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)
      
      
      12. Eleventh Region-Aysén del General Carlos Ibañez del Campo
          
          
          1. Overview
             
             This section deals with ten cases of human rights violations which occurred in the Aysén del General Carlos Ibáñez del Campo Region between September 11 and the end of 1973. All ended in death or disappearance, and in all of these cases the Commission came to the conviction that the government was responsible for actions of its agents or persons working for them.
             
             On September 11, 1973, members of the army and the police took control of the Eleventh Region, which today includes the provinces of Aysén, Coyhaique, General Carrera, and Capitán Prat. The army assumed control over the cities of Coyhaique and Cochrane, while the police were more active in smaller areas such as Puyuhuapi, Chile Chico, Puerto Cisnes and others.
             
             Repression was generally concentrated in rural areas and in the mountainous areas near the border with Argentina. Although the number of people whom the military and police authorities arrested was high in comparison to the region's sparse population, few were killed or disappeared. Most of those killed were active in left parties or supported them.
             
             The main detention sites in the region were:
             
             
             • Las Bandurrias, now the Bulnes Regiment, which was under army command. Testimony the Commission has received indicates that, besides being the main detention site in the area, it was an interrogation and torture center.
               
               
             • The gymnasium of the Aysén Regiment, which was in army hands, and was also said to be a torture center.
               
               
             • The jail in Coyhaique, which was in the hands of the prison service.
               
               
             The cases of people who were killed or disappeared which the Commission examined will now be presented in chronological order. In four instances people disappeared after being arrested; in two cases people were killed as the result of armed clashes; one person was shot while trying to escape; one person was sentenced to death by a war tribunal; and there are two instances of other kinds of execution for which government agents were responsible.
             
             
          2. Cases of grave human rights violations in the Aysén del General Carlos Ibáñez del Campo Region
             
             On September 12, 1973, Herminio SOTO GATICA, 44, the Caleta Tortel local representative, disappeared after being arrested by soldiers from the Coyhaique Regiment. He had reported to the military base voluntarily after hearing on the radio a summons for officials of the previous government to report to the military command posts. His whereabouts remain unknown since then. His wife says she has received no information on him from members of the regiment to which he reported and none from the police and investigative police. The Commission came to the conviction that government agents from the Coyhaique Regiment were responsible for the disappearance of Herminio Soto. That conviction is based particularly on the fact that he reported to the regiment and was arrested there, and that his disappearance dates from the day of his arrest.
             
             On October 2, 1973, Sergio Osvaldo ALVARADO VARGAS, 30, and Julio Antonio CARCAMO RODRIGUEZ, 37, neither of whom was politically active, were killed at the police station in Puerto Aysén. According to testimony the Commission received, these people had previously insulted and attacked a policeman, and hence they were arrested at their homes and taken to the Aysén police station. Witnesses saw them executed, apparently by soldiers. According to the official account, which was reported in several newspapers, Alvarado and Cárcamo attacked a police patrol and then a military patrol. The official in charge of the military patrol was forced to use his weapon. Some of these news reports called them subversives and others called them criminals. Their death certificates state that in both cases the cause of death was, "acute loss of blood, bullet wound."
             
             The Commission came to the conviction that the killing of these two people constituted a grave human rights violation because,
             
             
             • Solid witnesses have testified that these people were being held under arrest at the Puerto Aysén police station and that they were killed there without any due process of law;
               
               
             • The implausibility of the official account, which speaks of two successive attacks on patrols, was evident in the way the newspaper referred to it at the time: "two criminals who astonishingly attempted to attack a military patrol."
               
               
             On October 8, 1973, Jorge Orlando VILUGRON REYES, 27, a teacher who sympathized with the left, was executed by firing squad in Puerto Cisnes by soldiers and police. A patrol of police and soldiers had come to La Junta on September 31 and arrested all the adult men in the village. Most of them were subsequently released, but Vilugrón and three others remained under arrest and were taken in a small boat to Puerto Cisnes. When they arrived Vilugrón was kept in the boat while the other three were taken to the police headquarters. The official in charge of the operation, who was from Puerto Aysén, told government officials there that two people were going to be shot to death. On October 8 a platoon tied Jorge Vilugrón to an electrical post near the dock and shot him. After the execution his body was put into a coffin and dropped into the ocean. The Commission heard testimony from many witnesses on what happened. The death certificate states that the cause of death was: "shot [by firing squad]." The death certificate indicates that the cause of death was a firing squad and adds that "he is to be buried in the ocean."
             
             In October 1973, El Mercurio reported that at 7:00 a.m. October 8, at the police headquarters in Puerto Cisnes, Jorge Vilugrón Reyes, "an active subversive", was shot by firing squad; the news story repeated the account given by the provincial government press office. The sentence was said to have been issued by a war tribunal. This Commission has repeatedly but unsuccessfully requested the legal record in which that war tribunal should appear.
             
             The Commission came to the conviction that a grave violation of fundamental rights took place in the execution of Jorge Vilugrón in view of the following considerations:
             
             
             • There is no evidence proving that the war tribunal mentioned in the official report actually took place.
               
               
             • If such a war tribunal indeed took place, the accused did not enjoy the right to a defense.
               
               
             • The victim's body was cast into the ocean, thus further aggravating the unlawfulness of the conduct of government officials.
               
               
             On October 10, 1973, Juan Bautista VERA CARCAMO, 23, a CORA (Agrarian Reform Corporation) official who supported the Socialist party, was killed by soldiers in Valle Simpson. After September 11 he was working on a piece of property he owned in the area of Valle Simpson. On October 10 a patrol composed of soldiers and civilians went there and killed him. Juan Bautista Vera's family learned he had been killed over the radio, and they found his body in the morgue in Coyhaique. The body bore several bullet wounds, and the death certificate stated that his death had been "ordered by military authority, bullet wound." The person listed as having requested the certificate was an army officer, and the certifying doctor was an army employee. The official account, which appeared in the El Llanquihue newspaper for October 20, states that "en route from his house to the vehicle that was going to take him to Coyhaique, the prisoner, Vera, seized an axe in order to attack the patrol members. They fired their weapons, and he died immediately."
             
             It is the Commission's conviction that a grave violation of fundamental rights was committed in the killing of Juan Vera since it was an execution which took place without any due process of law. It is hardly credible that he would have picked up an axe to attack his captors once he was under arrest since the police and military in making an arrest routinely assure that the person is truly apprehended even by using violence. Moreover, even in the improbable event that the alleged attack actually took place, police and soldiers are generally in a position to prevent such actions through appropriate means and do not need to kill their prisoners.
             
             On October 12, 1973, Elvin Hipóúlito Alfonso ALTAMIRANO MONJE, 34, a farmer and alderman in Puerto Cisnes who was an active Socialist, was killed by police. He had been arrested by police from Puerto Cisnes along with three other people in Puyuhuapi. They were all taken to the Puerto Aysén police station and held there. According to testimony received by the Commission, Altamirano was subjected to various forms of torture and mistreatment at the police station. The other prisoners were gradually released until the only one still under arrest was Elvin Altamirano. A few days later the newspapers printed the official report that he had been killed as he was being driven along the road from Puerto Aysén to Coyhaique, and he took advantage of a mechanical problem to make an escape attempt. His death certificate says that the cause of death was "acute loss of blood, bullet wound."
             
             The Commission came to the conviction that the death of Elvin Altamirano constituted a grave violation of his fundamental rights, since he was executed without any due process of law. That conviction is based on the following considerations:
             
             
             • That he should have tried to escape is not very plausible in view of his physical condition after a month of imprisonment during which he was subjected to very serious torture, according to testimony from reliable witnesses taken by the Commission; moreover, the heavy security measures used for transferring prisoners should be kept in mind.
               
               
             • Even had an escape attempt taken place, the police forces had the ability to handle such situations and had no need to kill the prisoners in their custody.
               
               
             • The victim's body was buried without a coffin in the Aysén cemetery, and his relatives were not informed.
               
               
             On October 21, 1973, Moisés AYANAO MONTOYA, 19, a worker who was not known to be politically active, was killed by a military patrol on the road between Coyhaique and Puerto Aysén. Through the various forms of evidence it was able to examine, this Commission established that he was killed by soldiers without any provocation on his part. His death certificate indicates that his death was "ordered by military authorities, bullet wound." The person requesting that it be registered was an army officer, and the doctor who certified his death was employed by the army. The body was buried in the El Claro cemetery in Coyhaique, and the relatives of the adolescent Ayanao were not informed.
             
             The Commission came to the conviction that his death constituted a grave human rights violation since it was an execution carried out in total disregard for the law. That conviction was based on the following considerations:
             
             
             • The Commission has received certificates that make it clear that he was killed and identify the responsible parties.
               
               
             • It is inexcusable that there should be no explanation for the events that led to his death since those responsible were agents endowed with government authority. The Commission furthermore notes the abnormality of this execution in the obvious disproportion of forces between the adolescent Ayanao and a military patrol under the command of an officer.
               
               
             • The fact that his body was buried in an irregular manner leads to the presumption that the intention was to conceal something.
               
               
             On October 27, 1973,
             
             Néstor Hernán CASTILLO SEPULVEDA, 23, the regional secretary of the Young Communists;
             
             José Rosendo PEREZ RIOS, 24, an office worker who was active in MAPU; and
             
             Juan VERA OYARZUN, 53, a worker who was regional secretary of the Communist party, a union leader and a former alderman in Punta Arenas, were arrested in Río Mayo near the border with Argentina. On September 20 a group of four people including Juan Vera crossed over the border into Argentina in order to seek political asylum. Two days later a local estate owner turned them over to the Argentinean police. They were taken to Aldea Veleiros [sic] and then to Río Mayo, where they were held in the custody of Squadron No. 38 of the Argentinean police. Meanwhile, in an unrelated incident, José Rosendo Pérez and Néstor Castillo, who had come from Chile a few days previously, were arrested at a boarding house in Río Mayo. All six were held under arrest for about two weeks in police custody for having entered Argentina illegally. They were then separated into two groups and were forced to do different kinds of work. The group composed of Juan Vera, Néstor Castillo and José Rosendo Pérez was working in the municipality of Río Mayo. They spent each night at the facilities of Squadron 38, while the other three people slept at their work site, a house that was under construction.
             
             On October 27, the Argentinean police turned Juan Vera, Néstor Castillo, and José Rosendo Pérez over to a group of Chilean military and police who were driving an ambulance from the Coyhaique hospital. Witnesses have provided a good deal of detailed and consistent testimony on these events. This was the last information on the whereabouts and fate of these people who disappeared. Chilean authorities offered no official explanation for these events, and the national press only reported that the six people had requested asylum. However, the Argentinean press at that time reported that these people were turned over to Chilean officials. Members of the Argentinean parliament investigated the case and came to the same conclusion, namely that "these three people were indeed arrested by Chilean police and taken to Chile."
             
             The Commission came to the conviction that Chilean government agents were responsible for the disappearance of these three people in view of the following considerations:
             
             
             • their political background and the fact that they sought asylum in Argentina;
               
               
             • the fact that they were held under arrest in Argentina for more than a month, and that numerous witnesses have given similar testimony on the way in which they were turned over to agents of the Chilean government;
               
               
             • investigations made by members of the Argentinean parliament, complaints by union leaders in that country, and newspaper reports on the case;
               
               
             • the fact, criticized at that time, that Chilean military and police were able to operate on Argentinean territory with the approval of the police of that country; and
               
               
             • the fact that there has been no information on the whereabouts of these people since that time.
               
               

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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.l), 444-449.
Note: Digitized and posted by permission of the University of Notre Dame Press, February 22, 2000.