Former Chilean Soldier Confesses to 18 Murders on Live Radio

By teleSUR

13 December 15

A former Chilean army official has been charged with murder after confessing to killing 18 political opponents during the military dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet.

n an extraordinary tale of events Guillermo Reyes Rammsy, 62, was arrested Friday and charged with the 1973 murders of Freddy Taberna Gallegos and German Palomino Lamas who were members of Chile’s Socialist Party.

Reyes called one of the country’s most famous radio phone in shows “Chacotero Sentimental” (Loving Betrayal) and told the host Roberto Artiagoitía of his failing romance before describing the human rights crimes he says he committed during the military junta.

The caller said that he cried the first time he shot and killed someone but went on to say that he gradually became accustomed to killing after he was encouraged and indoctrinated by his military superiors.

“The first time (I killed someone) I cried but the lieutenant was saying: ‘Good soldier, good soldier, brave soldier.’ Then ‘Pow. pow,’ again. The second time I liked it. I enjoyed it,” he told the local radio station.

Despite Artiagoitía questioning the man over his crimes the former military official showed little remorse during the call and said he was “obliged” to kill as the “military would have killed me. We were grunts and they gave us orders.”

In the 20 minute phone call the former soldier detailed the human right atrocities he witnessed during his time in the army and confirmed the number of opposition people he killed.

“I participated in 18 executions … We shot them in the head and then blew up the bodies with dynamite, there was nothing left, not even their shadow,” he said.

Although Reyes didn’t announce his name during Wednesday’s call Chilean authorities managed to track him down and charge him with the murder of Taberna and Palomina. Both men disappeared in 1973 after the U.S. backed military coup and are thought to have been held as political prisoners in the Pisagua prison camps in the country’s northern desert. Their bodies were never found.

Reyes’s arrest was welcomed by a number of human rights group who have long fought for a better understanding of how the Chilean army killed then destroyed the bodies of their political adversaries. During Pinochet’s presidential tenure from 1973 to 1981 it is estimated 3,000 people were killed by the military and security forces and 1,000 bodies have yet to be found.