Chile: Supreme Court Condemns 19 Agents Of The Dictatorship

On Thursday, Chile’s Supreme Court sentenced 19 agents of the defunct National Intelligence Directorate (DINA) to prison for the kidnapping of the brothers Carlos and Aldo Perez during the Augusto Pinochet dictatorship (1973-1990).

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In September 1974, these Revolutionary Left Movement (MIR) militants were arrested, tortured, and killed. Judge Hernan Crisosto Greisse determined that Carlos Perez was detained in his office by agents of the Military Intelligence Service (SIM) who transferred him to the DINA clandestine center called "Ollague". There, he was tortured to make him confess to his political activities and to expose other militant MIRs.

Later, his name appeared on a list of 119 people published in an article in the Brazilian press according to which Perez and 58 MIR militants had died in clashes with the Argentine army in 1975. This version of what happened, however, was fake news.

Aldo Perez was arrested in the vicinity of Fernandez Albano street by DINA agents. Like his brother, he was transferred to clandestine detention centers, where he was also tortured and killed.

To hide what happened to 119 members of the left-wing resistance, the DINA implemented “Operation Colombo”, a disinformation strategy that was carried out with the complicity of the media to cover up murders and human rights violations.

In July 1975, the Chilean dictatorship created a magazine in Argentina and reactivated a newspaper in Brazil to spread false news according to which the disappeared MIR militants had been assassinated by their own comrades. This fake new was later reproduced by UPI Agency and Chilean outlets such as La Tercera, El Mercurio and La Segunda.

Supported by the Argentine and Brazilian dictatorships, Pinochet's secret police tried to make believe that the disappeared Chileans were actually guerrillas who were executed by their own comrades or died in combat abroad.