By Daniel Nardini

The Australian government arrested a 66 year old woman named Adriana Rivas for working for the former Chilean spy agency known as Dina. Dina was the secret police agency under the former Chilean right wing dictator Augusto Pinochet, who ruled Chile from 1973-1991. Rivas worked as a secretary for the infamous Dina head Manuel Contreras. Contreras was responsible for the death of tens of thousands of innocent Chileans, and it is now believed from what documentation there is that Rivas had also participated in some of those crimes as well. After Rivas “quit” Dina, she moved to Australia in 1978, where she has remained since. Or did she quit? She left Dina in 1976, but her role in Dina remains unclear, and was she still an agent for Dina while in Australia?

The frightening thing is that Rivas has been implicated by numerous witnesses that she had in fact taken part in torture sessions at Dina in its infamous Lautaro Brigade, which was tasked with capturing and killing members of the underground Communist Party of Chile. Rivas had of course denied any involvement with torturing and killing any political dissidents, but the number of witnesses and documentation say otherwise. Currently, Adriana Rivas remains in jail until her day in court, and Chilean authorities are calling for her extradition to Chile to face crimes against humanity for her role in Dina. Her former boss, Manuel Contreras, died in prison while serving a 500 year term for his crimes during the Pinochet era. We can only hope that Adriana Rivas will face her accusers and face the justice she so seriously denied to all of her victims.