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CHRONOLOGY - 1991
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JANUARY 3, 1991
The Military Court finds Army Captain Pedro
Fernandez Dittus guilty of negligence in the 1986 burning assault on
two young people by a military patrol, and sentences him to 300 days of
remitted prison. Nineteen year-old Rodrigo Rojas died as a result of the
burns while Carmen Gloria Quintana was left permanently scarred on 60
percent of her body. The verdict, which finds Fernandez negligent for
failing to get medical attention for Rojas and absolves him of any
responsibility in the Quintana burning, upholds an earlier decision made
by a Santiago military judge.
JANUARY 12, 1991
A massive funeral is held to pay tribute to the 16
campesinos killed in Paine in October of 1973. The 16 bodies
are transported from Santiago to Paine accompanied by hundreds of people.
The procession began at the Medical Legal Service in Santiago where the
bodies of the campesinos had remained concealed for over 15 years without
knowledge of their family members.
JANUARY 26, 1991
The Supreme Court suspends Judge Carlos Cerda
without salary for two months for refusing to invoke the amnesty law
to close a case related to the disappearances of 13 persons.
MARCH 3, 1991
A doctor accused of having participated in torture
sessions is shot dead alongside his wife in the city of Rancagua.
Doctor Carlos Perez Castro, a major in the Army and a medical surgeon, had
been accused by human rights organizations to have been linked to the CNI,
and in 1984 was sanctioned by the Medical Association after he admitted to
assisting CNI personnel in their torture sessions by examining prisoners
to confirm "their normal health conditions" after torture.
MARCH 4, 1991
The National Truth and Reconciliation Commission
formally presents its findings. The three-volume, 2,000-page report
concludes that at least 2,025 persons suffered serious human rights
violations resulting in death or disappearance at the hands of agents of
the state during the period of military rule. The Commission also reports
that another 90 were killed by civilians for political motives, and 164
more had died as a result of "political violence." President Aylwin
formally asks relatives of the victims for forgiveness, and calls for
gestures from the military acknowledging the pain and suffering inflicted.
Human rights advocates express concern that those responsible for the
crimes be brought to trial.
APRIL 1, 1991
Jaime Guzman, senator for the Independent Democratic
Union (UDI) and ideologue of the military regime, is gunned down
outside the Catholic University campus in Santiago by members of the
Manuel Rodriguez Patriotico Front (FPMR). Guzman was author of the
Constitution of 1980 and founder of the right wing UDI party. On March 17,
1991, Guzman described the Rettig Report as "superficial, distorted and
false in its interpretation of history."
APRIL 16, 1991
The government accuses the Frente Patriotico Manuel
Rodriguez (FPMR) of violating the State Internal Security Law and
orders a judicial investigation of the organization. Acting Interior
Minister Enrique Correa declares that the government's objective is to
eliminate terrorist groups who break the law and threaten national
unity.
APRIL 19, 1991
The government creates an anti-terrorist agency
called the Coordinating Office of Public Security. Attorney Mario
Fernandez is designated the head of the new entity which will "assess and
propose measures in strategic planning in the areas of violence and
terrorism" to the President by way of the Interior Ministry, and
"coordinate, in those same areas, the security and public order activities
of the Chilean Carabineros Police Force and the Chilean Investigations
Police in their respective areas of competence." The organization aims to
propose courses of action for collecting information.
APRIL 23, 1991
The last fugitive in the Letelier case is
arrested. Virgilio Pablo Paz, wanted in the assassination of former
Chilean Chancellor Orlando Letelier, is finally detained in Florida, USA
by FBI agents.
MAY 5, 1991
The Chilean Commission on Human Rights launches a national education campaign on human rights and truth. The campaign aims to promote awareness of the contents and consequences of the Rettig Report.
JUNE 2, 1991
A faction of the Frente Patriotico Manuel Rodriguez associated with the Communist Party renounces armed struggle and becomes a strictly political movement.
JUNE 7, 1991
A Former left activist turned informant testifies to aid location of the disappeared. Marcia Alejandra Merino Vega, known as "la Flaca Alejandra," declares for four hours before Judge Nibaldo Cabezas Lopez regarding the disappearance of numerous leftist activists in 1973 and 1974. Marcia Merino was a prominent MIR activist at the University of Concepcion in the early 1970s. Following her arrest and torture after the 1973 military coup, she collaborated with the DINA secret police to identify party activists. Numerous of those she identified were later disappeared.
JUNE 20, 1991
Fifty-one political prisoners, many of whom have never been sentenced, end a 23-day hunger strike demanding that the government expedite the handling of their cases. The hunger strike began May 29 in Santiago's Santo Domingo jail as well as the prisons in Valparaiso, Chillan, Rancagua, Concepcion, and Temuco. Later political prisoners of Santiago's Penitentiary joined in. At least six strikers had
been hospitalized by the time the effort was called to a halt.
JUNE 1991
The Supreme Court closes the investigation into the 1973 Calama executions and clandestine burials of 26 persons, upholding a military court decision to apply the amnesty law.
JULY 31, 1991
The Senate approves the creation of the National Office of Return charged with assisting exiles and their families returning to Chile.
SEPTEMBER 2, 1991
The exhumation of unmarked graves in Patio 29 begins. Forensic experts begin exhumation of 127 remains from unmarked graves in the Santiago General Cemetery's Patio 29. The remains correspond to persons illegally executed during the early years of the military regime.
NOVEMBER, 1991
Eugenio Berrios, a chemist for the DINA secret police disappears from Chile after Judge Adolfo Banados, special prosecutor in the Orlando Letelier assassination case, orders him to testify regarding his relation to former DINA agent Michael Townley. Berrios, who developed the lethal sarin gas, is believed to have operated a chemical laboratory in the basement of Townley's house, and has been linked to the
death of Spanish diplomat Carmelo Soria. He is last seen alive on November 15, 1992, in Uruguay, alleging to have fled from kidnappers and seeking police protection. On June 8, 1993, the Uruguayan government confirms Berrios had been abducted by military officials from that country. In April 1995, Berrios' body, with bullet wounds in the head, is discovered on a beach.
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