Reply #4: Pinochet-era officer dies in Chile

[Judi Lynn]

This story is from our news.com.au network Source: Reuters
Pinochet-era officer dies in Chile
• From correspondents in Santiago
• July 05, 2007

ONE of the most notorious figures from the Chilean dictatorship of late Gen. Augusto Pinochet died yesterday having served five years in prison for human rights abuses.
Osvaldo Romo, known as “El Guaton” (The fat one) and accused by his victims of being a brutal torturer, died of heart failure in a prison hospital in the capital Santiago at 4:45am (18:45AEST), the hospital said.

He was 69.
Romo was an officer in the DINA, the intelligence service set up by Pinochet after he seized power in a military coup in 1973.
Nearly 3200 people died in political violence during the subsequent 17-year dictatorship, many at the hands of the DINA.

A further 28,000 were tortured and thousands more went into exile abroad.
Romo worked at Santiago's Villa Grimaldi, the most notorious of the DINA's detention centres.

Survivors of Villa Grimaldi described him as a sadistic torturer.
Michelle Bachelet, Chile's current President, was briefly detained at Villa Grimaldi in the 1970s.
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,22020930-1702,00.html




Villa Grimaldi
Short history of Villa Grimaldi, in Pinochet’s grasp:

From 1892, the land belonged to the family of Jose Arrieta. The cultural tradition was continued with meetings of music and literature that lasted until 1940, when the land was sold to Emilio Vasallo, who turned the house into a restaurant. Vasallo was instrumental in encouraging the tradition of it being a meeting place for intellectuals and artists. The restaurant's grounds had many beautiful plants, statues, fountains and mosaics to make it appear like an Italian villa, hence the name Villa Grimaldi.
In September 1973, the vista was transformed by the arrival of military vehicles and army personnel. The Commando of Army Telecommunications was situated a little distance from the villa. Here, Pinochet had his quarters, from where he directed the bloody crushing of Chilean democracy from a safe, secure and pleasant site.
At the end of 1973, Vasallo was forced to handover the property to DINA, or his daughter would be tortured. From December 1 that year, Villa Grimaldi was the secret centre of detention and torture. The secret police thought it was clever to convert this place, once the centre of intellectual and artistic life, into the place where Chile's best, bravest and most committed intellectuals were destroyed.

http://www.greenleft.org.au/2003/547/29894
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Torturers, Collaborators and Accomplices
This is a list of some of the members of the Chilean Army, Air Force, Navy and the Secret Police (DINA and CNI) indicted for human rights violations committed during the military dictatorship in Chile (1973-1990). Many of them continue to walk freely in Chile and some even occupy important places within many Chilean institutions. Only a handful have been tried and given prison sentences.
Abarzua, Gustavo
Retired General, was Director of the C.N.I. (Central Nacional de Inteligencia - the Chilean secret police) and later head of the DINE (Army secret police), a position he kept until he retired. He was one of the men Pinochet trusted and occupied two of the highest positions in the repression. On December 28th he was arrested for his participation in the secret financial scheme known as “La Cutufa”

Acevedo, Luis
Actively participated in the so-called “Operacion Albania” that took place between the 15th and 16th of June 1987, when twelve people belonging to the Manuel Rodriguez Patriotic Front were murdered in separate locations in Santiago.

Acevedo, Hugo
This agent, who worked in the general quarters of the DINA along with Alejandro Burgos de Beer, was personal secretary to Manuel Contreras, the director of the repressive organization.

Acuña, Victor
A CNI agent, who during University protests, was seen firing against students who were demanding the democratization of the country. In November 1984 he was captured by students who held him up to a “Popular Court” (“Juicio popular”). He admitted to being an agent of the CNI, named his superiors and admitted to his participation in the torture of political prisoners.

Acuña, Cesar
This CNI member participated in Operation Albania between the 15th and 16th of June 1987 during the Corpus Christi holiday, where twelve people belonging to the Manuel Rodriguez Patriotic Front were murdered in various locations in Santiago.

Acuña, Mario
This Military Prosecutor ordered the kidnapping and execution of Isiaias Higueras, a prisoner, on January 11, 1974. Isaias Higueras was imprisoned in the Pisagua prison camp when, without a court order, he was taken out of the camp and shot. Later in July 1989 his body was exhumed from the local cemetery and relocated in an unknown location.

Aguilera, Juan
This investigative detective was indicted by the Fourth Criminal Court of San Miguel for the arrest and unlawful application of physical force and serious injuries against the political prisoner Roberto Javier Munoz Munos.

Aldoney, Guillermo
A navy Captain and Joint Chief of Staff of the First Naval Zone. Along with the ships Lebu and Maipo, the naval ship Esmeralda was used as a place of detention and torture of political prisoners after the military coup of 1973, as was noted in the Rettig Report and other reports from the OEA (Organization of American States), Amnesty International, and the United States Senate.


Cont’d
http://www.memoriaviva.com/English/criminals_list.htm

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Over 1200 centre of detention and torture have been identified so far, some of them are listed here:
Cont’d
http://www.memoriaviva.com/English/centros_detencion_lista.htm


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The ‘Dolphins’ that Exterminated the Communist Party
From the newspaper ‘La Nacion’
Sunday, 1st April 2007
Judge Víctor Montiglio’s investigation uncovered the existence of an elite cell of La Dirección de Inteligencia Nacional (DINA: National Intelligence Directorate: the Chilean Secret Police), known as ‘Delfín’ (Dolphin) that was created especially by Manuel Contreras and Pinochet to exterminate the leaders of the Communist Party (PC). Fifty accused members described to the judge the most harrowing part of the dictatorship:
By Jorge Escalante and Javier Rebolledo
The 15 year old boy received the Mack-10 submachine gun and the briefcase from the hands of Colonel Manuel Contreras, and then nodded towards him - the chief operative of the DINA. They had taught him that this was what he should do every time ‘el Mamo’ arrived in his house in Pocuro with Antonio Varas, in the Providencia suburb of Santiago.
“Look you idiot, you gotta be more alert when the boss comes and gives you your things. And from now on you bow to him, because here this shit is serious. And it’s ‘Colonel’, none of this ‘Señor Contreras’. This aint no social club, this shit is the DINA”, had shouted subcommander Olmedo, one of Contreras’ bodyguards, while he grabbed the boy’s hair and shoved a pistol against his forehead.
After that episode, “el Mamo” went away to relax and waited for the boy to serve dinner. The kid had arrived at the house one day in 1974, with a recommendation from General Galvarino Mandujano, who had mentioned him to María Teresa Valdebenito, Contreras’ wife.
After that, things happened quickly. After a brief military preparation, the boy joined DINA’s Lautaro Brigade, first in a department on the 19th floor of Tower 5 in the San Borja complex, in the centre of Santiago, and then the Simón Bolívar 8630 jail, in La Reina.
The original purpose of the brigade was to provide protection to Contreras and his family, but from 1976, this objective deviated towards killing communists.
An eager, curious boy, he wanted to get involved in everything. He witnessed tortures, heard the screams of pain, saw the blood spill from members of the PC. Once, he even had to hold his breath so that he didn’t shout when his bosses used a blowtorch to erase the fingerprints and a scar from the body of a militant communist.
Thirty years later, wracked by his conscience, he decided to reveal what he had witnessed. Last January he faced the Brigada de Asuntos Especiales y Derechos Humanos (BAEDH: Taskforce on Special Issues and Human Rights) of the Investigative Police, and then he spoke with Judge Víctor Montiglio, who led the investigation into the abduction and disappearance of the first clandestine directorate of the PC in May 1976, known as ‘calle Conferencia’ (Conference Street).
Cont’d
http://www.memoriaviva.com/English/the_workings_of_the_secret_police.htm

One of Romo’s victims, Diana Frida Aron Svigilisky.
http://www.ecomemoria.com/app/ViewTree.aspx?IDACT=1&IDTREE=2&IDLANG=0

~snip~
HEADLINE: ROMO PROHIBITED FROM ACCESS TO PRESS
KEYWORD: HUMAN RIGHTS; JUSTICE; MEDIA
SOURCE: LA NACION
SOURCE: LA EPOCA
TEXT: The courts will probably not authorize any more press
interviews with former DINA agent Osvaldo Romo, after his recent
statements to the Hispanic channel Univision, said Justice Minister
Soledad Alvear.
"After hearing this man's incredible statements on television, I
think it is frankly dangerous that he continue giving interviews to
the press," said Minister Alvear. "He advocated violence on TV, and I
think this hurts the country. I think it is improbable that the judges
handling his cases will authorize another interview."
It was the director of the national prison system who
authorized the television interview with the former DINA agent,
sidestepping the required judicial authorization, she added.
Osvaldo Romo, currently imprisoned in the Penitentiary
hospital, is being tried for his involvement in eleven human rights
cases. In the Univision interview, the ex-DINA agent said he
"wouldn't have left anyone alive" and said that "torture was good"
but no one can accuse him of offending anyone.
According to Nancy Guzman, Univision correspondent in Chile,
Romo agreed to the interview after his lawyer approved it. Guzman
stated that some parts of the interview were cut in Univision's Miami
studios, because Romo's "crude" descriptions of the conditions in
which he left his victims may have offended viewers.More:
http://ssdc.ucsd.edu/news/chip/h95/chip.19950524.html