José Toribio Merino Castro (December 14, 1915 – August 30, 1996) was an admiral of the Chilean Navy who was one of the principal leaders of the 1973 Chilean coup d'état, along with General Augusto Pinochet of the Army, General Gustavo Leigh of the Air Force, and General César Mendoza of the Carabineros (national police). Together they established a military dictatorship that ruled Chile from 1973 until 1990, during which more than 3,197 Chilean citizens were executed or simply "disappeared", according to the reports of official bi-partisan commissions established by the President of Chile, Patricio Aylwin, in the 1990s. In addition, a further 28,459 Chileans were victims of torture, which included approximately 3,400 cases of sexual abuse of women.
Merino, as head of the Navy, was a member of the Military Government Junta from the day of the coup until his retirement on March 8, 1990, just a few days before the beginning of civilian rule. Under his leadership in the days immediately following the coup, the Chilean Navy was responsible for human rights violations including death in detention, disappearance and torture, practices that were only publicly acknowledged by the institution in 2004, more than eight years after Merino's death.
In 2021, the Chilean Navy refused to remove a statue of Merino from the gardens of the Maritime Museum of Valparaíso. The statue's removal had been sought by the Chilean Foundation for Historic Memory. The President of the Foundation, Luis Mariano Rendón, described Merino as an integral part of the military junta which implemented a systematic policy of human rights violations.
Early life and naval career Born in La Serena, he was son of Vice-Admiral José Toribio Merino Saavedra, , and of Bertina Castro Varela. He entered the Naval Academy in 1931, graduating in 1936 as a midshipman. According to his memoirs, during World War II he would have served in the US Navy on the until 1945.It is important to point out that Chile declared its neutrality during WW2. Therefore, no military collaboration of any kind was agreed upon. Moreover, the main points requested by the Chilean government as part of negotiations to break diplomatic relations with the Axis were military aid from the US and the requisite that Chilean military forces would not be called to fight outside Chile. Under continuous diplomatic pressure from the US, this agreement was done on 20 January 1943, which was basically a mere symbolic act. Chile only entered WWII when president Juan Antonio Rios signed the declaration of war against Japan on 13 April 1945. These facts make it unlikely, if not impossible, that active-duty service members of the Chilean Armed Forces would ever participate in military operations. Regarding Merino’s eventual participation in WW2 as a crewman of the Raleigh, it is also worth noting that the Raleigh was put to sea in South Alaska during 1943, participating in operations also in the border between Russia and Japan, by 1944 with frequent reparations and overhaul in Seattle. When Chile entered the war, the ship returned to the US and switched to patrolling missions in Central Pacific area. According to explanations given by this flagrant contradiction, in Merino’s memoirs is stated that for “security reasons”, his letters were addressed to him and from there to the USS Corritore, where he would have served. The ship is not found in the records United States Navy. Nor is it mentioned in one of the propaganda publications, released in 1974, in which it can be read that he was part of the crew of the ship Latorre in 1943 and Serrano in 1945, omitting such an important episode, recounted in his memoirs 25 years later. Therefore, the participation of Mr Merino in WWII is not based on actual facts. He served in different units of the Chilean Navy, such as the ships Latorre (1943) and Serrano (1945). Later on, he served in Destructor Serrano (2do), Crucero O'Higgins (4to) (CL02), Corbeta Papudo(1º), Transporte Angamos (3ro).
Between 1955 and 1957 he served as aide and counsel in weaponry to the Chilean embassy in London, during the construction of the s Williams and Riveros. In 1960, he was assigned as a professor at the Naval War Academy (AGN) teaching logistics, Geopolitics, Geostrategy. In 1969 he became Naval Director of Weapons. In January 1970 he was appointed as Director of Navy Services, and in November of the same year, he assumed the command of the Chilean main combat fleet (CJE).
Military dictatorship On September 9, 1973, Merino sent a letter to Generals Augusto Pinochet and Gustavo Leigh, both Commanders-in-Chief of the Army and Air Force respectively, in which he set the day of the coup for September 11. Both Generals agreed, signing the letter with two "According". On the day of the coup, he removed the 'constitutionalist' Commander-in-Chief, Raúl Montero, designating himself as new Head of the Navy.In "La Conjura:Los mil y un días del golpe", by Monica Gonzalez, the most extensive and exhaustive journalistic investigation to date about the cover actions of the organization of the coup d'état, it can be read "... Commander-in-Chief Raúl Montero Cornejo was neutralized by an irregular army led by vice admirals José Toribio Merino and Patricio Carvajal ..." This is confirmed by the sailors and navy officers themselves, across ranks (pages 491, 731, 944-45, 974-75, 1039, 1109, 1201) Following the uprising, he became an integral member of the Military Government Junta.
During the military dictatorship that ruled Chile from 1973 until 1990, more than 2,100 Chilean citizens were executed or simply "disappeared", according to the 1991 Report of the Rettig Commission established by President Patricio Aylwin. In 1996, the National Reparation and Reconciliation Corporation added an additional 776 cases of people who were executed by the regime, with another 123 disappearances. As a result, the combined findings of the two commissions officially documented 3,197 cases of victims of “disappearances”, extrajudicial executions and deaths resulting from torture. The figure does not include the victims of torture who survived their ordeal.
The reports of the Rettig Commission and National Corporation for Reparation and Reconciliation were only allowed to focus on crimes resulting in death or disappearance. As a result, in 2003 President Ricardo Lagos promulgated the establishment of the National Commission on Political Imprisonment and Torture, known as the Valech Commission. It issued reports in 2004 and 2005 identifying 28,459 victims of torture, including approximately 3,400 cases of sexual abuse of women.
Human rights violations by the Chilean Navy under Merino's leadership
Under the leadership of Merino, the Chilean Navy was responsible for the death in detention or disappearance of at least eight people in September and October 1973, according to the bi-partisan Rettig Report commissioned by the Chilean Government in 1991. In the days immediately following the coup, the Chilean naval training ship "Esmeralda" was used as a detention center for political prisoners in the port of Valparaiso, along with the vessels "Maipo" and "Lebu", in addition to the El Belloto naval air base and the Naval War Academy (in particular one of its facilities, the Silva Palma garrison).
According to the 2004 Valech Report (officially The National Commission on Political Imprisonment and Torture Report) commissioned by President Ricardo Lagos, interrogations on the Esmeralda included ill-treatment and torture. One of the former prisoners on the Esmeralda, Antonio Leal Labrín, stated that the torture included the use of electric prods, high-voltage electric charges applied to the testicles, hanging by the feet and dumping in a bucket of water or excrement.
The Rettig Report lists the following people to have died or disappeared while in the custody of the Chilean Navy in late 1973:
Jaime Vargas (aged 30), a journalist, Socialist Party activist and alderman for Limache, who was held on board the vessel "Maipo" in September 1973. The Rettig Report concluded he had died in the custody of the navy even though his arrest was never acknowledged. In 2011, the Supreme Court of Chile found six former naval officers guilty of the abduction and murder of Vargas. Juantok Guzman (aged 26), president of the student centre at the University of Chile architecture department, disappeared while in the custody of the Chilean Navy after being held in detention on board 'Maipo" in September 1973. Oscar Farías (aged 33), a Socialist Party activist and government representative in the Parma brewery, was executed in September 1973 while detained at the El Belloto naval airbase. Luis Sanguinetti (aged 38) a university professor who was active in the Socialist Party, died as a result of torture on the "Maipo" in September 1973. Father Michael Woodward (aged 42), a Catholic priest, died at the naval hospital in Valparaíso in September 1973 after having been tortured on board Esmeralda. Woodward's murder was the subject of the 2002 book "Blood on the Esmeralda: The Life and Death of Father Michael Woodward" by Edward Crouzet. In 2013, two former naval officers were found guilty of Woodward's kidnapping and sentenced to three years in prison. They were charged with kidnapping rather than murder, in order to get around the 1978 Amnesty Decree Law which handed impunity to those who committed human rights violations during the first five years of the dictatorship. Kidnapping is considered a continuous crime that is still being committed today and so is not covered by the amnesty laws. Following the verdict, Woodward's sister Patricia Bennett commented "We regret that Michael's body, hidden by the Chilean Navy, has still not been found. The two retired officers who have been convicted were not the ones in charge – the real culprits, those who gave the orders to torture and murder Michael, have not been prosecuted. The whole thing is a farce." In reacting to the verdict, the then British Ambassador to Chile Jon Benjamin described the treatment that Father Woodward received as 'brutal, cruel, illegal and indefensible' and 'a very serious crime against humanity'. Héctor Arellano (aged 19), was killed by a naval patrol in October 1973. Félix Figueras (aged 30) was detained at the Naval War Academy in December 1973 and later died at the naval hospital as a result of torture.
Following the release of the Valech Report in 2004, the Chilean Navy publicly admitted to the use of torture on the Esmeralda and issued a formal apology, after decades of denial and eight years after the death of Admiral Merino, the institution's leader during the dictatorship.
Merino referred to communists as 'humanoids'. The English translation of his quote is as follows: "There are two types of human beings. One I call humans, the other, humanoids. The humanoids belong to the Communist Party."
Economic policy As the second in command and also as a member of the Governing Junta he was in charge of the economic sector of the country and presided over the Economic Committee of the Council of Ministers, where the economic measures were born. In addition, all the decrees were elaborated and the laws on the matters had to dictate to regulate the economic sector.
From the Economic Committee of the Council of Ministers, he impelled, the first economic measures of the Military Government, the liberation of prices of goods and services; the fiscal cost was reduced and the interest rates were freed to give birth to capital markets; the companies of the State were reorganized as well, standardizing them.