* EL “CHINO CAMPOS” CARGÓ LOS CUERPOS EN PELDEHUE Y LOS DEJÓ CAER FRENTE A LAS COSTAS DE SAN ANTONIO.
* Las víctimas fueron inyectadas con un veneno que les quitó la vida, por un enfermero de la CNI apodado “el Quincy”, quien se suicidó hace cuatro años.
Jorge Molina Sanhueza
Un hombre al que Augusto Pinochet siempre le confió su vida fue quien rompió el silencio en el proceso por la desaparición de los cinco militantes del Frente Patriótico Manuel Rodríguez (FPMR), ocurrido en 1987, sustanciado por el ministro Hugo Dolmestch.
Apodado el “Chino Campos” por sus camaradas en el Comando de Aviación del Ejército -y uno de los pilotos de confianza del ex dictador- contó hace algunas semanas al magistrado cómo en septiembre de 1987, su jefe, el coronel Mario Navarrete, le ordenó usar uno de los helicópteros institucionales para viajar junto a un subalterno hasta la zona de Peldehue a buscar unos paquetes. Estos últimos eran nada menos que los cuerpos de los frentistas Gonzalo Fuenzalida Navarrete, Julio Muñoz Otárola, José Peña Maltés, Alejandro Pinochet Arenas y Manuel Sepúlveda Sánchez, quienes habían sido detenidos días antes por agentes de la desaparecida Central Nacional de Informaciones (CNI), para canjearlos por el coronel Carlos Carreño, secuestrado por el grupo paramilitar de izquierda.
Viaje secreto
El ministro Dolmestch hizo un verdadero trabajo de joyería junto con la Policía de Investigaciones en este caso. Y ello, porque el círculo estaba completamente cerrado y compartimentado en torno al manejo de la información sobre estos hechos. Pero el tiempo pudo más.
El “Chino Campos” relató que para dicha operación viajó junto a su copiloto, un oficial que aún está en servicio activo en la institución, en una agregaduría militar en Europa, cuya identidad este medio se la reserva hasta que, posiblemente, el ministro lo procese en los próximos días.
De hecho el jefe de la Brigada de Asuntos Especiales y Derechos Humanos, Rafael Castillo y su colega Mario Zelada, recorrieron el viejo continente buscando precisamente a un testigo clave para el proceso.
Para el caso del oficial activo, y como ha sido la tendencia en el Ejército con los funcionarios que estén involucrados en casos de violaciones de los derechos humanos, será alejado de la institución.
Pero el hecho de que se haya ocupado uno de los helicópteros de Pinochet no era una prueba suficiente, salvo porque el “Chino Campos” aseguró en su testimonio que la orden provino del ex dictador.
Pasos macabros
¿Pero cómo se configuró la operación? El ministro Dolmestch acreditó que la misma estuvo separada en tres etapas. La primera de ellas fue la detención de los frentistas. Por ese hecho -que sirvió en primera instancia para que fueran luego asesinados- están sometidos a proceso desde el 2002, el jefe de la CNI, general (R) Hugo Salas Wenzel, el comandante (R) Krantz Bauer Donoso, mayor (R) Álvaro Corbalán, capitán (R) Luis Sanhueza Ros; los suboficiales (R) Manuel Ramírez y René Valdovinos y los empleados civiles de Ejército César Acuña, Manuel Morales, Luis Santibáñez y Víctor Ruiz Godoy.
Ahora bien, el ministro tiene una segunda convicción. Una vez detenidos los frentistas la orden venida desde el alto mando fue que el régimen no negociaba con terroristas. La sentencia de muerte entonces estaba firmada.
Fue así como en la CNI se designó a Francisco “Gurka” Zúñiga para que coordinara con el Ejército esta operación. El magistrado confirmó entonces cómo se consiguieron los fierros para amarrarlos a los cuerpos y lanzarlos al mar frente a San Antonio.
Rieles de la muerte
A fojas 1.655 del proceso declaran Romilio Lavín, por entonces jefe del cuartel Loyola, donde se arreglaban los autos de la CNI y su subordinado el oficial (R) Adrián Herrera Espinoza. El primero aseguró que Zúñiga le pidió “unos rieles que serían la base de un box de estacionamientos” que se construía, pero no se los entregó.
Sin embargo, una vez que abandonó el cuartel, supo que Zúñiga había vuelto a sus andanzas y, a través de una orden de Salas Wenzel, logró que Herrera Espinoza entregara los “materiales”.
“Fui informado, no recuerdo por quien, que retiraban unos trozos de rieles para un operativo que se iba a realizar en la noche por agentes operativos de la CNI”, dijo en su testimonio a fojas 1.723.
Pero el detalle más escalofriante vendría en la segunda etapa. Los frentistas, estando detenidos en el cuartel Borgoño de la CNI, fueron inyectados por un enfermero apodado “El Qüincy” con un veneno que los mató. Este verdadero doctor de la muerte se suicidó hace aproximadamente tres años en su casa.
Una tercera etapa fue el traslado hasta la zona de Peldehue, donde el rastro de los frentistas se perdió para siempre.
Carreño y la mano de la DINE
Hasta ahora en el proceso tramitado por Dolmestch existen algunas presunciones de que el secuestro del coronel Carlos Carreño habría sido digitado por la entonces Dirección de Inteligencia del Ejército (DINE). Los dichos y no confesiones, pertenecen a algunos agentes de la CNI.
Sin embargo, hasta ahora, no existe claridad en torno a estas versiones, salvo los dichos del propio Carreño, quien ha manifestado sus dudas al respecto, luego que se descubriera que una de las vertientes para la fortuna de Pinochet era el tráfico de armas.
Quien fuera uno de los cerebros en la venta de armas a Irán desde Famae ha declarado en varias oportunidades ante Dolmestch sobre estos hechos.
Dolmestch, el hombre de las paciencias largas que jurará como supremo
El magistrado, recién confirmado por el Senado para integrar la Corte Suprema, se apresta a dar el último golpe de su carrera como juez instructor antes de subir al máximo tribunal a resolver los criterios mayores de la Segunda Sala (penal).
Conocido por tener una llegada humana a los agentes relacionados con las violaciones de los derechos humanos, ha logrado aclarar todos los casos anteriores a la desaparición de los cinco frentistas, como la Operación Albania, el homicidio del periodista José Carrasco y uno posterior como fue el asesinato del vocero del MIR, Jeckar Neghme en septiembre de 1989, cometido también por agentes de la CNI.
17 julio 2006
Piloto de Augusto Pinochet confesó haber lanzado al mar a cinco frentistas en 1987
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Pinochet's Dutch Secret
by Anton Foek, Special to CorpWatch
July 24th, 2006
cartoon by Khalil Bendib
The Rotterdam housing project for retired RDM employees looks like a late 19th century impressionist painting. Located near the world's largest shipyards, the Heyplaat district is a peaceful place: the streets are tree-lined and filled with singing birds; elderly women knit in the shade of trees while the men gather in clubhouses to shoot pool.
The elderly residents are some of the 5,000 people who used to work for Rotterdamse Droogdok Maatschappij (Rotterdam Drydock Company or RDM). They are the lucky ones who reached retirement age while the company was still viable. Thousands more were laid off when RMD went belly up in 2004. At its height the company was worth over two billion dollars on paper and its head Joep van den Nieuwenhuyzen, was called a financial magician or the company-doctor because of his knack for buying defunct companies, nursing them back to financial health, and then selling them for a large profit.
Later this summer, however, Nieuwenhuyzen will go on trial for driving RDM into bankruptcy.
Nieuwenhuyzen too, lives in beautiful surroundings in the shade of trees. But his trees are the evergreens that dot Switzerland where he keeps his mountain-top residence and the palms that sway in the breezes of Curaçao, the largest of the Dutch Antilles islands in the Caribbean.
"Anyone who wants a permanent residence on this island has to have a household staff of at least three locals," he advises CorpWatch, a rum and Coca Cola close at hand.
Nieuwenhuyzen is one of Curaçao's tax exiles. They have a choice: either pay five percent of their worldwide income or ante up 30,000 Euros (about $38,215). Nieuwenhuyzen, with an estimated net worth of 3.1 billion Euros (almost $4 billion), is surely choosing to pay the fixed amount.
Nieuwenhuyzen's easy impunity infuriates Cindy de la Fuente. An attorney at Halley, Blaauw and Navarro in Willemstad, Curaçao, she says that Nieuwenhuyzen owes $3.2 million to her client, IBCOL, a German helicopter distributor.
IBCOL is just one of Nieuwenhuyzen many angry business associates charging that he cut them a bad deal. Another is Chile's police force, which is investigating bribes paid out by their former military dictatorship and finding that the train of evidence leads to the Dutch magician.
Scrap Dealer to Arms Trader
Nieuwenhuyzen started his career as a scrap dealer. He graduated to buying and selling defunct companies via the Begeman corporation. From Brazil to India, from Russia to South Korea and Malaysia, he would buy and restructure businesses and sell them at enormous profits, often leaving scores of employees empty-handed.
In 1995 Begeman was declared bankrupt and it was at this point that Nieuwenhuyzen took over RDM, a Dutch company that dates back to the 1920s when it built and sold submarines, that had also fallen on hard times. The government sold it to him for just over $20 million, but he realized that he could use it to make even bigger business deals because of its history and reputation.
RDM was a key part of a major Dutch arms production system that manufactures warships, electronics, munitions, and spare parts for aircrafts - all exports heavily supported by the government. Indeed, for a country that is not involved in major military operations, the Netherlands ranks an astonishing number seven on the world list of arms exporting countries.
Nieuwenhuyzen expanded the military trading operation of RDM quickly - he sold guns for armored cars worth more than a million dollars each to Jordan and had firm orders for other weapons from countries including Austria, Canada, Norway, and the United Arab Emirates.
Dutch Arms Trade Today
The Netherlands is the seventh largest arms exporting country in the world. Critics have charged that the Netherlands is profiting from arms trade with countries likely to use the weaponry to violate human rights.
One problematic country that has proven very profitable for the Netherlands naval industry is the former Dutch colony of Indonesia. For example, in late 2003, Indonesia's navy ordered four frigates worth almost 1 billion euros.
The first two ships were to be built in the Netherlands at the Royal Schelde shipyard in Vlissingen and, after training Indonesians in shipbuilding, the other two craft would be build in Indonesia's Surubaya shipyards. As contracts changed all the ships are now being build in the Netherlands.
The sale of warships to Indonesia is a sensitive issue in the Netherlands because of Indonesia's poor human rights record. Proponents said that the warships would be used only for coastguard tasks, anti-piracy, and anti-smuggling purposes.
In a memorandum to the Dutch government Amnesty International Netherlands said it was unlikely that the ships would be used only for military operations such as those against anti-government rebels in Aceh.
This flew in the face of the Dutch government claims that it prevents the export of equipment that might be used for internal repression, for international aggression, or to contribute to regional instability.
The Dutch also look the other way in the export-import of foreign arms shipped via Dutch sea and airports. For example, in 2002 approximately half the licensed Dutch transit trade took the form of export licenses to Israel worth 1.46 million euros. The licenses were granted for goods under the category A2, which are those connected with armored vehicles, despite consistent reporting by human rights organizations that Israeli security forces used such equipment to wage war.
Then things started to come unstuck for Nieuwenhuyzen. His deals for the Moray class submarine with Chile, Israel, South Africa, and Thailand sank. A deal with Lockheed Martin to build its Joint Strike Fighter's tow bar (the mechanism that halts the fighter jet when it lands on board an aircraft carrier) never took off.
Doing Business with Pinochet
A deal with Chile clearly reveals how Nieuwenhuyzen made some of his money. On September 11, 1973, when General Pinochet seized power from Chile's leftists, the Netherlands's socialist government cut almost all ties with the new fascist regime. The Hague's policy at the time was to ban all weapons sales to Santiago.
Unknown to the general public, however, in 1995, two ambitious Dutch bureaucrats met secretly with Chilean army officers in Santiago and offered them 202 Leopard 1V tanks at $50,000 a piece, not including munitions and spare parts.
Boukje Boukens, a retired RDM staff member in Heyplaat, who lives in one of the RDM's apartments for former employees, recalls the deal. He is a stocky older man who worked in the social affairs department of the company.
He face wrinkles up as he tells CorpWatch the story: "They were invited by the Chilean Army brass directly under Pinochet, who now is being charged and exposed as one of the big global players in fraud, money laundering, and [as] a corrupt arms-dealer."
Since the ban was still in place and the two Dutch officials were not authorized to close the deal, so the tanks were sold to Nieuwenhuyzen's RDM for the ridiculously low price of $18,500 each. They were booked as scrap metal.
Nieuwenhuyzen's company then turned to Pedro del Fierro, a consultant and dealer who was on Interpol's wanted list for selling and delivering arms to Croatia. He is also a former secret service general from the Chilean Army, who has been accused of countless killings, disappearances and torturing.
On behalf of RDM, del Fierro offered the very same tanks to the very same top Chilean army officials, to be delivered to FAMAE (Fabrica y Maestranzas del Ejercito de Chile) the arms purchasing department of the Chilean army.
"Justice authorities in Santiago discovered documents showing Pinochet's plans to do business with RDM and not with the Dutch government as they had condemned his September 11th coup, killing so many people and overthrowing a socialist experiment," says Evert van der Schee, another retired RDM-employee. He is a former member of the RDM employee union who has written a book about the episode.
At the time, the Defense Minister Joris Voorhoeve, liked to think that the RDM had the deal of a life-time. In a letter dated October 29, 1997 that he sent to his colleague and Foreign Affairs Secretary Hans van Mierlo, he welcomed RDM's business plan: "The governments wins in this construction because direct negotiations between us and the Chileans can be avoided."
The idea of selling and delivering tanks to the Pinochet regime was sensitive to the Dutch government, who had not forgotten the pictures of the September 11th 1973 Santiago siege when tanks had destroyed the city centers.
Secretary Van Mierlo notes that there was one condition for the deal: "Defense wanted to get rid of the military equipment. We accepted the Chilean government deal after he (the General Pinochet) had stepped down as Commander-in Chief. I think that after all I now think we should not have permitted business with Chile at all."
But Van der Schee points out that this was not a mistake on part of the Chileans. "We now know that Pinochet never took the Dutch government seriously and he needed RDM to get his bribes. He would never get those bribes from the government in the Hague," he tells CorpWatch.
"Although we at RDM paid a huge amount of money for bribes, we made a fortune selling those tanks at $77 million. We always paid a commission. That is common practice. Altogether we paid $9 million to Chilean Army officials and their associates to close the deal," he said.
There is more. "Before the contracts were signed, another consultant [Oscar Aitken] called RDM identifying himself as general Pinochet's personal advisor," says Boukens. RDM checked to make sure he was really representing Pinochet, and then paid out another three percent of the insurance value or almost $2 million.
The payment was made by a Dutch Antillean company RDM Holding NV, another Nieuwenhuyzen company, to Cornwall Overseas Corporation, a trust run by Aitken, which was used to pay the secretary and personal advisor to general Pinochet. A second general was paid off through Eastview Finance, an offshore business of General Augusto Pinochet.
Interestingly, Dutch parliamentary and public records show that the Leopard tanks were sold to RDM Technology Holding BV, a tax shelter in the Dutch Antilles. Still, the deal was technically legal because at that time, paying bribes to foreign bureaucrats was a legitimate business expense. Bribery has since been illegal.
Trials of a Tax Exile
Today Nieuwenhuyzen spends most of his time on an airplane traveling between Africa, Europe, South and North America, and the Far East checking in at international airports at least once a week, as he works his complicated business deals and lives off the proceeds.
He stops occasionally in Amsterdam where he stays at the Amstel hotel. "It's an exceptionally warm and friendly place where they have a special suite and wardrobe for me with my name printed on a housecoat," he says. Indeed he boasts, he has more wardrobes in other five star hotels and places around the globe.
"The taxman does not allow me to have a residence in my own country, but they don't want to prohibit my stay," he adds.
Back in Rotterdam, sitting under shady trees on a hot day in Heyplaat, a few RDM retirees learn that their former boss paid a $9 million bribe to the Pinochet regime in Chile. Wiping sweat from their foreheads, they say that the high temperature this summer is nothing compared to what Nieuwenhuyzen will experience at the trial. "It's going to be hotter than hell," one warned.
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