Víctor Modesto Cárdenas Valderrama, married, electrician, communist militant, left his home located in the commune of San Miguel on August 26, 1976, around 18:30, stating that he would return soon. However, the victim, a man of rigorous personal habits, did not return home and has been forcibly disappeared since then.

Various pieces of information led his family to the intimate conviction that Víctor Cárdenas had been detained by security agencies under the government. In fact, for approximately a week, the victim's home had been under surveillance by civilians who moved slowly in vehicles without license plates.

This fact was particularly strange given that it occurred on the usually deserted streets of a modest neighborhood. Furthermore, on one occasion, an unknown subject who claimed to be a mail carrier had asked for the exact house number of the victim, which had not happened since Víctor Cárdenas and his family had resided in Santiago, approximately three years prior.

On August 29, 1976, around 09:30, a man approximately 40 years old arrived at the Cárdenas Valderrama family home. Without identifying himself, claiming to fear for his personal safety, he stated in a very frightened manner that he knew Víctor Modesto Cárdenas Valderrama and had witnessed how, on August 26 at around 20:00, at the intersection of Departamental and Club Hípico streets, he had been forced by two civilians into a dark blue Fiat 125 automobile, inside of which another individual remained.

Moreover, due to the position of deputy delegate that the victim held during the government of Dr. Salvador Allende in the town of La Calera, he had to leave that town after the Military Coup of September 1973, having suffered intimidation against himself and his family by the new authorities.

He suffered house arrest until January 1974, and his son Iván was detained and tortured. In the report prepared by the Rettig Report (created by the President of the Republic, Mr. Patricio Aylwin Azócar, with the purpose of investigating and making known to the country the most serious human rights violations committed between September 11, 1973, and March 10, 1990), it was stated that "on August 26, 1976, on a public street, Víctor Modesto Cárdenas Valderrama was detained by agents of the Comando Conjunto, who was then taken to 'La Firma,' the place from which his trail was lost." The testimonies provided by the former member of the Chilean Air Force, Andrés Antonio Valenzuela Morales, have allowed us to reconstruct, in part, the gestation and actions of an illicit organization, endowed with material means and the guarantees of anonymity and impunity to act in a criminal manner and in open violation of fundamental human rights, which has come to be called the "Comando Conjunto," and of which the former agent was a part. Andrés Valenzuela declared that Víctor Modesto Cárdenas was detained by agents of the anti-subversive group to which he belonged, being taken to the secret center of political imprisonment and torture under its control, called "La Firma," which was located on Dieciocho street in this capital, in the building where the newspaper "Clarín" had operated. For further information regarding the so-called "Comando Conjunto," in light of the statements of Andrés Valenzuela Morales, see the file that accounts for the circumstances that led to the detention and subsequent disappearance of the communist militant, Ignacio Orlando González Espinoza.

JUDICIAL AND/OR ADMINISTRATIVE ACTIONS

On August 27, 1976, Raquel del Carmen Ardiles Tabilo, the victim's spouse, filed a writ of amparo on his behalf before the Santiago Court of Appeals, which was registered under N°840 76. In the respective petition, it was requested that the Ministry of the Interior and Justice and the National Intelligence Directorate (DINA) be officially requested to provide information regarding the victim.

On August 31, the Court only granted the first of the requested measures, and regarding the others, it denied them "for now, without prejudice to what the chamber that is to hear this matter may resolve." On September 14, at the request of the petitioner, the request to the Ministry of the Interior was reiterated, due to the lack of a response to date.

On September 16, the Secretary of the Criminal Secretariat of the Court of Appeals certified that "the Minister of the Interior, by Official Letter N°4375, has informed in the present appeal that Víctor Modesto Cárdenas Valderrama is not detained by order of this Ministry." Based solely on the merit of the preceding certificate, the Seventh Chamber of the Santiago Court of Appeals, on September 17, 1976, declared the filed writ of amparo inadmissible.

In the same resolution, it ordered the referral of the case files to the corresponding Criminal Court to investigate the possible crime committed in relation to the disappearance of the victim. It goes without saying that there was no ruling regarding the measures requested in the amparo filing, which were the sending of official letters to the Ministry of Justice and the DINA.

The records of the amparo were ultimately sent to the Third Criminal Court of the Presidente Aguirre Cerda Department, in the commune of San Miguel, which ordered the initiation of a summary proceeding and dispatched an order to investigate the alleged misfortune of the victim, registering the case under N°25.147 3, all on October 6, 1976.

On October 13, Raquel Ardiles Tabilo filed a complaint before the same Court for the alleged misfortune of her spouse, requesting that official letters be sent to the various hospitals, clinics, and health centers of the capital, as well as to cemeteries and the Legal Medical Institute, in addition to requesting reports on Víctor Cárdenas from the Ministry of the Interior and National Defense.

The Court, on October 15, accepted the complaint, granted the petitioner's requests, and ordered an investigation order to be dispatched to the Investigative Police. The aforementioned order did not yield information that would allow the fate or whereabouts of the victim to be established.

After verifying fruitless efforts at the National Executive Secretariat of Detainees (SENDET), clinics, hospitals, Carabineros, and the Legal Medical Institute, it was returned to the Court, which ordered it to be added to the case files on November 17, 1976.

The Undersecretary of War of the Ministry of Defense, Colonel Roberto Guillard Marinot, returned the official letter sent to that unit, stating that "the arrests carried out by virtue of the powers conferred by the State of Siege are carried out according to powers that are centralized in the Ministry of the Interior, in accordance with the provisions of D.L.

N°228 of 1973. If such detentions have been carried out, they are entirely independent of the Military Command; the Court must address them directly." He added that "such a situation has already been explained by the Minister of National Defense to the President of the Court of Appeals." Having dispatched an investigation order to establish if the victim was registered in any of the various hospitals, clinics, health centers, and cemeteries of the city of Santiago, it yielded negative results.

Likewise, the Chief Physician of the Thanatology Section of the Legal Medical Institute also reported to the same effect on November 23, 1976. On February 3, 1977, the Magistrate of the Third Criminal Court of Presidente Aguirre Cerda, Berta Rodríguez Mondardes, declared the summary closed, and keeping in mind that "from the merit of the background information gathered in the process, the perpetration of the crime that gave rise to the formation of these files is not completely justified," she temporarily dismissed the case, "until new and better investigative data are presented." Likewise, she ordered the filing of the records, omitting the consultation procedure to the Superior Court that was appropriate in this case. At the request of the complainant, the case was unarchived, and on February 25, 1977, the Court denied the request for an official letter to the Ministry of the Interior, "as it is not pertinent, as one can go personally to said office to make the requested inquiries." On March 4, the Court granted the complainant's request to send an official letter to the International Police, denying the requests to send letters to the Civil Registry to report if any entry referring to the victim is registered, and to the local police stations, "as the requests are imprecise." Upon reiterating the preceding requests, pointing out that it is required to report whether the death of Víctor Cárdenas Valderrama has been registered, and if there is information regarding his detention, respectively, the Court granted them on March 25. The Colonel of Carabineros, Sergio Tapia Muñoz, of the General Prefecture of the Presidente Aguirre Cerda Department, reported on April 15 that "having reviewed the logbooks of the Guard, Population, and Crime Statistics by the respective Commissars of the Units dependent on this Prefecture, it was verified that Víctor Cárdenas Valderrama has not been detained by Carabineros personnel after August 26, 1976." On April 13, 1977, the Directorate of the Civil Registry, Independencia Office, reported that the victim has no death record in the respective indices from the year 1976 to date. With the response to the official letter sent to Interpol pending, the Court, on May 11, 1977, declared the summary closed and temporarily dismissed the case until new and better investigative data are presented. In this same resolution, it was ordered to comply with the consultation procedure, as provided by law in these cases. On June 30, 1977, the Santiago Court of Appeals, considering the investigation incomplete, revoked the consulted resolution and ordered the case to be returned to the summary stage, so that the Judge could send an official letter to the International Police to report if the alleged disappeared person registered departures from the country after August 26, and request a new report from the Ministry of the Interior regarding his possible detention, decreeing the other measures that derive from those mentioned. The Department of Foreigners and International Police informed the Court on July 26, 1977, that the victim does not have travel records outside the country. It was also noted that, starting from January of the current year, only the Pudahuel outpost was reviewed, as the information corresponding to the other borders was in IBM processing. And on July 27, the Minister of the Interior, Division General Raúl Benavides Escobar, reported that "in this Secretariat of State, there are no records related to Víctor Cárdenas Valderrama, nor has any order or resolution been issued that affects him." Based solely on the merit of these reports and without decreeing the practice of new measures, the Court declared the summary closed once again, and keeping in mind that with the merit of the background information gathered in the process, the perpetration of the reported crime is not completely justified in the files, it temporarily dismissed the case until new and better investigative data are presented. The preceding resolution was consulted and approved by the Santiago Court of Appeals on November 29, 1977. On May 7, 1991, Teresita Ardiles Tabilo, in her capacity as representative of her sister Raquel Ardiles T., then residing abroad, filed a criminal complaint before the Third Criminal Court of the Presidente Aguirre Cerda Department for the crimes of illicit association, kidnapping, homicide, illegal burial, and others that could be configured in the disappearance of Víctor Modesto Cárdenas Valderrama, against all those members of the Comando Conjunto who turned out to be authors, accomplices, or cover-ups of the reported facts. Said filing was based on the background information provided to the Court by the National Commission for Truth and Reconciliation, among which must be the statement provided to this body by Andrés Valenzuela Morales, a former member of the FACH and a member of the aforementioned Comando Conjunto. This Group, as follows from the invoked account, was composed of members of the different branches of the Armed Forces, Carabineros, and civilians. Its objective was to repress sectors dissident to the military regime that governed the country, placing special emphasis and dedication on the kidnapping of communist militants. The framework of the action deployed by this organization, it is expressed in the respective petition, reached criminal proportions, since many of its victims were murdered, tortured, and others made to disappear. It continues by pointing out that Valenzuela's account expresses the operational form that this Command assumed; the type of structure that was given to it, its components, resources, vehicles, barracks, etc., which provide the guideline on how its repressive action was developed, and the people who are responsible for this type of criminal action that occurred in our country. It was requested among the measures that the complainant be summoned to ratify the present complaint, and that an investigation order be dispatched to the Investigative Police. Due to the detention and disappearance of 13 high-ranking leaders of left-wing political parties, 11 of them from the Communist Party and 2 from the Revolutionary Left Movement (MIR) in November and December 1976, and after the respective writs of amparo filed were rejected, relatives of the victims requested the Supreme Court to appoint a Visiting Minister, in order to investigate such an irregular situation. The highest Court of the Republic ordered the Santiago Court of Appeals to make such an appointment, which fell to Minister Mr. Guastavino, who, after requesting a report from the Ministry of the Interior, which reported that the victims had left the country through a mountain pass toward the Argentine Republic, dismissed the case. Said resolution was revoked by the Santiago Court of Appeals, as it was on the second occasion when a new closure of the summary was decreed. Subsequently, and having been appointed in charge of the process, known as the "process of the thirteen," Minister Carlos Letelier Bobadilla, who came to replace the previous Minister, closed the summary in August 1978, "being unable to advance in the investigation." Said resolution was challenged by the lawyers who pointed out to the Minister that he could indeed advance in the investigation, because there were pending measures requested and because other measures would arise from the state of the process to be ordered. Thus, Minister Letelier rendered his own resolution ineffective, decreeing measures. Later, resuming his functions, Minister Guastavino decreed a definitive dismissal by application of D.L. 2191 in December 1980. The Court of Appeals, this time, revoked the resolution to close the summary, and the Visiting Minister himself rendered the decreed dismissal ineffective, due to the omission of a legal formality. In this way, the processing continued. Already in the year 1983, Minister Carlos Cerda Fernández took charge of the investigation for the "process of the thirteen." Minister Cerda ordered hundreds of measures, consisting of summons of people, recognition of places and people, expert reports, review of criminal files, dispatch of official letters requesting reports from State services, branches of the Armed Forces, private institutions, and others of vital importance. In sum, he received nearly 200 testimonies from eyewitnesses of the detentions of the victims and their confinement in clandestine facilities. Among these testimonies were also those of members of the Armed Forces who participated in Intelligence Services, as well as officials of Carabineros and the Investigative Police. Likewise, the testimonies of civilians are included, as is the case of Otto Trujillo and Miguel Estay Reyno (El Fanta). There was also the statement of a first soldier of the Chilean Air Force, Andrés Valenzuela Morales, who in 1984 deserted from this Institution, who through his statement gave an account and data that, in the mid-70s, a so-called Comando Conjunto or Anti-subversive Joint Command began to operate, integrated by members of the different branches of the Armed Forces and Order, plus some civilians who belonged to left-wing parties and who, after being detained by intelligence services, subjected to pressure and/or extortion, became collaborators. Said Command had material means, such as vehicles, weaponry, transmission apparatuses, and clandestine detention centers. At this stage of the investigation, Minister Carlos Cerda managed to establish valuable and clarifying data regarding other cases of human rights violations, some of them of the disappearance of people, even ordering the referral of some parts of the "process of the thirteen" to other Courts that were hearing criminal cases for them. Among the latter is the case of Víctor Modesto Cárdenas Valderrama, regarding whom Minister Cerda ordered to send to the Third Criminal Court of San Miguel a copy of the statement on page 7,233, as it affects his case file 25.143 3, currently temporarily dismissed, all on August 14, 1986. Said background information refers to the statement provided by Andrés Valenzuela Morales, in which he makes a detailed description of the various facilities of the Comando Conjunto, a hangar located at Cerrillos Airport; Nido 20, located at stop 20 of Gran Avenida; Nido 18, located on Perú street; stop 18 of Vicuña Mackenna, a facility inside; a facility inside the Colina Air Base, called Remo Cero, and "La Firma," located on Dieciocho street. He gives details of the type of weaponry used by the anti-subversive group, of its vehicles (basically a light blue Fiat 125, an AK-6 Citroën, a white Peugeot 404, a white Fiat 600, and an Austin Mini of the same color, and a blue MG). He also refers, in the same statement, that when they went to a house or place to kidnap or detain, it was said that they were from the Investigative Police, in the year 1975. By 1976, they were detaining fundamentally on the street. Finally, the witness adds that among the photos of disappeared persons, he recognizes Víctor Cárdenas Valderrama as being detained by the Comando Conjunto, and that he remained on Dieciocho street in the capital, where the offices of the newspaper "El Clarín" formerly operated. Among the agents, he adds the following: Larry, Sergeant Major of Carabineros, was in charge of the entire administrative aspect, kept the files of the interrogations, maintained the guard rosters, issued orders; Carabineros Lieutenant M. Agustín Muñoz Gamboa, Larry's assistant, typed the interrogations; Jano, a Carabinero, interrogated and tortured; Pochi, a female agent who appears in "La Firma," accompanied agents on surveillance; Alex, a marine, from Patria y Libertad; Patán, also from Patria y Libertad; René Basoa, a detainee by the Command who collaborated by analyzing the documentation obtained from the Communist Party and was later murdered; Yoyopulus, worked only in the AGA; Zambra, also from the Investigative Police, worked only in the AGA; Daniel Guimper, Navy Lieutenant; Forero, a doctor who attended to the detainees; Otto Trujillo, a civilian employee of the FACH, worked in conjunction with Bratti—executed by agents of the Command; Carol Flores (forcibly disappeared); "Chirola" and "Lalo," who in the company of Roberto Fuentes Morrison and other Officers conducted the interrogations; Miguel Estay ("Fanta") (detained on December 20, 1992); "Fifo" Palma Ramírez; "Wally": Roberto Fuentes Morrison, murdered by a command apparently from the Manuel Rodríguez Patriotic Front, in 1989. There is no record that such background information has been effectively sent to the Third Court of San Miguel. For further information, see the section regarding the "process of the thirteen" in the file that accounts for the circumstances that led to the detention and subsequent disappearance of the Communist Party militant, Reinalda del Carmen Pereira Plaza. On May 7, 1991, before the 3rd Criminal Court of the Presidente Aguirre Cerda Court, a new complaint was filed against the members of the Comando Conjunto who turned out to be responsible for the crimes of kidnapping, illicit association, and others, against the person of Víctor Modesto Cárdenas Valderrama. Said case, which was processed under file N° 25147 3, was dismissed by the judge in May 1992, and the resolution was confirmed by the Court of Appeals in October of the same year.

Source: Corporation report

In a ruling that was already anticipated, the plenary of ministers of the Supreme Court determined that only four of the eight judges with exclusive dedication will continue in this condition, and the rest will move to form a court with preferential dedication.

Based on the background information collected by the highest court, it was determined that the First Civil Court of San Bernardo, in charge of Judge Cecilia Flores; the Eighth Criminal Court of Santiago, with María Ines Collins; the Ninth Criminal Court of Santiago with Raquel Lermanda; and the Tenth Criminal Court with Juan Antonio Poblete remain as exclusive judges.

In addition, the Fourth Criminal Court of San Miguel, in charge of María Teresa Díaz, will remain in the same condition, although only for a period of one month. In the case of the First Criminal Court of Santiago, the Fifth Criminal Court of Santiago, the First Criminal Court of Arica, the Civil Court of María Elena, the First and Second Criminal Courts of Valparaíso, the First Civil Court of Chillán, the First Criminal Court of Chillán, the First Criminal Court of Talcahuano, the Civil Court of Pucón, and the Second Criminal Court of Valdivia will join the existing group of preferential judges. The most difficult situation is faced by the judges of the Third Criminal Court of Santiago, Mario Carroza; the Third Criminal Court of San Miguel, María Teresa Díaz; and the Civil Court of Santa Bárbara, Loreto Jara, who from now on will become preferential judges. But the Supreme Court also ordered the Tenth Criminal Court to annex the processes that correspond to the cases it is processing in order to advance in the investigation; however, it does not provide more details in this regard. All exclusive and preferential judges must report after one month on their management and will again be evaluated by the superior court. In the detail of the cases, the process for the death of Juan Luis Rivera Matus, file 107.716-9, will begin to be seen preferentially by the incumbent of the First Criminal Court of Santiago, Joaquín Billard, who will also process case file 107.254. In the case of the Fifth Criminal Court, it will hear file 167.716-16, titled as the disappeared of La Moneda, which was already in preferential status. In the First of Arica and the Fourth of this same city, cases file 51925 and 13.322-A will be heard, respectively. In María Elena, process 31-91 will be investigated preferentially, while in the First Criminal Court of Valparaíso, the case of the British priest Michael Woodward, file 140.454, will be seen. In the Second Criminal Court of Valparaíso, case file 127.298-1 will be heard. In Chillán, meanwhile, the First Civil Court will hear case 11.599, which according to Fasic does not correspond to a human rights process; instead, in the First Criminal Court of this same city, the disappearance of Ernesto Torres Guzmán, file 70.927-6, will be investigated. In the case of Talcahuano, file 24.776 is added as preferential; in Pucón, file 4.473; and in Valdivia, file 75.858. On the contrary, the cases regarding the disappearance of Daniel Reyes Piña, Leopoldo Muñoz Andrade, Víctor Morales Mazuela, and Víctor Cárdenas Valderrama, which were being processed by the Third Criminal Court of San Miguel, will be harmed by the Supreme Court's ruling, as they will now have preferential character. In any case, it plays in their favor that indictments have already been issued in the case of Morales and Cárdenas. In the Third Criminal Court of Santiago, the disappearance at the hands of the DINA of Iván Carreño Aguilero, and the deaths of Luis Moraga Cruz, Juan Orellana Catalán, and Ricardo Weibel Navarrete, who perished at the hands of the Comando Conjunto, will now be preferential cases. This court also hears the process for the disappearance of the former GAP member Domingo Blanco Tarres. In the case of Santa Bárbara, the investigation into the cases of Luis Bastias Sandoval, Luis Cid Cid, Cristino Cid Fuentealba, José Molina Quezada, José Pinto, Raimundo Salaza, Segundo Soto, and Gabriel Viveros, who disappeared in the first days of the Military Coup, is harmed. In the Tenth Criminal Court of Santiago, four cases reported to the Dialogue Table by the Armed Forces are being investigated: the disappearance in 1975 of Ricardo Lagos Salinas, Carlos Lorca Tobar, Michelle Peña Herreros, and Exequiel Ponce Vicencio.

Source: Primera Linea, April 23, 2002

Date: 04-23-2002

In the Patio de la Luz of the national monument "Los Portales" in the commune of Freirina, the monthly commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the civil-military coup was held, an instance of memory in which relatives and friends of political executions and the forcibly disappeared, authorities, students, and the community participated.

Artistic presentations, photographic exhibitions, burlap weavings alluding to the 50th anniversary of the civil-military coup, emotional testimonies from relatives of the victims of the dictatorship, and the screening of documentaries were part of this milestone led by Mayor César Orellana, the acting Regional Presidential Delegate, Sofía Vargas Roberts, the Delegate of the Huasco Province, Rodrigo Loyola Morenilla, and the acting Regional Ministerial Secretary of Cultures, Arts, and Heritage of Atacama, Juan Pedro Palta Araya.

At the memory milestone, recognition was given to the relatives of the victims of the dictatorship of the commune: Isidro Iriarte Carvajal, Juan Escobar Escobar, Rigoberto Cortes Cortes, Arnoldo Rodríguez Orellana, and the Cárdenas Family.

In particular, tribute was paid to the memory of Víctor Modesto Cárdenas Valderrama, a forcibly disappeared person from the commune of Freirina who was detained in Santiago in 1976.

ROSEBUSH TRIBUTE

In honor of Víctor Cárdenas and the other 13 forcibly disappeared persons of the region, a rosebush was planted that will remain at the Los Portales building. "We are very grateful for this tribute that was made; I feel it is fair, since 50 years after the coup, there had never been recognition for my uncle, and through these tributes, it is made clear that they are not forgotten, that their struggle was just, and we must never forget.

The country must have a memory so that these situations of human rights violations never happen again in Chile," mentioned Addys Isabel Cárdenas, great-niece of Víctor Modesto Cárdenas Valderrama, a forcibly disappeared person from the commune of Freirina. "He traveled to Santiago from La Calera to meet with his comrades, and from there his trail was lost.

He was detained in a torture center called 'La Firma,' and it was the last place where there is a record of him; from there, we know nothing more about him. It is an tireless struggle because we do not know where he is; it is a wound that the family carries, and as long as there is no justice and we do not know where he is, we will never be able to close it.

He is always present in our conversations and memories; his brothers were tortured as well, they were in hiding; this is something we only talked about among ourselves, and today, 50 years after the coup, we can express it to the community."

Source: cultura.gobierno.cl, 08/16/2023

Date: 08-16-2023