Chilean Embassy Official Says Unknown Persons Abducted Former Chilean Jewish Official from Jail

A Chilean Embassy official has claimed that David Silberman was abducted by unknown persons from a jail in Antofagasta in northern Chile and that the Chilean government is cooperating with the human rights commission of the Organization of American States (OAS) in an investigation of his disappearance 18 months ago.

Rafael Otero, Counsellor at the Embassy, made that statement to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency in response to an inquiry as to the fate of the 35-year-old Chilean-Jewish mining engineer. Silberman served in the regime of the late President Salvador Allende and was sentenced by the Chilean military junta to 13 years’ imprisonment for alleged treason after Allende was deposed in the 1974 coup.

Otero’s statement was believed to have been the first to mention abduction in the case in which the Chilean government has provided virtually no information despite persistent inquiries from Silberman’s father and sister who live in Israel. His wife and three children remained in Chile. The Embassy official told the JTA that “the government began an investigation and found no evidence where he (Silberman) is and what happened.”

He said the human rights commission of the OAS was conducting its own investigation “with the cooperation of the Chilean government” and that the Chilean Minister of Justice, Miguel Schweitzer, was “making a personal investigation.” Otero volunteered the information that Schweitzer is Jewish.

DON’T KNOW WHAT HAPPENED

Silberman was deputy minister for mines in the Allende administration and was general manager of the Cobre Chuque copper mines in Antofagasta. The mines, once operated by the American Anaconda Copper Co., were nationalized by the Allende regime.

Otero said he was “go seeing” that “some people intended to get him out of the country” and they could be “a terrorist group from the left or the right. Really, we don’t know what happened. He simply disappeared,” Otero said. He claimed that Silberman was tried for treason because he “gave secret processes” to engineers in a Soviet commission that was inspecting production at the Cobre Chuque mines. Otero also alleged that Silberman was “a top executive” of the Chilean Communist Party.

Silberman’s father and sister have sought assistance from the International Red Cross, American legislators and various world personages to determine his whereabouts or confirm whether he is dead or alive. They have pointed out that of the many Chilean political prisoners who disappeared when the military regime took over that country, Silberman was the only one who vanished after he was tried and sentenced.

Chief Rabbi Angel Kreiman of Chile, who has pressed inquiries on behalf of the Silberman family, was reportedly ordered by President Augusto Pinochet last year to stop asking questions about Silberman.