PART THREE
Chapter Two (B)

1974 through August 1977 (continued)

2. HUMAN RIGHTS VIOLATIONS COMMITTED BY PRIVATE CITIZENS FOR POLITICAL REASONS DURING THE JANUARY 1974-AUGUST 1977 PERIOD
   
   
   1. OVERVIEW
      
      In this period the Commission encountered only six cases in which government agents suffered human rights violations committed by private citizens for political motivations. It can therefore be said that violent activity was on a lesser scale.
      
      Three of the six people were military, two were police, and one belonged to the investigative police. In all cases in which it was possible to determine who was responsible, it turned out to be MIR members. Hence it can be said that the MIR was the only armed left movement operating in the country at that time. In this respect it should be noted that during this period the regime's security services enjoyed complete mastery over the political movements that had supported the previous regime and had some capacity for a violent response. This was the period when the MIR, the Communist party, and the Socialist party were under the harshest repression. Their structures fell apart and their members fled the country or were under continual pursuit.
      
      It is helpful to pause to consider the discussion that arose within these groups in Chile and elsewhere over what kind of strategy to use against the military government. Two directions were proposed, and they were to have considerable influence over the country's political future. The crucial question was whether a return to at least the kind of democracy that had existed before September 11 would be achieved through a peaceful or through a revolutionary route. It seems accurate to say most of that portion of the public that yearned for the previous democracy and wanted traditional political concepts to come back into force advocated a peaceful or non-violent route. Various factors came into play. Given a combination of circumstances in the realms of politics, economics, and human rights, the unquestionable fact that the strictest measures were being relaxed, international influences, the broadening of freedom of expression and in other areas, it would gradually become possible for the political parties to reclaim the values of democracy, set up groups of a political nature, and encourage solidarity between the social organizations that were being established for demanding people's rights and meeting their needs. Over time these ideas grew, and during the 1980s they culminated in major agreements between political groups and other associations. These agreements in turn led to protest demonstrations. All of this was called "social mobilization."
      
      Having endured very harsh persecution and having lost many of its major leaders, the Socialist party found itself facing internal dissention and was split: one part remained in alliance with the Communist party and advocated popular rebellion with links to armed struggle. The other portion distanced itself from that alliance with the Communists and preferred to be part of the process of political and social reorganization that was taking place in the country. This group was well represented in all the agreements reached by the opposition into the 1980s. This line of work eventually led to the subsequent unification of both sides of the Socialist party.
      
      For the Communist party, the connection between violence and nonviolence was quite crucial since it touched both poles of the kind of opposition it practiced. On the one hand, by following a peaceful route it had been able to grow within democracy; such a situation was quite necessary now that it was suffering such a harsh repression. Hence it proposed the idea of an "anti-fascist" front encompassing all opposition groups without any regard for doctrinal questions or political differences from the past. On the other hand, its own classic doctrine very forcefully advocated the violent route. That doctrine seemed all the more relevant in a struggle against a "fascist dictatorship." Furthermore, adopting such a stance at this point protected the party from ultraleft criticism. The upshot was a crisis toward the end of this period. Even though the crisis was not resolved until some years later, it is helpful to see how it developed and was translated into the party's embrace of "all forms of struggle."
      
      Such terminology, however, never clarified the Communist party's relationship to armed struggle, and hence the parties that could be called democratic or centrist refused to include it in their nationwide alliances. That in turn accounts for the Communist party's concern to explain how these two positions could be reconciled with one another in some kind of synthesis. The general secretary of the party, in one of the many statements in which he was to do this, said that "national uprising is to some extent a route by itself, and should not be identified schematically with either the armed route or the peaceful route. In practice, this route may prove close to one or the other and may be more or less violent, or more or less peaceful, depending on how broad the movement is, on the willingness or ability of the masses to struggle, on the changes that may come about in the behavior and attitude of the armed forces, and on the position the armed forces may take at decisive movements. There is no 'Great Wall' between the two forms of struggle. They are not unethical or irreconcilable but complementary." However, those in favor of the peaceful route always answered that somehow linking popular rebellion (to which those who were plainly advocating a struggle against a government they regarded as dictatorial did not object) with violent methods entailed accepting the methods of the ultraleft thereby becoming involved in criminal activity. The peaceful route then became impossible.
      
      The MIR reflected on its advocacy of violence and confirmed that it was to be applied in Chile. They formulated "Operation Return," in which MIR members who were in exile or who had escaped decided to return to Chile to relaunch the struggle to overthrow the military regime. They would use the methods of armed struggle, social mobilization, and operations against selectively chosen targets.
      
      In order to understand these matters properly and avoid the facile use of terms like "subversive" and "terrorist," certain distinctions must be kept in mind. In an authoritarian regime, any manifestation of criticism can acquire the nature of a rebellion, especially if it takes place in the form of street demonstrations, and may even push the unreasonable limits set by authority. It is unlikely that on this point there will be great differences between democratic and non-democratic opposition parties. However, when the idea is to use such operations to bring about situations like a "seizure of power by the masses," there are grounds for seeing it as subversion and for the rest of the opposition to have divergent strategic analyses. Finally when matters reach the point of selective assassinations, abductions and so forth, the line has been crossed into terrorism.
      
      That is how the various positions lined up. The bulk of the opposition tended toward the peaceful route, toward building up from the social base a platform that sought to recover democracy without resorting to violent methods. However, both the Communist party and the MIR claimed that the military regime could be defeated only by force, although the Communist position put the accent much more on what it called "class struggle" instead of selective violent actions.
      
      
   2. CASES
      
      The Commission studied the following cases:
      
      On September 20, 1974, army first corporal and squad commander José GONZALEZ ULLOA, 25, was killed. He died in a gun battle with unknown armed groups in Cajón del Maipo. Since he was carrying out the routine functions of his organization, and while he was doing so there occurred a gun battle with private citizens who were presumably operating for political reasons, the Commission came to the conviction that his death constituted a human rights violation.
      
      On December 13, 1974, David NAVARRETE JIMENEZ, 20, an army second corporal, was killed. He was taking part in a raid on a building in Calle Estado in the district of Santiago. The occupants, who were MIR members, resisted the raid by shooting back. In that action Navarrete was "hit by a bullet to the chest and heart" and was killed, according to his death certificate. Considering these items of information, the Commission has come to the conviction that Second Corporal David Navarrete suffered a violation of his human rights when he died in a gun battle with MIR members.
      
      On April 2,1975, Gabriel RODRIGUEZ ALCAINO, 31, a driver at the investigative police homicide brigade was killed. Evidence in the Commission's possession indicates that he was killed as he was trying to stop a group of MIR activists who were painting anti-government slogans on a wall along Avenida Fernández Albano, in Villa Santa Isabel, La Cisterna. He was "hit with a penetrating bullet to the thorax and abdomen that damaged his intestines," causing him to die as he was being operated on at the Barros Luco Hospital. The Commission came to the conviction that Detective Gabriel Rodríguez was killed in a violation of human rights for which the MIR activists who attacked him were responsible.
      
      On November 18, 1975, Patricio Hernán SALINAS CALDERON, 19, an enlisted man, was killed. Evidence gathered by this Commission indicates that on that day inside School No. 51 in the Bío Bío military neighborhood in Santiago, MIR members ambushed two enlisted men who were standing guard over the area. One of them was Salinas Calderón who died of "three penetrating bullet wounds to the sternum region." The other soldier was left wounded after being hit with a club. One of the attackers was killed on the spot. The Commission came to the conviction that Patricio Salinas was killed by MIR members in violation of his human rights.
      
      On February 24, 1976, Tulio PEREIRA PEREIRA, 41, police second sergeant, was killed. Evidence in the Commission's possession indicates that there was an armed clash that day between DINA agents and MIR members in a building located on the Pasaje Juan Ramon Jiménez in the La Florida district. He was hit in the chest by a bullet and was killed. The Commission came to the conviction that Tulio Pereira was killed in a shootout with MIR members, and hence regards him as a victim of political violence.
      
      On April 28, 1976, Bernardo Arturo ALCAYAGA CERDA, 29, police first corporal, was killed. Evidence in the possession of the Commission indicates that on his way back home to the Neptuno shantytown in Pudahuel after being on duty at the police station, he was attacked by unknown subversives. They shot and killed him with a mounted weapon, and stole his uniform and weapons. His body was left completely naked on the Pasaje Violeta in that shantytown. The Commission has come to the conviction that First Corporal Bernardo Alcayaga suffered a violation of his human rights when private citizens operating for political motivations killed him.
      
      

[ Back to top ]

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 (B), 620-624.
Note: Digitized and posted by permission of the University of Notre Dame Press, February 22, 2000.