barrientos—murdered almost immediately after the coup—and with the Ministry of the Interior official, Arsenio Poupin, detained at La Moneda and executed by firing squad in Peldehue.

The responsibility of Investigations in Valparaíso was greater than in other cities because the Carabineros acted with weakness. Its prefect was General Arturo Yovanne, who turned out to be the head of the conspiracy within the uniformed police.

Since the beginning of 1973, it was no mystery that there were links and agreements between Patria y Libertad and the Navy. Bustos even had an incident with Vice Admiral Ismael Huerta, when the boyfriend of one of the officer's daughters appeared to be involved in an attack carried out by Patria y Libertad. Huerta tried to pressure Prefect Bustos, but the latter rejected the intimidation.

Evidently, Juan Bustos was not a person liked by the right and the high command of the Navy. He was in the sights of the coup plotters, who did not let much time pass before settling the score.

Source: puntofinal.cl, July 8, 2005

Regarding his participation in the Navy's torture centers in Valparaíso

Through a request for the former agent of the Zorro 2 Brigade who operated in Valparaíso for the Navy, Óscar Correa Correa, to testify in Orlando, United States, Magistrate Eliana Quezada seeks to gather more information regarding the role that naval prosecutor Enrique Vicente Molina played after the military coup in the detention and torture centers, the Naval War Academy and the Silva Palma Barracks in Playa Ancha.

According to information from the process being investigated for crimes against humanity that occurred in these places, Vicente, the current chief lawyer of the State Defense Council (CDE) in the V Region and a retired corvette captain, allegedly instructed the actions committed by the Zorro 2 operational team.

This was established by a police report attached to the file, which indicates that Correa, the retired sub-officer Guillermo Peña González, and the retired lieutenant colonel Alejandro Vargas Goas, all from the Carabineros, "followed the instructions of naval prosecutor Enrique Vicente Molina."

Both Vargas and Peña, when confronted with Vicente, confirmed in the investigation the presence of the then-naval prosecutor in these centers of torment, a position that Vicente continues to deny to this day.

With the testimony of agent Correa, and if he supports the statements of Peña and Vargas, the judge would already have three testimonies that would disprove Vicente.

Also accused of having an active participation regarding the treatment of prisoners in both Navy facilities is the retired navy captain and then-assistant to prosecutor Vicente with the rank of lieutenant, Patricio Schiavetti Rosas, which he also denies in the process.

However, when confronted with Peña González, Schiavetti does not cover for Vicente and admits that "I cannot affirm or deny that Mr. Enrique Vicente Molina did so (operated in the AGN and Silva Palma) in some of the cases that were being processed."

Among the accusations from former prisoners against Vicente is that of Nina Reyes Guzmán, who maintains in the proceedings that the prosecutor was present at a torture session that took place at the Silva Palma Barracks, recognizing him by a gold ring with the initials EV, "a piece of jewelry that I saw on him again later at the Naval Prosecutor's Office."

The current head of the CDE in Valparaíso is also accused as an "inculpated party" in the cases regarding the torments applied to Guillermo Kegevic Julio (who died from the aftereffects) and Dragomir Kegevic Ahumada, and the crime of the priest Miguel Woodward. The plaintiff lawyer in these cases, except for Woodward's, is Guillermo Kegevic Ahumada.

The former prosecutor Vicente must also explain in the process why he omitted to declare that his work in that position as an active-duty corvette captain extended until January 1, 1978, according to Navy official letter 1600/0320, and not until December 31, 1974, as he asserted in the investigation.

In addition, a report from the Office of the Comptroller General of the Republic is awaited to clarify in what capacity the CDE lawyers of Valparaíso, Juan García Bilbao and Helga Göcke Saavedra, represent the accused Vicente in these cases, information requested by Senator (PRSD) Nelson Ávila.

Source: lanacion.cl, November 14, 2008

Councilman and former agent seeks reelection in Casablanca

Under the orders of former naval prosecutor Enrique Vicente, Guillermo Peña operated in the Naval War Academy torture center in Valparaíso.

The former agent of the Zorro 2 Group, retired Carabineros sub-officer Guillermo Peña González, who operated in the Naval War Academy and Silva Palma Barracks torture centers in Valparaíso, is the current councilman of Casablanca for the PRSD, is running for reelection, and is the superintendent of the Fire Department of that city.

Peña's situation, accused in processes for human rights violations being investigated in that port, motivated the protest of the inhabitants of that commune, among them the PS councilman candidate, Ricardo Molina González.

Molina told La Nación that he made contact with PRSD leaders to point out the situation "but this Mr. Peña remains where he is."

The former agent was confronted in one of the processes with the current head of the CDE of Valparaíso, former naval prosecutor and retired corvette captain Enrique Vicente Molina, establishing in that judicial proceeding that Peña recognized Vicente as the one who operated in those detention and torture centers in which he was an agent.

A police report in the cases investigated by Minister Eliana Quezada states that the men of the Zorro 2 Group followed "instructions from naval prosecutor Enrique Vicente Molina" in the Navy.

"In Casablanca, many are disappointed with Mr. Peña, who deceived those of us who supported him, and it is an affront that he occupies the position of superintendent of our Fire Department," said Molina.

According to information from the inhabitants of Casablanca, Peña first tried to approach the PS and PPD to pursue a political career, but finally ended up in the Radical Party.

When asked, Senator Nelson Ávila stated that "no one has sent me any concrete complaint about Mr. Peña. I have nothing to say."

But the PRSD deputy for district 15, Samuel Venegas, affirmed to La Nación that he is informed of the judicial situation and Peña's status as a former agent, but that "he only followed orders under the principle of due obedience and was a subordinate, and that does not mean he has blood on his hands."

The parliamentarian added that "Mr. Peña has not been prosecuted, because if he were, or were to be in the future, then the situation would change. The fact of being in the status of an accused party in a process does not prove that he is guilty of any crime, which is why we have continued to support him. We have even learned that he has been collaborating with justice."

For Peña's detractors in Casablanca, however, he is "morally and politically" disqualified from continuing to be a councilman "and even more so from running for reelection this coming October 26."

The information in which the situation of Peña González and the CDE chief in Valparaíso, Vicente Molina, was made public was published by La Nación Domingo on July 13.

Source: lanacion.cl, October 6, 2008

Situation of CDE chief in the V Region becomes complicated

The also former naval prosecutor Enrique Vicente is sued in several processes for human rights violations and is accused by former agents of exercising power in torture centers. He is defended by three lawyers from the CDE of the V Region itself.

The situation of the fiscal procurator lawyer of the State Defense Council (CDE) of the V Region, Enrique Vicente Molina (retired corvette captain, former naval prosecutor of Valparaíso during the military dictatorship, and former Regional Ministerial Secretary of Justice under Augusto Pinochet), is becoming increasingly complicated.

In addition to the statements of former agents of the Zorro 2 Group—who accuse him of being one of the men who held power in detention and torture centers such as the Naval War Academy and the Silva Palma Barracks, which Enrique Vicente denies—and the concealment from justice of his work as a prosecutor between 1975 and 1977—he declared that he only served as naval prosecutor of Valparaíso until December 31, 1974—two official letters from Senator Nelson Ávila have now been added.

The parliamentarian asked the Comptroller General of the Republic, Ramiro Mendoza, to investigate the terms under which Vicente's defense is exercised by lawyers from the same CDE of the V Region and his subordinates, Juan García Bilbao, Helga Göcke Saavedra, and Alfredo Larreta Granger.

"These lawyers have carried out procedural actions and steps in criminal cases (where Vicente is accused) during hours that would correspond to their public duties, and for the purposes of notifications (judicial in these cases) they have used the offices of the CDE itself," maintains Ávila.

At the same time, the former PPD and now Radical senator sent a second official letter addressed to the president of the CDE, Carlos Mackenney, where he pointed out the same situation, asking the council to open a summary investigation against Vicente.

But in this case, Ávila added the incongruity that, while the CDE is a plaintiff in the country in various cases of crimes against humanity during the military oppression, in the V Region this does not happen.

"I am surprised by the silence and passivity of the CDE in the instruction and prosecution of cases for human rights violations in the V Region," said the senator in his letter to Mackenney.

In the text, the parliamentarian cited the article published by La Nación Domingo on July 13, in which the statements and judicial confrontations of the former agents of the Zorro 2 Group that operated in the Naval War Academy and Silva Palma Barracks of Valparaíso, retired Carabineros lieutenant colonel Alejandro Vargas Goas and retired sub-officer of the same institution Guillermo Peña González, were reported, where they accuse Vicente of frequently circulating in these two torture centers on the Playa Ancha hill, exercising command.

LND also reported on a report from the Investigative Police in which it was established that the agents of the Zorro 2 Group "followed the instructions given by prosecutor Enrique Vicente Molina in naval intelligence."

In his letter to Mackenney, Ávila reminded him that it had already been demanded during the presidency of Clara Szczaranski that the CDE investigate Vicente for the accusations made against him in the complaints, but nothing happened in this regard.

The processes

Among the processes opened against former prosecutor Enrique Vicente for crimes against humanity are those of the priest Miguel Woodward, the brothers Dragomir and Guillermo Kegevic, and Nina Reyes. The latter accuses him of personally witnessing her torture at the Silva Palma Barracks, having recognized him later, according to her, by a gold ring with the initials EV.

The Valparaíso Court of Appeals recently ordered Vicente to clarify before Judge Eliana Quezada, who is investigating some of these cases, why he hid his work as a prosecutor between 1975 and 1977 from justice.

Source: lanacion.cl, August 25, 2008

Regarding the "ethical" resignation of General Santelices: Objections to the CDE chief of Valparaíso sued in human rights case

Enrique Vicente Molina was a naval prosecutor after the coup. He is being sued. There are those who recognize him in interrogations and ordering the detention of people who were tortured by sailors.

The family of the Anglo-Chilean priest Miguel Woodward, who died on the ship Esmeralda, asserts that he must resign, since he has access to the case.

The "ethical resignation" formalized this Monday by General Guillermo Santelices brings back to the table whether figures who had direct or indirect participation in human rights violations should continue in their positions.

The case brings up the situation facing the procurator of the State Defense Council (CDE) of the Fifth Region, the lawyer Enrique Vicente Molina.

The professional, who was a naval prosecutor after the 1973 military coup, interrogated several people and ordered the detention of others who were tortured by Navy officials. Some of the latter appear related to the death of the Anglo-Chilean priest Miguel Woodward.

It is worth noting that Vicente, from his position, has access to the investigation now being processed by Minister Eliana Quezada and, at the same time, was sued by the lawyer Guillermo Kegevic for his potential responsibility as a naval prosecutor in different events investigated by justice, among them the death of his father.

In fact, the Human Rights Program of the Ministry of the Interior (PDHMI), the natural successor to the Rettig Commission, took about three years to gain access to the case.

In other words, the head of the CDE in the Fifth Region acts in a dual capacity, both as an accused party and as a plaintiff.

Although the case is not exactly the same as the one that occurred with Santelices, it is certain that the independence that an official of that stature should have is called into question in sensitive processes such as those of human rights, which affects the public image of the CDE.

For the PDHMI lawyer, Boris Paredes, who has been linked to the Woodward case, "it is unacceptable that Vicente continues in his position."

"This is clearly irregular. He has a copy of the file and, at the same time, acts as a sued party, so he should at least recuse himself," criticized Paredes.

Fred Bennet, husband of Patricia Woodward, sister of the disappeared priest, told El Mostrador.cl that it is "a true scandal that Vicente, like the second man of the CDE in Valparaíso, Luis Winter Igualt, another naval prosecutor at the time of the coup, remain in their positions, because for us they are cover-up agents."

"At least General Santelices had the courage to admit his participation, while Vicente has not had enough manhood to do so," stated Bennet.

Accusations

In the Woodward case, retired Carabineros commander Marcelo Vargas Goas testified, as published on May 21, 2006, by the newspaper La Nación.

The latter acknowledged that after the coup he detained about 20 people by order of Vicente. "The proceedings we carried out in the Intelligence Service of the Command of the Internal Security Jurisdictional Area were ordered by the Naval Prosecutor's Office, with Captain Enrique Vicente as prosecutor." In 2004, retired Carabineros sub-officer Guillermo Peña González testified.

In different interviews that Vicente has given, one of them to El Mercurio de Valparaíso in 2003, he denies having participated in torture or having knowledge of it, since all his work was focused on the offices of the naval prosecutor's office at the time.

However, the plaintiff Nina Reyes, who was detained for six months by order of Vicente—according to La Nación—contradicts him. "Once, when they were interrogating and torturing me at the Silva Palma, I pulled back my hood and saw who was interrogating me.

He was blond, like a German, with a Navy commando uniform (camouflage). A nut-type ring he wore, made of gold, with the initials E.V., was etched in my memory," she declared in the process on March 31, 2004.

When she was released, she went to the Naval Prosecutor's Office for a procedure. "I went to get authorization for a property. I recognized the prosecutor Enrique Vicente, who was now wearing the blue uniform of the Navy, as the one who interrogated me under physical duress when I pulled back my hood."

Egalitarian criteria?

The case installs a problem of criteria both for La Moneda and for the president of the CDE, the DC Carlos Mackenney, because an official under his authority is questioned for acting incompatibly in his position.

Although the Executive, through the spokesperson minister, Francisco Vidal, has indicated that the presumption of innocence should prevail in cases where the accused, military or civilian, are not subject to prosecution, the Minister of Defense, José Goñi, valued the resignation of Santelices.

This is the second time that Mackenney has faced a problem of incompatibility of functions. Previously, it was caused by the company created by the counselor and former head of the CDE, Clara Szczaranski—Compliance Consulting—dedicated to providing advice on anti-money laundering matters, together with two officials of the organization specialized in this matter who currently work there for the interests of the treasury.

The CDE, since the first complaint about four years ago against Vicente, supported his permanence in the position, under the aegis of Szczaranski.

But now there is another leadership at the CDE, a matter that should weigh when analyzing any decision, since Mackenney maintains closeness with President Michelle Bachelet, although Lagos appointed him to the position. Both Mackenney and Bachelet are children of former uniformed officers.

This media outlet tried to obtain an opinion from both Vicente and Mackenney. The former, despite leaving messages for his secretary, did not return the calls, while the latter went on vacation yesterday.

An attempt was also made to request a version from the acting president, counselor Eduardo Urrejola, but through the CDE communications department, it was indicated that there would be no statement on the matter.

Source: elmostrador.cl, February 6, 2008

The strange "suicide" of a Prefect

The death during the dictatorship, 45 years ago, of the former Prefect of Investigations of Valparaíso, Juan Bustos Marchant—a case classified today as qualified homicide—meant a long and hard battle for the clarification of the truth, which is coming to an end. In so much time, justice saw its work obstructed by the persistent refusal of those responsible to acknowledge what happened.

Working on the basis of meticulous inquiries, confrontation of suspects, and ballistic reports, the minister of the Valparaíso Court of Appeals, Jaime Arancibia Pinto, implicated 12 officials of that service, the current PDI.

Only two of them are alive and retired, Mario Tashima Rebolledo and Raúl Chenevier Laffont, whose prosecution was ordered by the magistrate who handles cases of human rights violations.

Although the coup plotters always presented it as a suicide, no one ever had any doubt that the police chief was murdered in cold blood, without witnesses, with the premeditation and treachery typical of those who in that black era overwhelmed the country and its people without counterweight but with hatred, taking advantage of the possession of weapons and protected by an illegal regime that exercised state terrorism.

A career official, Bustos had assumed the prefecture appointed by the general directorate of the institution in April 1972 for his personal merits, his professional capacity, and his undeniable probity.

He knew that his task would be difficult in a city like Valparaíso, where the classist officer corps of the Navy surpassed the authority of its commander-in-chief, Admiral Raúl Montero Cornejo, and began to prepare the conspiracy that would lead to the overthrow of the constitutional government of President Allende.

The prefect deployed an arduous labor in facing the enemies of the popular government, especially the fascist group Patria y Libertad, which had weapons and explosives provided by naval officers for the commission of acts of sabotage and terrorist attacks.

That group had the protection of Rear Admiral Ismael Huerta Díaz, who on one occasion was involved in a serious incident with the police authority for the detention of one of its members, who turned out to be his son-in-law. Indignant, Huerta threatened that "things will not remain like this."

Juan Bustos, who aroused the hatred of the coup conspiracy, was dismissed from his post by the sailors who took over Valparaíso on the morning of September 11, 1973. He was not discharged and continued to provide professional services to his institution, while the naval prosecutor's office and the naval intelligence service followed his steps and investigated him thoroughly, looking for fictitious charges against him.

On the following October 11 and April 26, Bustos was kidnapped from his home in Viña del Mar by a group of thugs who treated him brutally. They forced him into a vehicle in which he was taken to another place, bound, blindfolded, and with a blanket on his head to interrogate him under beatings, torture, application of electricity, and threats toward him and his family, trying to get him to confess to non-existent crimes.

By order of naval prosecutor Enrique Vicente, who held the rank of corvette captain, the detainee was finally held in a dungeon of the same prefecture whose leadership he had exercised until months before.

For hours and days, he was subjected to intense interrogations by the prosecutor together with some who had been his subordinates in the civil police—induced by the dictatorship, they had become his enemies—and who lent themselves to the trap against him. Trying to break his resistance, everyone insisted, knowing it was not true, on his participation in arms and drug trafficking.

Minutes after 7 in the morning on May 2, 1974, the dismissed prefect was found dying in his isolation cell: "He had shot himself" with a bullet to the head with skull perforation and projectile exit. Next to him was the revolver used, without it ever being known how it had arrived there or under what circumstances.

The death occurred around noon, after which an urgent official statement was immediately issued reporting a "suicide."

That version was always implausible. Those who had information about the situation and were aware of what was happening were certain that Juan Bustos would not leave the dungeon he occupied alive. It was never established—or at least reported—how a revolver could have been brought into an isolated cell of an incriminated detainee, or if "someone" entered and shot him at point-blank range, or perhaps if that "someone" forced him to take the weapon with his hands, bringing it to his head and pulling the trigger.

Weeks after the events occurred, the naval prosecutor summoned the widow to his office and informed her that after all the inquiries carried out, the conclusion was that the name of the alleged suicide was clean and he was innocent, since no charges had been found against him for drug or arms trafficking, or any other crime.

The multiple apologies and explanations, however, were unnecessary and did not serve at all, because it was already too late.

Source: politika.cl, April 27, 2019

Insulza, the liberator of Pinochet in London

In recent weeks, the Chilean Government has deployed feverish activity and has made enormous efforts to install Minister José M. Insulza in the General Secretariat of the OAS. For this, it has used the entire apparatus of the State, especially all Chilean diplomacy.

Despite the deficiencies of the OAS and its permanent dependence on the US, we believe that it remains a regional instrument that allows, at least through its Human Rights Commission (IACHR), to denounce and put an end to abuses and excesses in that area in our America.

For the same reason, we believe that the current Government of Chile does not reach the moral and political solvency to install a figure who has been the operational face of all attempts to create conditions of impunity in the last two governments of the country.

It was José M. Insulza, in his capacity as Minister of Foreign Affairs, who managed the return of the dictator Pinochet from London under the pretext of his deteriorating health and the promise that he would soon be prosecuted in Chile, which only happened after 5 years and not for Human Rights causes (nor by the government's effort) but, like the mobster Al Capone, for tax evasion.

In his ministerial functions, he has been the articulator of all proposals for sentence reductions for crimes against humanity and, in multiple press statements, has expressed his lack of interest in the prosecution of those responsible for torture.

On the contrary, he has been an open supporter of closing the issue of Human Rights in Chile. An expression of this has been the promulgation in only 48 hours of the meager Law of Reparation for Former Political Prisoners, in which he ignored, on purpose, both the proposals of those affected and the suggestions of the National Commission on Political Imprisonment and Torture, despite the high citizen appreciation for the work of said Commission, discarding all the regulations and requests of both the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights of the OAS and the UN (which the government committed to respect). Thus, in a shameful maneuver, due to strong pressures from Insulza and the government, Parliament was not allowed to discuss even a bit of said law, imposing an immediate processing.

Another aspect of this government policy is expressed in the role played by the State Defense Council (CDE), whose president not only advocates for the application of the amnesty law (also contravening what was expressed by international organizations), but in countless processes denies validity to the Rettig Report (National Commission for Truth and Reconciliation), and we assume that with the same arguments it will also do so with the Valech Report (National Commission on Political Imprisonment and Torture).

As if that were not enough, the CDE includes in its staff as Regional Prosecutor Enrique Vicente Molina, former Naval prosecutor during the dictatorship, who was in charge of War Councils in 1973, and now hires retired Rear Admiral Arturo Ojeda as Manager, despite his declared coup-plotting past.

We are not supporters of persecution or witch hunts, but hiring a character who signed a seditious letter against the Constitutional Government in 1973, while wearing a uniform, and who now considers those who protest at the arrivals of the training ship "Esmeralda" to be mercenaries, contrasts with the situation of hundreds of former Political Prisoners unable to hold public office, or teach, or direct Corporations, etc., due to the lack of political will of the Government to restore the rights that were violated during the dictatorship and definitively annul the "political criminal records," which has not happened in the three governments of the Concertación.

Therefore, and considering that Chile has the largest number of complaints before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights without resolution (many due to the lack of an adequate response from the government) and considering, furthermore, that José M.

Insulza is an expression of that contempt of the Government for adequately facing the problem of Human Rights, the Association of Former Political Prisoners of Valparaíso – V Region, joins the Association of Relatives of the Forcibly Disappeared and the Ethical Commission Against Torture in the campaign of rejection of the nomination of José Miguel Insulza to the General Secretariat of the OAS in the next period.

We call on all Human Rights organizations in other countries to make known to their respective governments the objections and the inconvenience of supporting the official of the Chilean government who has treated the victims of the human rights violations that occurred in Chile during the dictatorship so poorly, since Truth, Justice, and Reparation remain pending in our country.

Source: rebelion.org, February 22, 2005