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November 23, 2005
Reprinted from an article in La Tercera by Hector Cossio.
Translation by Memoria y Justicia.
During the cross examination Judge Victor Montiglio conducted
on Friday, November 18 at the Military Club in Lo Curro, Augusto
Pinochet and Manuel Contreras each claimed the other held
responsibility for repressive actions the DINA committed from
1974-1977. The proceeding stems from Operation Colombo case,
in which Judge Montiglio must rule shortly. After Augusto
Pinochet claimed to have removed the DINA chief because he
offered to deposit money abroad, which infuriated Manuel Contreras.
In this excerpt from the cross-examination transcript, Pinochet
apologizes with the completely lucid excuse, "I got confused
and I came out with that nonsense that had no basis in reality."
Contreras accepts his apology.
AP: Augusto Pinochet MC: Manuel Contreras VM: Victor Montiglio
VM: Do you recognize the person who is present here?
AP: Yes, I know the person who is sitting in front of me.
He is General Manuel Contreras. VM: Do you maintain your statement
that general Pinochet commissioned you to carry out a study
that led to the creation of the National Intelligence Directorate?
MC: When my general was assistant director of the War Academy
and I was professor of intelligence, I was asked to study
how to organize a National Intelligence Office, which did
not exist in the country. My general received that work. That
is why later he remembered it and ordered me to present the
Government Junta my proposal to create a National Intelligence
Directorate. This I did and the proposal was approved November
12, 1973.
AP: I do no recall but it is quite possible that it happened
in the way General Contreras has described.
VM: Do you ratify your statement that general Pinochet was
the direct leader of the DINA, as Army commander in chief,
president of the Government Junta and later as President Republic?
MC: I maintain my statements with one modification. It was
not in his capacity as commander in chief of the Army because
the DINA did not come under the Army. At first it came under
the Government Junta and later under the President of the
Republic. The President was General Augusto Pinochet Ugarte.
(Contreras
hands a photocopy of Decree Law 521, which created the DINA,
to Pinochet who examines it.)
AP: I was never the direct chief of the DINA. The DINA came
under the Junta, as the decree indicates.
(Contreras shows Pinochet a document in which the president
of the Government Junta certifies that "lieutenant colonel
Manuel Contreras Sepulveda is his delegate for conducting
procedures before various autonomous public agencies.")
AP: That document implies that all agencies must lend support
and resolve what he requests.
MC:
In the Army the official delegate represents the chief.
VM: Do you maintain your statement to the effect that as director
of the DINA you were accountable exclusively to general Pinochet
for all the work conducted by the DINA?
MC: That is so. I must add that when I refer to "exclusively,"
I mean that I informed him in person or in writing through
a daily informational bulletin that I also presented to the
other Junta members. Only exceptionally did I personally inform
the other Junta members, when they called me.
AP: I do not remember well. But I seem to recall that he informed
me personally and also the other Junta members by the bulletin
in order not to repeat the same thing before the other four
of the Junta.
VM: Do you maintain your statement that the DINA never conducted
any activity that was not ordered or informed properly and
timely fashion to general Pinochet, as that organization,
by law, had a hierarchical and disciplined structure?
MC: I maintain my statements. Everything the DINA did and
not just what is charged.
VM: Do you maintain your statement to the effect that in regards
to human rights violations, your superior officer, general
Pinochet, has kept permanently silent and has never come to
the DINA�s defense?
MC: I maintain my statements.
AP: I would have had to devote all my time to the DINA and
devote my time only to it. In regards to defending the DINA,
what should I defend, if I had no knowledge of its activities?
And the person in charge was general Contreras.
MC: I carried out what the President of the Republic ordered
me to do.
AP: I do not remember anything of what Contreras is talking
about.
VM: Do you maintain your statement that general Pinochet is
responsible for any unlawful actions related to human rights
violations because he held responsibility as chief?
MC: I am saying that the President, as the immediate superior
officer of the DINA, should have been accountable for everything
the DINA is accused of committing, which are unlawful actions
that are untrue. Besides, neither the President nor I ever
ordered such actions, which are nothing more than proof of
hatred and vengeance as well as reprisals taken before the
Courts by means of false witnesses who the Investigations
Fifth Department have trained to raise false testimony and
lie.
AP: I was not the immediate superior officer of the DINA.
The immediate superior was the Government Junta, as stated
in D.L. 521.
MC: As I said previously, D.L. 521 that created the DINA,
established that the DINA would be answer to the Government
Junta, but that was when the Junta was the Executive Branch.
But in late June 1974 that passed to hands of General Augusto
Pinochet.
VM: Why were you dismissed as director of DINA?
MC: I was never dismissed. On August 12,1977 the DINA terminated
by a law. And on that same day, a law created the CNI, which
continued its mandate until November 3, 1977, date when I
was promoted to the rank of general. My general Pinochet called
me gave me a new assignment to the Army Engineers Command.
VM: Why did DINA cease to exist?
MC: I had a long conversation with the President, who said
the DINA had fulfilled its mission. The country was calm and
it was proper to create a new intelligence agency with different
authority, for example, it had the prohibition against arresting
people and it came under the Interior Ministry.
AP:
In regards to General Contreras leaving the position, I must
correct myself. I misspoke, I got confused and I came out
with that nonsense that has no basis in reality, in saying
that he was fired because he had offered to deposit money
abroad. That is false and is due to a slip of memory because
my head is failing me. Especially after these two weeks of
questioning. This is intended as an explanation to general
Contreras.
MC:
I understand what my general is saying and I completely accept
his excuses. I understand that it is a memory problem.
"There were 32,000 terrorists in Chile."
AP:
I am saying that general Contreras, as service chief was responsible
for what the DINA did. He is responsible for what was done
by the DINA. How could I be responsible? I could only have
indirect responsibility. Because if the chief asks the intelligence
service about something, it is the chief asking. Now, as service
chief, how he will obtain that information is his problem.
MC:
I base my statement on what is said in article 1 of D.L. N521
regarding the mission that the National Intelligence service
would have. VM to Contreras: Do you agree that one of the
objectives of DINA was to attack terrorist organizations and
therefore these would be considered enemies?
MC:
That statement is absurd. Protection of national security
was one of the missions that the President of the Republic
gave us with greatest emphasis. He gave us orders that under
no circumstances should these be considered political institutions.
We were facing 32,000 terrorists from 43 countries around
the world in addition to more than 21,000 Chilean terrorists,
y absolutely no one in the DINA had met a terrorist, when
we had come into action in April 1974. Never were we ever
ordered to attack terrorists so they were unknown to us and
it took us years to understand their structure. In addition
articles 8 and 9 of D.L. N 521 through the Arms Control Law
and state of siege authority permitted us to arrest terrorists
and turn them over to the President of the Republic and the
Interior Ministry to send them to prisoner camps. Proof of
that are the decrees that I exhibit before the court.
Lastly, I would like to add that the DINA participated in
more 100 urban combats in which agents were attacked by terrorists
and would have to kill or else be killed in action. In 43
urban combats 80 terrorists fell who are considered as combat
deaths and were turned over as NN to the Medical Forensic
Institute, according to the list of disappeared persons whose
final destination I presented to the courts.
AP:
I do not remember. I never got involved in those things, not
out of cowardliness but because I did not know about them.
"If
the DINA files were burned, it must have been Mena who ordered
it."
Judge
Victor Montiglio asks where the DINA files are.
Manuel
Contreras: I had two hours on November 3, 1977 to turn over
DINA to general Odlanier Mena, with Interior Minister general
Cesar Raul Benavides serving as intermediary. As stated previously,
it is not my responsibility if DINA files do not exist. Besides,
Law 18.771, on January 17, 1989 called for maintaining documents
for five years on account of national defense.
V.M:
According to Army lieutenant colonel (retired) Eduardo Guy
Neckelmann Schultz you ordered that part of the DINA files
be destroyed.
M.C.:
I did not order because I had two hours to turn over the Directorate,
as I had been ordered. Besides lieutenant colonel Guy Neckelmann
has a Medical Forensic Institute certificate that states he
is crazy. Second, general Mena lies and in fact if the DINA
files were burned, it must have been he who ordered it. He
always acted in bad faith. The President ordered him to go
to Punta Arenas to talk to me and brigadier Pedro Espinoza,
to get Espinoza to confess as author of the assassination
of Orlando Letelier.
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