Representative Position: Leader of the Supply and Price Board (JAP), member of the Communist Party. Date of Detention: September 27, 1973

Iselcio Enrique González Sandoval, 24 years old at the time of the events, married, father of two, agricultural worker, leader of the Supply and Price Board (JAP), and member of the Communist Party, was detained on September 27, 1973, at his home by military personnel belonging to the San Bernardo Infantry School.

The house was raided, and he was immediately taken to an unknown destination. His captors told González Sandoval's wife not to worry, as it was merely a statement he had to provide and he would return shortly.

Immediately thereafter, he was loaded onto a military truck and taken in the direction of the San Bernardo Infantry School. His wife was able to notice that his uncle, Mauricio Carmelo Cea Iturrieta, who lived on a small plot of land near the Fundo Rinconada de Chena and was also a member of the Communist Party, was in the back of the vehicle.

On the same day, Víctor Soto, Carlos Cornejo, Juan Campos, and Roberto Avila Márquez were also detained; the latter was in charge of the Committee of Enterprises of the San Bernardo Railway Workshops and a leader of the JAP.

His wife did not hear anything about him until September 30, the day his uncle Mauricio Cea Iturrieta was released, who arrived home in terrible physical condition. He informed her that he had indeed been taken to the San Bernardo Infantry School and that from there, they were transported with their eyes blindfolded and hands tied to the hills of Chena.

He stated that they only recognized each other by their voices and that they had no opportunity to speak among themselves.

On October 1, his uncle Mauricio Carmelo Cea Iturrieta was detained again by military personnel from the San Bernardo Infantry School. This detention took place on the road to the Fundo Rinconada; he had decided to turn himself in after being informed that they were looking for him again for his arrest.

Following this event, and despite countless efforts, his relatives could not obtain information regarding his place of detention. In April 1974, lists of those executed were published in the National Congress; the names of Cea Iturrieta, González Sandoval, and Avila Márquez appeared among them, adding that they had died on the premises of Cerro Chena, San Bernardo, on October 1, 1973.

However, his body was never returned, nor was his death registered with the Civil Registry.

Some time later, Juan Campos, Víctor Soto, and Carlos Cornejo were released. The latter told González Sandoval's relatives that he had been present when his companions were taken away and that after this, he never saw them again among the other detainees.

Fernando Avila Alarcón, Councilman of San Bernardo and General Secretary of the CUT, son of Roberto Avila Márquez, was detained on September 29, 1973, by Investigative Police personnel from San Bernardo and later handed over to the Infantry School, who transported him to the Cerro Chena Detention Camp.

In judicial statements, he confirmed the presence of these individuals at the Chena Detention Camp and gave an account, in particular, of his contact with his father, who was physically deteriorated as a result of torture. (Further details regarding the period of imprisonment in Chena can be found in the case of Mauricio Carmelo Iturrieta).

In August 1990, by judicial mandate, the exhumation of two graves in the Huelquén Parish Cemetery, Paine, was carried out, in which at least four bodies had been buried since 1973. The Court had been informed that this was an interment of bodies carried out by the local residents of Paine.

They had found the lifeless bodies with clear signs of having been shot; one even had his eyes blindfolded and his hands tied with wire. All of them had been dumped on the road connecting Paine to Huelquén.

A large number of locals approached the site, among them most of the relatives of the forcibly disappeared in the area, who, upon seeing that they were people not from the area, reported the fact to the Carabineros police, who, despite the passing of days, chose not to take measures for their recovery.

Faced with this situation, and in a humanitarian gesture, the locals, with the consent of the parish priest of Paine, proceeded to transport the bodies in a tractor trailer to the cemetery. There, three bodies were wrapped in wheat sacks and buried in a grave dug by them. The fourth body was buried in another grave in the same Huelquén Cemetery.

As a result of the aforementioned exhumation, it was possible to recover skeletal remains corresponding to three people from one grave, while in a second grave, the expected remains were not found, but only remnants of clothing.

In December 1991, after having performed the forensic examination of the remains, it was established that they corresponded to Iselcio Enrique González Sandoval, Mauricio Carmelo Cea Iturrieta, and Roberto Avila Márquez.

JUDICIAL AND/OR ADMINISTRATIVE ACTIONS

On August 10, 1990, the Vicariate of Solidarity of the Archbishopric of Santiago filed a complaint with the Maipo/Buin Court of Letters regarding the existence of at least four bodies buried irregularly in the Huelquén Cemetery, which were believed to correspond to people whose identities were unknown and who had been victims of kidnapping and homicide.

The investigation was initiated under case file No. 39404-1.

On August 13, 1990, the same human rights organization requested the San Miguel Court of Appeals to appoint a Visiting Judge to investigate the fate of 50 detainees in the town of Paine who remain disappeared to this day, as well as to investigate the irregular procedures in which 20 peasants were killed by their captors—after having been victims of illegal arrests—and for whom, in the majority of cases, the remains were never returned to their families, with the place of their burial remaining unknown to this day.

The request for a Visiting Judge also provided information about at least three locations where burials had allegedly taken place in 1973, accompanying evidence that allowed for the assertion that these were forcibly disappeared persons.

On that occasion, the public alarm caused by the findings of skeletal remains was highlighted, and reference was made to what had recently occurred with the findings in Pisagua-Iquique and Chihuío-Valdivia.

On August 16, 1990, the San Miguel Court of Appeals agreed to appoint an Extraordinary Visiting Judge, with the designation falling to Mr. Germán Hermosilla A. The visit was assigned case file No. 2-90-E, and the recent complaint, file No. 39404-1, was consolidated with it.

During the days of August 23, 24, and 25, 1990, work was carried out on the exhumation of two graves located in Section No. 3 of the Huelquén Cemetery.

In order to carry out an exhumation, the Court chose to appoint a team of experts who, together with the team from the Legal Medical Institute, performed the work. It should be noted that, as stated in the judicial filing, the bodies of three people were found wrapped in a single sack in one grave. In a second grave, clothing corresponding to the fourth victim was obtained, but not their remains.

During the months of August and September, more than 10 witnesses appeared before the Court who had not only seen the bodies on the side of the road connecting Paine and Huelquén but had also participated in the burial. Héctor Pozo Calderón gave an account of the events to the Court with these words:

"In the first week of October 1973, Father Miguel Urrutia asked us to bury three people who were dead; two of them were at the 24 de Abril Settlement, next to the road, under a eucalyptus tree, and one of these two was inside a canal; the third was at the intersection of the Paine and Huelquén road. All three were male, and all three showed bullet wounds.

The youngest of them impressed me a lot because he had a bullet entry wound in the nape of his neck and the projectile had blown off his forehead; he had his eyes blindfolded and his hands tied behind his back with wire.

He was dressed very well, wearing a white shirt, a navy blue or gray sweater, dark blue pants, and black shoes; he carried a bicycle registration document with a name I don't remember, and I couldn't say if we buried it with him or if someone took it out before. This was the body that was on the road from Paine to Huelquén near the intersection.

Regarding the other two, one of them was also young, not very well dressed, he was fat and measured about 1.80 meters. He had bullet wounds with entry on one side and exit on the other; I estimate he was about 45 years old; he was dressed in sports clothes, had a fair, pinkish complexion, brown hair, and was wearing a Castilla-type jacket and dark pants; his clothes were muddy.

This person's body was one of the two found at the 24 de Abril Settlement.

The third one found near the interior was in a canal; he was thin, approximately 37 years old; it seems to me he had dark clothes, a blue shirt, and loose overalls, all very muddy.

We searched the clothes of the three looking for their identification, and we spoke in the plural because about ten of us gathered to proceed to bury them; no one knew them. We put them inside some wheat sacks, made of hemp, opening them at the sides, and we wrapped them.

We put them in a trailer pulled by a tractor, driven by a Mr. Tamayo, and we headed to the 'La Rana' Cemetery of Huelquén to bury them. We took advantage of a grave that was already made in the upper part under some hawthorns.

We leveled the grave to a depth of one meter and ten centimeters and put the three of them together. This was around 4 in the afternoon, on a weekday. It took us about an hour. We placed a cross that we found lying around.

Before signing, I want to add that, subsequently, about two weeks after we buried these three people, another body of a person was found who appeared dead in a canal, and I learned they had buried him in the same 'La Rana' Cemetery, in a grave located further down, but I don't know the exact place."

On October 3, 1990, Ana Sara de las Mercedes Durán Aravena appeared to testify before the Court; she had served as secretary of the Huelquén Parish Office, and among her duties at that time was to keep the records of the names of the people who were to be buried, for which she required a burial permit from the Civil Registry.

In part of her statement, she affirmed, "...however, some burials were carried out without this burial permit, only with the verbal authorization of Father Urrutia and because I asked for it at the request of Mr.

Armando González, who was like the accountant for all the settlers. I only know of three people buried in this way..." referring to the fourth person, she added, "...but there is the possibility that they buried him without me knowing, by direct verbal order from Father Urrutia to the gravedigger, or on his own account, he could have been buried."

On October 29, 1990, the director of the Legal Medical Service, Dr. César Reyes Contreras, sent the Court report of protocols No. 2957, 2958, and 2959 belonging to the exhumation of one of the graves in the Huelquén Cemetery.

In his conclusions, he established that the dates of death were more than 14 years prior. The three bodies were male. The causes of death were trauma caused by projectiles, and the report was accompanied by a projectile found among the skeletal remains and gunpowder residue found on the clothing.

On November 28, 1990, the Visiting Judge sent the projectile found to the Investigative Police so that an expert analysis could be performed to determine the weapon with which it was fired, indicating its nature, its exact caliber, and other pertinent information, the probable date it was fired, and the persons or services that used that type of weapon during the last 4 months of 1973.

On January 17, 1991, the Criminalistics Laboratory, ballistics section of the Investigative Police, reported to the Court that it was not possible to determine the type of weapon with which it was fired, the exact caliber, and the probable date of firing, adding regarding the nature of the projectile: "given that the presence of copper could be determined, what was submitted could correspond to a jacketed projectile; if so, these were designed to be fired by automatic or semi-automatic firearms," and regarding the persons or services that used that type of weapon, it added: "if the specimen submitted corresponds to a jacketed projectile, all the armed institutions of the country possess automatic or semi-automatic weapons that fire this type of projectile, as well as any person who has access to this latter type of firearm."

On August 7, 1991, the Vicariate of Solidarity, in a submission to case 2-90-E, explained to the Visiting Judge that "after exploration work on new information brought to this Vicariate of Solidarity regarding persons disappeared in the area of San Bernardo and Fundo Rinconada de Chena, and after analysis of their respective anthropometric files, which have been compared with data from the Legal Medical Institute's report on the human remains found in the La Rana Cemetery of Huelquén, we can point out to Your Honor that an important approximation has been produced regarding the probable identity of these skeletal remains." Next, it provided the background information of the forcibly disappeared Iselcio Enrique González Sandoval, Roberto Segundo Avila Márquez, and Mauricio Cea Iturrieta.

On that occasion, the anthropometric files corresponding to these 3 cases and sworn statements from direct relatives of these 3 victims were delivered to the Court, in which they gave an account of the circumstances of the disappearance.

For his part, Fernando Avila Alarcón appeared before the Court as a direct witness to the presence of these 3 people—including his father—at the Cerro Chena detention camp.

The information was sent to the Legal Medical Institute in order to carry out a cross-referencing of the expert reports.

On November 19, 1991, the Legal Medical Service informed the Court that the team in charge of examining human skeletal remains exhumed in the Huelquén Cemetery and sent to that Service on August 25, 1990, succeeded in identifying the remains described in protocol No. 2957 as corresponding to Iselcio Enrique González Sandoval, protocol No. 2958 as corresponding to Mauricio Carmelo Cea Iturrieta, and protocol No. 2959 as corresponding to Roberto Segundo Avila Márquez.

On November 21, 1991, the Court convened at the Legal Medical Service, as did the relatives of the victims. The latter were shown the exhumed remains, accepting the experts' report and thus acknowledging their loved ones.

The skeletal remains were left at the disposal of the families for burial. For his part, the Visiting Judge ordered the registration of their deaths in the Civil Registry of Independencia.

On December 31, 1991, a criminal complaint was filed for the crime of kidnapping resulting in the death of Mauricio Carmelo Cea Iturrieta and Iselcio Enrique González Sandoval, against all those who may be responsible, whether as authors, accomplices, or accessories after the fact.

Source: Vicariate of Solidarity

The activity was marked by the removal of the plaque in honor of the dictator Augusto Pinochet at the communal House of Culture, in addition to testimonies of the events that occurred with residents after the 1973 coup d'état.

On a sensitive day for the victims of the dictatorship, San Bernardo removed a plaque in honor of Augusto Pinochet that was located at the commune's House of Culture.

The ceremony was attended by the mayor of Fontenay-sous-Bois, Jean-Phillip Grutier, the mayor of one of the French communes that welcomed more than 800 political exiles during the dictatorship.

Human Rights groups also attended, among them the Cerro Chena Memorial Corporation, the Jenny Barra Corporation, the Group of Friends of Father Joan Alsina, the Martyrs Railway Workers Group, the Paine Memorial Corporation, the Unified Union of Education Workers, and representatives of the Teachers' Association.

During the meeting, the launch of the Human Rights Office was announced, an unprecedented initiative in the commune that began working in March.

In his speech, Mayor Christopher White commented that "in order to look toward the future, we must repair the past, and as long as the name of a person who does not generate consensus in the country remains on a wall, I believe we are taking an important step by removing it."

For his part, Andrés Bravo, a photographer of memory, recalled how his father was tortured at the Casas Viejas de Chena center, in an account that moved those present.

At the end of the meeting, both mayors held a bilateral meeting to agree on exchange work in cultural, educational, and municipal management matters.

Source: radio.uchile.cl 3/30/2022

Date: 03-30-2022

PUC holds unprecedented tribute to victims of human rights violations.

The ceremony remembers 28 students and academics belonging to the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile who were victims of human rights violations.

SANTIAGO.— Students and alumni of the Catholic University will hold an unprecedented tribute this Thursday to the members of that institution who were victims of human rights violations during the dictatorship.

These are 28 people, both students and academics of that university, who were victims of political executions or are on the register of the forcibly disappeared. To remember them, an Eucharist will be held tomorrow in the chapel of the San Joaquín campus, celebrated by the Vice Grand Chancellor, the highest ecclesiastical authority of the university.

Afterward, the students, led by the FEUC and the PUC Memory Collective—which includes alumni—will inaugurate a plaque in memory of the victims. As their organizers explain, these activities are the culmination of a cycle that began last year with the launch of the book "Una luz sobre la sombra" (A Light Over the Shadow), which revives the stories of 28 people, and which continued this year with a festival and other actions in memory of the victims.

The president of the FEUC, Giorgio Jackson, indicated that this represents one of the most important efforts to "recompose the historical memory" of the university. "This plaque constitutes something that will remain there visually so that we can all always keep in mind that there is a memory that we must always remember," he noted.

He added that "the meaning is to clean certain wounds that are still uncleaned, undiscussed, because there were many taboo subjects in this university, and we believe that it is no longer the time to maintain them, even less so when it comes to human rights violations that occurred in this university and with members of its community." In the same vein, the president-elect of the FEUC, Noam Titelman, affirmed that "there is a great debt not only of this university, but of many institutions, to air the wounds that have been produced in order to begin to heal, and the first step to heal and move forward is for these issues to be discussed." They urge the rector's office to be part of the recognition. Jackson specified that the tribute is being carried out "by the students." For this reason, he said he hoped that progress would be made so that the university as a whole would also recognize these events. "We hope that there will be the will (of the rector's office), but the fact that we can install this plaque inside the university is a step forward," he noted. More emphatic on this point was the president of the PUC Memory Collective, Luis Aguilar, who maintained that "at some point, the university must take this issue on as an authority and make a recognition as an authority." "Here there are 28 people who were murdered, and the families have the right to ask the State to know what happened to their loved ones, but they also have the right to demand that the university community that welcomed these 28 people in life participate in their pain, to make the public recognition that we, as a university, are accompanying them in their pain," he stressed. He maintained that it is also necessary for the university to declare publicly "that what happened cannot happen again and that it commits itself to the rights of all people, regardless of their race, regardless of their religion, or their social thought."

Source: emol.com 11/16/2011

Date: 11-16-2011