PART THREE
Chapter Three (A.1)

August 1977 through March 1990

1. HUMAN RIGHTS VIOLATIONS COMMITTED BY GOVERNMENT AGENTS OR PERSONS WORKING FOR THEM
   
   
   1. OVERVIEW: PERIODS AND SIGNIFICANT DATES
      
      This Commission's founding decree stated that its purpose was to investigate the most serious human rights violations committed in Chile between September 11, 1973 and March 11, 1990. Each of the two earlier periods that the Commission has delineated, namely the final months of 1973 and the years 1974-1977 has salient characteristics in the area of human rights violations which remain relatively unchanged over the course of those periods.
      
      Such is not the case of the 1978-1990 period, in which there are distinct stages which vary widely one from another in terms of the number of fatal human rights violations and the methods used. That is true of those committed by government agents and those committed by politically motivated private citizens. Furthermore, major political and institutional changes took place during this period (cf. Part Two, Chapters One and Two).
      
      It is nonetheless appropriate to regard the period from August 1977 to 1990 as a unit, at least from the standpoint of the most serious human rights violations. During these "post-DINA" years, actions of political repression or counterinsurgency in which people were killed, were primarily the work of the National Center for Information (CNI). Moreover, starting in 1979 and through the rest of this period, there was armed opposition activity, primarily by the MIR and the Manuel Rodríguez Patriotic Front (FPMR) which also produced serious human rights violations, inasmuch as people were killed in terrorist actions or other types of attacks.
      
      An examination of such grave violations makes it possible to distinguish the following stages and significant dates during this period:
      
      
      • In August 1977 the DINA was dissolved, and the CNI was created. From August to November 1977 for practical purposes the newly created CNI was still the DINA, since the man who served as the new organization's director during its first few years had not yet taken charge.
        
        
      • Between November 1977 and mid-1980 under its first director, the CNI concentrated more on political intelligence than on repression. The number of fatal human rights violations cases declined dramatically, as can be observed in the statistics at the end of this volume.
        
        
      • The MIR began its return in 1979 and did so more systematically from 1980 onward. Activists who had been living outside the country and had received weapons training returned secretly to prepare for armed struggle against the military government. Subsequently, the FPMR was organized in Chile, and later yet came the group known as MAPU Lautaro or "Lautaro."
        
        
      • Under several directors, the CNI responded to these developments with much more intense repression or counterinsurgency from mid-1980 and through the rest of this period.
        
        
      • Between 1983 and 1985 a series of national protests and public demonstrations were held. A number of persons were killed by government agents in the context of these events. The Commission has categorized the actions of government agents in most of these instances as the use of excessive force. Also in the context of these events, a smaller number of people were killed as the result of actions by private citizens from one side or the other. Those persons killed in these protests are treated in a special section in this chapter, which has its own introduction.
        
        
      • Between 1978 and 1981 there were some cases of disappearance, but they were not systematic in nature nor was the CNI responsible. Beginning in 1981 the CNI was responsible for a number of disappearances. The methods used were different from those used previously, and disappearance was employed selectively.
        
        
      1. The National Center for Information (CNI) as the main government agency responsible for political repression and counterinsurgency during the 1978-1989 period
         
         
         1. Origins, legal framework, and main institutional characteristics of the CNI
            
            In mid-1977 the questioning of the DINA that had already begun to find expression in government and armed forces circles gathered momentum. The ideas of those in the government or close to it who advocated having another kind of intelligence service with more limited or restrained repressive functions gained prominence. Decree Law No. 521 which had legally established the DINA was repealed by means of Decree Law No. 1876 (August 13, 1977) which thus abolished the organization. The reason given in the law was "the desirability of structuring in accord with present circumstances the functions of an agency created during a situation of internal conflict that has now been surpassed."
            
            The CNI, which was established by Decree Law No. 1878 (also August 13, 1977), succeeded the now disbanded DINA, and took over its staff and property. The CNI ceased to exist legally in February 1990. The CNI was very similar to the DINA in terms of how it was defined, and its characteristics, functions, and purposes. The most important differences were its line of authority-it now fell under the authority of the Interior Ministry, rather than the junta, as had been (formally) the case of the DINA, and the fact that it had a broad new mandate to "maintain the existing institutional framework." Article One of Decree Law No. 1578 defined the CNI as a "specialized military body of a technical and professional nature."
            
            Like the DINA, the CNI was an intelligence agency of the government. Nevertheless, it cannot be said to have been an agency completely shielded from any oversight as was the DINA. Like the DINA, however, the CNI had a very broad intelligence mission that extended beyond activities of political repression. It was a national agency which also carried out operations in other countries, although not of the same nature and scope as the unlawful foreign operations that the DINA had carried out. Like the DINA, the CNI systematically committed unlawful actions in carrying out its assigned functions, although the differences with regard to their composition and the number of repressive actions should not be ignored. This is especially true of the first period (1978-1980). Contrary to the DINA, during the 1980s, the CNI was confronted with armed actions committed by far left groups and in the context of a genuine insurgency effort, no matter what might have been the real possibility for success of that insurgency. (Of course that situation does not justify actions of an unlawful nature committed while combating counterinsurgency, nor does it justify unlawful actions committed by far left groups).
            
            During the 1983-1985 period, many people were killed in protests, as this account will show. Aside from those deaths, the number of fatal human rights violations attributable to government agents during the 1978-1985 period is about 160. In this report most of them are attributed to the CNI.
            
            The CNI's most important duties as laid down in Article 1 of Decree Law No. 1878 were as follows:
            
            
            • "To gather and process on a national level all information from different fields of action that the Supreme Government might require for formulating policies, plans, and programs."
              
              
            • "The adoption of measures necessary to safeguard national security and the normal unfolding of the nation's activity, and to maintain the established institutional framework."
              
              
            One important issue is the kind of measures that the CNI could take for safeguarding national security. Did it have the power to arrest? On this point Decree Law No. 1878 indicates that where Article 19 of the Weapons Control Law mentions the DINA, it should be understood to mean "the CNI." Hence it did have the power to arrest if it had a judicial order, and it could carry out a search in inhabited or uninhabited places where firearms, explosives, or chemical substances were said to be stored secretly, or when the crime of organizing private militias was being committed. Prior to the promulgation of Laws 18314 and 18315 (May 17, 1984), the CNI could carry out arrests only with a judicial order, and it could carry out searches only when there was a presumption that weapons were being stored secretly or the crime of organizing private militias was being committed. Law No. 18314 (which defined terrorist behavior) authorized the CNI and other security forces to make arrests when they had a prior order from the interior minister, the regional intendants, the provincial governors, or garrison commanders, without any need for a judicial order.
            
            Law No. 18315 (May 1984) modified Decree Law No. 1878, which had created the CNI, by empowering the agency to arrest people and hold them at its facilities, at the discretion of the interior minister, by virtue of the powers given him by Transitory Article 24 of the Constitution. However, Article 90 of the Constitution did not regard the CNI to be one of the agencies constituting the public force. Law No. 18663 (October 1987) withdrew the CNI's authority to hold people in detention on its own properties.
            
            
         2. CNI structure and staff
            
            CNI functions went beyond repression and counterinsurgency and maintaining an apparatus for such purposes; it also engaged in intelligence, counterintelligence, and followed and analyzed the behavior of political parties and political and social organizations, the church, and religious movements and even infiltrated them. It therefore required a complex structure. The DINA was headed by a national director. Article 2 of Decree Law No. 1878 states: "the CNI is to be headed by an officer of the rank of general or higher on active duty in the armed forces and security forces. He will be in charge of this service in both technical and administrative matters." The various general directors of the CNI from November 1977 all had the rank of army general. Like the DINA, it was staffed by members of the armed forces and security forces and some civilians.
            
            Like the DINA, the CNI had many collaborators in government agencies, as well as assistance from professional people-including some doctors who worked for the CNI and periodically examined prisoners. The Medical Association found it necessary to reprimand certain professionals in the investigation it prepared for the case of Alvarez Santibáñez, which is described in this chapter.
            
            Among the aspects more relevant to the purposes of this report is the fact that the CNI organized complete teams for following and suppressing political-military organizations like the FPMR and the MIR. Its metropolitan intelligence division had hundreds of staff members for that purpose. There was also a well staffed regional intelligence division. The CNI likewise had a structure for gathering intelligence in other countries, including infiltrating Chilean exiles, and continually exercising surveillance over organizations and persons who were supporting the opposition.
            
            
         3. Functions of the CNI
            
            The tersely worded guidelines in the law creating this agency issued in a wide variety of activities. A large portion of the CNI's capability and staff was devoted to producing pure intelligence or analysis. These studies encompassed matters of security as such, as well as general political information, and covered political parties, religious bodies, labor unions, professional associations, culture, international relations, and so forth. This information was intended to feed into the government's political decision making, but it also served the operational side of the CNI. The CNI also gathered political data on the citizenry. That information could be passed on to government institutions to use in making hiring decisions. It was also provided to some private companies.
            
            The CNI's other significant function, one that touches the purposes of this report more directly, was its specifically operational function, namely to engage in direct action against left organizations which had taken the route of armed struggle against the regime. In response it engaged in infiltration, surveillance, arrest, torture, and armed repression. As is noted further on, these means sometimes went to the point of killing people. There are grounds for presuming that organizations such as the September 11 Command, and the ACHA [Chilean Anti-Communist Association] which publicly took credit for some of the killings, were names that the CNI used to conceal its activities or those of people working for it. In engaging in these activities, the CNI was operating both within and beyond the legislation governing it. Some people were executed in compliance with orders from military prosecutors, but when people were arrested the evidence was often trumped up, for example, by putting weapons in their houses. Many of the gun battles reported never took place.
            
            The CNI carried out yet another kind of direct action against mass anti-government demonstrations, especially during national protests and certain public demonstrations. Likewise, we should note that the CNI conducted threatening actions intended to constrain certain organizations and movements. It also infiltrated them and intercepted private communication to political, labor, or church leaders. The CNI played a role in attempting to create political or labor organizations that supported the government.
            
            In all these activities it had utter assurance of its impunity. Its agents operated with false names, and did not give their identity even to the courts. Nor in practice were they compelled to comply with court orders issued against them. In practice they operated without being held accountable to the law; they enjoyed unrestricted powers of movement and resources.
            
            
         4. CNI ties to other security services.
            
            The CNI operated jointly with other security forces, such as the investigative police and the police, in operations like house-to-house searches in shantytowns. It also had serious frictions with these services, especially over certain instances of repression.
            
            
         5. Financing and resources
            
            The CNI's resources came from designated funding as specified in the Budget Law; it could also be assigned funds through special laws; and it could receive income from properties and resources it might acquire or receive under any formality for its own ends. The national director administered this income and wealth, and he had broad powers for managing and utilizing property and money. The CNI handled sizeable amounts of money that were regarded as confidential and hence were outside the scope of normal oversight.
            
            In addition, its important position in the government gave the CNI access to other non-material resources. For example, besides analyzing the media, the CNI had DINACOS [National Media Directorate] in order to give its own slant or version of events. In some cases it used media such as National Television to provide its own version of real or alleged gun battles.
            
            
         6. CNI facilities about which there is information
            
            The CNI inherited the DINA's property and buildings and set up others. In Santiago it operated in many places. The most well-known are those at Ave. República No. 517, where it had its general headquarters; Borgoño No. 1470, where it held prisoners and where a number of far left activists were killed in what were falsely claimed to be gun battles that took place when they allegedly tried to attack it; and Villa Grimaldi itself, which the CNI had held onto since the DINA era.
            
            Secret Decree No. 594 of the Interior Ministry dated June 14, 1984 designated those CNI properties that were to be regarded as detention sites in both the regions and in Santiago in accordance with Transitory Article 24 of the Constitution.
            
            
         7. Stages in the evolution of CNI activity
            
            In 1977 the number of DINA acts of repression ending in disappearance or death declined. The reason might have been the climate of insecurity inside the agency as a result of questioning within government circles as well as international pressure, including pressure from the Carter administration in the United States. During this period change seemed imminent. One sign was the destruction and disappearance of the DINA files during this period, which is attested on good authority.
            
            When the new CNI director took charge in November 1977, the agency was organized along lines different from those of the DINA, even though much of the staff was retained. Most of the staff members close to the director were changed, and the agency's functions were redesigned with greater emphasis on intelligence and less on repression as such. During this period the state of siege was ended in the country and the amnesty law was issued. The most serious human rights violations declined notably (cf. statistics at the end of this volume).
            
            The beginnings of the MIR's "Operation Return" and the consequent rise in armed actions like bank robberies and bomb explosions enabled those who were calling for harsher treatment to regain some ground. The MIR's July 1980 action of selective terrorism in which army Lieutenant Colonel Roger Vergara lost his life probably prompted the change of command in the CNI. The agency gradually but clearly began moving toward emphasis on actions of repression and counterinsurgency. The MIR, whose most notable action was the attempt to set up a permanent base in Neltume in 1981, was not alone in prompting this shift. The Communist party's decision to change its strategy toward the dictatorship by embracing the armed struggle and by creating the FPMR (Manuel Rodríguez Patriotic Front) also played a role.
            
            Over the next few years one can observe a continual increase in arrests and human rights violations for which the CNI was responsible, culminating in 1986 and 1987. The left called 1986 the "decisive year": that was the year a large quantity of weapons was smuggled into the country and that was when an action of selective terrorism against the president and army commander in chief cost the lives of five of his bodyguards. In 1987 five members of the FPMR underwent forced disappearance, and in "Operation Albania" twelve of its members were killed; in both instances the CNI was responsible.
            
            
      2. Other agencies or groups
         
         
         1. Avengers of Martyrs Command (COVEMA)
            
            In July 1980, Lieutenant Colonel Roger Vergara Campos, the head of army intelligence, was killed in an act of selective terrorism. What was called the Anti-subversive Command (CAS) was established as an initial response to the attack in order to coordinate the activity of various police and security forces groups which were assigned the task of determining who was responsible and arresting them. It encompassed the investigative police homicide and police intelligence brigade, the police OS-7, and the CNI metropolitan brigade. It was headed by an army general who was soon to become the director of the CNI.
            
            This commando unit sought to investigate that case as well as other violent actions during this period, such as the robberies of branch banks on Calle Santa Elena. In a parallel action, on July 23 civilians who did not identify themselves arrested journalism students Eduardo Jara and Cecilia Alzamora. In the next few days a total of fourteen persons were secretly arrested. By August 5, all of them had been released. However, Eduardo Jara died on August 2-the very day of his release-due to the torture he had undergone while under arrest.
            
            All these people were held prisoner by a group that had a wide range of resources at its disposal. It had numerous vehicles and sites in which to hold its prisoners, who were transferred several times while they were being held. These places were in the central and outlying areas of Santiago. They were very large, and gave the impression that many people were going about their normal working routine. This group was known as the Avengers of Martyrs Command (COVEMA), since that was how they identified themselves to their victims. The prisoners were questioned continually during this period about the killing of Roger Vergara and also in an effort to obtain data on left movements. The prisoners were constantly subjected to torture, mainly beatings and the application of electricity to various parts of their bodies.
            
            The journalism student's death set off a great deal of public alarm, and the government declared its commitment to determine what had happened. In the ensuing court case, investigative police staff members were found guilty of torturing and unlawfully mistreating a female prisoner. She had recognized one of the places she was held as the investigative police Eighth station. The court determined that she was arrested by order of the Second Military Prosecutor's Office. However, the judicial investigation did not establish a connection between this prisoner and Eduardo Jara and his subsequent death, even though both were held together, and had been abducted by the same persons.
            
            The group abusing all these prisoners was composed of agents from the investigative police. The trial revealed that besides that police station they had used the central headquarters on Avenida General Mackenna. In the legal process, the CNI and the police said that the investigative police, and specifically members of its homicide brigade, were responsible. As has already been noted, however, the CAS was made up of the homicide brigade, members of the police, and the CNI. CNI staff were indeed involved in COVEMA. In fact the CNI director at that time publicly said CNI staff members had established COVEMA as an independent entity.
            
            
         2. Police Communications Directorate (DICOMCAR)
            
            This agency was created in September 1983 after the DICAR was disbanded. DICOMCAR had even more resources at its disposal. No doubt the purpose of the police in setting it up was to assure themselves a broader role in intelligence and counterinsurgency activities.
            
            This new unit was assigned not only members of what had been DICAR, but of other police units as well. According to various accounts, its staff numbered between 100 and 150 agents, which included police who had previously been assigned to the CNI. The agency also had civilians with expertise in intelligence activities. It should be noted that former members of the Joint Command, which had operated in 1975 and 1976, particularly in conducting repression against the Communist party, were part of DICOMCAR. As its headquarters the DICOMCAR used the building on Calle Dieciocho previously used by the Joint Command and called "the Company."
            
            The DICOMCAR was engaged in intelligence activities. It is known that each week it prepared a report for the head of the police. Some of its functions also had to do with matters internal to the police. However, it also engaged in repressive activities. There is proof that in 1984 this agency made many arrests. There are signs of connections between the DICOMCAR and the CNI that year, although there were also conflicts between these two agencies. This agency was run by a director and an assistant director, both of whom were police colonels. Operational tasks of repression or counterinsurgency were located in a department of external affairs.
            
            The Commission examined evidence linking DICOMCAR personnel to the killing of Carlos Godoy Echegoyen, who died of torture at the police station in Quintero. However, it was its links to the slitting of the throats of three members of the Communist party in March 1985 that made the DICOMCAR most notorious. The discovery of this link was what brought about the disbanding of DICOMCAR and other important changes in the police, including the retirement of its general director.
            
            Although there is a great deal of evidence to presume that the DICOMCAR, which was made up of former members of the Joint Command, had reasons for being involved in this crime against the three Communists, and even though the CNI prepared a report to the judge investigating the case stating that the DICOMCAR was responsible, the involvement of other agencies cannot be ruled out.
            
            
      3. Victims of the CNI and other repressive government agencies or groups
         
         This chapter will later deal with those who were killed during the days of national protest. Victims of human rights violations committed by far left groups for political reasons will be discussed separately.
         
         Victims of fatal human rights violations committed by government agencies or groups (primarily the CNI) were chosen much more selectively during this period than they had been previously. Most of them were members of the MIR, the FPMR, and the CP. They had either returned to the country secretly, or they were involved in the MIR or FPMR military structure, or they were engaged in support tasks for that structure. Some persons killed in these parties or groups were involved in other functions, such as handling foreign communication.
         
         The motivation or justification for these repressive actions was basically the same as the motivations of the DINA or the Joint Command which have already been discussed. There was one difference, however: DINA logic justified killing activists in order to destroy the potential danger they represented, while for CNI members, who were combatting efforts at armed insurgency, the adversary or enemy was more tangible. From that standpoint, killing a prisoner or someone who may have been captured alive was understood as the kind of tough measure required in irregular warfare and which the adversary was also committing.
         
         That difference, which is both objective and a matter of perception, by no means justifies in the least the unlawful behavior of the CNI when it executed people who had been captured or who could be captured without great risk. It is important to stress this difference, however, for it makes it possible to become familiar with all aspects of the truth being studied, and all facets of the self-justifications offered even though they always remain unacceptable. Doing so also provides a basis for evaluating what must be done in the future so as to instill in the armed forces and police respect for certain basic norms. Such steps do not militate against the efficiency with which they are expected to carry out their functions, and there is no reason to think that they should do so.
         
         In a number of cases studied during this period it can be observed that the motivation for executions or other grave transgressions was to carry out reprisal or to teach a lesson. The victims who were killed were chosen in order to exact revenge for an act of terrorism or some other attack. Moreover, during this period there are cases such as that of Tucapel Jiménez and that of the three Communists whose throats were slit in March 1985, in which more complex or obscure motivations seem to be at work.
         
         
      4. Methods of repression
         
         There are some differences between the methods of repression used during this period and those of the 1974-1977 period, as described in the previous chapter. The main difference is that the CNI used two approaches to political repression or counterinsurgency. It formally arrested people and turned them over to the military prosecutors offices, but it also committed human rights violations and then used disinformation to conceal them-or indeed present them-as legitimate actions of self-defense in armed confrontations.
         
         
         1. Detection
            
            The CNI proved to be extremely effective in gathering intelligence on the clandestine parties that were the primary target of its repression and counterinsurgency. It was probably able to infiltrate some people into those parties or movements, even into high level positions. Of course the accumulated effect of its experience and actions, along with the ongoing use of torture to extract confessions and data, provided much additional information. The manner in which some of these groups conducted their operations or attempts at insurgency unquestionably played into the hands of the CNI.
            
            In any case it is clear that during this period the CNI was exercising surveillance over and following the members and liaisons of the groups it wanted to attack, sometimes over a long period. It was often in a perfect position to choose the exact manner, time, and place it wanted for the operation.
            
            
         2. Arrest
            
            Since it was now better able to gather information on those whom it was going to arrest, the CNI sometimes knew that the person was not particularly dangerous, and hence it did not deploy large numbers of police at the moment of arrest. However, in many cases it organized large operations with dozens of police, even more than a hundred, many vehicles, and a great deal of firepower. That kind of arrest was usually an operation designed to kill people rather than to arrest them. Similar large scale and very elaborate operations were sometimes arranged to kill people and then present what had happened as an arrest effort that had encountered resistance. In the primary operation that DICOMCAR is known to have organized, it also came out in force to make the arrest.
            
            
         3. Torture
            
            These agencies-the CNI, the DICOMCAR, and the group called COVEMA-practiced torture. CNI's use of torture was systematic but more selective than that of the DINA which tortured practically everyone who passed through some of its secret facilities. The main torture methods continued to be the use of electricity, especially on the sensitive parts of the body, all kinds of beatings, and plunging the person's head down into water to the brink of asphyxiation, and then doing it again. There are also indications that DICOMCAR and COVEMA practiced torture, even to the point of death, as this Commission has verified and as will be noted in the case material.
            
            
         4. Executions and forced disappearances
            
            During the 1981-1989 period, disappearances were carried out in such a way that there are practically no witnesses who saw the events or the places where the victims were held. Executions-carried out primarily by the CNI-took place in different types of contexts:
            
            
            • In some cases there really was a gun battle between the pursued and the pursuers, who were attempting either to arrest or kill their object. In some instances, those captured or wounded were then killed.
              
              
            • In other cases, the activist being pursued was simply killed in an ambush, which was then presented as a gun battle.
              
              
            • In a few instances there were other forms of execution, such as throat slitting, and kidnapping and execution with many shots to the head.
              
              
         5. Disposal of the body
            
            The bodies of those said to have been killed in a gun battle-whether real or fictitious-were generally handed over to their relatives. In some other instances their bodies were left on different properties, along a road, or in a swamp. There is no information about what may have happened to the remains of those who disappeared during this period.
            
            
         6. Methods for concealing the facts and issuing disinformation
            
            From the case narratives presented here, one can discern a variety of procedures used after the fact to resolve difficulties over the illegality of the arrest and to prevent the victim from being identified, or more generally to conceal or distort what happened. CNI agents were so protective of one another that on a number of occasions when appearing in court they did not provide their real names but used assumed names or nicknames.
            
            

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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 Three (A.1), 635-645.
Note: Digitized and posted by permission of the University of Notre Dame Press, February 22, 2000.