César Benavides

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César Benavides

César Raúl Benavides Escobar (born March 12, 1912 in Santiago de Chile ; † March 25, 2011 ibid) was a Chilean lieutenant general and politician who became interior minister between 1974 and 1978 after the military coup on September 11, 1973 during the military dictatorship under General Augusto Pinochet , then Minister of Defense from 1978 to 1980 and a member of the ruling military junta (Junta de Gobierno de Chile) between 1981 and 1985 as a representative of the army . During the military coup he acted as Pinochet's “right hand”.

Life

Military career and participation in the military coup of September 11, 1973

During the military coup of September 11, 1973, Benavides acted as the "right hand man" of General Augusto Pinochet

Benavides came in 1936 as a cadet in the Military School (Escuela Militar) and in 1939 for sub-ensign and 1940 Ensign promoted. After his promotion to lieutenant in 1941, he found a variety of uses as an officer in the army and was in time for the 1947 Lieutenant and 1948 captain promoted. After he was promoted to major in 1955 , he served in the military mission in the USA in 1958 and also completed a course at Fort Monmouth during this time . After his return, he was promoted to lieutenant colonel in 1962 and to colonel in 1968 .

In 1971 Benavides became director of the Academy of War (Academia de Guerra) and as such was promoted to Brigadier General in 1972 . At the time of the military coup on September 11, 1973 against President Salvador Allende , he was director of the command of the military institutes. On the morning of that day he appeared in battle uniform in the barracks of Peñalolén , a parish of the Región Metropolitana de Santiago , and there, together with other general, received his orders from the Commander-in-Chief of the Army, General Pinochet, on the coup activities on this decisive day (El día decisivo ) in the capital and at the La Moneda presidential palace . He was in command of the troops east of Avenida Vicuña Mackenna , as well as maintaining connections with the director of the military school, Colonel Nilo Floody Buxton . This made him the "right hand" ('la mano derecha') of Pinochet in the military coup.

Then he was first in command of the 5th Army Division stationed in Punta Arenas and then from December 26, 1973 to July 16, 1974, Commander in Chief of the United Southern Command (Comando Conjunto Austral) . As such, he was responsible for all troops in southern Chile and security in the Región de Magallanes y de la Antártica Chilena , which also worked with the XII. Zone of the National Police ( Carabineros de Chile ) and the local secret services included. He was also involved in the actions of the Brigada Lautaro of the National Secret Service DINA ( Dirección de Inteligencia Nacional ) and was therefore responsible for the Colombo Operación and Operation Condor . The Operation Colombo was a military action in the days of the Chilean military dictatorship that for desaparecimiento ( disappearance is said to have performed) of 119 opposition members. Under the code name Operation Condor ( span. Operación Cóndor ) , the secret services of six Latin American countries - Argentina , Chile, Paraguay , Uruguay , Bolivia and Brazil - operated with the support of the United States in the 1970s and 1980s , with the aim of political and left wing persecute and kill oppositional forces worldwide.

Minister of the Interior, Minister of Defense and member of the military junta

On July 11, 1974, Benavides succeeded Major General Óscar Bonilla Bradanovic , who had been appointed Minister of Defense, in the role of Minister of the Interior (Ministro del Interior de Chile) , while the previous Director of the Military Intelligence Service (Servicio de Inteligencia Militar) , General Augusto Lutz Urzúa , was his successor as commander of the 5th Army Division. He held the post of Minister of the Interior until April 14, 1978 and was then replaced by Sergio Fernández Fernández , who also continued to hold the post of Minister of Labor and Social Security (Ministro del Trabajo y Previsión Social) . During his almost four-year tenure as Interior Minister, he was directly involved in the decisions on how to proceed against the opposition . Through his relations with the secret services and his responsibility for the National Correctional Authority SENDET (Servicio Nacional de Detenidos) he was also aware of what happened to political prisoners. When a UN working group was due to visit Chile in 1975 , Benavides was commissioned to undertake the “general preparation of the media and the national climate”, which was shared between five ministries, in order to receive this working group “in the best possible condition”.

Benavides in turn took over on April 14, 1978 from Major General Hermán Brady Roche the office of Minister of Defense (Ministro de Defensa) and was also promoted to Lieutenant General. He remained in this ministerial office until he was replaced by Carlos Forestier Hansen on December 29, 1980.

Both as interior and defense minister, Benavides was involved in numerous dictatorial decrees of the military junta.

On March 11, 1981, Benavides finally succeeded Augusto Pinochet as representative of the army in the ruling military junta (Junta Militar de Gobierno) . He remained in this leading position until he was replaced by Lieutenant General Julio Canessa Robert on December 2, 1985 and then retired.

Benavides was on a list published in 1999 by the Spanish examining magistrate Baltazar Garzón, on which 60 officers and former representatives of the military regime were charged by the Spanish judicial authorities for violating human rights .

Benavides, who died at the age of 99, was married with one child.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Operación Colombo: Generales (R) Enrique Montero y César Benavides. DDHH: Guzmán procesa a dos ex ministros de Pinochet (purochile, February 19, 2005)
  2. Languth, Hikden: Terror . Pantheon, New York, 1978
  3. Jan Eckel: The Ambivalence of the Good: Human Rights in International Politics since the 1940s , p. 635, 2014, ISBN 3-52530-069-7
  4. Decretos leyes dictados por la Junta de Gobierno de la Republica de Chile