Pisagua internment camp

The Pisagua internment camp (Spanish: Campamento de Prisioneros de Pisagua) was a concentration camp in Pisagua, Chile.

Pisagua internment camp
Internment camp used many times in Chilean history
The Pisagua Memorial in 2007
Pisagua internment camp is located in Chile
Pisagua internment camp
Location of Pisagua internment camp within Chile
Coordinates19°35′48″S 70°12′44″W
LocationPisagua
Built byChilean government
Operated byChilean government
Operational1927-1931
1939-1947
1973-1974
Number of inmates2500 people (during the 1973-1974 biennium)
Killed30 people (during the 1973-1974 biennium)

History

An isolated location in northern Chile, Pisagua was used as a detention site for male homosexuals under the military dictatorship of General Carlos Ibáñez del Campo in 1927-1931.[1]

From 1943 to 1945, Pisagua became the site of wartime internment for citizens of enemy nations when Chile entered World War II on the Allied side. The complex was turned into a concentration camp for Chilean socialists, communists and anarchists under President Gabriel González Videla in 1947-1948. Chilean Army Captain Augusto Pinochet was appointed to run the Pisagua camp in January 1948.

Pinochet's dictatorship to present

When General Pinochet himself seized power in September 1973, the site again became a political detention center.

It's been alleged that one of the torturers of this camp was Walter Rauff, a mid-ranking SS commander in Nazi Germany and the man responsible for creating the mobile gassing vans. He escaped to Ecuador after the war, and later found refuge in Chile with Germans willing to hide him. Under Pinochet's military dictatorship, Rauff may have served as an advisor to the Chilean secret police, DINA. Its believed he also had ties with the Nazi loyalist Colonia Dignidad which had footholds throughout South America.

In the 1990s, the Pisagua court case would draw further scrutiny to the prison camp when a claim of illegal burial was presented by the Chilean Vicariate of Solidarity on 31 May 1990.[2] A mass grave was discovered in June 1990 and was found to contain 20 bodies inside.[3] These would be later linked to prisoners and missing persons (desaparecidos) executed at the camp.

Identified persons from mass grave (June 6, 1990)

Order of Discovery[3] Name[3]
1Manuel Eduardo Sanhueza Mellado
2Nicolas Chanez Chanez
3Tomas Orlando Cabello Cabello
4Luis Manriquez Wilde
5Juan Orlando Rojas Osega
6Hugo Tomas Martinez Guillen
7Alberto Amador Yañez Carvajal
8Luis Alberto Toro Castillo
9Nelson Jose Marquez Agusto
10German Elidio Palominos Lamas
11Juan Apolinario Mamani Garcia
12Jose Rufino Cordova Croxatto
13Juan Valencia Hinojosa
14Julio Cesar Cabezas Gacitua
15Mario Morris Barrios
16Humberto Lizardo Flores
17Luis Alberto Lizardi Lizardi
18Marcelo Omar Guzman Fuentes
19Juan Efrain Calderon Villalon
20*Not confirmed by source

See also

Footnotes

  1. Spooner 2011, p. 58
  2. "El Hallazgo de la Fosa". Memoria Viva. Archived from the original on 16 June 2002. Retrieved 4 July 2012.(in Spanish)
  3. "Plano de la fosa común en el cementerio de Pisagua". Memoria Viva. Archived from the original on 5 June 2010. Retrieved 10 May 2013.(in Spanish)

References

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