Resistance to Pinochet

Resistance to Pinochet refers to various methods taken out by leftist guerillas in Chile under thePinochet Dictatorship.

Groups

• Revolutionary Left Movement (MIR) - Marxist-Leninist guerilla group that evolved out of student activism and trade unions in 1967.
• Lautaro Youth Movement (MJL) - Marxist-Leninist-Maoist guerilla group that was formed by former members of the MAPU political party, a small democratic socialist political party inspired by Liberation Theology in 1982.
• Manuel Rodriguez Patriotic Front (FPMR) - Marxist-Leninist guerilla group that formed as the paramilitary wing of the Communist Party of Chile in 1983.

Notable Actions

On 23 October 1973, 23-year-old Army Corporal Benjamín Alfredo Jaramillo Ruz, who was serving with the Cazadores, became the first fatal casualty of the counterinsurgency operations in the mountainous area of Alquihue in Valdivia after being shot by a sniper.^[38] The Chilean Army suffered 12 killed in various clashes with MIR guerrillas and GAP fighters in October 1973.^[39] On 18 November 1974, guerrillas open fire on an army vehicle, killing Corporal Francisco Cifuentes Espinoza.^[40] On 17 November, MIR guerrillas shoot and kill army sergeant Waldo Morales Neal and private Clemente Santibáñez Vargas. On 7 November 1973, guerrillas open fire on an army truck in the suburb of La Florida in Santiago, killing private Agustín Correa Contreras. On 13 November, MIR guerrillas killed army corporal Juan Castro Vega. On 27 November, MIR guerrillas kill army corporal Ramón Madariaga Valdebenito. On 3 December 1973, MIR guerrillas kill two army corporals, Rodolfo Peña Tapia and Luis Collao Salas and a private, Julio Barahona Aranda. On 13 December 1973, guerrillas open fire and kill two army sergeants, Sergio Cañón Lermanda and Pedro Osorio Guerrero. On 15 December 1973, guerrillas shoot and kill army corporal Roberto Barra Martínez in the suburb of La Reina in Santiago. On 26 December 1973, guerrillas open fire on an army jeep, killing private José Luis Huerta Abarca. By the end of the year, the Chilean police would claim to have uncovered a huge arms cache, that included 5,000 HK-33 sub-machineguns and corresponding ammunition numbering in the millions and large quantities of 20-mm anti-tank gun shells.^[41]

On February 19, 1975, four captured MIR commanders went on national television to urge their guerrillas to lay down their arms. According to them, the MIR leadership was in ruins: of the 52 commanders of the MIR, nine had been killed, 24 were prisoners, ten were in exile, one had been expelled from the group, and eight were still at large.^[42] On 18 November 1975, MIR guerrillas killed a 19-year-old army conscript (Private Hernán Patricio Salinas Calderón).^[43] On 24 February 1976, MIR guerrillas in a gunbattle with Chilean secret police, shot and killed a 41-year-old carabinero sergeant (Tulio Pereira Pereira).^[44] The Chilean secret police on this occasion were met with a hail of automatic weapons fire, killing a carabinero and a girl.^[45] On 28 April 1976, MIR guerrillas shot and killed a 29-year-old carabineros corporal (Bernardo Arturo Alcayaga Cerda) while he was walking home in the Santiago suburb of Pudahuel.^[44] On 16 October 1977, MIR guerrillas exploded 10 bombs in Santiago. In 1978 the MIR sought to reestablish a guerrilla front in southern Chile and launched Operation Return which involved clandestine entry, recruitment, bombings and bank robberies in Santiago that briefly shook the military regime.^[46] In February 1979 MIR guerrillas bombed the US-Chile Cultural Institute in Santiago, causing considerable damage. In 1979, about 40 bombings were blamed on MIR guerrillas. Several police, military and civilians caught in the crossfire and bomb blasts were killed in the renewed MIR attacks in the Chilean capital and at least 70 soldiers and policemen were wounded battling the marxist guerrillas.^[47]

In order to reinforce urban guerrilla warfare waged in the main cities, the MIR commanders in 1978 had set in motion Operación Retorno (Operation Return), ordering exiled militants back into Chile.

In 1980, a platoon of thirty well-equipped MIR combatants of the Toqui Lautaro Battalion infiltrated into the mountains of Neltume in southern Chile and reestablished a guerrilla front. The MIR spearhead was commanded by 30-year-old Miguel Cabrera Fernández (nome de guerre Paine), who along with 120-150 Chileans had completed their training for this operation in Czechoslovakia, Cuba and North Korea.^[48]

The Chilean Army moved against the guerrillas in Neltume in June 1981, in a massive operation spearheaded by the Chilean Para-Commandos (elite Black Berets) all under the command of Colonel Orlando Basauri, with support from 10 Puma and Lama helicopters. Flora Jaramillo had fed and attended three MIR guerrillas that had sought refuge in her house, and not wanting to be later accused of collaborating with the enemy had sent her 15-year-old son Juan Carlos Henríquez Jaramillo to warn the local police station. Carabineros soon surrounded her house and opened fire, killing all the guerrillas and destroying the house, but not before warning Mrs Jaramillo to get out. The Special Forces involved discovered the first guerrilla arms cache on 25 June killing Raúl Rodrigo Obregón Torres (nome de guerre Pablo) in the process, and four more store dumps were uncovered by the end of the first week in July. Another gun-battle took place on 28 June, but it took some time before Basauri's men could corner the guerrilla force.^[49] Nevertheless, seven MIR guerrillas were reported killed in an ambush in the third week of September, just after the 8th-anniversary of the 1973 military coup, but the survivors were able to escape and blend in with the local population. On 19 September 1981, Army Private Victor Manuel Nahuelpan Silva is killed during operations in Neltume. On 16 October 1981, Juan Angel Ojeda Aguayo (nom de guerre Pequeco) who had escaped the mountain fighting was caught and executed while resting at his parents’ home. Miguel Cabrera Fernández was himself killed on 15 October 1981, in a clash with policemen at Choshuenco.

The Pinochet regime launched another counterinsurgency operation in August 1984 to wipe out the remaining guerrillas, concentrating in the areas around Concepción, Valdivia and Los Angeles, killing seven more MIR fighters and forcing the remainder to go into permanent hiding.

Some forty MIR fighters lost their lives between 1978 (when Operation Return was set in motion) and 1984 when the MIR insurgency was finally defeated in southern Chile. Another 41 supporting Mapuche Indians that had earlier on taken part in the land and business takeovers under Salvador Allende were killed with 80 only spared after having been rounded up in and around Neltume and held for long periods in secret detention camps.^[50] Guillermina Reinante, had three brothers rounded up and forcibly disappeared up by soldiers from the 8th Tucapel Infantry Regiment in late 1973. When she enquired about their whereabouts a female military official informed her that they had been executed. In the 2012 Chilean TV documentary Neltume 81 Reinante claimed that the military had executed her brothers in revenge for taking part in the land expropriations.

On 15 July 1980, three guerrillas in blue overalls and yellow hardhats ambushed the car of Lieutenant-Colonel Roger Vergara Campos, director of the Chilean Army Intelligence School, and killed him and wounded his driver in a barrage of bullets from AK-47 assault rifles.^[51] On 30 December 1980, MIR guerrillas kill two carabineer corporals, 31-year-old Washington Godoy Palma and 27-year-old Daniel Alberto Leiva González.^[52]

In a message sent to Santiago press agencies in February 1981 the MIR claimed to have carried out more than 100 attacks during 1980, among them the bombing of electricity pylons in Santiago and Valparaiso on November 11 which caused widespread blackouts, and bomb attacks on three banks in Santiago on December 30 in which one carabinero was killed and three people wounded.^[53] On 19 September 1981, Army Private Victor Manuel Nahuelpan Silva is killed during counter-insurgency operations in the Neltume area.^[54] In November 1981, MIR guerrillas killed three member of Police Investigations as they stood in front of the home of the chief minister of the presidential staff. In sweeps carried out from June to November 1981, security forces destroyed two MIR bases in the mountains of Neltume, seizing large caches of munitions and killing a number guerrillas.^[55] MIR guerrillas retaliated and carried out twenty-six bomb attacks during March and April 1983.^[27]

Leftist guerrillas, waiting in a yellow pick-up truck, ambushed on 30 August 1983 the governor of Santiago, retired Major-General Carol Urzua Ibáñez as he left his home, killing him and two of his bodyguards (army corporals Carlos Riveros Bequiarelli and José Domingo Aguayo Franco) in a hail of submachine-gun fire.^[56] In October and November 1983, MIR guerrillas bombed four US-associated targets. Guerrillas killed two policemen (carabinieri Francisco Javier Pérez Brito and sergeant Manuel Jesús Valenzuela Loyola) on 28 December 1983.^[57]

On 31 March 1984, a police bus in downtown Santiago was destroyed with a bomb, killing a carabinero and injuring at least 11.^[58] On 29 April 1984, MIR guerrillas exploded 11 bombs, derailing a subway train in Santiago and injuring 22 passengers, including seven children.^[59] On 5 September 1984, guerrillas shot and killed 27-year-old army lieutenant Julio Briones Rayo in Copiapó in northern Chile.^[60] On 2 November 1984, a bus carrying carabineros was attacked with a grenade during Chile's national cycling championship; four carabineros were killed.^[61] On 4 November 1984, five guerrillas riding in a van hurled bombs and fired automatic weapons at a suburban Santiago police station, killing two carabineros and wounded three more.^[62] On 7 December 1984, urban guerrillas killed a policeman and bombed a subway station, wounding 6 people.^[63] On 25 March 1985, MIR guerrillas planted a bomb in Hotel Araucano in Concepcion that killed marine sergeant René Osvaldo Lara Arriagada and army sergeant Alejandro del Carmen Avendaño Sánchez, who were attempting to defuse the bomb. On 6 December 1985, a carabinero (Patricio Rodriguez Núñez) was shot to death by four guerrillas who opened fire on him with submachine-guns as he walked home.^[64] That same month, 15 city buses were destroyed with gasoline bombs and urban guerrillas hurled a bomb under an incoming train in Santiago, before making good their escape after a shootout with policemen.^[65] The total number of documented terrorist actions during 1984 and 1985 was 866.^[66]

On 5 February 1986, a car bomb destroyed a bus filled with riot police, mutilating 16 policemen. One carabinero (41-year-old Sergeant Luis Rival Valdés) later died of his wounds.^[67] The MIR claimed responsibility for the bombing.^[68] On 17 February 1986, two trains crashed in an area of Limache that had been reduced to one track after MIR guerrillas had destroyed a nearby bridge,^[69] killing 100 and wounding 500 civilians.^[70] On 26 February 1986, unidentified guerrillas or their sympathizers shoot and kill carabineer Lieutenant Alfonso Mauricio Rivera López.^[71] In May 1986 MIR guerrillas threw sulphuric acid into a bus, seriously injuring six people, including two children.^[72] On 25 July 1986, a bomb planted in a trash can exploded at a crowded bus stop a few yards from the presidential palace, wounding 36 people.^[73][74] On 6 August 1986, security forces discovered 80 tons of weapons at the tiny fishing harbor of Carrizal Bajo, smuggled into the country by the Manuel Rodríguez Patriotic Front (FPMR). The shipment of Carrizal Bajo included C-4 plastic explosives, 123 RPG-7 and 180 M72 LAW rocket launchers as well as 3,383 M-16 rifles.^[75] On 7 September 1986, about 30 FPMR guerrillas attempted to kill Pinochet. Pinochet narrowly escaped the assassination attempt on his motorcade, but five army corporals were killed and eleven soldiers and carabineros were wounded in the ambush.^[76] This failed operation led to an internal crisis of the group, many of its leading members being arrested by the security forces. On 28 October 1986, MIR guerrillas operating in Limache shot and wounded five policemen. One carabinero NCO (36-year-old Luis Serey Abarca) later died of his wounds.^[77] On 5 November 1986, guerrillas threw an incendiary bomb into a bus in Viña del Mar, seriously injuring three women (Rosa Rivera Fierro, Sonia Ramírez Salinas and Marta Sepúlveda Contreras). 37-year-old Rosa Rivera Fierro, later died of her wounds.^[78] On 28 November 1986, MIR guerrillas after having been stopped by a police vehicles, shot and killed 31-year-old carabinero Lieutenant Jaime Luis Sáenz Neira.^[79]

On 11 September 1987, a police vehicle was completely destroyed in a bomb attack in Santiago, killing two carabineros. On 20 January 1988, a bomb planted by MIR guerrillas in the Capredena Medical Center in Valparaiso killed a 64-year-old female pensioner (Berta Rosa Pardo Muñoz) and wounded 15 other women.^[80] On January 26, MIR guerrillas planted a bomb in a house in La Cisterna that killed 42-year-old Major Julio Eladio Benimeli Ruz, commander of the carabineros special operations group. In June 1988, MIR guerrillas conducted a series of bombings in Santiago, at various banks. FPMR guerrillas that month killed 43-year-old Lieutenant-Colonel Miguel Eduardo Rojas Lobos of the Chilean Army, after he had parked his car in the Santiago suburb of San Joaquín.^[81] On 19 July 1988, leftists plant a bomb near a Church in Valparaíso, wounding three local churchgoers (Juan Salazar Olivares, Nelson Pérez and Luis Herrera)^[82] In October 1988, several platoons of the Frente Patriótico Manuel Rodríguez take over four important towns throughout the country, Aguas Grandes, La Mora, Los Queñes and Pichipellahuén.^[83] Considerable fighting takes place, before the Chilean military and police are able to recover the towns.^[84] Corporal Juvenal Sepúlveda Vargas is killed defending the Police Station in Los Queñes.^[85] On 10 July 1989, 26-year-old carabineros corporal Patricio Rubén Canihuante Astudillo was shot in the head at point-blank range as he guarded a building in Viña del Mar. In December 1989, Canadian police reported that 30 Brazilian business executives had been targeted for abduction by MIR guerrillas that included two Canadians, Christine Lamont and David Spencer who had joined the movement after meeting two exiled Chileans, Sergeo Olivares and Martin Urtubia, who came to Canada in 1978.^[86]

References

Armed Resistance in Chile (1973-1990) at Wikipedia