On September 20, 1973, a patrol composed of military personnel and Carabineros raided the home of Eduardo Segundo Crisóstomo Salgado, an Agronomy student and MIR militant, and his wife, Teresa del Rosario Cartes Molina. They were not at home at the time and were later alerted by a sister-in-law who lived in the adjacent house.

The affected party, knowing he was the one being sought, decided to turn himself in voluntarily. For this reason, he contacted his cousin Raúl Rojas Crisóstomo, a Civil Aviation Lieutenant and teacher by profession, who arrived at his home by car during curfew hours. At that location, Eduardo Crisóstomo spoke with him inside the car.

This conversation convinced him to turn himself in, as he had nothing to hide. He communicated this decision to his wife on the night of September 30, 1973.

On October 1 at 8:00, his cousin Raúl arrived to pick him up to accompany him to the Regimiento N°9 "Chillán". Upon saying goodbye to his wife, he asked her to come see him if he did not return before noon.

Seeing that it was 12:30 and the affected party had not returned, she went to the military facility, where she was informed that his name was not on the list of detainees, but that she should return after 17:00, as if he were currently giving a statement, his name would be entered after that procedure.

Upon returning to the military unit, she did not find her husband on the aforementioned list and was unable to find out where he was being held.

On October 2, when the curfew ended, two people arrived at the home of the affected party's mother-in-law and asked if Eduardo Crisóstomo lived there. When asked the reason for their visit, they stated that they had been detained the previous night for violating the curfew and taken to the 2a.

Comisaría de Carabineros de Chillán, where they saw the affected party, who asked them to inform his family of his situation.

Upon learning this, his wife went immediately to the police station; at approximately 10:00, while standing outside the guard post, she saw the victim being brought out to the area where she was. An officer then reprimanded the police official, indicating that this was not the detainee he required and therefore to return him to the cell immediately.

As he was being taken back, he passed by his wife, at which moment the affected party tried to speak to her, but was prevented from doing so by the Carabinero guarding him.

When she insisted that her husband was being held there because she had seen him, she was mocked by the police, who denied the affected party's presence. One of the uniformed officers, taking pity on her distress, accepted food and blankets to try to deliver them to the detainee, but he did not succeed in his objective and returned everything to her.

Likewise, a sister of the victim inquired about his whereabouts at the aforementioned police station. There, the guards told her that Eduardo had been taken to the Regiment. For this reason, they went to the military facility, where they were told that the Carabineros had not handed anyone over as a detainee.

Since that noon on October 2, 1973, the family of Eduardo Crisóstomo Salgado has not heard from him again, despite having searched for him in all the detention centers in the region. At the local jail, officer Eduardo Torrealba always tried to encourage the affected party's wife, giving her hope that he might be transferred from another facility, a situation that never occurred.

JUDICIAL AND/OR ADMINISTRATIVE ACTIONS

A writ of amparo (habeas corpus), case file N°106.170, was filed with the Court of Appeals of Chillán in April 1979, which was rejected, ordering the opening of a case for alleged disappearance in the Duty Court, which is not on record.

The affected party's wife, Teresa Cartes Molina, filed a lawsuit for Alleged Disappearance before the 3rd Criminal Court of Chillán in April 1979, case file 11.382. There is no information regarding the processing of this case.

Source: Vicaría de la Solidaridad

This memorial arose as a commemorative necessity on the part of the student body, led by Guillermo Riveros Urzúa, who was studying Agronomy and was a member of the National Association of Sanctioned University Students (ANEUS).

In 1993, he requested authorization from the dean of the Faculty of the aforementioned program, Ricardo Merino Hinrinchsen (R.I.P.), to erect three rock monoliths under a tree to commemorate the memory of Eduardo Segundo Crisóstomo Salgado, José Luis Felmer Klenner, and Ogan Esteban Lagos Marín, student leaders who were forcibly disappeared between 1973 and 1974 during the civil-military dictatorship.

Subsequently, in 1994, the Federation of Students of the Concepción Campus came to the Chillán Campus to incorporate another commemorative plaque.

Upon the 50th anniversary of the coup d'état of September 11, 1973, the University of Concepción has committed its support to commemorate this date, which marked not only the institutional breakdown in our country but also a painful moment for many people in the university community and their families.

Within the framework of this milestone, on September 11, 2023, we named this place the "Space of Memory."

The renovation of this site was carried out by the Parks and Gardens Unit of the Chillán Campus, in conjunction with local artist Constanza Cusacovich Garrido, who, through mosaic art, designed and distributed ceramic tiles of different colors, which were cut one by one for this memorial.

In this way, the University will commemorate the pain that the community suffered in the past, keeping historical memory alive and always placing the human rights of all people as the values that guide university action. It is hoped that this will contribute to the promotion of a democratic and peaceful coexistence that guarantees a better future for this and future generations.

Source: espaciosconhistoria.udec.cl

My husband, Eduardo Crisostomo Salgado, was 24 years old when he was torn from our lives. At the time of the 1973 coup d'état, he was in his 5th year at the School of Agronomy of the University of Concepción, and I was five months pregnant with our first and only child.

Eduardo found out that he was being sought a few days after the coup d'état. Later, they raided our house and the harassment of our family began. Then Eduardo decided to go and turn himself in at the Regiment.

He left on the morning of October 1, 1973, and never returned home. That night, two people who had been detained due to the curfew saw him at the Second Police Station of the Carabineros. As soon as they regained their freedom, they went to notify me that he was there and that he was asking me to bring him some clothes and food.

Very early on October 2, I arrived at the police station and there, while I was waiting, I managed to see him for a few seconds. They had brought him out to the guard post by mistake. He wanted to speak to me; I saw the expression on his face, which remained etched in my mind.

We could not communicate; he was violently dragged back inside. I cried and shouted for them to let us speak for a few minutes. I did not imagine then that it would be the last time I would see him.

I began to go out daily in search of him; I went again and again to the Carabineros, the investigations police, and the regiment. On Isla Quiriquina, they responded on one occasion that he was there. Later, a captain came out to deny it and expel me from the place. That is how time passed until my son was born.

Months passed; there was no response to the writs of amparo, nor any legal action that yielded any result.

Every time I heard footsteps in the street at night, or strange noises in the house, I would run to find him; only silence answered me. I did not know whether to tell my son that his father would return soon, or that he no longer had his dad.

In those years, before his detention and disappearance, Eduardo was a militant in the MIR. Over the years, I came to terms with the fact that my husband would no longer be with us, but that was also how I understood that my search had to continue because so much pain, so much damage, and so many destroyed lives could not remain without truth and without justice.

Source: Book: Historical Memory of the Forcibly Disappeared of Ñuble