PART THREE
Chapter Two (A.1)

1974 through August 1977

1. HUMAN RIGHTS VIOLATIONS COMMITTED BY GOVERNMENT AGENTS OR PERSONS WORKING FOR THEM
   
   
   1. OVERVIEW
      
      
      1. Periods and significant dates
         
         The study carried out by this Commission makes it clear that 1974-1977 stands apart as a distinct period. During those years, the DINA (National Intelligence Directorate) was responsible for most of the political repression, although the other intelligence services were also at work. It was during this period that most of the forced disappearances took place, and the DINA was the main agency that used such a method to eliminate people. Certainly many disappearances took place in the latter months of 1973, but for the most part these were efforts to evade responsibility for murder by hiding the bodies. By contrast, the instances of disappearance after arrest in the 1974-1977 period reflect a pattern of prior planning and centralized coordination. These features indicate that the intention was to eliminate particular categories of people, namely those who were regarded as politically very dangerous.
         
         As was indicated earlier, by late 1973, after it had fully taken power, the military government began to consider implementing profound changes. The junta accordingly concluded that a state intelligence agency had to be created to aid it in this process and to combat what were perceived to be obstacles. The main obstacle seemed to be the existence of political forces that had been defeated but which had the potential to reorganize both underground and outside Chile. Such was the origin of the DINA.
         
         Although it cannot be said that the DINA was created expressly for unlawful repression, in practice it was an unlawful organization. Amidst its broader intelligence functions, the DINA engaged in repression against those whom it perceived as political enemies. This portion of the report deals with the very grave consequences of its activity. It is due to those consequences and the unprecedented characteristics of this security agency that the Commission must explain in detail how repression was carried out during the 1974-1977 period. Knowing the truth about what happened in this regard is not simply a moral duty; it is an absolutely necessary step toward preventing such atrocities from ever being committed again.
         
         The years 1974-1977 should not be understood as a rigidly defined period. During the first few months of 1974 and even later in both Santiago and the regions there were human rights violations that followed the patterns of repression of late 1973. Transgressions of that nature that took place in 1974 and even later are included in this part of the report.
         
         In order to better understand the chronology of the period about to be examined it is also important to note the following:
         
         
         • As was already mentioned in Part Two, Chapter Two and will be further explained in this chapter, the DINA was formally created in June 1974. However, the beginnings of the organization can be traced back to November 1973 or even earlier. The DINA was dissolved in August 1977 and replaced by the National Center for Information (CNI).
           
           
         • The so-called Joint Command operated from approximately late 1975 until late 1976, mainly in the city of Santiago. This group, in which the air force played the major role, coordinated intelligence activities and political repression. The Joint Command was responsible for many forced disappearances.
           
           
         • During this period the intelligence services of the various armed forces and the police were also at work. Before the appearance of the Joint Command in 1974 and for part of 1975, the SIFA (Air Force Intelligence Service), which was later known as DIFA (Air Force Intelligence Directorate), was operating parallel to the DINA, and to some extent, in competition with it. This organization is not regarded as having carried out forced disappearances in 1974. Some of its members, however, belonged to the Joint Command. The SICAR (Police Intelligence Service) was also at work during this period but it was more under the control of the DINA. Later some members of the police became part of the so-called Joint Command. The activities of the SIN (Naval Intelligence Service) took place mainly in Valparaíso and Concepción, as will be explained below.
           
           
         • In 1974 the MIR bore the brunt of the disappearances resulting from repressive activity by intelligence services, primarily the DINA. In 1975 many of the disappeared belonged to the MIR and the Socialist party. Starting in late 1975 and in 1976 most of those who disappeared were from the Communist party.
           
           
         • Starting in 1974 (and perhaps even in late 1973) the DINA began to work in Argentina, and later in other Latin American countries, the United States, and Europe. In 1976 or perhaps earlier, a coordination network was set up between the intelligence services of the Southern Cone (including such services from Chile, Argentina, Uruguay and Paraguay) at the initiative of the DINA and apparently under its coordination. As a result it was possible to carry out joint activities through operational plans code-named "Condor." These plans included eliminating political opponents.
           
           
      2. The DINA: the main intelligence service engaged in political repression in 1974-1977
         
         The Commission examined a great deal of information on the DINA: copies of testimony given in court cases in Chile and elsewhere; other official documents, both Chilean and foreign; private documents from a number of sources; studies prepared by experts in the field, some of them at the specific request of the Commission; statements from individuals who were personally familiar with the DINA because they had worked in it or with it, or for other reasons; newspaper archives; and much testimony given to this Commission by people who had suffered the DINA's repression. Those statements were checked against each other and against the rest of the information gathered. By taking all this information into account, and by paying attention to the quality of the sources and the consistency and harmony between the various sources of information, it was possible to clearly establish certain facts. Many other points could not be established with complete certitude, however, even though they seemed plausible, and hence they have been omitted from this report.
         
         The Commission believes it must outline those aspects of the organization on which it gathered accurate information and which help explain the origins, nature, operating procedure and activity of an organization that was unprecedented in the history of our country and was so destructive of human rights. In this chapter and in the subsequent case material, the DINA is said to have been responsible for the disappearance of hundreds of people after their arrest, for other executions, and for running a number of secret detention sites where torture was practiced systematically. The DINA carried out many unlawful activities, but to examine them case by case would be beyond the assigned task of this Commission. Nevertheless, the nature and extent of these activities can be deduced from the background material provided here.
         
         
         1. Origins, creation, and main institutional features of the DINA
            
            For a long time the various branches of the armed forces had carried out intelligence activities with the aid of specialized units or services. During the period leading up to September 11, 1973, the kind of intelligence activities that became increasingly significant were those having to do with political parties, especially those on the left, which the prevailing current of thought in the armed forces regarded as more or less internal enemies. After the armed forces and police took power on September 11, gathering information and carrying out political repression became even more important within the various intelligence services.
            
            Shortly afterward, however, as was explained in Part Two, Chapter One, the notion of security held by a particular group of officers, mainly in the army, gradually gained ground. The military government accepted this group's idea that there should be a centralized agency under the direct authority of the government itself, for carrying out intelligence functions in this new phase. One of the most important roles of this new body was the repression of those who were regarded as its real or potential internal enemies.
            
            On November 12, 1973, an army official who was later to be the head of the DINA throughout its whole existence presented the top government and armed forces leaders a complete plan for setting up the National Intelligence Directorate (DINA). Each branch of the armed forces gave its approval to the plan, and the police sent personnel to this new service. During the first few months it is calculated that it had approximately 400-500 members. The DINA was organized rapidly, and some of its first repressive actions took place in late 1973.
            
            As explained in Part Two, Chapter Two, the DINA was created by means of Decree Law No. 521 issued in June 1974. One of the three secret articles of this decree law notes that the DINA is to be the continuation of the commission bearing those same initials that was organized in November 1973. Decree Law No. 521 described the DINA as a "military body of a technical and professional nature, under the direct command of the junta. Its mission is to be that of gathering all information from around the nation and from different fields of activity in order to produce the intelligence needed for policy formulation and planning and for the adoption of those measures required for the protection of national security and the development of the country." By virtue of one of its secret articles the DINA was given certain powers to carry out raids and arrests.
            
            We should note, however, that the DINA cannot be understood simply on the basis of the legal regulations guiding it. Those regulations should be seen in conjunction with other legal provisions for states of exception, which are also noted in Part Two, Chapter Two. Moreover, in practice the DINA and other agencies went beyond that body of regulations, which already gave the security forces an extraordinary latitude to act. The legal framework did not hold the DINA accountable to the law; indeed, in some respects it facilitated the action of a body that in practice was above the law.
            
            Hence the DINA should be seen as an agency that enjoyed practically unlimited power. The upshot was that it could infringe on basic personal rights and use its power to conceal its actions and assure its impunity. These powers, taken in conjunction with the DINA's notions of internal security, the nature and level of danger facing Chile, and the irredeemable character that it attributed to some left activists, led to the most grave practice of forced disappearance of persons. This part of the report presents a detailed account of this practice.
            
            The following more specific features of the DINA contributed to this process:
            
            
            • It was an intelligence service of the government, as opposed to others of its kind, which were intelligence services of the armed forces and police. Hence it had a greater capacity for centralized action and could utilize the resources and means of the state.
              
              
            • In practice the functioning of this agency was secret and above the law, as has been noted. Its internal organization, composition, resources, personnel, and activity were unknown to the public and were not held accountable to the law. In fact, the DINA was shielded from any control: certainly from the judiciary, but also from other sections of the executive branch, from high level officials of the armed forces, and even from the junta. Although the DINA was formally under the authority of the junta, in practice it reported only to the president of the junta and later the president of the republic.
              
              
            • The mission of this agency, which was in practice secret and hence free of outside control and interference, was to gather and assess information which would then be used for important government decisions. The DINA extended its task to investigating even government officials and members of the armed forces.
              
              
            • The DINA was a national agency, covering all of Chile (although its structure was not necessarily nationwide), and it carried out operations outside the country as well.
              
              
         2. Functions of the DINA
            
            It is impossible to provide an exact account of the functions of an agency that operated in secret like the DINA. It unquestionably had very broad functions, and as time went on it usurped others. Decree Law 521 indicated that the DINA had three tasks: a) to gather from throughout the country all information that the government might need for designing its polices; b) to take measures to protect national security; and c) to take measures to promote the development of the country.
            
            Very broad tasks were thus assigned to the DINA. Notions such as "national security" or the "development of the country" may have different meanings. Phrases such as "to gather from throughout the country all information" and "to take measures to protect national security" seem deliberately ambiguous. In practice the DINA had also usurped extremely broad intelligence and security functions in Chile and outside the country. It gathered information, analyzed it, and on the basis of that information, it proposed government policy in the most diverse areas, both domestic and international.
            
            The DINA also had an operational side, that is, it carried out specific actions to achieve its security objectives, as it understood them. The cases attributable to the DINA described further on in this chapter are the most extreme examples of the impact of these operational functions on the basic rights of persons. A large number of this agency's other operations transgressed those rights even though they did not end in the victim's death.
            
            The DINA developed a whole array of activities and programs to serve its main functions. These included controlling public records; establishing a network of collaborators and informers in government agencies; supervising, approving, and vetoing appointments and the granting of certain government benefits; establishing relationships of coordination with other intelligence services outside the country as well as with terrorist groups; and various activities for raising funds, such as establishing different kinds of associations with individuals or companies, or setting up its own companies. Some of these functions are discussed further on in this chapter.
            
            
         3. DINA structure, personnel, and command structure
            
            The DINA's structure became especially complex, thus reflecting the variety and extension of its functions, which, as noted, went far beyond political repression. The large number of people working in this agency, estimated to have been several thousand people, reinforces the assumption that its internal structure was complex.
            
            The levels seem to have been as follows: a general command headed by the national director who was served by offices that provided various support services and were under his direct command; departments or sections; brigades; and squadrons. It is also known that there were teams of advisors. The exact number of these hierarchical levels and their interrelationship is not entirely clear. It has been possible to establish that besides the structure dealing with domestic affairs there was a foreign bureau or foreign department (to be discussed in the next section which deals with repressive actions outside Chile). It has also been determined that there were units on one level or another to handle the following functions: operations, government services, telecommunications or electronic intelligence, finance, propaganda or psychological warfare, economic research, and counterintelligence. There is also information on a National Intelligence School. Finally, it is known that professional people provided the DINA with advice on legal, medical, and other matters, even though it is not clear how such advisory services were organized.
            
            The functions of the domestic bureau included all operations; in Santiago its operational branch was the BIM (Metropolitan Intelligence Brigade). There was also a Regional Intelligence Brigade which dealt with DINA units or contacts in the regions. Over time the BIM became better organized and more efficient. Initially the BIM was located in La Rinconada in Maipú, but was then transferred to Villa Grimaldi where it remained. At Villa Grimaldi (the Terranova station as it was known within the DINA) the BIM had a director or chief who had a general staff to handle general intelligence work. It also had a logistics section. However, it was the BIM's operational groups that were most directly involved in political repression.
            
            Initially operations were rather disorganized and unplanned. There were various groups or units with names like "Caupolicán," "Lautaro," and "Purén." After the BIM moved to Villa Grimaldi there were just two large groups, "Caupolicán," whose primary task was to pursue the MIR, and "Purén," which was responsible for surveillance, detection, and apprehension of the other parties. Each of these two groups was subdivided into five units of twenty or thirty agents, who were most directly involved in repression. Each unit had its own vehicles (whose license plates were false or simply said "DINAR"), weapons and ammunition, offices and other places to work, and housing and benefits for the staff.
            
            At its high point DINA undoubtedly employed thousands of people in different capacities and with different degrees of affiliation. Some were actual DINA agents, whether they had been contracted by the DINA or sent to work in it by a branch of the armed forces or by the police. There were also paid advisors, more or less permanent collaborators or contacts in various government agencies or in private companies, and finally there were other informers.
            
            Although all the DINA's functions taken together meant that a sizeable civilian staff was needed, those persons in charge and most of the personnel in the operational teams came from the armed forces and the police. Army officers filled the highest command positions, although there was an occasional navy or air force officer. Operational command positions were mainly filled by officers from the army and the police. The staff for operations is known to have included members of the army and police as well as an occasional member of the air force or investigative police. The civilians involved included people from nationalistic and far right groups as well as others.
            
            People working in government agencies and companies offered the DINA a great deal of help in various respects. The DINA found agencies such as the Civil Registry, and transportation and telecommunications companies (LAN Chile, the railroad company, the government shipping company, the telephone company, and Entel [National Telecommunications Company]) especially useful.
            
            Among the professional people working with the DINA were a number of doctors who provided their professional services to the organization and sometimes took care of sick or wounded prisoners. There is proof that some of these doctors were present at torture sessions in order to assess the ability of the prisoner to withstand suffering. The DINA also had many contacts and collaborators in the media, both in Chile and among the press attaches in Chilean embassies in other countries.
            
            Sometimes through torture or other means, the DINA was able not only to bring the prisoner to make a confession or provide immediate collaboration, but even to become a more or less permanent collaborator or even a DINA employee. Such persons lived alongside the other employees in DINA facilities and continued to carry out intelligence functions and repression.
            
            Finally, the DINA established collaborative relationships with political groups of different nationalities, including Cuban exiles in the United States, Argentineans and Italians. Many of these people were terrorists. We will deal with collaboration between the DINA and the so-called Colonia Dignidad in the section on DINA facilities.
            
            As has been noted previously, formally the DINA was under the authority of the junta, but in fact it reported to the president of the junta and the army commander-in-chief. The DINA put itself directly under the supreme authority in this fashion so as to be protected from investigation or interference.
            
            
         4. Resources
            
            For its financing, in addition to its budget which was classified, and other government resources that were assigned to it, the DINA set out to generate its own income. To that end it set up some firms, went into partnership with others, and developed many complex business operations in Chile and elsewhere. A number of companies likewise donated money to the DINA. It is also known that the DINA often seized vehicles and other property from people arrested and used false identification and endorsements to cash their checks and other forms of money that they had in hand when they were arrested.
            
            
      3. DINA's foreign section and political repression outside Chile
         
         During this period actions of political repression committed outside of Chile against Chileans or people connected to Chileans fell into in the hands of the DINA and specifically its foreign section.
         
         
         1. Origin and formation of DINA's foreign section
            
            The origins of the DINA's foreign structure seems to date back to April or May of 1974. By that time the government, at the urging of the DINA, seems to have decided that actions being taken against the Chilean government in other countries required some kind of neutralization or counterattack. Such a response entailed not simply intelligence and counter-propaganda but meeting the so-called Chilean enemy living outside the country with actions like those being conducted against underground party activists. The fact that the DINA by this point had already demonstrated an aggressiveness and operational capability that had produced some results within Chile made it easier for it to take on this new role.
            
            Consequently, the foreign department was created and placed directly under the control of the DINA's national director. Officers with experience and training in intelligence from the three branches of the military were assigned to this department. Most of them were already DINA members and were working with a general command, which supported the national director. There is no information to indicate that police served in this department. However, from the beginning civilians from nationalistic groups or from the far right were involved in it.
            
            From 1974 onward the DINA increasingly developed a "foreign capability" which included having operational forces in various countries. They had their own staff, and in some countries its power was augmented by the collaboration of other services and organizations. This department was also able to set up a network for internal and international communications using radio, telex, and computer systems.
            
            
         2. Functions of the foreign department
            
            One of the main functions of the foreign department seems to have been that of gathering strategic intelligence and counterintelligence. Another was to maintain a degree of surveillance over the official foreign network: the Foreign Ministry, embassies, consulates, and military attaché offices. The DINA was quick to place its staff in sections of the foreign service in order to have access to a flow of direct information, and also to keep watch over the state bureaucracy, which was largely composed of civilians. There was considerable rivalry between the strictly diplomatic staff and those who were working in security.
            
            Although these observations provide important background information, for the purposes of this report it is more important to focus on the DINA's operational capacity outside Chile, that is, how it engaged in political repression through "operations" and missions conducted outside the country, and how it worked with foreign agencies and groups for that purpose. We have in mind what the foreign department did independently and with others especially (but not exclusively) in Argentina, as it engaged in the investigation, surveillance, apprehension, and even elimination of opposition Chileans who had taken refuge or were living outside the country and were engaged in activities that the military government regarded as dangerous.
            
            From the outset the work in Argentina constituted a special challenge to Chilean intelligence, not only because that country shares with Chile a very long border with many mountain passes, but because the largest number of exiles was concentrated there. Even General Carlos Prats (ret.), the former commander-in-chief of the army, was living there. The murder of Prats and his wife is discussed below. To make matters worse, between 1973 and March 1976, when the military took power, Argentina was in a period of considerable internal strife, much of which was generated by strong and active guerrilla movements, which had ties to parties on the Chilean far left. Hence the DINA decided to take action against those persons who were defined as enemies or as dangerous to national security.
            
            DINA foreign operations, which were initially concentrated in Argentina, were later extended elsewhere. Some of these actions, which were organized as intelligence operations, led to very serious violations of the human rights of many people, most of whom had the status of refugees or political exiles in those countries where the DINA caught up with them. In examining these events the Commission consulted many sources, including judicial investigations carried out in the countries where these serious attacks took place. The Commission also corroborated that information with documentation and testimony that it gathered and took directly.
            
            
         3. Coordination with foreign security services and political groups
            
            The DINA also sought and established forms of coordination with other agencies and groups outside the country, both with groups that had similar functions of internal security in their own countries, and with political groups that could be useful to it in general or for specific operations. Such coordination was certainly related to operational matters but it was also in keeping with the nature of the enemy as it had been defined: the enemy was Marxist subversion, which, although its expression was national, reflected a movement that was international in nature and made subversive regional and international alliances.
            
            c.3.1) Relations with like-minded foreign institutions
            
            

            Apparently it was in Argentina that the DINA was first able to establish or strengthen agreements with like-minded bodies, particularly the SIDE [Argentinean Intelligence Service] and the federal police. This collaboration even enabled the DINA to secretly transport prisoners from Argentina to Chile. After the March 1974 [sic] coup in Argentina relationships were closer and thus the DINA could carry out its own operations in conjunction with the Argentinean security services.
            
            In order to engage in the same kind of political repression in other countries, the DINA took the first steps toward coordinating intelligence services in the Southern Cone, including besides Chile the security services or similar groups in Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay and Brazil. The group that emerged, which was apparently coordinated by the DINA, came to be called "Condor," although some think that name referred not to the group or community itself but rather to a series of coordinated operations they undertook. The DINA also maintained bilateral relations with various foreign intelligence services, including the CIA.
            
            

            c.3.2) Relations with foreign political groups
            
            

            The DINA provided refuge and support to a number of agents and leaders of these foreign extremist political groups. Many of them supported or had been directly involved in terrorist actions. Members of Cuban nationalist groups, including some who were wanted for crimes in various countries, came to Chile to visit or to hide, and received help from the DINA. The DINA used some of them in its foreign operations in Mexico and the United States. One example of such cooperation was the murder of Orlando Letelier and Ronnie Moffit in Washington D.C., which is described later in this report. The DINA also had relationships with various nationalistic Argentinean organizations, and with people connected to what was called the Argentinean Anticommunist Alliance (the "Triple A").
            
            The DINA gave at least some of these groups money, weapons, and other advantages such as the opportunity to take refuge in Chile. In return they helped carry out some criminal attacks committed in other countries and were involved in planning for others that were not carried out.
            
            

         4. Means and resources that facilitated the work of the foreign department
            
            The DINA's foreign department was able to keep under surveillance all persons entering and leaving Chile, including foreigners and those who had contact with them. It also had its own personnel in the main airports in Chile and in the United States, and had informers in important airports in Europe and Latin America.
            
            It has already been noted that the DINA had staff members or collaborators in the Chilean diplomatic service. Outside the country it had members in key positions or had collaborators in offices of the Banco del Estado and LAN Chile in South America, the United States, and Europe. Some LAN Chile pilots are known to have carried out assignments for the DINA.
            
            
      4. The Joint Command and other agencies for political repression during the 1974-1977 period
         
         The so-called Joint Command was an intelligence group that operated approximately between late 1975 and late 1976, and whose main purpose was to suppress the Communist party. It has been established that it was responsible for the disappearance of about thirty people during this period. The Joint Command was also probably responsible for some other incidents in which the Commission has not been able to fully determine the institution or group to which the government agents who arrested the person belonged.
         
         The Joint Command was not formalized in any institution but operated de facto. It was composed primarily of DIFA (Air Force Intelligence Directorate) agents; later on members of DICAR (Police Intelligence Directorate) played a significant role. To a lesser extent agents from SIN (Naval Intelligence Service) and DINE (Army Intelligence Directorate) were also involved. Finally members of the Chilean investigative police and civilians who belonged to nationalistic or far right groups were also involved.
         
         Our concern at this point in the report is to provide information on how forced disappearances were carried out, and hence we must take note of the Joint Command. However, this information must first be rounded out with a quick look at the action of other intelligence services and the relations some of them had with the Joint Command.
         
         
         1. Various intelligence services
            
            During 1974 and 1975, before the creation of the so-called Joint Command, each intelligence service carried out repression independently, although of course the DINA's actions were the most significant.
            
            d.1.1) Air force intelligence agencies
            

            During 1974 the SIFA (Air Force Intelligence Service), which later became the DIFA, played a significant role in repression. The SIFA fell under the command of the office of operations of the air force general staff. It engaged in activities traditionally regarded as those of professional intelligence, but a special operational group was involved in political intelligence and repression. The primary target of this group's repression was the MIR. It operated in the Air War Academy and worked very closely with the air force prosecutor's office. It was staffed by air force personnel and some members of the investigative police.
            
            In 1974 there was serious friction and rivalry between the SIFA and the DINA over repression against the MIR. The two agencies often argued over who would arrest major MIR figures, and consequently they sometimes raided the house of the same person simultaneously or one after the other. Although the SIFA was guilty of serious abuses, such as the practice of torture, it did not practice forced disappearance as a matter of policy.
            
            In early 1975 the DIFA replaced the SIFA. The change was not in name alone, but reflected a new necessity as understood by the top Chilean Air Force officers: to broaden the scope of intelligence services, to better guard against possible infiltration, and to be more effectively involved in neutralizing the internal enemy, and especially the Communist party. The DIFA fell under the air force high command, but often provided information and received instructions directly from the air force commander-in-chief. Structurally the DIFA was composed of two areas or departments, each of which was divided into six or seven sections. One of these sections was called "Special Operations," and it operated in the so-called Joint Command.
            
            The Chilean Air Force contracted civilians to work in its intelligence service. Many of them had been active in nationalistic or far-right groups. They now began to work as agents and were given a rank. Some of them were among the most notorious members of the Joint Command. Moreover, some members of the investigative police who had been involved since the period of the SIFA and the Air War Academy were part of the Joint Command. These officials later went back to the investigative police.
            

            d.1.2) Intelligence agencies of the police
            

            The police initially had what it called SICAR (Police Intelligence Service) whose offices were located on one of the floors of the building at Avenida Bulnes No. 80 in Santiago. SICAR's largest division was that of "operations." The head of SICAR was directly under the authority of the national chief of the police. DICAR (Police Intelligence Directorate) was set up to replace SICAR after mid-1974. Its director likewise reported directly to the head of the police. In the provinces certain services still operated under the name SICAR. The DICAR was headed by a chief and an assistant. Together they oversaw five departments, covering a range of functions, including intelligence, counterintelligence, information analysis, and protection of certain public services.
            
            Although apparently none of the DICAR staff actually belonged to the DINA, many police officers worked in the DINA by being assigned to it starting in 1973, but they continued to be paid through the police. Nevertheless, the DINA and the DICAR worked closely together through an official liaison. Moreover, the heads of both agencies were in direct communication from the outset.
            
            Due to this collaboration, the police usually handed over to the DINA those people whom they arrested who had political connections that might be of interest to the DINA. To do so they communicated in code with the DINA through the patrol car radio center, broadcasting over a secret frequency. There was never any formal record of people who were turned over to the DINA.
            
            The operations section of the DICAR was responsible for carrying out arrests. It was located at a building on Calle Dieciocho No. 229, at the former site of the El Clarín newspaper. Its equipment for surveillance and detection was very up to date.
            

            d.1.3) SIN and DINE: Navy and army services
            

            During the period of greatest persecution against the MIR in late 1974 and early 1975, the SIN (Naval Intelligence Service) took on this task in the area of Valparaíso. It carried out arrests, and used the Almirante Silva Palma garrison in Valparaíso as a center for jailing and torturing people. The connection between naval intelligence and the DINA is unclear. The DINA carried out most of the repression against MIR in Valparaíso when it moved to the Maipo Regiment in the summer of 1975. The SIN seems to have recognized that the task fell to DINA, since there is evidence that it worked with the DINA in that operation, and it later handed over the prisoners it was holding to the DINA.
            
            In Santiago, one naval officer or another was involved in running the DINA, and SIN agents seem to have come into the Joint Command in February or March 1976 and to have been a part of it until it was disbanded at the end of the year. Some members of the DINE (Army Intelligence Directorate) were also involved in the Joint Command, but apparently only for a brief period.
            

            d.1.4) Regional Intelligence Service in Concepción
            

            During the period when the MIR was under the heaviest persecution, the SIRE (Regional Intelligence Service) whose members came from various units in the area of Concepción-where the MIR began-took on the task of combatting it. Army and navy officers were part of SIRE's leadership, while the lower ranks were made up primarily of navy personnel, along with significant numbers of police and investigative police.
            
            This agency arrested people, held them at different sites, and tortured them. It was responsible for some of the killings described further on. There is evidence that some friction arose between the two agencies when the DINA carried out operations in Concepción. However, in general the SIRE seems to have acknowledged the DINA's right to operate, since on a number of occasions it turned over its own prisoners to the DINA.
            

            d.1.5) The so-called "intelligence community"
            

            The creation of the so-called intelligence community signalled the beginning of more regular connections between the various intelligence services of the various branches of the armed force and the police. Starting in 1975, the DINE, SIN, DIFA, and DICAR [intelligence services of the army, navy, air force and police] operated out of the same building in Santiago (Calle Juan Antonio Ríos No. 6). The purpose of working in a single building seems to have been to centralize some administrative aspects of intelligence work, but it did not mean carrying out joint operations, at least not initially.
            
            Each week the heads of the various intelligence services met at the building to exchange pertinent information. The head of the DINA was present at these meetings. From the time the intelligence community began to operate until the end of August 1975, despite the connections we have noted between the DICAR and the DINA noted above, each intelligence bureau or service operated independently in carrying out repression. They did collaborate, however, in the areas of administration and staff training.
            

         2. Creation and functioning of the Joint Command
            
            Various ideas about the Joint Command and particularly its relations with the DINA have been proposed on the basis of one aspect or another of the vast amount of information that has been gathered. Although many aspects of this operation remain obscure, we here present what seems to be the most plausible account on the basis of available evidence.
            
            The DINA's rapid rise, the broad scope of its activity, and the fact that it was closed to the oversight of even the highest ranking officers of the armed forces, aroused fear and concern among many in the military and even in intelligence agencies. These reservations seem to have increased after a September 1975 confidential written order from the president was sent to the commanders-in-chief through official documents from the Ministries of Interior and Defense. In that document the president ordered that only the DINA was to arrest people who violated the prohibition of political activity. The DINA was also to be notified if leftists were discovered to be infiltrating the branches of the armed forces.
            
            The DIFA argued against this instruction on legal and other grounds, but it was not changed. The air force seems to have decided to go ahead with the operations in which the DIFA was already engaged, particularly against the Communist party. When the "Joint Command" is mentioned in the latter months of 1975 the references is probably this activity by the DIFA carried out by a special squad or brigade in which civilians from nationalistic or far right groups were also involved. Toward the end of the year members of other services became involved, and one could indeed speak of a Joint Command, although the air force always played the predominant role.
            
            In practice the Joint Command was often in open competition with the DINA. Nevertheless, it is not clear whether the creation of the Joint Command was in direct disobedience to the instruction. There may also have been something of a compromise by which other intelligence services were formally offered the opportunity to take part in repressive actions under the overall tutelage of the DINA. In practice that compromise and tutelage may have tended to turn into parallel efforts and competition between the Joint Command and the DINA, perhaps continuing to express the rivalry existing between the SIFA and the DINA since 1974.
            
            After a successful operation by the police in December 1975, the DICAR was brought into the Joint Command, along with some members of the investigative police and civilians from nationalistic and far right groups. Some agents from the SIN and the DINE were also admitted, but they soon withdrew.
            
            In early 1976 tensions between the DIFA, which played a central role in the Joint Command, and the DINA prompted the air force commander-in-chief to withdraw those air force members who had been assigned to the DINA. Friction between the Joint Command and the DINA sometimes went to criminal extremes. Three members of the Joint Command who were suspected of having leaked information to the DINA were arrested. One of them was discharged, and the other two were executed. Their bodies were found in the Cajón del Maipo area (their cases are described in this chapter).
            
            As noted above, the primary aim of the Joint Command was to suppress the Communist party. To that end one of the heads of the Joint Command was given the mission of obtaining information on the party's activities in Santiago's southern sector, which was militarily under the responsibility of the air force. The arrest of some Communist activists in the area who agreed to collaborate with the Joint Command enabled the group to gather detailed information on the structure and membership of the Communist party, which when combined with what the various intelligence services already knew, was of great help in achieving that objective.
            
            The Joint Command operated in the city of Santiago. During this period there was also a certain Joint Intelligence Unit, but not much is known about it. Aside from a few indications, there is no concrete evidence that the Joint Command carried out operations outside the country.
            
            

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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. II/II, Part Three, Chapter Two (A.1.a through A.1.d), 469-583.
Note: Digitized and posted by permission of the University of Notre Dame Press, February 22, 2000.