Carlos Antonio Vargas Arancibia, married, father of 2, a militant of the Revolutionary Radical Youth and an electrician, disappeared in the province of Valparaíso on May 29, 1975.

The victim worked during the Unidad Popular government at the Compañía Cervecerías Unidas (CCU) in Limache, where the government-appointed supervisor (interventor) was Jaime Aldonay Vargas, who disappeared after being detained in September 1973.

During that incident, the factory was raided while he was present. On that occasion, Carlos Vargas had been identified by a Navy officer conducting the raid as a supporter of the Unidad Popular government. At that time, the event had no negative consequences for his personal freedom.

Some time later, he was dismissed from the industry and began working with a contractor.

Following the death of his father in 1974, he moved to the city of Limache to live at his mother's home.

On May 29, 1975, he left his home as he usually did to go to work, but he never arrived. The contractor he worked for went to his house to locate him, and his mother informed him that she had not heard from him since he left home, confirming that he had not reached his destination.

To this date, the exact circumstances of his disappearance remain unknown, as well as the location, time, and agents who may have participated in his detention.

His mother searched for him in various places, detention centers, and the Navy information office in the Port of Valparaíso, but no authority acknowledged his detention.

The disappearance of Carlos Vargas A. is linked to that of Zoilo Galvarino Olivares Guerra, a private electrical installer residing in Viña del Mar. The facts are documented in a sworn statement made by his sister, Eleonor Olivares Guerra, on July 7, 1978.

This statement adds important background information regarding the victim. It states: "On June 2, 1975, two people dressed in civilian clothes arrived at my brother's home, located at 15 Norte Street No. 1263 in the city of Viña del Mar, asking for information about Carlos Vargas Arancibia, whom my brother Zoilo Galvarino Olivares was friends with.

My brother told them he did not know where he was and that they should go look for him in Limache, without specifying the address. Later, my brother left his home heading to mine, noticing that he was being followed by the same people who had asked for information about Vargas...

When he arrived at my house, he warned me of what had happened, and I invited him to stay at my home, which he refused, telling me he would rather go to a friend's house." "Later, his family confirmed that his home had been raided by unknown persons."

As in the case of Carlos Vargas, nothing more was heard of Zoilo Olivares Guerra from that date on, and the exact circumstances of his disappearance remain unknown. Both disappeared individuals belonged to the Revolutionary Radical Youth.

Despite the search conducted by his mother, the detention was never acknowledged, and to this date, the fate of Carlos Antonio Vargas Arancibia remains unknown.

The National Commission for Truth and Reconciliation reached the conviction that the victim disappeared due to the actions of State agents.

JUDICIAL AND/OR ADMINISTRATIVE ACTIONS

On June 9, 1975, his mother, Elvira Arancibia Pardo, filed a writ of amparo (habeas corpus) before the Court of Appeals of Valparaíso. In said filing, it was resolved to issue an official request to the Intendant of Valparaíso for a report.

Due to the lack of a copy of the filing, the responses received from the competent authority are unknown.

The complainant also testified before the Investigative Police of Limache and at the Limache Court. His spouse, Amanda Rojas, did the same.

None of these proceedings yielded information regarding the victim's whereabouts.

Four days after the writ of amparo was filed, on June 13, 1975, his mother wrote to the Intendant of the Province of Valparaíso at the time, Horacio Justiniano Aguirre, requesting information on his whereabouts. She received no response.

Source: Vicariate of Solidarity

Today in Limache, the "Residencias de la Memoria" (Residences of Memory) initiative was carried out. This project is funded by the World University Service (WUS) of Germany and aims to identify residences and places where victims of the dictatorship lived their lives.

In November 2017, during a ceremony held as part of the anniversary celebration of the Quillota commune, an agreement was signed between the Museum of Memory and Human Rights, represented by its executive director, Francisco J. Estévez; the commune's mayor, Luis Mella; and the director of SERVIU, Daniel Morales.

That first step allowed for the installation of the first 5 plaques in Chile today, which commemorate the last place of residence of the forcibly disappeared Jaime Aldoney Vargas, Arturo Loo Prado, CARLOS ANTONIO VARGAS ARANCIBIA, and Jorge Villarroel Vilches; and the political execution victim Oscar Farías Urzua.

"This project was inspired by a similar initiative in Germany. This was something we initially didn't know if it would work, because we had to investigate, we had to know which people from this area were victims, and we also had to meet with the families.

However, everything fell into place until these plaques were finally installed, which express our will for this symbol of memory to remain here. It is a significant moment for the families, but also for Limache, for this region, and for the country," commented Francisco Estévez, Executive Director of the Museum of Memory.

César Barra, governor of the Quillota province, was also present at the installation of the plaques and commented that "the work of the Museum of Memory is very important because it involves recovering and reclaiming something that is very important for the memory of the commune.

Furthermore, the relatives, with their lives and their testimony, have given hope to all of us who seek truth and justice."

Amanda Rojas, wife of Carlos Vargas Arancibia, took the opportunity to thank everyone who made the realization of the project possible. "I have to admit that I lived with a very great resentment; I spent 18 years thinking that he had abandoned me and my two-year-old baby; and as a young girl, I believed all the lies about his disappearance.

That is why I am eternally grateful to each one of you, because this will mean an eternal memory for us; we also thank you for helping us know the truth," she commented.

The Museum of Memory selected this first commune, appointing an Ambassador of Memory to carry out the investigation that led to the whereabouts of the victims' families. Thus, Waldo García and researcher Verónica González carried out the work of memory reconstruction and reparation, in some cases, with the support of the Program for Reparation and Comprehensive Health Care (PRAIS) for those affected by human rights violations.

Source: Museum of Memory and Human Rights 01/24/2018

Date: 01-24-2018

Residences of Memory in Limache

Last Friday, the "Residencias de la Memoria" initiative was carried out, a project funded by the World University Service (WUS) of Germany, which aims to identify residences and places where victims of the dictatorship lived their lives.

In a ceremony held as part of the anniversary celebration of the Quillota commune in November 2017, an agreement was signed between the Museum of Memory, represented by its executive director, Francisco Estévez; the commune's mayor, Luis Mella; and the director of SERVIU, Daniel Morales.

That first step allowed for the installation of the first 5 plaques in Chile, which commemorate the last place of residence of the forcibly disappeared Jaime Aldoney Vargas, Arturo Loo Prado, CARLOS ANTONIO VARGAS ARANCIBIA, and Jorge Villarroel Vilches; and the political execution victim Oscar Farías Urzua.

This practice, carried out in Germany in memory of the Jews who suffered persecution, is currently called Stolpersteine, and it is notable that it is also being implemented in Chile in order to keep the memory alive in cases of human rights crimes.

"This project was inspired by a similar initiative in Germany. This was something we initially didn't know if it would work, because we had to investigate, we had to know which people from this area were victims, and we also had to meet with the families.

However, everything fell into place until these plaques were finally installed, which express our will for this symbol of memory to remain here. It is a significant moment for the families, but also for Limache, for this region, and for the country," commented Francisco Estévez.

Amanda Rojas, wife of the forcibly disappeared Carlos Vargas Arancibia, thanked everyone who made the realization of the project possible. "I have to admit that I lived with a very great resentment; I spent 18 years thinking that he had abandoned me and my two-year-old daughter; and I believed all the lies about his disappearance.

That is why I am eternally grateful to each one of you, because this will mean an eternal memory for us; we also thank you for helping us know the truth," she commented. The Museum of Memory selected this first commune, appointing an Ambassador of Memory to carry out the investigation that led to the whereabouts of the victims' families.

Thus, Waldo García and researcher Verónica González carried out the work of memory reconstruction and reparation, in some cases, with the support of the Program for Reparation and Comprehensive Health Care (PRAIS) for those affected by human rights violations.

Source: pressenza.com 01/24/2018

Date: 01-24-2018

The Unidad Popular, the coup, and the military dictatorship in Limache

Neighbors of the CCU residential area worked around the question: "What do we remember about the 70s at the CCU in Limache?"

Attendees recalled the process of the Unidad Popular within the factory and then the military coup and the repression they suffered in their workplace and homes during the dictatorship.

The participants valued and were grateful for the space to share these memories and lamented the lack of participation from other neighbors in these instances.

Some of the topics discussed were: The organization of the JAP (Supply and Price Boards) during the Unidad Popular; the factory as a place of protection against economic crises, as its workers had food, housing, and basic services during the UP and the dictatorship; the intervention of naval forces in the factory on September 11 itself to take charge of the plant and the workday, in addition to repressing and searching the spaces in search of weapons.

After this, raids on the plant were frequent.

They also remembered CARLOS ANTONIO VARGAS ARANCIBIA, a forcibly disappeared person in 1975, an electrical worker, and Jaime Aldonay Vargas, detained and disappeared in 1973, who held the role of supervisor in charge of the factory during the Unidad Popular.

To conclude, the attendees talked about the training sessions that were given to peasants in Limache during the Agrarian Reform, preparing for the transformations that socialism implied. The participants opined that the peasants were more politicized compared to the workers.

Source: memoriasdelsigloxx.cl 09/04/2017

Date: 09-04-2017

Chile. The story of the Forcibly Disappeared of the CCU Limache factory: When the workers were in charge

"They are not just memory, they are open, continuous, and wide life, they are a path that begins and calls to us. They sing with me, with me they sing" (DV) Andrés Figueroa Cornejo

After 30 years of remaining closed, the original factory of the Compañía de Cervecerías Unidas (CCU) in the city of Limache, V Region, was opened to the general public on Sunday, May 28, as part of National Heritage Day.

Contrary to what many thought, the visit to the various facilities of the brewery, where its departments, machines, and period images were exhibited, was massive. A good number of people did not even manage to enter the company due to the number of attendees.

However, the opening of the CCU factory was not just a weekend tour, but became a window into the deep memory of the workers who worked there. In fact, almost 50 years ago, the CCU was social property and its workers were in charge of production during the years of Salvador Allende's popular government.

And on September 12, 1973, one day after the coup d'état carried out by the Armed Forces and Carabineros against the legitimately constituted government, a strong contingent of marines prepared for a non-existent war assaulted the factory and took hundreds of defenseless workers to torture and extermination centers.

From that brutal repression, two CCU workers, Jaime Aldoney and Carlos Vargas, remain to this day in the condition of Forcibly Disappeared of the civil-military dictatorship. Is it not time for an explicit recognition against this infamy?

Do Jaime and Carlos not deserve, at least, an honorable and decorous plaque that commemorates them, and that is located in the same factory that will tomorrow become a CCU museum?

Limache does not sleep

Currently, many inhabitants of Limache are fighting for a Human Rights Memorial to be erected in the commune. The councilman of the Limache municipality, Joel González, indicated that, "Limache is built by demolishing sites of memory, forgetting, invisibilizing.

However, our commune knew of neighbors detained, tortured, and murdered during the dictatorship. Crimes against humanity and the defense of human rights can never be relativized by capricious interpretations or political pettiness, because a community that does not recognize its collective past is unable to provide certainty that the horrors committed will not be repeated.

With the same consistency with which we have denounced the presence of a former official of the National Intelligence Center (CNI, the dictatorship's political police) in the Limache Municipality, we will continue to insist that our commune build a Memorial for the victims of the dictatorship and for 'Never Again' to the violation of human rights in our beloved valley and in our country."

The indelible memory

Mrs. Gioconda Aguilera Altamirano is a Limache native by birth and lived in the Compañía de Cervecerías Unidas (CCU) residential area during the Unidad Popular government. She was a political prisoner of the civil-military dictatorship from October 22, 1973, to October 22, 1974, on the Lebu Prison Ship of the War Academy and in the Buen Pastor women's prison.

Today she is the president of the former political prisoners of the Buen Pastor women's prison in Valparaíso, as well as president of the Human Rights Commission of Limache.

The Commission emerged in the context of the social uprising of October 2019. "I left the country in 1976 and returned in 2010. When I arrived in Limache after so long, nothing was talked about here. People looked at me as if I were crazy when I explained that I had been a prisoner," recounts Gioconda. "The inhabitants of Limache were still afraid in 2010.

Only now are organizations, gradually, beginning to rise."

Gioconda is a socialist militant and knew Jaime Aldoney Vargas and Carlos Vargas Arancibia, both workers at the historic CCU factory in Limache and Forcibly Disappeared by the dictatorship. At the time of his detention, Jaime Aldoney was serving as the government-appointed supervisor of the company, while Carlos Vargas was a member of the Revolutionary Workers' Front (FTR) of the Movement of the Revolutionary Left (MIR), an electrician, and a union leader for his political group.

"Carlos Vargas was detained on May 29, 1975," narrates Gioconda, adding that "not long ago we held a commemoration for him at the Limache metro station. He was 36 years old when he was arrested by agents of the dictatorship and taken to the Quillota Cavalry School.

They had been following him for a long time. The last comrade who saw him alive noticed that he was in very bad condition at the Army Cavalry School, a place of detention, torture, and extermination at the time."

Mrs. Gioconda said that Carlos Vargas was married and had two children, "and when his wife began to look for him, the military told her that he had gone to Argentina with another woman. But his eldest son never believed that story and kept looking for him. But he never found him. Years later, he took his own life."

– Did you know Carlos personally? "Yes. At that time, my father was a union leader and spokesperson for the CCU, and Carlos would arrive at the company on a motorcycle. He was a very intelligent and reserved man, and that's why they called him 'The Mute.' After Carlos was made to disappear, his mother went to the gates of the CCU every day.

They would blow a whistle so the workers could enter and leave. His mother waited for him until she passed away from age and illness."

– And did you know Jaime Aldoney? "He was a civil engineer, a journalism student at the University of Chile; he was a councilman for the area and a national supervisor of the CCU. Jaime was detained the day after the coup d'état, on September 12, 1973, along with all the leaders and workers who were in the factory, waiting to see what to do.

And suddenly, the marines surrounded the building from the back. They were painted for war. That day they took truckloads of comrades from the CCU and transported them to the Belloto Aeronaval base. At that site, the uniformed men forced the detainees to dig trenches so they could get inside them.

That way, they could not be seen from outside the base. The people who were looking for their relatives stood at the fences of the military compound, but they could not see their people. The leaders and workers, honestly, did not believe that the coup d'état would be so ferocious.

They thought that 'he who does nothing, fears nothing.' But we young people told them that we had to leave as soon as possible."

– You were very young at that time... "I was 19 years old. And the other young people and I walked toward the hills, in the direction of Peñablanca."

– And why? "Because when the 'Tancazo' occurred, the attempted coup d'état of June 29, 1973, we young people of the Unidad Popular were gathered at the Youth House of Limache, and it was the first time that members of the Army tortured us.

Therefore, by September 12, we already knew what was going to happen to us. Moreover, Radio La Victoria of Limache was bombed. However, our elders considered that we were exaggerating, and that was after the torture, already at home, I spent two days in bed unable to move from pain."

– What role did Jaime Aldoney play as the government supervisor at the CCU? "He was the general administrator of the factory, that is, we are talking about an industry that belonged to the social sector and was under the control of the workers themselves.

When the social sector was established, the CCU did not stop again because it was urgent to increase production. They worked day and night in different shifts. There were almost 500 workers. Jaime Aldoney was last seen alive on September 13, 1973, at the Belloto base.

He was with the other detainees in the trenches. The military would take them out of there to torture them in another facility and then put them back in the trenches. Jaime was taken to be tortured and never returned.

On one occasion, Jaime's brother told me that he was sure the soldiers threw him into the sea. But it is not known because the body does not exist. Now, this past May 28, when they opened the CCU factory on National Heritage Day for the public to visit, I started arguing with a man who claimed that Aldoney was dead, to which I replied, 'If he is dead, where is his body?' He stayed silent.

That day they opened the factory, those in charge took care to tell the official history of the CCU, nothing more. They did not refer to the workers, to when they were in charge of production, nor to the coup d'état and the repression. It was us women who explained to the people that part that they want to erase from memory."

Source: federacionccu.cl 2019