Between September 24 and October 3, 1973, at the Fundo El Escorial in Paine, various arrests were carried out, followed by the execution of those affected.

On September 24, 1973, at approximately 16:00 hours, personnel belonging to the San Bernardo Infantry Regiment arrived at the Viña El Escorial in Paine, mobilized in a truck and a jeep, and proceeded to arrest five agricultural workers, who were led to a soccer field where they were forced to lie on the ground.

From there, they were taken to the Infantry Regiment, where they remained until nearly 22:00 hours, when they were blindfolded and loaded onto a truck bound for the Cerro Chena Detention Center. The arrested individuals were:

Héctor CASTRO SAEZ, 18 years old, single, no political affiliation;

Juan Guillermo CUADRA ESPINOZA, 26 years old, married, Socialist Party militant;

Gustavo Hernán MARTINEZ VERA, married, no political affiliation;

Juan Bautista NUÑEZ VARGAS, 33 years old, married, Socialist Party militant; and

Ignacio del Tránsito SANTANDER ALBORNOZ, 17 years old, single.

On the morning of October 3, an operation was carried out in which thirteen other agricultural workers from the town of Paine were arrested. On this occasion, the personnel belonging to the San Bernardo Infantry Regiment traveled in a red truck, with their faces painted black.

They entered the homes from which they removed the detainees, in order to transport them to San Bernardo and from there to the Cerro Chena Detention Center. These thirteen people were arrested that night, along with others who were subsequently released:

José Angel CABEZAS BUENO, 21 years old, single;

Francisco Javier CALDERON NILO, 19 years old, single;

Domingo Antonio GALAZ SALAS, 23 years old, single;

José Emilio GONZALEZ ESPINOZA, 32 years old, married;

Juan Rosendo GONZALEZ PEREZ, 23 years old;

Aurelio Enrique HIDALGO MELLA, 22 years old, single;

Bernabé del Carmen LOPEZ LOPEZ, 23 years old, single;

Carlos Manuel ORTIZ ORTIZ, 18 years old, single;

Héctor Santiago PINTO CAROCA, 34 years old, married;

Hernán PINTO CAROCA, 42 years old, married;

Aliro del Carmen VALDIVIA VALDIVIA, 39 years old, married;

Hugo Alfredo VIDAL ARENAS, 27 years old, married; and

Víctor Manuel ZAMORANO GONZALEZ, single.

Several people who were detained at the Cerro Chena Detention Center report having been transported there along with the already identified detainees. In that place, they were generally kept blindfolded and were subjected to torture and interrogation. Subsequently, some of them were released.

The relatives of the forcibly disappeared went on several occasions to that Detention Center, where the detention was not officially acknowledged. However, in the Writ of Amparo 283 79 filed on behalf of Ignacio Santander Albornoz and Juan Cuadra Espinoza, it was reported on April 16, 1974, by the Chief of the Interior Zone of the Departments of San Bernardo and Maipo that "the detainees Ignacio Santander Albornoz and Juan Cuadra Espinoza were discharged by the sentries of the Chena Prisoner Camp on October 4, 1973."

In the month of December, relatives were informed at the Legal Medical Service that there was a record of the entry of the remains of all these detainees and that they had been buried in Patio 29 of the General Cemetery.

Around the same date, locals discovered human remains in the Cuesta de Chada area. The relatives went there and were able to recognize, for the most part, remains of the clothing that the detainees were wearing when they were taken from their homes.

The remains, which were scattered at the site, were collected by Carabineros personnel and sent to the Legal Medical Service, where the corresponding forensic examinations were performed, but the identities of the individuals were not determined.

In the month of September 1990, the Minister of the Court of Appeals, Germán Hermosilla, appeared at that Medical Service with the objective of identifying the remains that had remained as unidentified since 1974.

The bodies finally recognized correspond to the following people: José Cabezas Bueno; Francisco Calderón Nilo; Domingo Galaz Salas; Emilio González Espinoza; Juan González Pérez; Aurelio Hidalgo; Bernabé López; Héctor and Pedro Pinto Caroca; Aliro Valdivia Valdivia; Hugo Vidal Arenas, Manuel Zamorano González, Héctor Castro Saez, and Juan Nuñez Vargas.

In accordance with the indicated and gathered evidence, the direct responsibility of State agents and civilians from Paine in the detention and death of the detainees on September 24 and October 3, 1973, is proven.

Therefore, this Commission has formed the conviction that all of them are victims of a violation of their right to life, with the remains of sixteen of them having been identified: fourteen whose bones were recognized in 1990 and two whose execution was acknowledged by the authorities of the time.

Víctor Manuel Zamorano González, 18 years old at the time of the events, single, agricultural laborer, was detained on October 3, 1973, from his home located at Fundo Liguay, in the presence of his family, by military personnel from the San Bernardo Infantry School.

On that occasion, during a vast operation that covered Fundo Liguay and the El Escorial settlement, eleven peasants were detained whose names were on a list carried by their captors. The operation, which included arrests and raids, was carried out outside of any legality.

Human remains corresponding to Víctor Manuel Zamorano González and 13 other peasants detained at both agricultural properties during military operations carried out on September 24 and October 2 and 3, 1973, were found in March 1974 in a ravine at Cerro Redondo, located at Cuesta de Chada, 4 km from the site of the events.

At that time, the Legal Medical Institute informed the Court in case file 23643 of the Maipo-Buin Court of Letters of its inability to a) identify the victims and b) establish the cause of death. However, in January 1991, the same Institute reported to the Visiting Judge, Mr. Germán Hermosilla, in case 2 90 E.

Furthermore, it was established that their deaths were caused by multiple gunshot wounds.

Thus, out of a total of 20 detainees as a result of the operations carried out, three peasants regained their freedom after being held for a week at the Chena Camp, three others were executed in the same camp under the pretext of an attempted escape, and 14 were exterminated with their bodies concealed.

At 00:30 on October 3, they pounded heavily on the door of Zamorano González's home while a voice was heard saying, "Open up, we are from the Army." Seven uniformed men in olive-green field uniforms with their faces blackened immediately entered, proceeding to search drawers and enter all the rooms of the property while asking the head of the household for "el cachudo" (Víctor Manuel's nickname), to which he replied that he did not know who they were talking about.

Once the search was finished, they left, returning 30 minutes later. They immediately went to Víctor Manuel, telling him that he had to accompany them to give some statements. That same dawn, 10 other peasants were detained in similar operations; the previous day, two settlers had already been detained from their workplace, and on September 24, 7 workers had been detained, most of them leaders of the settlement; all were victims of illegal arrests carried out by military personnel from the Infantry School.

Manuel Zamorano González was not seen in any detention center, nor was his arrest acknowledged.

Witnesses assured the Court in case 2 90 E that they saw the detainees from October 3 being loaded onto a red truck with a white canvas cover, which had an official insignia on one of its doors, heading toward Cuesta de Chada around 06:00.

The detainees were reportedly forced to climb the hill blindfolded and with their hands tied behind their backs until they reached the top, near a quillay tree, where they were allegedly placed in front of a firing squad that discharged their weapons at the victims. In April 1974, their bodies, in an advanced state of decomposition, were found and identified by some of their relatives.

Relatives of most of these 14 victims testified in case 23643, which investigated the discovery of the human remains at Cuesta de Chada, providing evidentiary information regarding their identities. Despite this, when submitting the report required by the Court, the Legal Medical Institute only established that they were 14 male individuals, whose ages fluctuated between 20 and 50 years, whose date of death dated back 5 or 6 months prior to the start of the examination (May 1974), and added that it had been unable to establish the cause of death.

It should be noted that the remains had been collected and piled into 3 burlap sacks, which undoubtedly hindered the possibility of identifying the victims. Despite this, the Visiting Judge, Mr. Germán Hermosilla, upon initiating case file 2 90 E to investigate illegal burials that occurred in Paine, ordered, regarding the victims of Chada, to: a) locate their final destination; b) conduct a new forensic examination; c) search the area of the discovery and, if evidence was found, subject it to forensic analysis.

It was thus established that the remains were still in the facilities of the Legal Medical Institute, as it had not received the corresponding authorization for their burial, which had to come from the II Military Prosecutor's Office, as it had handled the case until its dismissal in 1975.

Once a new forensic examination was initiated, each of the victims was fully identified, and upon searching the sector in the Cerro Redondo ravine, 2 spent shell casings, 25 deformed projectiles, and 18 in good condition, as well as some bone and clothing remains, were found.

For its part, the Criminalistics Laboratory, in its Forensic Ballistics section, established that "the majority of the projectiles were designed to be fired by automatic machine gun-type firearms, whose caliber corresponds to 7.62 mm NATO, which is war ammunition.

Regarding the other 2 projectiles, one corresponds to the .32 long caliber, designed to be fired by revolver-type firearms, and the other corresponds to the 7.9 mm caliber, designed to be fired by rifles or carbines of that caliber." And regarding the service that used this type of weapon during the last 4 months of 1973, the report concluded: "Armed Forces, Order and Security (police) forces, as well as any person who has access to this type of weaponry, such as paramilitary groups."

In January 1991, the remains corresponding to Víctor Manuel Zamorano González were handed over to his next of kin and buried in the Huelquén Cemetery. In death certificate No. 104 of February 5, 1991, the date of death was recorded as October 3, 1973, in Cuesta de Chada, caused by pelvic trauma from a bullet.

The detention and execution of Víctor Manuel Zamorano González are part of the repression that took place in Paine during 1973.

JUDICIAL AND/OR ADMINISTRATIVE ACTIONS

On January 23, 1974, a Writ of Amparo (Habeas Corpus) was filed with the Santiago Court of Appeals on his behalf and that of José Emilio González Espinoza, both detained in the October 3 operation. This appeal, under file number 68-74, was rejected on June 1 of the same year, having as a basis for such resolution the reports from the National Executive Secretariat of Detainees, the Interior Headquarters of the Departments of San Bernardo and Maipo, the Chief of the State of Siege Zone of the Departments of San Antonio and Melipilla, and the Ministry of the Interior, all of which issued official letters stating that the persons inquired about had not been detained by their respective agencies.

Subsequently, on January 14, 1980, a criminal complaint was filed for the crime of kidnapping of Víctor Manuel Zamorano González and his companions Francisco Calderón Nilo, José Hugo Vidal Arenas, Héctor Santiago Pinto Caroca, and Aliro del Carmen Valdivia Valdivia, against members of the San Bernardo Infantry School, who were guilty of the acts.

The judicial investigation under file number 26037-3 was initiated by Judge Fernando Montenegro Araya of the Maipo-Buin Court of Letters. The responses to official letters sent to the Ministry of the Interior, International Police, Civil Registry Directorate, General Cemetery of Santiago, and the Legal Medical Institute indicated that these persons did not appear in their records.

That is, they did not appear as detained or deceased. For its part, the San Bernardo Infantry School responded that it was not feasible to verify those names because the corresponding documentation had been incinerated in accordance with regulatory provisions that established their elimination after 5 years in the archive.

In 1980, former detainees José Luis Marchant Raba, Francisco Javier Garrido Morales, and Carlos Farías Arévalo testified before the Court. They confirmed having been arrested on September 24, 1973, from the El Escorial settlement by a contingent from the San Bernardo Infantry School and having remained detained first at the Infantry School and then at the Detention Camp located at Cerro Chena.

When asked about the 5 detainees referred to in the complaint, they declared that they knew them and were aware of their detention, but had not seen or heard them in either facility.

The judge also initiated attempts to identify the personnel who worked at the Chena detention camp at the time of the events investigated, seeking through this means to obtain information about the fate of the detainees.

Initially, he sent an official letter to the Infantry School on July 29, 1980, from which he was told that such an inquiry should be made to the Minister of National Defense "in compliance with the provisions of the official letter of the Undersecretariat of War (R) Dept.

II /1 No. 2460/6 of December 19, 1979." The Minister of Defense, Raúl Benavides, for his part, responded on October 28 of the same year, denying the existence of the Chena Detention Camp, adding regarding detainees that they were only held in a transitory and sporadic manner in the facilities of the San Bernardo Infantry School.

Faced with such information, the plaintiff's side provided the Court with the official letter dated April 16, 1974, in which Colonel Pedro Montalba Calvo, in his capacity as Director of the San Bernardo Infantry School, sent to the Santiago Court of Appeals, reporting that Juan Guillermo Cuadra Espinoza and Ignacio del Tránsito Santander Albornoz (peasants from El Escorial) had been discharged by sentries on October 5, 1973, at "the Chena Prisoner Camp." With this, the Court became aware of unquestionable documented proof of the existence of said detention camp.

Without having clarified the situation of the kidnapping and fate of the peasants who were the object of the investigation, the Court resolved on April 30, 1981, to temporarily dismiss the case until new and better data were presented to continue the investigation.

The resolution was appealed, and the Rancagua Court of Appeals ordered the reopening of the summary proceedings on May 12, 1981. It also ordered that the Minister of National Defense be officially requested again in order to obtain the appearance of Colonel Pedro Montalba Calvo and Lieutenant Andrés Magaña Bau.

Regarding the latter, there was a complaint for the kidnapping of the merchant René del Rosario Maureira Gajardo, which occurred on October 16, 1973, in Paine. He appeared before the Court in November 1981, denying any participation in the operations carried out in the El Escorial settlement and Fundo Liguay.

Subsequent to this statement and the investigation not having been concluded, the Judge again closed the summary proceedings and resolved to temporarily dismiss the case on December 1, 1981; along with it, case file No. 24862, accumulated on August 21, 1981, also for the kidnapping of a peasant from the El Escorial settlement, Domingo Galaz Salas, was dismissed.

It should be noted that the Investigating Judge was informed by the complainants themselves of the existence of a process initiated by the same Court regarding the discovery of human remains corresponding to their forcibly disappeared relatives, file 23643.

Despite this, the file was not brought for review. The magistrate adopted the same attitude regarding other cases under investigation by that Court due to reports of illegal arrests that occurred in Paine in 1973. Among them, it is worth mentioning case file 24005-1, which investigated the crime of kidnapping of 23 peasants from Paine, which was in charge of Visiting Judge Humberto Espejo.

In 1990, following a report of illegal burials that occurred in Paine, the President Pedro Aguirre Cerda Court of Appeals decided to appoint a Visiting Judge, with the appointment falling to Mr. Germán Hermosilla, who, regarding the forcibly disappeared persons from Fundo Liguay and the El Escorial settlement, ordered specific measures that allowed for the identification of the remains found at Cuesta de Chada in March 1974, one of which corresponded to Víctor Manuel Zamorano González.

The aforementioned case was still in process at the end of 1992, in the summary stage.

Source: Corporation Report