Address : Rodrigo de Araya No. 4651-B, Apt. 42, Ñuñoa, Santiago Marital Status : Married, 3 children Occupation : Mining Technician Representative Background : Former National Leader of the Textile Federation; Communist militant; Former candidate for Councilman for the Communist Party for the Municipality of San Felipe; Former Secretary of the Aconcagua Regional Committee of the Communist Party; Former Secretary in the Chamber of Deputies for Communist parliamentarians Manuel Canteros and Luis Guastavino; Former Secretary of the San Miguel Regional Committee of the Communist Party Date of Detention : December 15, 1976

REPRESSIVE SITUATION

Waldo Ulises Pizarro Molina, 42 years old, married, father of three, mining technician, former union leader and former leader in various structures of the Communist Party, was detained on Monday, December 15, 1976, along with Fernando Ortiz Letelier, in the vicinity of Plaza Egaña.

Between November 29 and December 20, 1976, thirteen people were detained: eleven belonging to the Communist Party—some of them members of its Central Committee—and two to the Movement of the Revolutionary Left (MIR).

The procedures used to detain them share similarities, particularly in the fact that their arrests were carried out on public roads, except in one case, and it is notable that the bulk of the detentions occurred on December 15, 1976, affecting seven people on that day alone.

Another common note in their situations was the information officially provided by the military government, to the effect that practically all of them had registered exits from Chile to Argentina between the end of December 1976 or the beginning of January 1977, a version whose falsehood was judicially established.

The other characteristic common to all these people is that they remain forcibly disappeared to this day.

The 13 detained persons, currently disappeared, are: Santiago Edmundo Araya Cabrera, detained on November 29, 1976; Armando Portilla, detained on December 9, 1976; Fernando Alfredo Navarro Allende, detained on December 13, 1976; Lincoyán Yalú Berríos Cataldo, Horacio Cepeda Marinkovic, Luis Segundo Lazo Santander, Juan Fernando Ortiz Letelier, Reinalda del Carmen Pereira Plaza, Waldo Ulises Pizarro Molina, and Héctor Véliz Ramírez, all of them detained on December 15, 1976; Lizandro Tucapel Cruz Díaz and Carlos Patricio Durán González, both detained on December 18, 1976; and Edras de las Mercedes Pinto Arroyo, detained on December 20, 1976.

From the very Military Coup of September 1973, Waldo Pizarro Molina began to be intensely sought by groups of people who never properly identified themselves, and who at most claimed to be from some Security Service.

People who remained in detention were also insistently asked about this individual, as happened with Sonia Toro Bravo during her captivity at the hands of agents of the Joint Command in July 1976, who is the sister of Nicomedes Toro Bravo, who has been disappeared since that time; the same occurred with the detainee Juan Rojas Miranda, who remained in detention from October to November 1975, and with the detainee Juan Ramírez Cortez, when he was held at the Tejas Verdes Army Regiment in San Antonio.

Furthermore, the affected person's home was "visited" several times by strangers, as were the homes of other relatives of friends and former coworkers, and more than one of these were subjected to surveillance. His search was intense and systematic.

It happened that on December 15, 1976, at about 4:30 PM, he left his house with his underage son, Waldo Pizarro Sierra. They went to a laundry located on Nataniel Street in downtown Santiago to drop off some clothes. Afterward, they went to a barbershop located at Lo Plaza and Irarrázaval. Father and son separated at about 6:30 PM.

Later, the affected person met with his friend and Communist Party militant, Fernando Ortiz Letelier.

When both were walking along Avenida Larraín, a few meters from Plaza Egaña, at approximately 7:00 PM, individuals descended from three vehicles without license plates and unexpectedly struck Fernando Ortiz and Waldo Pizarro violently, causing them injuries. For days, shocking bloodstains remained on the sidewalk.

As the affected person tried to defend himself from that attack, the subjects struck him hard on the head again. The subjects wore hoods with which they quickly covered both captives, immediately forcing them into one of the vehicles they used for this rapid action, and then left the scene.

A son of Fernando Ortiz learned of the circumstances of the detention. On December 17, 1976, while at his sister's house, he received a person about 30 years old who arrived asking if any relative of Fernando Ortiz lived there; Ortiz's son, named Pablo, indicated that he was his son, to which the man stated that he had to inform him that his father, along with a Mr.

Pizarro, had been detained on December 15, 1976, giving him the details of the events. Pablo Ortiz indicates that it was the first time he had seen that person and that he knew nothing of him afterward; and that the man also pointed out that he could not give his name or further details.

Because of this, Pablo Ortiz presumed that this stranger, who knew the facts, was acquainted with both affected persons.

Since that date, December 15, 1976, nothing more has been known of Waldo Pizarro or Fernando Ortiz, and they remain forcibly disappeared to this day. (See the case of Fernando Ortiz).

It should be noted that there were other witnesses who, out of fear, did not want to provide a sworn statement about the facts or appear before a Tribunal.

Subsequent to the detention of the affected person, his family suffered various situations of harassment; one of them occurred on December 25, 1976, only ten days after the disappearance, when his wife, Sola Sierra, received several phone calls at her home from unidentified female and male voices who, in a sarcastic tone, wished her a Merry Christmas before insulting her.

During the criminal investigation led by a Minister in Extraordinary Visit, case file 2-77, in which his case and that of others from the group known as "the thirteen" were investigated, the government provided information that the affected person had left the country through the Los Libertadores pass on December 21, 1976, according to information provided by the Investigative Police.

This police institution indicated to the Tribunal of case file 2-77, on three successive occasions, that fact of the departure from the country, without stating how he did so in terms of the means of transportation used or if he simply did so on foot, as was reported in other cases of this group of forcibly disappeared persons.

Subsequently, officials with the surnames Cornejo and Aguirre of that Investigative Police stated that Waldo Pizarro's departure, according to the records, was on foot.

This information that he left on foot did not coincide with that provided by the Argentine Ministry of the Interior, which stated that Waldo Pizarro entered Argentina by car, without any vehicle data being recorded.

The Sub-Commissioner of the Investigative Police, interrogated by Minister Carlos Cerda in the process of case file 2-77, stated: "I recognize as written by me the mentions seven onwards (referring to the mentions 'on foot' and the names and data of the traveler on line number 8: Mario Poblete Oyarzún, and that of line number 9: Waldo Pizarro Molina) of the route sheet that appears in photocopy on page 271, which I also wrote on the same day, December 21, 1976, on which the preceding lines were filled out.

I cannot answer to His Honor why the first two people in said document do not appear in the International Police lists in a timely manner; nor can I answer why the identity card of line eight does not correspond to the person who appears there as its holder (referring to the person of Mario Poblete Oyarzún)...

I emphatically deny having received or obeyed orders or influences, whether from superiors or friends, to incorporate into already prepared route sheets names of people who, although they did not leave the country, had their departure simulated in this way..."

It is noted that at least in the case of Reinalda Pereira Plaza, this official, Infante Lillo of the Investigative Police, was charged by Minister Cerda as the author of the crime of falsification of a document (route sheet).

To this date, Waldo Ulises Pizarro Molina remains forcibly disappeared.

JUDICIAL AND/OR ADMINISTRATIVE ACTIONS

Before the Santiago Court of Appeals, on December 20, 1976, the spouse of the affected person, Sola Sierra Henríquez, filed a writ of amparo, which entered processing under case file No. 1083-76, requesting that measures be decreed to request reports from various authorities, among them the Ministry of the Interior, the National Intelligence Directorate (DINA), and the Intelligence Services of the Chilean Air Force and the Air Force.

The Court only agreed to send an official letter to the Ministry of the Interior, and regarding the other measures, it resolved "no ha lugar" (denied), without prejudice to what might be resolved during the hearing of the appeal.

After more than 20 days had passed since the filing of the appeal, the response from the Ministry of the Interior was certified: "he is not detained by order of this Ministry."

During the hearing of the appeal, it was decreed as a measure for better resolution, with the dissenting opinion of Minister Hernán Cereceda, to request a report from the Ministry of the Interior on whether the affected person was detained by order of any public agency.

The response from the Ministry of the Interior did not conform to what was requested by the Court, so the latter ordered a new official letter to be dispatched to that Secretary of State. Finally, the Minister of the Interior, Army General Raúl Benavides Escobar, reported that the affected person had no records in that Secretariat, and that no resolution from that Ministry affecting him had been issued or remained pending.

On March 21, 1977, the Court rejected the appeal, but since more information on how the events occurred was provided by the appellant in a previous document, the same ruling ordered that the background information be passed to the Full Tribunal.

The Full Court of Appeals, on the same date, agreed to appoint Minister Aldo Guastavino as Minister in Extraordinary Visit to hear the case, and, consequently, the background information was passed to that Minister, who was already substantiating the process of case file 2-77 for the cases of the disappearance of 8 people, including the case of Waldo Pizarro in that criminal investigation.

After the respective writs of amparo were rejected, relatives of the victims requested the Supreme Court to appoint a Minister in Visit to focus on the 13 disappeared persons already named. The Tribunal agreed to the request, but limited the scope of the investigation to only 8 of the cases, including Waldo Ulises Pizarro; as already stated, shortly after the investigation began, two more cases were included.

The processing of this case lasted nearly 13 years and accumulated 21 volumes with more than 9,000 pages, and the investigation was in charge of different ministers.

The highest Tribunal of the Republic ordered the Santiago Court of Appeals to make such an appointment, which fell to Minister Guastavino, who, after requesting a report from the Ministry of the Interior—which reported that the affected persons had abandoned the country through a mountain pass toward the Argentine Republic—dismissed the case.

Said resolution was revoked by the Santiago Court of Appeals, as was the case on the second occasion when a new closure of the summary was decreed. Subsequently, Minister Carlos Letelier Bobadilla replaced Minister Guastavino, closing 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, as there were pending measures requested and because other measures would arise from the state of the process. Thus, Minister Letelier left his own resolution without effect, decreeing new measures.

Later, upon resuming his duties, Minister Guastavino decreed a definitive dismissal by application of Decree Law 2191 in December 1980. The Court of Appeals, this time, revoked the resolution to close the summary, and the Minister in Visit himself left the decreed dismissal without effect, due to the omission of a legal formality.

In this way, the processing continued. By the year 1983, Minister Carlos Cerda Fernández took charge of continuing the investigation for the "process of the thirteen," and he dictated hundreds of measures, consisting of summons of people, recognition of places and people, expert reports, review of criminal files, and the 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 to the detentions of the affected persons and their confinement in clandestine centers. Among these testimonies were also those of members of the Armed Forces who participated in Intelligence Services, as well as officials from the Carabineros and the Investigative Police, and some civilians who collaborated with the security services, as is the case of Otto Trujillo and Miguel Estay Reyno (El Fanta).

At this stage, the declaration of the first-class soldier of the Chilean Air Force, Andrés Valenzuela Morales, who deserted from this institution in 1984, was obtained. Through his declaration, he provided accounts and data that, in the mid-70s, a so-called "Joint Command" 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 leftist parties and who, after being detained by intelligence services and subjected to pressure and/or extortion, became collaborators.

At this level of investigation, Minister Carlos Cerda managed to establish valuable and clarifying data regarding other cases of human rights violations, some of them involving the disappearance of people, even ordering the referral of some parts of the "process of the thirteen" to other Tribunals that were hearing criminal cases regarding them.

During the processing that he had to substantiate, Minister Carlos Cerda issued 43 indictments; in September 1983, against two Investigative Police officials for the crimes of falsification of a public document, consisting of the route sheet that accounted for the departure from the country, and for the illegitimate deprivation of liberty of Reinalda Pereira Plaza and Edras Pinto Arroyo; and, in September 1985, against Miguel Estay Reyno (El Fanta) as an accomplice in the crimes of illegitimate deprivation of liberty of Reinalda Pereira Plaza and Edras Pinto Arroyo.

On August 14, 1986, the Minister issued 40 indictments against an equal number of people, among whom was the former member of the Military Junta, Air General Gustavo Leigh, other Generals, Officers, and Non-Commissioned Officers of the Carabineros, the Air Force, and the Chilean Navy, detectives of the Investigative Police, and some civilians.

Some of the uniformed personnel were in active service and others were retired at that date.

Four of these 40 defendants filed a complaint for the non-application of the amnesty law, and the Santiago Court of Appeals, on September 10, 1986, left the indictments without effect, not only for the four defendants who appealed but also including the other 36 defendants by official order. This ruling was confirmed by the Supreme Court on October 6 of the same year.

Faced with such a resolution, Minister Cerda decided to suspend its compliance and present a document to the Supreme Court substantiating the reasons for his determination. Upon learning of this situation, the Supreme Court, in a plenary session on October 8, 1986, resolved to apply a disciplinary measure of suspension from office for two months, with half pay, to Minister Carlos Cerda Figueroa.

Judge Manuel Silva Ibañez was appointed as a substitute, who, on October 23, 1986, applying the Amnesty Decree Law, definitively dismissed the process of case file 2-77.

The relatives of the victims appealed, and the Court of Appeals confirmed Judge Silva's ruling on June 10, 1987. Faced with this situation, appeals for cassation in form and substance were filed before the Supreme Court, a Tribunal that, in a sentence on August 11, 1989, confirmed the definitive dismissal due to amnesty of case file 2-77, which investigated the fate of Waldo Pizarro Molina after his detention.

For better background on the process of case file 2-77, which investigates the fate of the forcibly disappeared persons of 1976, see the file of Reinalda del Carmen Pereira Plaza, detained on December 15, 1976.

At the end of 1992, relatives of Pizarro Molina, following the recent detention and indictment—for the homicide of other victims—of the former Joint Command agent Miguel Estay Reyno, "El Fanta," were studying the filing of a new criminal complaint for his kidnapping and all other crimes that may have been committed against him.

Estay Reyno, who until 1975, the date he was detained, had been a militant in the Communist Party, had become an agent specialized in the repression of communists for the aforementioned security agency.

Source: Corporation report

The Second Criminal Chamber of the Supreme Court issued a cassation and replacement sentence in the case known as "Conference II Episode," an operation at the hands of the "Lautaro brigade" belonging to the National Intelligence Directorate (DINA), responsible for the kidnapping and homicide of members of the second clandestine leadership of the Communist Party, who were made to disappear in 1976.

Ministers Manuel Antonio Valderrama, Jorge Dahm, Leopoldo Llanos, substitute minister Dobra Lusic, and member lawyer Diego Munita rejected the cassation appeals filed by the defense of the accused, annulled the second-instance ruling, and in a replacement sentence revoked the acquittals and confirmed everything resolved in the first instance by Minister Miguel Vasquez, condemning 37 former DINA agents for the crimes of aggravated kidnapping, simple kidnapping, and homicide.

In this way, the highest tribunal condemned the DINA chiefs Juan Hernán Morales Salgado and Pedro Octavio Espinoza Bravo to the penalty of 20 years of major imprisonment in its maximum degree, as co-authors of the crimes of aggravated homicide of Juan Fernando Ortiz Letelier, Horacio Cepeda Marinkovic, and Lincoyán Yalú Berríos Cataldo; to 15 years and one day of major imprisonment in its maximum degree as co-authors of the crimes of aggravated kidnapping of Fernando Alfredo Navarro Allendes, Héctor Véliz Ramírez, and WALDO Ulises PIZARRO Molina; and to 4 years of minor imprisonment in its maximum degree as co-author of the crimes of simple kidnapping of Juan Fernando Ortiz Letelier, Horacio Cepeda Marinkovic, and Lincoyán Yalú Berríos Cataldo.

Similarly, Juvenal Alfonso Piña Garrido, Jorge Iván Díaz Radulovich, Claudio Enrique Pacheco Fernández, Emilio Hernán Troncoso Vivallos, Orlando Jesús Torrejón Gatica, Víctor Manuel Álvarez Droguett, and Carlos Eusebio López Inostroza were condemned as co-authors of the crimes of aggravated homicide of Mr.

Juan Fernando Ortiz Letelier, Mr. Horacio Cepeda Marinkovic, and Mr. Lincoyán Yalú Berríos Cataldo, to the penalty of 15 years and 1 day of major imprisonment in its maximum degree.

For their part, Federico Humberto Chaigneau Sepúlveda, Gladys de las Mercedes Calderón Carreño, Juvenal Alfonso Piña Garrido, José Alfonso Ojeda Obando, Jorge Segundo Pichunmán Curiqueo, Orfa Yolanda Saavedra Vásquez, Elisa del Carmen Magna Astudillo, Claudio Orlando Orellana de la Pinta, Eduardo Alejandro Oyarce Riquelme, Claudio Enrique Pacheco Fernández, Emilio Hernán Troncoso Vivallos, Sergio Hernán Castro Andrade, Orlando Jesús Torrejón Gatica, José Manuel Sarmiento Sotelo, Víctor Manuel Álvarez Droguett, Gustavo Enrique Guerrero Aguilera, Jorge Hugo Arriagada Mora, Berta Yolanda del Carmen Jiménez Escobar, Carlos Justo Bermúdez Méndez, Carlos Eusebio López Inostroza, Orlando del Tránsito Altamirano Sanhueza, Carlos Enrique Miranda Mesa, Hiro Álvarez Vega, Eduardo Patricio Cabezas Mardones, Camilo Torres Negrier, Celinda Angélica Aspe Rojas, Guillermo Eduardo Díaz Ramírez, Héctor Raúl Valdebenito Araya, Sergio Orlando Escalona Acuña, Jorge Lientur Manríquez Manterola, José Miguel Meza Serrano, Jorge Iván Díaz Radulovich, and Teresa del Carmen Navarro Navarro were condemned as co-authors of the crimes of aggravated kidnapping of Fernando Alfredo Navarro Allendes and Héctor Véliz Ramírez, to the penalty of 12 years of major imprisonment in its medium degree.

The same agents, together with Luis Alberto Lagos Yáñez, were also condemned as co-authors of the crimes of simple kidnapping of Mr. Juan Fernando Ortiz Letelier, Mr. Horacio Cepeda Marinkovic, and Mr. Lincoyán Yalú Berríos Cataldo, to the penalty of 3 years of minor imprisonment in its medium degree.

José Alfonso Ojeda Obando was also condemned as an accomplice to the crimes of aggravated homicide committed against Mr. Juan Fernando Ortiz Letelier, Mr. Horacio Cepeda Marinkovic, and Mr. Lincoyán Yalú Berríos Cataldo, to the penalty of 12 years of major imprisonment in its medium degree.

Likewise, María Angélica Guerrero Soto was condemned as an author of the crimes of simple kidnapping of Mr. Juan Fernando Ortiz Letelier and Mr. Horacio Cepeda Marinkovic, to the penalty of 2 years of minor imprisonment in its medium degree.

The agents who had been condemned by the definitive first-instance sentence, regarding whom the Supreme Court omits a pronouncement on their responsibilities for their death, are Ricardo Víctor Lawrence Mires, Hernán Luis Sovino Maturana, Pedro Segundo Bitterlich Jaramillo, Jorge Laureano Sagardía Monje, Heriberto del Carmen Acevedo, and Manuel Antonio Montre Méndez.

The tribunal rejected applying the "media prescripción" (statute of limitations reduction), thereby consolidating a repeated and sustained jurisprudence of the Criminal Chamber of the highest tribunal, rejecting an institution that favored human rights violators, as it lowered penalties and denatured the punishment.

Reactions For the plaintiff lawyer in this case, Nelson Caucoto, "It will always be important to welcome a favorable ruling that puts an end to a trial on human rights violations, both for the duration of these trials and for the response provided to the families for their exemplary struggle seeking Justice."

He pointed out that "This case, called Conference 2, allowed for the discovery of the DINA extermination barracks on Simón Bolívar Street, from which no one ever left alive and no one escaped the brutality of the torture."

In that sense, Caucoto continues: "50 years after the military coup, the signal emitted by the Criminal Chamber is that no matter how much time has passed since the occurrence of the events, there will still be punishment for those guilty of such atrocity.

The message of no impunity that emanates from the Chilean courts is a powerful call not to repeat these crimes in the future," the lawyer maintained.

For her part, Estela Ortiz, daughter of Juan Fernando Ortiz Letelier, a university professor and member of the PC central committee, who was detained on December 15, 1976, expressed: "What can I say after 47 years and six months waiting for Justice to establish the truth about my father's death?

I can say that the ruling describes torments that for me are unspeakable and unthinkable, but that were real. It points out that it is a crime against humanity, that they killed him and his companions for considering them ideological enemies of the dictatorship that eliminated those who thought differently.

What happened in Chile was serious, so serious that the ruling is based on the Nuremberg trials," she maintained.

"I can say that our families have achieved judicial truth after 47 years and six months. There are still nearly 1,500 open cases for serious human rights violations between 1973 and 1990 that are waiting for an answer. How long will they maintain the complicit silence that makes us sick? Do your duty," she concluded.

Source: adprensa.cl 6/23/2023 Date: 06-23-2023

Government asks to investigate removal of remains at Cuesta Barriga

Fulfilling the verbal commitment made to the relatives of the victims of Cuesta Barriga, the government, through the Human Rights Program, requested that Minister Héctor Carreño instruct a summary investigation in the case of the disappearance of thirteen communist leaders in 1976 and investigate the background information that would demonstrate that there was a removal of remains at that location.

If the Program's request is accepted, a new front of investigation will be opened, since the mandate granted by the Supreme Court to Héctor Carreño and Amanda Valdovinos—in charge of the search for twenty bodies at Fuerte Arteaga—was extremely restrictive from the moment it designated them as special judges, since it only commissioned them to confirm the veracity of the information from the Dialogue Table and to find the bodies that were supposedly at those coordinates, but said nothing about clarifying the circumstances of the disappearances under investigation.

Thus, ten months after this resolution, there has only been progress in terms of finding bone remains. In fact, since the investigation began on January 9 in the shaft of the Los Bronces mine, located at kilometer 12 of Cuesta Barriga, the process has been clouded by the limitations imposed by the highest tribunal.

According to the relatives of the victims of Cuesta Barriga, one cannot pretend to find bodies, identify them, and then leave the case abandoned. They assert that every judge must have truth and justice as their main mission and, on that level, determine who was guilty of the 1976 crimes and who removed their bodies.

Therefore, they anticipate that if the Program's presentation fails, they will file complaints to determine the removal of their relatives' remains, which they assure was carried out, with 90 percent certainty, in 1987.

The 1987 removal

A fundamental piece for investigating the removal of remains will be the information provided by two witnesses to the Investigative Police and the tribunal itself, who declared that in 1987, Army trucks traveled through the area and carried out operations, transporting bundles.

This thesis gains strength because the expert reports from the Legal Medical Service have determined that the bodies were exhumed between five to ten years after their burial, which is evidenced by the fact that the remains that remained in the mine correspond to those that fall freely when moved and do not present the fractures typical of a corpse that is not in an advanced process of decomposition.

If one adds to this that the former Admiral Jorge Arancibia himself, when he served as commander-in-chief of the Navy, confirmed that the information about remains at Cuesta Barriga was provided by his institution, the possibilities that Judge Carreño will initiate an investigation in that area once again place members of the Armed Forces as the main accused.

For the victims' relatives, this background information is so conclusive that it warrants requesting the Army to report on these works and partially break the secrecy that the Dialogue Table offered to the people who provided this data, since in their opinion, they would have some participation in the crime of exhumation and removal of bodies.

Among the relatives, there is a belief that the totality of the remains of their parents and siblings will never be found, as they point out that after removing the remains, the habitual practice was to dynamite or destroy them, and it is very unlikely that operations to throw bodies into the sea were carried out during that period.

Slow identification

While the relatives of the disappeared wait with hope for the result of the measure requested by the Program, the Legal Medical Service began the long task of establishing the identity of the bone remains, which according to the agency would correspond to at least ten people.

The 200 pieces found have only allowed for certainty of the identity of two people to date: Horacio Cepeda and Fernando Ortiz, thanks to the comparison of dental pieces with X-rays that their relatives kept, although their remains will have to be evaluated like all the others with DNA tests, an investigation that will extend for at least one year.

This, despite the fact that the relatives hope that the process will be shorter than expected, considering that groups of common bone remains were checked to facilitate the expert reports.

The report of the Dialogue Table only records that the bodies of Lincoyán Yalu Berríos Cataldo, Horacio Cepeda Marinkovic, Luis Segundo Lazo Santander, Fernando Alfredo Navarro Allendes, Juan Fernando Ortiz Letelier, and Héctor Véliz Ramírez, all of them detained on December 13, 1976, would be at the Cuesta.

But human rights groups and the Rettig Commission Report add the names of Santiago Edmundo Araya Cabrera (detained on November 29, 1976), Armando Portilla (detained on December 9, 1976), Reinalda del Carmen Pereira Plaza and Waldo Ulises Pizarro Molina, detained in the operation of December 13, 1976; Lizandro Tucapel Cruz Díaz and Carlos Patricio Durán González, both arrested on December 18, 1976; and Edras de las Mercedes Pinto Arroyo, arrested on December 20, 1976.

To date, forensic reports have established "approximations" to the identities of Héctor Véliz, Alfredo Navarro, Luis Lazo, and Lincoyán Berríos, as their medical records present significant correspondences with the bone pieces examined at the Legal Medical Service. Lizandro Cruz and Carlos Durán, who are among the victims of the Movement of the Revolutionary Left (MIR), are also mentioned.

Source: PRIMERA LÍNEA - October 18, 2001 Date: 10-18-2001

New bone remains found at Fuerte Arteaga

The Minister in Visit Amanda Valdovinos confirmed that human bone remains, corresponding to three people, were found inside the Justo Arteaga Army Regiment in Colina. The measure corresponds to what was ordered by the Supreme Court after receiving the report from the Dialogue Table that concluded in January and which, according to the background information provided by the Armed Forces, stated that the remains of about 20 people were buried in that military facility.

Caucoto: "They are from the Joint Command"

Lawyer Nelson Caucoto told La Voz that all the remains that can be located in the Colina sector correspond to victims of the so-called Joint Command.

According to the Rettig Report, some of the disappeared persons are Humberto Fuentes Rodríguez, Luis Moraga Cruz, Ricardo Weibel Navarrete (identified), Ignacio González Espinoza (identified), Miguel Rodríguez Gallardo, Nicomedes Toro Bravo, José Sagredo Pacheco, Carlos Contreras Maluje, Juan René Orellana, Luis Emilio Maturana, and Juan Gianelli Company, Fernando Navarro Allendes, Horacio Cepeda Marinkovic, Lincoyán Berrios Cataldo, Juan Fernando Ortiz Letelier, Waldo Pizarro Molina, Héctor Veliz Ramírez, Luis Lazo Santander, and Reinalda Pereira Plaza, among others.

For this reason, the professional considers the system of appointing special judges that the Supreme Court carried out at the request of the government to be "inefficient." "The system has caused confusion, because without a doubt, more progress is made with a minister in charge of specific cases."

Source: PRIMERA LÍNEA - July 19, 2001 Date: 07-19-2001

New complaint against Armed Forces chiefs accepted

The decision of Judge María Inés Collins generated annoyance in the government and in the Armed Forces, which could face the appeal with a requirement under the State Security Law. A few hours after reassuming the position of the 8th Criminal Court of Santiago, Judge María Inés Collins accepted for processing yesterday the second complaint for obstruction of justice against the commanders-in-chief of the Armed Forces and Order, accumulating the legal action to a previous one that has been investigated for two weeks.

This is the second libel filed by the Committee for the Defense of the People (Codepu) on behalf of children of forcibly disappeared persons and political executions, who accuse the military chiefs of not having delivered all the information they possess after the agreement of the Dialogue Table.

The legal action accepted yesterday specifies several cases in which there is a contradiction with what was provided by the uniformed personnel. One of them would be the situation of Waldo Pizarro, the husband of the late president of the Association of Relatives of Forcibly Disappeared Detainees (AFDD), Sola Sierra, who according to the Armed Forces was executed the day after his detention and then his remains were thrown into the sea.

However, background information collected by organizations such as the Vicariate of Solidarity reveals that Pizarro was at least a month in Villa Grimaldi.

The legal action presented by lawyer Arriaza intends not only to discover the contradictions in the information but also to pursue the alleged responsibility in the omission of data. At the same time, the plaintiffs look with suspicion at the fact that when the government has asked the Armed Forces to clarify information in the search for the disappeared—such as in Cuesta Barriga and Colina—the uniformed personnel have clarified their background information.

Source: LA TERCERA - February 20, 2001 Date: 02-20-2001