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TEJAS VERDES
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"From here we have a full view of the entire camp and its operations. In the morning, around noon and in the afternoon the trucks leave to fetch breakfast and meals at the Zapadores Regiment - where the torture is conducted - with the soup pots that we ourselves must wash. These are the same trucks that later carry the prisoners to torture. We have to unload them ourselves and- when the soldiers have distributed them in the other yard - reheat them for ourselves and wash the utensils used by the incomunicado prisoners and later by us. We watch how they bring - never at regular intervals - the prisoners from the other patio to the truck that will take them to be tortured. And we watch them come back, just like I came back."
(Excerpt from "Tejas Verdes", 1994)
"...the teacher decided to get straight to the point: he said we should be aware that we would all be tortured... "
(Read testimony provided by Hernán Valdes, concentration camp survivor in "Tejas Verdes,", 1974)
Location:
Just south of the port city of San Antonio, near Llo-Lleo.
Duration:
From September 11, 1973 until mid-1974.
Prisoners:
Over 100 prisoners at times.
Conditions: (The following are excerpts from the Rettig Report)
Tejas Verdes, officially called Prison Camp No. 2 of the Military Engineers' School, was one of the first concentration camps created by the military regime and was known primarily as a torture camp.
An OAS delegation visited Tejas Verdes in July 1974 and verified it held 200 detainees. They found 30 wooden barracks, 15 for men and 15 for women.
Other detention centers in the area:
San Antonio Public Jail. Run by the national prison system under the military control of the Tejas Verdes Military Engineers' School. The International Committee of the Red Cross reported after a visit there on October 12, 1973, that the conditions were "barely acceptable" and very insufficient from a hygenic point of view. The same report revealed the high number of medical consultations - about 35 daily - made by prisoners, who numbered 100 at that time.
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