[5] 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.

[6] Born in La Serena, he was son of Vice-Admiral José Toribio Merino Saavedra, Navy Inspector General, and of Bertina Castro Varela.

Between 1955 and 1957 he served as aide and counsel in weaponry to the Chilean embassy in London, during the construction of the Almirante-class destroyers Williams and Riveros.

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).

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.

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.

[10] It issued reports in 2004 and 2005 identifying 28,459 victims of torture, including approximately 3,400 cases of sexual abuse of women.

[1] The Rettig Report lists the following people to have died or disappeared while in the custody of the Chilean Navy in late 1973:[11] 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.

They Decree-Law N 3480, which allowed the indebted of the Association of Savings and Mortgages to re-pact their debts, which came to the favour of workers of the middle-class sector.

He only reluctantly accepted Pope John Paul II's peace proposal, telling him, "I only signed the treaty because I'm Catholic and I respect Your Holiness.

Admiral Merino, from the Legislative Power, impelled laws on the modernization of the financial sector, the guarantee of the State to the deposits and savings, lowering of the tariffs to the imports and in general, the normalization of the sectors more affected by the crisis, giving the maximum support to the Executive authority, which was allowed to remove to the country from the crisis.

He presented the relative motions to replace the Code of Commerce; to adapt the Chilean marine limits to the Convention of Jamaica, by means of the corresponding reform to the Civil Code, and to countermand the legislation that allowed the therapeutic abortion, everything which was approved by means of the corresponding laws dictated in that period.

Finally, it corresponded to him to preside over the Joint Legislative Commission destined to reform the Political Constitution, whose text, approved by the Governing Junta, was ratified by the conducted plebiscite on the 30 of June 1989.

But Pinochet as the president of the country has the final authority to ratify and implement such laws passed by the junta and approved by Merino.

These conferences gained notoriety for Merino's recurrent use of dark humor in addition to his "constant errors and aberrations".

[20] On the night of the 1988 plebiscite which resulted in the victory of democratic camp and ended Pinochet's rule, Merino, with Air Force Chief Fernando Matthei and Carabineros de Chile chief Rodolfo Stange pushed back against Pinochet's plans to overturn the result of the vote and extend his rule, thus allowing the Chilean transition to democracy to take place as planned.