Eliacer Sigisfredo Freire Caamaño
Obrero Maderero — 20 years old.
Background
Eliacer Sigisfredo Freire Caamaño
Obrero Maderero — 20 years old.
Case summary
Eliacer Sigisfredo Freire Caamaño was a 20-year-old lumber worker with no political affiliation. On October 9, 1973, he was executed by Army personnel in the Baños de Chihuío sector, Valdivia. His murder occurred alongside that of 16 other people, mostly peasants and unionized workers, who had been detained by a military caravan.
Image AI-colorized. This is not an original photograph.
Museo de la Memoria y los Derechos Humanos[1]
On October 9, 1973, in the area known as Baños de Chihuío, personnel from the Army killed the following individuals, most of whom were members of the Esperanza del Obrero Peasant Union:
Carlos Maximiliano ACUÑA INOSTROZA, 46 years old, lumber worker;
José Orlando BARRIGA SOTO, 32 years old, blacksmith, peasant leader;
José Rosamel CORTES DIAZ, 35 years old, lumber worker, member of the Esperanza del Obrero Union;
Rubén Neftalí DURAN ZUÑIGA, 22 years old, lumber worker;
Luis Arnaldo FERRADA SANDOVAL, 42 years old, agricultural worker;
Eliacer Sigisfredo FREIRE CAAMAÑO, 20 years old, lumber worker;
Narciso Segundo GARCIA CANCINO, 31 years old, worker, peasant leader;
Juan Walter GONZALEZ DELGADO, 31 years old, administrative employee, peasant leader;
Daniel MENDEZ MENDEZ, 42 years old, lumber worker, peasant leader;
Fernando Adrián MORA GUTIERREZ, 17 years old, lumber worker;
Sebastián MORA OSSES, 47 years old, lumber worker, peasant leader;
Pedro Segundo PEDREROS FERREIRA, 48 years old, worker, Land Manager;
Rosendo REBOLLEDO MENDEZ, 40 years old, union leader;
Ricardo Segundo RUIZ RODRIGUEZ, 24 years old, Factory Manager, socialist militant;
Carlos Vicente SALINAS FLORES, 21 years old, radio operator;
Manuel Jesús SEPULVEDA REBOLLEDO, 28 years old, lumber worker;
Rubén VARGAS QUEZADA, 56 years old, shingle worker, leader of the Esperanza del Obrero Union.
On that day, October 9, a military convoy from the Cazadores and Maturana Regiments, both based in the city of Valdivia, consisting of several vehicles including jeeps and trucks and a contingent of approximately ninety people, began a caravan toward the southern sector of the Panguipulli Lumber Complex.
In the towns of Chabranco, Curriñe, Llifén, and Futrono, the military personnel detained the aforementioned peasants from their homes or workplaces, or received them from the hands of Carabineros.
On the night of that same October 9, 1973, they were taken to a farm owned by a civilian in the mountain sector known as Baños de Chihuío. At an unspecified time, the prisoners were removed from the main house of that farm and taken to the vicinity, approximately 500 meters away, where they were executed.
The following day, that is, October 10, 1973, a witness recognized several of the victims at that location and was able to observe that most of the bodies had cuts on their hands, fingers, and stomachs, and some had even been decapitated and had their testicles severed; the witness could not observe any bullet impact marks on the remains.
The bodies of the executed remained at the site of their execution for several days, covered only with some branches and logs. Approximately fifteen days after the execution, they were buried by military personnel in pits of varying dimensions.
On a date that cannot be precisely determined, but which may correspond to late 1978 or early 1979, during the night, civilians arrived at the main house of the Fundo Chihuío and demanded that the owner indicate the location of the pits.
These civilians, along with others who accompanied them, excavated the site of the pits throughout the night, moving the remains to a location that, to the date of this report, has been impossible to determine.
The circumstances of the deaths of the individuals executed in the town of Chihuío appear inexplicably on death certificates, despite there having been no handover of bodies or burial. In all of them, it is indicated that the date of death is October 9, 1973, in the town of "Liquiñe," due to unspecified causes, with the death being certified through the testimony of two individual persons (witnesses to the death).
In case file 13.094, processed by the Visiting Judge Nibaldo Segura Peña, the exhumation of the few remains that had been left buried in Baños de Chihuío was carried out; these were handed over to the families of the 17 victims, who gave them a proper burial.
The information presented, duly accredited before this Commission and in the respective judicial process, allows for the conviction that the seventeen individuals mentioned were executed without prior trial by State agents who gravely violated their right to life and subsequently hid their bodies, depriving their families of their legitimate right to give them a dignified burial.
References
- 1Museum of Memoryhttps://interactivos.museodelamemoria.cl/victims/?p=2626