Caravan of Death
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The Caravan of Death was a Chilean Army squad that, following the Chilean coup of 1973, flew by helicopter from south to north of Chile between September 30 and October 22, 1973. During this foray, members of the squad ordered or personally carried out the execution of 71 individuals held in Army custody in these northern garrisons.
The squad was made up of several Army officers and two infantrymen. They were led by Army Brigadier General Sergio Arellano; his second-in-command, Lieutenant Colonel Sergio Arredondo González, later director of the Infantry School of the Army; Major Pedro Espinoza Bravo, an Army Intelligence officer and later operations chief of the DINA secret police; Captain Marcelo Moren Brito, later commander of Villa Grimaldi, the torture camp; Lieutenant Armando Fernández Larios, later a DINA operative and involved in the assassination of Orlando Letelier and others. [1]
The group traveled from prison to prison in a Puma helicopter, inspecting military garrisons and then ordering — or carrying out themselves — the execution of the detainees, the murders being committed with small arms and bladed weapons. The victims were then buried in unmarked graves.
Though the Rettig Commission puts the count of murdered individuals at approximately 3,000 during the 17-year Pinochet dictatorship, the deaths of these 70 individuals and the Caravan of Death episode itself are highly traumatic, especially as many of the victims had voluntarily turned themselves in to the military authorities, were all in secured military custody and posed no immediate threat because they had no history of violence, nor were they threatening to commit any such violence.
In June 1999, Judge Juan Guzmán Tapia ordered the arrest of five retired military officers for their part in the Caravan of Death.[2]. In March 2006, Judge Víctor Montiglio ordered the arrest of thirteen former army officers for their participation in the killings on murder charges.[3]
