PART THREE
Chapter One (A.2)

September through December 1973 (continued)

1. HUMAN RIGHTS VIOLATIONS COMMITTED BY GOVERNMENT AGENTS OR PERSONS WORKING FOR THEM (continued)
   
   
   2. CASES (continued)
      
      
      7. Sixth Region-Libertador General Bernardo O'Higgins
         
         
         1. Overview
            
            This section provides an account of eight cases of human rights violations that occurred in the Libertador General Bernardo O'Higgins Region between September 11 and the end of 1973 in which the result was death or disappearance, and in which the Commission came to the conviction that the government was responsible for the actions of its agents or persons in their service. On September 11 the army assumed supreme authority over the Sixth Region, which today includes the provinces of Cachapoal, Colchagua, and Cardenal Caro. The army also assumed the role of head of the state of siege in both provinces (O'Higgins and Cachapoal).
            
            The armed forces took over the government of the region and assumed control over public order. Regional authorities and sectors of the population who supported the deposed government offered no resistance, and thus there were no armed clashes. The area's key centers immediately came under the control of the new authorities. Referring to this region, Communiqué No. 7 on the Situation of the Country issued by the Ministry of National Defense on September 15, 1973, says: "Internal order: control over the area of jurisdiction and access routes is being maintained. Utilities and transportation are functioning. Food markets have been serving their customers."
            
            Most of the victims were active in the Communist or Socialist parties, and several held administrative posts in the Popular Unity government. It should be pointed out that only one was not known to be politically active, and that even though this region is primarily agricultural and had a number of collectives organized by the Agrarian Reform, there is only one case in which the victim was a small farmer. Evidence examined by the Commission indicates that it was primarily police who were responsible for the arrests and human rights violations that took place in this area.
            
            In Rancagua prisoners, including many small farmers and political leaders, were taken to the local jail which held as many as 1,200 people in the months immediately following the events of September 11. The Membrillar Regiment (today Infantry Regiment No. 22-Lautaro) was also used to hold prisoners. In San Fernando they were taken to the Colchagua Regiment (today Infantry Regiment No. 19-Colchagua) where about 250 people are listed as having been held prisoner between September and November 1973. Most of them later served their sentences in the local jail.
            
            While some war tribunals were held in this area they did not sentence anyone to death. Most of the victims were executed without any prior trial, one supposedly in application of the "law of escape"; another died of torture. Since prisoners were taken to public areas and procedures were carried out with a degree of propriety, in only one instance did authorities deny that a person had been arrested; that person remains disappeared to the present. As a general rule authorities returned the victims' bodies to their families. There were some irregularities, such as the instance in which a person who died as the result of torture was turned over in a sealed coffin. In two other cases the executioners hid the bodies of those killed. Their relatives found them later.
            
            
         2. Cases of grave human rights violations in the Libertador Bernardo O'Higgins Region
            
            On September 12, 1973, Rosamel del Carmen SALAS OVALLE, 53, a farmer who was active in the Communist party, disappeared. He left his home in the Requegua area in order to search for some animals. There was no further information on his whereabouts until October 1989 when his brother found his bones half buried in the same area. He was able to identify them from the remaining fragments of clothes. The Commission came to the conviction that the death of Rosamel Salas was connected to the political situation, but it was unable to specify who was directly responsible for these events. It did so by virtue of the following considerations: at that time people known to be active in the Communist party, as he was, were being persecuted; his death cannot be explained by natural causes; his body was not found for sixteen years.
            
            On September 13, 1973, Bernardo Segundo JIMENEZ LUCERO, 33, a newspaper vendor who was active in the Communist party, was killed. He disappeared from his home in San Francisco de Mostazal, on September 11 or 12, 1973. Neighbors told the family that he had been killed. Two months later the family learned that his remains could be found half buried near the Black Bridge in Romeral. There they found a body which could reasonably be assumed to be that of Jimínez. In the official document registering the discovery of the body, the police note that he had died as the result of a military operation that took place in San Francisco de Mostazal September 13, 1973. The death certificate says the death took place on that date. The autopsy indicated that death was caused by a fractured skull and other injuries inflicted by third parties and that the body was wrapped in plastic. The Commission judged that Bernardo Jimínez was executed by government agents in an act that violated his human rights. The grounds for that conviction are that he was active in the Communist party, like other persons whose fundamental rights were violated those days, that the police officially acknowledged that his death was the work of government agents, and that his body was not turned over to his relatives.
            
            On September 17, 1973, Luis Alfredo ALMONACID ARELLANO, 42, a teacher and leader of the teacher's organization, and a former candidate for alderman who was active in the Communist party, was killed. Evidence and testimony gathered by this Commission indicate that he was arrested at his home in the city of Rancagua by police on September 16, 1973. As he was leaving his house to get into the police truck, his captors shot him. Police took him to the hospital in Rancagua where he died of bullet wounds the following day. In view of these facts the Commission came to the conviction that Luis Almonacid was executed by government agents without due process of law and hence in violation of his human rights.
            
            On October 13, 1973, Manuel Antonio LOPEZ LOPEZ, a peasant, was killed at the Papulla agricultural cooperative in the presence of witnesses. According to newspaper reports, he had been arrested in an operation conducted by several branches of the armed forces. Upon being taken to indicate the exact location of weapons that had supposedly been buried near the cooperative warehouses, he is said to have suddenly charged at the troops and tried to seize a weapon. Unable to do so, he is said to have fled and not to have obeyed an order to halt, and so he was shot to death by the patrol. Since it is not very likely that after he had already been arrested and was under heavy military guard he would try to seize a weapon from his captors; and since it is not likely that when this attempt had failed and he was at the mercy of his guards he would have tried to escape; and since even if he had done so, the government agents could have brought him under control without killing him, the Commission came to the conviction that Manuel Antonio Lopez was executed by government agents in an act that violated his human rights.
            
            On October 15, 1973, Néstor Artemio Iván GONZALEZ LORCA, 37, a merchant who was a leader in the Socialist party, was killed. According to his relatives, that day he went to the police headquarters in Marchigüe because he had been summoned there. His wife waited for him outside the building. When he emerged she came up to him, but he told her that he was instructed to walk down the street alone. A few moments later two people wearing ponchos appeared at the corner, drew alongside him, and shot him to death. They got away without being seized. The newspaper later said that this had been a matter of revenge. Considering the antecedents and particularly the fact that this took place as he was leaving a police installation and after he had been ordered to walk alone; accounts by witnesses; the fact that those responsible were not seized; and the victim's political activity, this Commission has come to the conviction that Néstor González was executed without any due process by government agents or people in their service.
            
            On November 12, 1973, Archibaldo MORALES VILLANUEVA, 43, an announcer at radio station Manuel Rodríguez who owned the newspaper, Diario el Guerrillo, and had formerly been active in the Communist party, was killed. He was arrested in Santiago by investigative police and transferred to San Fernando, where he was interrogated in the garrison of that same agency. He was later sent to the San Fernando jail and held in solitary confinement for forty-three days. He died three days after being released from solitary confinement. Since he was in good health before his arrest, was held prisoner and in solitary confinement for a long time, regularly underwent torture and mistreatment, according to credible witnesses, and died while in the hands of his captors, this Commission has come to the conviction that Archibaldo Morales died as a result of the torture he received from government agents and that his human rights were gravely violated.
            
            On November 20, 1973, Luis Justino VASQUEZ MUÑOZ, 34, a teacher and alderman in San Fernando who was former general secretary of the governing board of the CUT labor federation in the province of Colchagua and active in the Socialist party, disappeared. He disappeared that day while en route from his home to his workplace. His house had been raided the previous September 7 [sic]. On the day all trace of him was lost, investigative police appeared at his home three times with orders to arrest him, because of his political activities. There has been no certain news concerning his whereabouts from that day to the present. The Commission came to the conviction that Luis Vásquez was subjected to forced disappearance by government agents, thus gravely violating his human rights. That conviction is grounded on the following points: he had previously been persecuted and at the moment of his disappearance he was being sought because of his political activity and his activism in the Socialist party; his family and the Chilean government have had no word of him for the last sixteen years; disappearance was a tactic used against left activists during this period.
            
            On November 23, 1973, Humberto GALLARDO VARGAS, 43, was killed. He was arrested by police from Rengo on a public thoroughfare for being drunk during curfew. At the moment of arrest he was severely beaten in the abdomen and taken to the Rengo police station. Witnesses observed these events. He was later sent to the hospital in Rancagua where he died of a ruptured small intestine caused by an abdominal contusion. Given the testimony and evidence it has received, the Commission has come to the conviction that Humberto Gallardo Vargas was killed as the result of the use of excessive force by government agents, and that his human rights were violated.
            
            

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Posted by USIP Library on: October 4 2002
Source: Report of the Chilean National Commission on Truth and Reconciliation
(Notre Dame, Indiana: University of Notre Dame Press, 1993), vol. I/II, Part Three, Chapter One (A.2.g), 320-323.
Note: Digitized and posted by permission of the University of Notre Dame Press, February 22, 2000.