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AIR WAR ACADEMY (AGA)
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(La Cabaña 711, Las Condes)
(From Rettig Report)This center for detention and torture operated from the end of 1973 until the end of 1974, formally under the control of the Aviation Office, which was coordinated by the Air Force Intelligence (SIFA).
The prisoners were kept underground at SIFA, where there were classrooms and bathrooms used for solitary confinement. Among the favored forms of torture were beatings, insertion of sharp objects under the fingernails, a hanging torture called "pau de arrara" and keeping the victim blindfolded for extended periods of time. In addition, victims were subjected to other forms of abuse. For example, guards were often given instructions for treatment of the prisoners such as: "no food or water for 48 hours," "only one meal per day," or "remain standing until further notification."
General Bachelet was detained and tortured in this center in 1973. José Luis Baeza Cruces, a member of the PC Central Committee, who later disappeared, was also detained there.
Some of the prisoners that were found to be in bad physical or mental condition resulting from this treatment were taken to the FACH Hospital.
In their interrogations, SIFA and the Aviation Office sought information about any weapons or intelligence knowledge possessed by those political parties that might constitute an armed threat. In 1974 the repression focused on the MIR, although many from the Socialist Party and its ex-members were detained in 1973. Later, they turned their efforts to members of the Communist Party.
The information gained from these interrogations was later used by the Joint Command, an organization composed primarily of the Air Force security troops.
Some of those who were detained and tortured in this center later collaborated with the SIFA, and later with the Joint Command.
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