Enrique del Carmen Guzman Soto
Obrero Maderero — 21 years old.
Background
Enrique del Carmen Guzman Soto
Obrero Maderero — 21 years old.
Case summary
Enrique del Carmen Guzmán Soto, a 21-year-old lumber worker and member of the MIR, was executed in Valdivia on October 4, 1973. He was sentenced to death by a War Council along with eleven other companions, accused of the assault on the Neltume Police Station, in an act classified as a grave violation of human rights by State agents.
Museo de la Memoria y los Derechos Humanos[1]
On October 3 and October 4, 1973, the following individuals were executed in compliance with a sentence from the Valdivia Consejo de Guerra (War Council). Most were militants of the MIR and MCR (Movimiento Campesino Revolucionario), all accused of attacking the Carabineros station in Neltume on September 12, 1973:
-Pedro Purísimo BARRIA ORDOÑEZ, 22 years old, student;
-José René BARRIENTOS WARNER, 29 years old, philosophy student, musician in the Chamber Orchestra of the Universidad Austral;
-Sergio Jaime BRAVO AGUILERA, 21 years old, lumber worker;
-Santiago Segundo GARCIA MORALES, 26 years old, lumber worker;
-Enrique del Carmen GUZMAN SOTO, 21 years old, lumber worker;
-Fernando KRAUSS ITURRA, 24 years old, university student, Regional Secretary of the Movimiento de Izquierda Revolucionaria (MIR);
-José Gregorio LIENDO VERA, 28 years old, former agronomy student, MIR militant and leader of the Movimiento Campesino Revolucionario (MCR) at the Panguipulli Lumber and Forestry Complex, also known as "Comandante Pepe";
-Luis Hernán PEZO JARA, 29 years old, lumber worker;
-Víctor Eugenio RUDOLPH REYES, 32 years old, lumber worker;
-Rudemir SAAVEDRA BAHAMONDEZ, lumber worker;
-Víctor Segundo SAAVEDRA MUÑOZ, 19 years old, lumber worker; and
-Luis Mario VALENZUELA FERRADA, 20 years old, lumber worker.
Multiple press reports from the time refer to the proceedings of this Consejo de Guerra. An official communication regarding their executions states that they were accused of several crimes, including the attack on the Neltume station.
The Commission was unable to access any documents from the proceedings, despite having requested them from the corresponding military authorities. Notwithstanding this, the Commission reached the conviction that those executed were victims of human rights violations committed by State agents.
This conviction is supported by the background common to all war trials of the period, as set forth in the general section of the Rettig Report, and the following specific considerations:
-It has not been possible to determine whether the victims had any form of legal assistance, although it is a certain fact that their families never knew of the existence of a lawyer;
-Regarding the proceedings themselves, it is unknown whether legal procedure was followed, given that there was no access to the case file;
-The mistreatment received by the prisoners invalidates any confession they might have provided in the eventual trial, as it deprived their statements of freedom and voluntariness;
-The irregularity represented by the fact that the death sentence was carried out differently for José Gregorio Liendo Vera, who was executed by firing squad on October 3, 1973, and for the rest of the condemned, who were executed on October 4, 1973, despite it being a single trial with the same sentence for all those condemned, all without the knowledge of the military authorities linked to the process;
-The defendants were subjected to a wartime procedure and penalty that, at the time of the attack of which they were accused on September 12, 1973, had not yet been decreed in the country; this was only established by Decree Law No. 5, published on the 22nd of that month.
Judicial Case Files[2]
Caso Caravana episodio Valdivia
- Juez Ministra Patricia Gonzalez
- 122163-2020
- 2070-2018
- 2182-98
- Los Rios
- Emilio Robert De La Mahotiere Gonzalez
- Juan Viterbo Chiminelli Fullerton
- Pedro Octavio Espinoza Bravo
- Santiago Arturo Sinclair Oyaneder
References
- 1Museum of Memoryhttps://interactivos.museodelamemoria.cl/victims/?p=2228
- 2Judicial Case Fileshttps://expedientesdelarepresion.cl/causa/caso-caravana-episodio-valdivia/