Address: Alcalde Pedro Alarcón 324, Población La Legua, San Miguel, Santiago. Marital Status: Single Occupation: Laborer Repressive Status: Militant of the Communist Youth; former community leader Date of Detention: October 6, 1973

REPRESSIVE SITUATION

Celedonio de las Rosas Sepúlveda Labra, single, laborer, and militant of the Communist Youth, was detained on October 6, 1973, around 09:00 in the morning, by officials of the Investigations Service (Servicio de Investigaciones) dressed in nurse uniforms.

He was attempting to seek asylum in the Embassy of the Republic of Argentina, along with four other people, by jumping over a wall adjacent to an interior courtyard of the San Borja Hospital.

On that day, Celedonio Sepúlveda, brothers Eduardo and Abelardo Jesús Quinteros Miranda, Raúl Buridán San Martín Barrera, and Samuel Riquelme Cruz—who served as Deputy Director of Investigations until September 11, 1973, and who was the only survivor of the group—entered the hospital grounds through the main entrance at different times.

Juan Castro Fuentes, brother-in-law of Raúl Buridán San Martín, was observing from a distance; he had arrived moments earlier to help his relative seek asylum. Castro Fuentes recalls that only a few moments had passed when he heard shots.

He managed to see Raúl Buridán San Martín on the ground—he did not know if he was wounded or not—and two other young men whose faces he could not distinguish. From the ambulances, he saw people dressed as nurses emerge and fire directly at the group attempting to seek asylum. He saw no more because, given the situation, he had to leave the area.

These events resulted in the death of Eduardo Quinteros Miranda, whose body was later found in the San Carlos Canal with gunshot wounds to the thorax and abdomen. He had been admitted to the Legal Medical Institute (Instituto Médico Legal) by order of the Military Prosecutor on October 11, 1973.

Celedonio Sepúlveda Labra, Raúl Buridán San Martín, and Abelardo Quinteros Miranda remain forcibly disappeared to this day. Samuel Riquelme Cruz was detained and prosecuted. While he was still under arrest, the case regarding the death of Eduardo Quinteros was dismissed without the court calling the only survivor of the events to testify (for further details on this case, see the case of Abelardo Quinteros Miranda).

In a sworn statement provided in 1990, Samuel Segundo Riquelme Cruz indicated that on October 6, 1973, he was inside the San Borja Hospital, stationed next to the parish located there, along with two young men he did not know.

One of them approached him—after recognizing him—and asked how he intended to seek asylum. They discussed the situation and then headed toward a high wall that they had to cross to enter the Argentine Embassy.

At that moment, the witness added, armed civilians appeared and began to fire. Samuel Riquelme managed to escape the scene and entered one of the hospital offices, asking for help. Two civilians whom the declarant recognized arrived at that room.

One of them worked in the Carabineros security apparatus, and the other was a photographer for the Investigations Service. Riquelme Cruz does not remember their names.

The agents proceeded to detain the declarant and took him to where the two young men with whom he intended to seek asylum were located. They were lying on the ground. Shortly after, a Carabineros van arrived, and they were transported to the police station located on Calle San Isidro.

Ramón Esquivel, a Carabineros officer who worked in the institutional intelligence apparatus, arrived at that police facility and ordered that the witness be taken to be tortured.

Upon entering the police station, the detainees were left in a courtyard. A Carabineros officer noticed there was blood and said, "there is a wounded man." Another policeman replied, "why do you care if we are going to kill these people immediately?" Only then did the declarant realize that one of the young men was wounded.

Samuel Riquelme was subjected to electric shocks and, on the third day, was taken out of the police facility and moved to various detention centers: the Air War Academy (Academia de Guerra Aérea), the National Stadium, the Estadio Chile, and the Penitentiary, among others. Prosecuted and later dismissed, he was expelled from the country on September 3, 1975.

Celedonio Sepúlveda Labra has remained in the status of a forcibly disappeared person since October 6, 1973, the day he was detained by Investigations personnel.

JUDICIAL AND/OR ADMINISTRATIVE ACTIONS

On February 2, 1977, a complaint for the alleged disappearance of the victim was filed before the 2nd Criminal Court of San Miguel, registered under No. 21.174-1. The case was temporarily dismissed on September 22, 1977.

The anthropomorphic records of Celedonio de las Rosas Sepúlveda Labra were attached to case 4449-AF of the 22nd Criminal Court of Santiago, regarding the crime of illegal burial in Patio 29 of the General Cemetery of unidentified persons who died between September and December 1973.

The investigating judge of the case ordered the excavation of 108 graves in September 1991. From there, 125 bodies were exhumed and sent to the Legal Medical Institute. Currently (late 1992), the forensic identification reports are pending.

Source: Vicariate of Solidarity

“Stay, nothing will happen to you here.” The last time they saw him, the sisters of Celedonio Sepúlveda Labra asked him to stay with them, but he refused: he did not want to involve his family. A communist militant, he had gone to say goodbye to them before being detained while carrying out a task assigned to him by the party.

Today, 46 years later, his remains are being waked in the Población La Legua, where he was born, raised, and fought during the military coup. “El Chelo,” as everyone knew Celedonio Sepúlveda Labra, was born on June 19, 1947.

He was the seventh of eight children, the youngest of the boys. Violeta, the sixth, was two years older, and today she remembers him while sitting at the neighborhood association hall, dressed in white—the same color as her hair and the same color as the clothes of the entire family that is saying goodbye to him. “He was quiet, loving, a good uncle to the nieces he managed to meet.

He liked chili peppers, like all the Sepúlvedas, beans, and noodle soup. Left-wing music, Víctor Jara, Quilapayún. Very much a gentleman, even though he didn't have much formal education; he was always wearing a suit and tie,” she says, explaining that he only finished fifth grade because, when their father died, they were left adrift.

Over the years, he learned to weld and did his military service in Punta Arenas. Also, as he grew up, he began to frequent the Communist Party local, where there was a ping-pong table, they played ball, and he met other young people from the neighborhood.

Vladimir Salamanca Morales, political secretary of the César Cerda commune of the Communist Party, was one of his comrades in the ranks, but also in upbringing. Both Celedonio’s family and those who knew him affirm that he grew up with the Salamanca family, waiting every day with anticipation for the homemade bread that the mother of that house prepared.

Dressed in his amaranth shirt, typical of “la Jota” (the Communist Youth), he remembers that Chelo joined the party in 1965, for the presidential campaign of Salvador Allende. Permeated by what was happening in the world, such as the Cuban Revolution or the American invasion of Vietnam, he began to form his political views.

He read books, went to the cinema, was bad at ball, but still played soccer for the Estrella Roja sports club to raise the money they needed to buy a house for the party, the same one that continues to function to this day as a headquarters.

In the summer of '67, there was the peace march against the intervention in Vietnam, where he was awarded a medal from the Republic of Vietnam for having completed the two-week journey correctly, washing dishes, respecting shifts, and painting murals from Valparaíso to Santiago. He worked for three years at the newspaper El Siglo and was a member of the National Peasant Commission of the Jota.

In the middle of Salvador Allende's presidential campaign, the instruction was given to create youth propaganda brigades that would fill the walls with graffiti, drawings, and colors. Paul was in charge of forming them, and when he arrived in La Legua to recruit comrades, he met Chelo.

Together they went to the north, La Serena and Coquimbo, in a group led by Paul that looked at Chelo, the oldest of them all, with respect and admiration. One of the things that marked him most, according to those who shared militancy with him, was his deep sense of class. “He gave himself totally to the cause, and it does not surprise me that he gave his life in a mission for the Party.

He never backed down because of danger; he was always very consistent,” recalls Paul today, while in the background the anthem of the Communist Youth plays, beginning the political-cultural act that will pay tribute to Celedonio at his wake.

Allende won, and Chelo began working as an instructor for the Agrarian Reform, his sister says. “One day they asked him if he was going to see the huasos (cowboys), but he corrected them immediately, saying they were peasants, not huasos.

He never offended anyone.” Some time before the coup d'état, he decided to leave his home. Today, a niece believes that perhaps he already knew what was coming and wanted to protect his family.

On September 11, Violeta felt the planes passing over her when her brother-in-law told her there was a coup d'état. “I went out and immediately thought of Chelo and got scared,” she says. History tells us that there were two places with armed resistance that day: La Moneda and the Población La Legua.

They had received the column of GAP militants coming from Indumet. The inhabitants were given the possibility of leaving the sector, because staying was dangerous, but Chelo did not move, and since he had done his military service, he provided fundamental help for the resistance.

The last day Vladimir saw him was September 13, 1973: “In La Legua there was popular control, and we had to make sure the stores and bakeries functioned. Together with Chelo and two comrades, we went to ask the workers to make things work; we organized the lines and the people supported us.

He was there, rifle in hand.” However, on September 16, there were massive raids, where many residents ended up in the National Stadium, the Public Jail, and different parts of the country. When Celedonio went to say goodbye and his sisters asked him to stay, he told them that he had the task of helping someone important seek asylum in an embassy and that if he did not give signs in a few months or a year, it was because he had died.

It was the last time they saw him. The task had been entrusted to four young militants of the Jota: brothers Eduardo and Abelardo Quinteros Miranda, Raúl San Martín Barrera, and Celedonio Sepúlveda Labra.

They had to help Samuel Riquelme, who had been Deputy Director of Investigations for the government of Salvador Allende, seek asylum in the Embassy of the Republic of Argentina. On October 6, 1973, around nine in the morning, the five were detained by officials of the Investigations Service dressed as nurses, while they were trying to pass from the old San Borja Hospital to the embassy through an adjacent wall.

Due to his position, Samuel Riquelme was separated from his comrades, was imprisoned in different centers, and in 1975 went into exile. The fate of Chelo and his three companions was different: the four became part of the list of Forcibly Disappeared persons left by the Chilean military dictatorship.

A year later, following the instructions his younger brother had given, Carlos went to the Vicariate of Solidarity to report his disappearance. He was the one who took on the task of the search, which lasted for dozens of years and which he could not finish, as he passed away before Chelo's remains were found. “My brother searched for him a lot, asking everywhere.

I also went to several places, to all the places where they helped search for forcibly disappeared persons,” recalls Violeta. She says they always thought he would return; she even dreamed she saw him on the corner while she was at the door of her house in La Legua. They would run and hug, but her husband would wake her up because she would cry in her sleep.

“Don't dream so much; I bet you Chelo is in Russia dancing Russian-style, or in Cuba with Fidel Castro drinking a Cuba Libre,” he would tell her to distract her. Violeta kept hope for twenty years, but then she lost it.

She thought they had thrown him into the sea or burned him, that they would never find him. “Three months ago they found his comrade, Abelardo, and I prayed that he would appear before I died.” The phone rang.

The social worker called the three sisters who are still alive, Leonor, Violeta, and Teresa, and explained that they had to go talk to Judge Carroza. Violeta thought they were going to tell them again that they were doing everything possible to find him; she never imagined he had already appeared.

It took time to identify him; they had to open their mother's grave to extract a bone and compare it with the blood their siblings had given. The studies were done in Australia, in an investigation that lasted many years, since 1991 when the bodies were discovered in Patio 29 of the General Cemetery. “It was painful when I saw all his little bones and the lady was explaining what happened to him.

She showed us some little holes. I thought, how can they be so wretched? Why didn't they kill him with one bullet and be done with it? Why did they shoot him everywhere? That did hurt a lot. We had to take his little bones and put them in the little coffin, but I couldn't,” she remembers, sitting at the headquarters, a few meters from a small wooden coffin, covered with the Communist Party flag, where the last remains of the brother they searched for so much now rest.

Violeta says she will die in peace, without thinking about where he is, if he suffered, if they tortured him. Today, many of her questions finally have an answer. “My mom called for him before she died.

She never knew her son had disappeared. The coup was in September, my brother fell on October 6, 1973, and my mom died on February 21, 1974, with the hope that Chelo would return.” She died waiting, just like her other four siblings, just like so many families in Chile.

While talking with her nieces, granddaughters, and other relatives, Violeta tells one of the many stories with which she has been passing on the figure of her brother to the generations, so that he is never forgotten: “One day I asked him if he believed in God.

He answered that he did believe that there was a man who came to revolutionize the world: Jesus Christ. He told me that he had sown peace, tranquility, and had taught that we are all equal. ‘For me, sister, we are all equal.

As you say, we are all children of God,’ he said. He asked me why some men worked themselves to the bone for a pittance while others, sitting in an office, became millionaires. It wasn't fair, he told me.

Where is God in that? And I didn't know what to answer him, if he was right.” The room is full. Party comrades, neighbors, authorities, and relatives are gathered to say goodbye, 46 years later, to Chelo.

Manuel García and Luis Le-Bert dedicate some a cappella songs to him. The words before the microphone resonate on the walls and have a meeting point: Celedonio has returned to La Legua after so many years, just in the middle of the social revolt that has had Chile before the world's attention for a month and a half.

On October 18, close to the date of Chelo's disappearance, hundreds of young people evaded the Santiago metro and opened the eyes of an entire country. From that moment until now, Chelo's family and comrades see him in each of the young people who are in the street, fighting, helping, throwing stones, and running from the guanaco (water cannon vehicle).

Violeta has felt anxious, afraid, not for herself, but for her grandchildren and her children. She feels that Carabineros and the military do not respect anyone. She imagines a new coup d'état and cannot stop crying.

The night before she couldn't sleep, she says; she couldn't fall asleep for the very important day that was coming: receiving her brother in the neighborhood that saw him born. She had to be ready for his arrival.

The day before, she had gone to the march of the Association of Relatives of the Forcibly Disappeared, which they hold every Friday around La Moneda. “I had never gone; it was the first time, and from now on I will go always. Without fail. For my brother.”

Source: theclinic.cl 11/28/2019 Date: 11-28-2019

In the midst of the crisis and 46 years after his detention by State agents, the remains of Celedonio Sepúlveda Labra are recovered

Celedonio Sepúlveda, a militant of the Communist Youth during the Unidad Popular period and a territorial leader of the Población La Legua, was a forcibly disappeared person as of October 6, 1973, by the dictatorship. 46 years after his forced disappearance, his remains were finally identified and handed over to his relatives, who, this Sunday, November 24, buried them in a ceremony at the General Cemetery.

This Sunday, November 24, the remains of Celedonio Sepúlveda Labra, a militant of the Communist Youth and territorial leader of the Población La Legua, were buried in a ceremony at the General Cemetery.

Now, in circumstances where the country is experiencing the deepest crisis since democracy was recovered and 46 years after his forced detention, Celedonio's remains were finally identified and handed over to his relatives.

On October 6, 1973, Celedonio Sepúlveda, along with Abelardo Quinteros, Eduardo Quinteros, and Raúl San Martín, were accompanying Samuel Riquelme, Deputy Director of Investigations during the Unidad Popular, who was heading to seek asylum in the Argentine Embassy.

Celedonio was part of Riquelme's protection group, and they were detained by police officers who—according to judicial statements—posed as nurses.

Source: elmostrador.cl November 25, 2019 Date: 11-25-2019

And while in the "normal" country: Remains of young forcibly disappeared person during the dictatorship who tried to seek asylum in the Argentine embassy are buried

This Sunday, November 24, in an emotional ceremony at the General Cemetery, the remains of Celedonio Sepúlveda Labra (pictured), a young communist militant and territorial leader of the Población La Legua, San Joaquín, who was a forcibly disappeared person as of October 6, 1973, by agents of the Investigations Police, were buried.

He was detained under circumstances where he and a group of young residents were seeking asylum in the Embassy of Argentina.

Sepúlveda and four other people were attempting to seek asylum in the embassy, located on Vicuña Mackenna, by jumping over a wall adjacent to an interior courtyard of the old San Borja Hospital.

On that day, Celedonio Sepúlveda, brothers Eduardo and Abelardo Jesús Quinteros Miranda, Raúl Buridán San Martín Barrera, and Samuel Riquelme Cruz—who served as Deputy Director of Investigations until September 11, 1973, and who was the only survivor of the group—entered the hospital grounds through the main entrance at different times.

Juan Castro Fuentes, brother-in-law of Raúl Buridán San Martín, was observing from a distance; he had arrived moments earlier to help his relative seek asylum. Castro Fuentes recalls that only a few moments had passed when he heard shots.

He managed to see Raúl Buridán San Martín on the ground—he did not know if he was wounded or not—and two other young men whose faces he could not distinguish. From the ambulances, he saw people dressed as nurses emerge and fire directly at the group that intended to seek asylum. He saw no more because, given the situation, he had to leave the area.

Celedonio Sepúlveda, known as "El Chelo," was born on June 19, 1947. He completed his studies at School No. 53 of La Legua, where the Arturo Baeza Family Health Center (Cesfam) operates today, and subsequently at the Escuela Huemul in the Barrio Franklin.

On October 6, 1973, Celedonio, along with his friends Abelardo Quinteros, Eduardo Quinteros, and Raúl San Martín, accompanied Samuel Riquelme, Deputy Director of Investigations during the Unidad Popular, who was heading to seek asylum in the Argentine Embassy. These young men were part of a security group and were detained by plainclothes agents of the military dictatorship.

Celedonio Sepúlveda Labra remained in the status of a disappeared person from October 6, 1973, the day he was detained by Investigations personnel.

Source: CAMBIO21.CL 11/25/2019 Date: 11-25-2019

Minister Paola Plaza sentences retired Carabineros for the homicide and kidnapping of young people who tried to seek asylum in an embassy in 1973

A minister on extraordinary assignment sentenced, with costs, a retired Carabineros officer and non-commissioned officer for their responsibility in the crimes of aggravated kidnapping of Raúl Buridán San Martín Barrera, Abelardo de Jesús Quinteros Miranda, and Celedonio de las Rosas Sepúlveda Labra, and the aggravated homicide of Eduardo Santos Quinteros Miranda.

These crimes were committed in October 1973, when they thwarted the victims' entry into the Argentine embassy.

The minister on extraordinary assignment for human rights violation cases of the Santiago Court of Appeals, Paola Plaza González, sentenced, with costs, a retired Carabineros officer and non-commissioned officer for their responsibility in the crimes of aggravated kidnapping of Raúl Buridán San Martín Barrera, Abelardo de Jesús Quinteros Miranda, and Celedonio de las Rosas Sepúlveda Labra, and the aggravated homicide of Eduardo Santos Quinteros Miranda.

These crimes were committed in October 1973, when they thwarted the victims' entry into the Argentine embassy.

In the ruling (case file 177-2010), the minister on assignment sentenced the then-Carabineros second sergeant Nolberto Fermín Ceballos Moraga to an effective prison term of 10 years and one day as the perpetrator of the three crimes of aggravated kidnapping, plus another 10 years and one day of imprisonment as the perpetrator of the aggravated homicide.

Meanwhile, the Carabineros major at the time of the events, José Alfredo Aros Velásquez, must serve 10 years and one day in prison for his responsibility as the perpetrator of the aggravated kidnappings.

In the resolution, Minister Plaza González established the following facts:

“On October 6, 1973, around 10:00 a.m., Eduardo Santos Quinteros Miranda, 19 years old, a high school student and militant of the Communist Youth; Abelardo de Jesús Quinteros Miranda, 21 years old, single, a tailoring student and militant of the Communist Party; Raúl Buridán San Martín Barrera, 19 years old, a laborer and militant of the Communist Youth; Celedonio de las Rosas Sepúlveda Labra, 25 years old, a welder and militant of the Communist Party; and Samuel Segundo Riquelme Cruz, Deputy Director General of the Investigations Police of Chile at the date of the investigated events, attempted to seek asylum in the Argentine Embassy, located on Avenida Vicuña Mackenna, using the San Borja Arriarán Hospital as an access route, whose facilities were adjacent to it. At the moment the aforementioned were preparing to jump over the dividing wall, they were intercepted by Carabineros officials belonging to the 6th Precinct, who were already at the same location, wearing clothing that simulated being health personnel, who thwarted the attempt, using their firearms against those seeking refuge, resulting in the death of Eduardo Santos Quinteros Miranda at the scene. The other detainees were taken to the indicated precinct along with the Investigations official who accompanied them, Samuel Segundo Riquelme Cruz, who finally managed to survive.

Subsequently, the remains of Abelardo de Jesús Quinteros Miranda and Celedonio de las Rosas Sepúlveda Labra were found after being identified among those victims whose bodies were recovered from Patio 29 of the General Cemetery in 1991, without identification and outside of any public record.

The identification and forensic proceedings established the cause of death for Abelardo Quinteros as ‘wounds by firearm, with the immediate cause of death being hemorrhagic shock in the context of a death of forensic medical etiology, violent homicide,’ and for Sepúlveda Labra as ‘a direct and proportionate consequence of the wounds by firearm, with the immediate cause of death being hemorrhagic shock in the context of a death of forensic medical etiology, violent homicide.’

In the investigation, it has been established that the police officials who used their firearms were Carabineros Gonzalo Andrés Valdivia Zúñiga (currently deceased) and Nolberto Fermín Ceballos Moraga, and those who ordered, supervised, and were in charge of the detention of the victims were the then-major Jorge David Retamal Berríos (now deceased), commissioner and chief of the police unit that intervened in the procedure—the 6th Precinct—and José Alfredo Aros Velásquez, head of the First Shift Service, in charge of operations outside the police facility on October 6, 1973.”

For the minister on assignment: “(…) the facts described in the preceding motive constitute crimes of aggravated kidnapping committed against the persons of Raúl Buridán San Martín Barrera, Abelardo de Jesús Quinteros Miranda, and Celedonio de las Rosas Sepúlveda Labra, provided for and sanctioned in Article 141, first and third paragraphs of the Penal Code, and the crime of aggravated homicide perpetrated against Eduardo Santos Quinteros Miranda, typified in Article 391 No. 1, first circumstance, of the same legal body, all in their wording in force at the time of occurrence, thus reclassifying the terms of the fiscal accusation regarding the victims Abelardo de Jesús Quinteros Miranda and Celedonio de las Rosas Sepúlveda Labra, in attention to the elements gathered in the criminal trial, the content and scope of the private accusations, and the powers of the court, expressed when issuing the sentence, to frame the proven facts through the legal evidence rendered to the typical figure that best fits the factual circumstances established in the preceding foundation, without prejudice to what will be said later when addressing the totality of the arguments of the plaintiffs.”

The resolution adds that: “Regarding the crime of homicide, it has been demonstrated that Nolberto Ceballos Moraga acted with certainty by simulating being an official of the hospital facility, which meant that he did not venture into any risk in the perpetration of the illicit act, thus creating a state of defenselessness in the victim Eduardo Quinteros Miranda, who could not notice the presence of the state agents who were guarding the place, and in that context, he fired against the group of young people, causing his death at the scene.”

“At the same time, the crimes indicated above assume the typology of crimes against International Law, as crimes against humanity, it being established in the case files that the illicit act is executed in a historical context of massive, repeated, and systematic attacks against the civilian population, committed by state agents who, taking advantage of their condition and incentivized by political and ideological motives, implemented a plan conceived by the State as a policy to be followed against people whose thinking was contrary to the government of the time, proceeding to perpetrate the legally reprehensible acts exposed in the preceding motive,” it adds.

In the civil sphere, Minister Plaza González ordered the state to pay a total compensation of $435,000,000 for moral damages to the victims' relatives.

Source: pdju.cl, November 26, 2024

JUDGMENT AND PUNISHMENT FOR THOSE RESPONSIBLE. Remains of Celedonio Sepúlveda, forcibly disappeared during the military dictatorship, are handed over

Remains of Celedonio Sepúlveda, forcibly disappeared during the military dictatorship, are handed over. Celedonio Sepúlveda, a young militant of the Communist Youth during the Unidad Popular period, was a forcibly disappeared person as of October 6, 1973, by the civil-military dictatorship. 46 years after his forced disappearance, his body is reunited with his loved ones.

Source: izquierdadiario.cl 11/24/2019