Carlos Eladio Salcedo Morales, married, one child, university student, and MIR militant—who suffered from a skin condition that made it difficult for his wounds to heal—was detained on August 16, 1974, after four in the afternoon, on a public street, without witnesses, by agents of the National Intelligence Directorate (DINA), who took him to various facilities.

According to information held by the National Commission for Truth and Reconciliation, Carlos Eladio Salcedo remained detained at Londres 38, the house on José Domingo Cañas (both secret DINA detention and torture centers), and at Cuatro Alamos (an incommunicado detention center under DINA control), from where he was forcibly disappeared.

That day, the victim left his home for work (a demolition materials company) at approximately 9 in the morning. At four in the afternoon, he spoke by phone with his spouse, María Soledad Henríquez, saying he would be home for dinner at 7 in the evening. He was never heard from again.

On August 24, 1974, his spouse received an anonymous phone call informing her of the victim's detention. Subsequently, the victim's parents received several anonymous calls in August, October, and December 1974, telling them that Carlos Eladio Salcedo was at Tres Alamos (at that time, the existence of the DINA incommunicado center known as Cuatro Alamos was unknown).

They received the last call in February 1975. On that occasion, Silvia Raquel Morales—the victim's mother—was told that her son had been transferred to a prison in the Ñuble province and that his life was in danger, given his physical condition resulting from the torture he had received and the long period of incommunicado detention.

According to the woman who called, one of her own sons had been with Carlos Eladio.

The family also learned that two female detainees—who were expelled to England—and a former prisoner had been with the victim between August and October 1974 at Cuatro Alamos and at the Air War Academy (AGA). These witnesses did not testify in court.

Subsequently, in July 1975, the name of Carlos Eladio Salcedo Morales appeared on the list of 119 Chileans who had allegedly died in clashes abroad. His name was included in the roster published by the newspaper "O'Dia" in Curitiba, Brazil, which was published only once, without a responsible editor or printer's imprint.

The veracity of this claim could never be proven; furthermore, no government officially ratified it. During the legal proceedings regarding the victim's disappearance, International Police informed the court on July 15, 1977, that the victim had no travel records.

This information was reiterated in September 1978. For his part, Jorge Barriga B., by order of the Undersecretary of Foreign Affairs, reported that Carlos Eladio had not left the country as an asylee (October 5, 1978).

Previously, in September 1975, Army Major Enrique Cid Coubles, of the Human Rights Secretariat of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, officially informed the court that the newspaper "O'Dia" did not exist in Curitiba and that there was no official record that the persons named in those lists had actually died abroad.

He added, "there is also no record that these persons have left the country." What united these 119 people was that they had all been detained by Chilean security services and, since their detention, had been forcibly disappeared.

JUDICIAL AND/OR ADMINISTRATIVE ACTIONS

On August 29, 1974, a writ of amparo (habeas corpus) was filed for the victim before the Santiago Court of Appeals, registered under No. 1012-74. During the proceedings, the response from the Minister of the Interior and Division General, Raúl Benavides Escobar, did not arrive until December 13, 1974, stating that Carlos Eladio Salcedo was not being held by order of that State Secretariat.

For his part, the Brigadier General and Chief of the State of Siege Zone of the Santiago Province reported on December 23 of the same year that no case was being brought against Salcedo Morales in the Second Military Court and that he was not being held within the jurisdiction of that headquarters.

Only by virtue of these reports was the writ rejected on December 24, 1974—four months after it was filed—and the records were sent to the 8th Criminal Court of Santiago. Thus, case file No. 11.612-7 was initiated.

Following a judicial order, the Investigations police reported having made various inquiries at the National Executive Secretariat of Detainees (SENDET), the Legal Medical Institute, the Homicide Brigade, and various clinics and hospitals, without positive results.

During the processing of this case, María Soledad Henríquez informed the court that on July 8, 1975, she was told at SENDET that her husband had traveled outside of Chile via Cuba in May 1973 and had not returned.

Information from abroad was also attached, stating that the victim had died in alleged clashes along with 118 other Chileans. A request was made to officially ask the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to provide information regarding the possible identification of the body, the registration of the death in the Civil Registry book at the Consular Agency, the burial site, and the possibility of repatriating the body.

Army Major Enrique Cid Coubles responded on behalf of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, stating that there was no information regarding those events.

On October 31, 1975, the summary phase was closed and the case was temporarily dismissed because "the existence of the reported crime was not sufficiently justified in the records." The Prosecutor's ruling pointed out the need to investigate the report made by the spouse regarding the possible detention of the victim in the Ñuble Province.

On December 31 of the same year, the Court of Appeals revoked the ruling, ordering that the veracity of that information be established.

Letters rogatory were then issued to the courts of Itata, San Carlos, Bulnes, Yungay, and Chillán, without obtaining positive results. At the same time, the Minister of the Interior was officially asked to report whether there was any detention center in the Ñuble Province for prisoners held under State of Siege powers and if Carlos Eladio Salcedo was there.

On September 20, 1976, Division General and Minister of the Interior Raúl Benavides Escobar informed the court that there were no detention camps other than Puchuncaví, Tres Alamos, and Cuatro Alamos. Regarding the victim, he reported having no information and that there was no order or resolution affecting him.

On March 15, 1977, the summary phase was closed for the second time and the case was temporarily dismissed. The Prosecutor's ruling again pointed to pending actions: summoning the victim's mother to testify; officially asking International Police to report whether Salcedo Morales had left the country and adding his identification record to the file.

On March 30 of the same year, the Court of Appeals revoked the judge's resolution, ordering the completion of the indicated actions.

On December 14, 1977, the press announced that the General Secretariat of Government had officially and publicly reported that "1,200 alleged disappeared persons had been located." The official information stated that reports of disappearances had reached 1,700 cases, of which 1,200 were clarified and 500 continued to be investigated "confidentially by the Courts of Justice." Only a list of 276 names was released to the public, none of whom had ever been reported as disappeared.

Among these names appeared a "Carlos Eladio Salgado Morales," regarding whom the government requested further information. In this regard, the plaintiff requested that the court ask for all information related to "Carlos Salgado" in order to establish that it was a different person from the victim.

It was also requested that the General Secretariat of Government be officially asked to make available to the court the information it held regarding the "alleged disappeared person Carlos Eladio Salgado." On September 6, 1978, the Civil Registry Office officially informed the court that no person under the name Carlos Eladio Salgado Morales was registered in its index files.

On June 11, 1979, the case began to be heard by Visiting Minister Servando Jordán López, designated by the Supreme Court to investigate cases of forcibly disappeared persons reported in the Santiago jurisdiction.

Before him, Minister of the Interior Sergio Fernández Fernández—a designated Senator—reported by official letter on September 17, 1979, that the CNI stated that Salcedo Morales did not appear as having been detained by personnel under its authority.

For her part, María Soledad Henríquez requested that the Visiting Minister visit "Cuatro Alamos" and the FACH Air War Academy to collect the maximum amount of information to prove the victim's presence in those two facilities.

The statements of Brigadier General Enrique Morel Donoso, Commander-in-Chief of the II Army Division, were also attached; in an interview granted to "Hoy" magazine (October 1977), he had practically considered the case of the 119 dead in alleged clashes abroad as resolved.

The General stated that "many have been located alive, there is no information on others, and some were killed by the Argentine armed forces." In this regard, María Soledad Henríquez requested the appearance of Morel to clarify before the court the situation of Carlos Eladio Salcedo Morales.

The Visiting Minister did not grant the request to visit Cuatro Alamos, given that a Juvenile Observation Center was operating there at the time and its books—as reported by Odlanier Mena, Director of the CNI, in other cases of forcibly disappeared persons—had been incinerated.

Regarding General Morel's statements, Minister Jordán noted those he had already provided on the same subject on June 8, 1979. In them, the General said that what was published corresponded to a "journalistic drafting by the interviewer, which does not faithfully translate what I stated on that occasion." The statements already made by Orlando José Manzo Durán, 1st Lieutenant of the Gendarmerie and former Chief of Cuatro Alamos, were also placed on record; he declared that all detainees arriving at that facility were entered into an index book, which was "zealously supervised by the Minister of Justice and the President of the Supreme Court" (July 27, 1977). In July 1979, the DINA agent told the court that Cuatro Alamos depended on the DINA and that its entry books "were filing cabinets; they must have them at the CNI, the successor to the DINA." He added that there were ten cells for four people each and a common dormitory for approximately 40 detainees in that facility. "On one occasion," he said, "the entire capacity of beds in the Camp was occupied." Regarding the appearance of the people arriving at Cuatro Alamos, he said that people arrived unrecognizable, with haggard faces, long hair, and disheveled clothing, so he could not recognize the photographs (of the forcibly disappeared) that were shown to him.

After reviewing these aspects of the Visiting Minister's file, the summary phase was closed on December 12, 1979, and the case was temporarily dismissed because "the perpetration of a punishable act" was not completely justified. On January 4, 1980, the Court of Appeals approved the ruling.

In addition, the family carried out various administrative efforts to locate the victim's whereabouts. Among these, they wrote to the General Director of the Carabineros and member of the Government Junta, General César Mendoza Durán, on April 11, 1978.

In the letter, the spouse explained the circumstances of Carlos Eladio's detention, saying, "it is not possible for a citizen to disappear completely from his environment, from everything that has been his world of family and work, and for there to be no further news of his whereabouts."

His spouse, María Soledad Henríquez, passed away in 1992, after a long illness and without having managed to learn the final fate of her son's father.

Source: Vicaría de la Solidaridad

45 years after the military coup in Chile, the Human Rights and Professional Action Committee of the Architects' Association of Chile AG pays tribute to our colleagues who were victims of human rights violations.

Fernando Kusnetzoff, former Dean of the Faculty of Architecture at the Universidad de Chile, noted in the prologue to the book Eight Architects in Memory: "When a new architecture book or magazine appears, the reader generally expects to find studies, illustrations, and comments on recent contributions and achievements produced by the practitioners of this ancient and unique discipline that conceives and shapes the space inhabited by mass society.

Even when the text focuses monographically on a specific architect, its content deals with their works and their contribution to the evolution of architecture. That is why we find it strange and difficult to write a prologue for a book that, on the contrary, accounts for the abrupt end, in their practice, of eight Chilean architects, coldly tortured and murdered by the agents of the sinister dictatorship that was imposed upon us three decades ago by a conservatism opposed to social progress.

It is necessary to remember that after the military coup in Chile, a large number of architects were victims of prolonged detentions, torture, and confinement in various concentration camps set up throughout the country or on Navy ships in Valparaíso.

Some were released, having to travel later to various countries or remaining—the few—in Chile, under adverse conditions. Many were expelled from the country, forced to emigrate or go into exile due to the harassment and persecution to which they were subjected, their family ties, professional offices, and work or economic positions destroyed, having to rebuild their lives in unknown countries, with different languages and cultural habits.

Some have died in exile."

This year, 2018, the Universidad de Chile has granted and will continue to grant posthumous and symbolic degrees to students of that institution. Among them are two students who were simultaneously studying two degrees, one of which was architecture. For the Architects' Association of Chile, adding two colleagues to this list is a task we wish would never be repeated.

Our commitment is to continue fighting for truth and justice. Memory is culture.

IDA VERA ALMARZA, 31 years old. Architect, Universidad de Chile. Forcibly disappeared since 19/11/1974. CARLOS ELADIO SALCEDO MORALES, 21 years old. Student of Sociology and Architecture, U. de Chile. Forcibly disappeared since 16/8/1974.

Received posthumous degrees in 2018. MARIO PEÑA SOLARI, 21 years old. Architecture student, U. de Chile. Forcibly disappeared since 9/12/1974. Received his posthumous degree in 2018. PATRICIO MANZANO GONZÁLEZ, 21 years old.

Engineering and Architecture student, U. de Chile. Murdered by the dictatorship 8/2/1985. Received posthumous degrees in 2018. LUIS GUENDELMAN WISNIAK, 26 years old. Architecture graduate, U. de Chile.

Forcibly disappeared since 2/9/1974. Received his posthumous degree in 2018. YACTONG ORLANDO JUANTOK GUZMÁN, 26 years old. Forcibly disappeared since 12/9/1973. Architecture graduate, U. de Chile in Valparaíso.

Received his posthumous degree in 2017. CARLOS ALFREDO GAJARDO WOLF, 34 years old. Forcibly disappeared since 20/9/1974. Architecture graduate, U. de Chile in Valparaíso. Received his posthumous degree in 2017.

LEOPOLDO BENÍTEZ HERRERA, 37 years old. Executed 17/9/1973. Architect, U. Católica de Chile. ALEJANDRO RODRÍGUEZ URZÚA, 49 years old. Forcibly disappeared since 27/7/1976. Architect, U. de Chile. FRANCISCO AEDO CARRASCO, 64 years old. Forcibly disappeared since 7/9/1974. Architect, U. de Chile.

Source: colegiodearquitectos.com 11/9/2018 Date: 11-09-2018

U. de Chile to award posthumous degrees to 104 executed and disappeared persons (excerpt)

Through exempt decree number 0030766 of the Universidad de Chile, authorized by the Comptroller General of the Republic on September 4 of this year, that institution was enabled, for the first time in its history, to award posthumous and symbolic degrees to students who were political executions victims and those who became forcibly disappeared during the military regime (See list at the end, editor CT).

The official ceremony, which will be led by Rector Ennio Vivaldi, will take place next Monday the 11th, in the Domeyko courtyard of the central campus, starting at 12:30.

For Vivaldi, "this initiative has two very deep meanings. On one hand, it is a gesture of reparation for the victims themselves and for their families, who also affectionately associate their loved ones with this great institution that is the U. de Chile.

On the other hand, the U. de Chile feels it is fulfilling its moral duty by not granting the dictatorship the terrible objective of, in addition to having cut their lives short, erasing their achievements as students and future professionals for Chile."

The list includes 104 former students of the university who were murdered by State agents between 1973 and 1989.

Among the most remembered cases is that of history student Jécar Nehgme, who also appears as the last victim of the Augusto Pinochet regime. This former leader of the Revolutionary Left Movement (MIR) appeared dead on September 4, 1989, on General Bulnes street, a few days before the elections that would mark the return to democracy.

After a long judicial process, which was resolved in 2008, it was established that the authors of the murder were the metropolitan chief of the CNI, Brigadier (r) Enrique Levy Araneda; Colonel (r) Pedro Guzmán Olivares; and Captain (r) Luis Sanhueza Ross.

Social organizations valued the gesture. The president of the Association of Political Executions Victims (Afep), Alicia Lira, pointed out that "it is a great gesture, which we recognize enormously. With this, Rector Vivaldi fulfills a pending task that the Universidad de Chile had, since similar gestures had already been carried out by other universities such as the U. de Santiago and the Austral in Valdivia.

But it is an enormous signal for democracy and for a true 'never again' to be fulfilled in Chile."

CARLOS ELADIO SALCEDO MORALES FORCIBLY DISAPPEARED 16/08/1974

Source: cctt.cl 9/09/2017 Date: 09-09-2017