Degollados Case

   The term refers to the murders in Chile of three members of the Partido Comunista de Chile (PC, Communist Party of Chile) by carabineros working out of the Dirección de Inteligencia y Comunicaciones de Carabineros (DICOMCAR, Directorate of Carabinero Intelligence and Communication), a separate investigative unit of the national police. In late March 1985, José Manuel Parada, an archivist for the Vicaría de la Solidaridad (Vicariate of Solidarity), and Santiago Nattino and Manuel Guerrero, both suspected intelligence agents of the PC, were abducted by DICOMCAR agents and later found in a ditch with their throats slashed. Commonly referred to as the degollados (from the verb degollar, meaning “to cut the throat of,” “to slaughter”), the crime was reminiscent of the leftist-targeted disappearances and murders following the 1973 military coup and contributed to a growing antigovernment movement. The degollados case was one of the few military crimes investigated by the courts during the regime of Augusto Pinochet Ugarte. Judge José Cánovas Robles identified the 14 men responsible for the slayings as DICOMCAR agents. Ironically, the identifications were made with the assistance of the Centro Nacional de Información (National Information Center), the military secretservice agency formed in 1977 to replace the infamous Dirección de Inteligencia Nacional (DINA, Directorate of National Intelligence). The case led to the resignation of General César Mendoza Durán, the longtime commander of the carabineros, from the junta.