JUST FOR THE RECORD In 1983, linked to the Chilean Communist Party, the FPMR (Manuel Rodríguez Patriotic Front) is born, starting serious harassing of significant agents in the Pinochet regime. 1986 started with a strong aim to unify the Chilean left, finally nucleated as the MDP (Popular Democratic Movement). Soon after, the government issues its “Interior Security Plan”, a full-throttle intelligence initiative destined to identify the most prominent leftists activists and determine possible dates and places of subversive activities. According to international organisms, a third of all tortures and abuse of human rights that happened in Chile (since the constitution written and implanted by Pinochet started in 1981) occurred during the course of 1986. The heads of FPMR had been rounding the idea of killing General Pinochet since 1984. After the massive popular protests of May 1983, they had observed a “growing climate of discontent” and identified Pinochet as “the obstacle” in the fight for re-gaining of democracy. The actual planning of Operation XX Century started in Cuba in the first days of 1986, orchestrated by high officials of Chilean FPMR and MIR (Revolutionary Left Movement)–both considered radical “armed wings” of the Chilean leftist parties– with help of Cuban intelligence, and elements of the Central Committee of the Communist Party, which financed the operation. The FPMR military-styled hierarchy had five levels: friends, helpers, combatants, chiefs and commanders. José Valenzuela, 28, who had illegally returned to Chile from his exile in DDR, was assigned to head the operation, under the alias Commander Ernesto (he was chosen instead of top FPMR official Raúl Pellegrín, whose survival was considered “absolutely necessary” to face the political turmoil that would follow the death of the dictator). Valenzuela, the well-educated son of a diplomat, had studied Marx and Lenin in the DDR, being formed militarily in Bulgaria and trained on site with the contras in Nicaragua; back in Chile, he had proved a good militant by successfully directing 10-day-long programs of paramilitary instruction for FPMR recruits. The original plan was to blowup the presidential convoy using a “crater” underground bomb (which was actually placed in a sophisticated tunnel under the road to Pinochet’s house and was, as late as mid-July, discarded as an option, considering the high speed of the convoy, thus the low success rate) but the mission finally took the shape of a frontal-combat ambushing of the presidential convoy. César Bunster, 28, son of the Chilean ambassador in England during the Government of Salvador Allende (1970-1973), and recently allowed to return in Chile after 13 years of exile, was assigned the logistic aspects of the operation. Accompanied by Cecilia Magni, 29, Commander Tamara, pretending to be a young rich couple, they rented a house in “La Obra” –nearby Pinochet’s compound– and several cars that were required to be used in the attack. Vasily Carrillo, Commander Matias, illegally returned to Chile from his DDR exile, was assigned the transportation of weapons (coming from Cuba) On September 4th and 5th 1986, a series of serious national protests and concentrations happened throughout Chile, numerous workers and student assemblies took place, small spontaneous strikes and even armed confrontments with the national guards took place in the main cities. After personally directing the control and repression of these activities, Pinochet goes to rest in his house of “El Melocotón”, in the Maipo River canyon, in the mountains near Santiago. \He stayed there all Saturday September 6th and most of Sunday 7th, getting ready to go back to his Santiago house around 6 pm, as usual. The FPMR group to fulfill the operation included 15 men and 10 women, armed with M-16 rifles, sub-automatic 9 mm. guns, LOW rocket launchers The selected combatants were asked to participate in “a high risk operation that would change the course of history”, without really getting to know what the particular objective of the attack was until only a week before it happened. Some of the combatants received weapon instruction only during this final week. They were made to wear dark colored tracksuits or office suits, to resemble the outfits of the government intelligence. They all got instant glue spread on their fingertips, to avoid being identified by fingerprints while keeping fine motricity required for the handling of sophisticated weapons. In the last days of August, the FPMR units involved in the attack move into the rented headquarters house in “La Obra” and explore its surroundings in order to get familiar with the particular features of the planned action. Despise all the stealth of the FPMR operatives, the local neighbors were always suspicious of the number of cars and visits to the house, concluding that, being mostly young men, they had to be “either homosexuals or terrorists”. The original date of the attack, September 1st, was suspended due to the sudden death of ex-president Jorge Alessandri in Santiago, which altered Pinochet’s rigidly followed schedule. The rented cars had to be returned and a new reservation made for the next weekend. The combatants had to find a different lodging, staying within the attack zone, this time disguised as seminar students of the Schöenstatt order. One week later, at the headquarters of “La Obra”,as they were getting ready for the final encounter with the convoy, the combatants performed a ceremony where they listened to the FPMR hymn: As the shadow of a living memory *Manuel Rodríguez Erdoiza: They also listened to a tape recording of Salvador Allende’s last discourse, broadcasted on September 11th 1973 from the presidential palace of “Workers of my fatherland, I have faith in Chile and its destiny. Other men will surpass this gray and bitter moment when betrayal pretends to impose itself. Keep knowing that, sooner than later, the great avenues will again be open for the free man to walk towards the construction of a better society! A couple of days before Sunday 7th, two women (one of the of Swedish nationality) pretend to be skiers, and got lodged at a hostel, located 15 minutes before arrival to sector “Las Achupallas”, where the attack would take place. From there, the Swedish woman phones Bunster to announce the exact moment when the convoy passed by, giving the signal for the final phase of the operation to begin. The convoy was headed by two armed policemen on BMW motorcycles, Ambushed on the hillside, a total of 25 people distributed in four units Some people in the convoy survived the attack by jumping off the cliff towards the river down below, some hiding under the cars, not offering much resistance, even some who just layed on the asphalt pretending to be dead. Five members of the convoy were dead. All the attackers survived, Right after the attack, following the intense pressure in search of those responsible, the MDP decidedly collaborated with government agencies in the identification of hundreds of members of anti-dictatorial organizations. That same night, news agencies received calls by some “September 11th Command”, claiming immediate revenge for the five escorts dead in the attack and announcing that five opponents to the regime would be killed, which happened. A month after the attack, a finger print found in the house of “La Obra” (on a bottle of coca-cola) lead to the arrest of one of the attackers, four more the next morning, and once all were positively identified as members of FPMR, put in confined reclusion, incommunicados for 40 days. The “political prisoner” status justified the long extension of many arrests and arbitrary isolations, as well as steady harassment to lawyers and relatives of the involved, procedures that became the trademark of the judge in charge of the investigation: Military Prosecutor Hernán Torres Silva. November 5th: Fernando Volio, special observer of United Nations points out that Nine months after the attack, twelve members of FPMR were killed in Santiago by CNI in what was known as the Corpus Christi Massacre; three survivors were captured –accounting seven of the original participants of Operation XX Century. At the end of 1989, after hundreds of re-enactments, interrogations and arrests had been made and 40 thousand pages of judicial case had been written, Judge Torres Silva closed the investigation with nine people incarcerated, requesting the application of capital punishment to all of them. JUST FOR THE RECORD |
