In this testimony reproduced by Fortín Mapocho, civilians and military personnel are mentioned, many of them subjected to trial and others simply condemned by their conscience. We hope that the actions of both have resonated deeply with the Chileans who lived through these acts of barbarism during those years and who, at the time, refused to accept that these events were occurring in Chile.

For the new generations, who were born in the years following the coup and who were not aware of what was happening in their country, this account will serve to alert them to the lengths to which human beings are capable of going to preserve and develop their privileges.

The constitutionalist General Carlos Prats warned his peers that they would be making a grave error if they intervened and took the path of a coup. He added that for many years, Chilean society would point its critical finger at them and reproach them for that determination.

Verbatim, and continuing with his critical opinion, he stated: 'It would have to be [the intervention] implacably repressive. For that, the Armed Forces would have to transform themselves into a specialized and refined police force, and it would mean turning the people into Tupamaros.

The week after the applause for the dictator, the politicians from the most opposing sides would be united, shouting 'gorillas' at us and demanding elections. This is not a country of sheep. The workers represent a social power.

They are organized. In this country, there is vertical dignity. In this country, political leaders effectively move the masses. We, the military, do not cherish the idea of replacing civil power, nor is it our mission' [Revista Ercilla No. 1950, Week of November 29 to December 5, 1972.

Journalistic interview with the Commander-in-Chief of the Army, General Carlos Prats. Reproduced in Héctor Vega, 'Crítica de la Unidad Popular'. Edit. Fontamara. Barcelona. Spain. 1975, pp. 121, 122] General Prats was right when he said that the workers would not be fooled.

He was tragically mistaken when he assessed the role of the political leaders. Many of them were committed to the coup, and some leaders, today of the Concertación, not only sought the fall of the Unidad Popular government from their parliamentary seats but also knocked on the doors of the barracks.

Let us not speak of those who belong to the Alianza and who today profess to be democrats, direct disciples of Pinochetism. In short, both groups constitute a generation that has never believed in democracy, and even less so in workers taking their destiny into their own hands and seeking the paths of an authentic and participatory democracy.

TESTIMONY

On September 11, 1973, I was working as a laborer at the COMPAÑÍA MANUFACTURERA DE PAPELES Y CARTONES IN THE TOWN OF LAJA [500 km south of Santiago]. A monopoly belonging to the Alessandri family. A family with a recognized political trajectory of defending the interests of the bourgeoisie, crushing the people, and actively participating in the 1973 military coup.

In the days prior to the military coup, the company, the right-wing groups [Patria y Libertad and the National Party, Christian Democracy], and the police were already making the repression felt by workers and peasants, even more so by their leaders, with verbal and physical threats.

The Carabineros patrolled the factory and its surroundings, terrorizing the workers. These were the symptoms of the horrors we would later witness on September 11, 1973, when Pinochet and a group of murderous generals decided to put an end to the government that represented the interests of the dispossessed masses who, until then, had been cruelly exploited by the bourgeoisie, of which the Alessandri family is a worthy exponent.

Here it is necessary to highlight that General WASHINGTON CARRASCO was in charge of the III Army Division based in the city of Concepción. Therefore, the events I will describe below are his responsibility, as well as that of his superiors, General Pinochet and his murderous clique.

On Tuesday, September 11, 1973, I was working at the factory when we observed, along with my coworkers, that the police and heavily armed far-right paramilitary groups, led by

CARLOS FERRER GOMEZ

[Superintendent of the CMPC company], were patrolling the company premises. At 4:00 PM that same day, the end of the shift, a platoon of Carabineros awaited us at the factory exit, accompanied by the far-right paramilitary groups led by

PEDRO JARPA

, a trusted man of the PAPELERA, who, with a list in his hands, denounced the comrades who most strongly defended the interests of the working class. As a result of this infamous betrayal, 22 comrades were arrested and immediately, in the presence of all the factory workers [400], we were savagely beaten in this act of police brutality.

Two recognized criminals stood out in this action: Lieutenant ALBERTO FERNANDEZ MITCHEL and Sergeant

PEDRO RODRIGUEZ CEBALLOS

. Before being transferred to the police station in vehicles provided by the Papelera, Lieutenant Fernandez Mitchel Salgado addressed the workers, saying that I would be murdered as soon as I arrived at the police station and that it would be the last time they would see me.

Once at the police station, we were brutally beaten and threatened with death. Then, in a semi-conscious state due to the beatings, I was violently thrown into a small cell incommunicado. Not satisfied with my condition, they threw a tear gas canister into the cell; as a result, I completely lost consciousness.

At 7:00 PM, by order of Lieutenant FERNANDEZ MITCHEL, two comrades took me out of the cell and I was taken to the guardroom, where the rest of my fellow detainees were, and we were savagely beaten again. While this was happening, I was able to see the teacher and militant of the Socialist Party

RUBEN CAMPOS LOPEZ

, who is one of the martyrs of LAJA and SAN ROSENDO. The active participation of the LAJA Papelera in these barbaric acts is once again made evident when one of the directors [personnel manager],

HUMBERTO GARRIDO

, places a company bus at the disposal of Lieutenant FERNANDEZ MITCHEL SALGADO, as well as ropes to tie us up. In this bus, I was transferred to the Los Angeles prison [a city near LAJA]. It should be noted that this same bus was used to transport the 19 people murdered by Carabineros with the complicity of civilians.

When I was taken by Carabineros along with the rest of my comrades to the Los Angeles prison, and when we entered the Salto de Laja bridge, Lieutenant MITCHEL SALGADO and Sergeant PEDRO RODRIGUEZ CEBALLOS ordered the driver to stop in the middle of the bridge.

I was taken by force to the door, hands tied and held by the neck; he began to push me with the clear intention of throwing me off the bridge into the precipice, all accompanied by insults and threats.

Not content with this, he ordered me to kneel at his feet. When we arrived at the Los Angeles prison, Lieutenant MITCHEL indicated to the captain in charge of the prison that I was dangerous, an extremist belonging to the MIR, and that I should be held incommunicado until further notice, as a pistol and plans to assault the LAJA police station had been found in my house—a completely false claim.

The prison was full of peasants and workers from the different fields and factories of the province. I remained imprisoned there until December 1973, constantly receiving mistreatment. At the end of September, we received our first visit. It was the parish priest of LAJA, FELIX ELCHER, who informed us of the death of the 19 comrades from LAJA and SAN ROSENDO. Lieutenant

WALTER KRUG RIVERA

, head of the Los Angeles prisoner camp, was another of the criminals of the Pinochet regime who constantly visited the prison looking for comrades to transfer to the regiment, where they were tortured, murdered, and forcibly disappeared.

It was this character who confirmed the death of 19 comrades, as he amused himself by dumping and destroying the food that their families brought them, believing them to be detained. The truth was that they had murdered them.

He was a sadistic criminal who insulted and beat the detainees whenever he felt like it. In the month of December 1973, I was transferred along with 10 comrades from the LAJA case to the concentration camp at the Los Angeles regiment by express order of Captain

GUSTAVO MARZZAL

[head of the SIM], who was also the supreme head of the prisoner camp. We were told that this measure was for our release. Of the 11 comrades, only I remained detained incommunicado by order of the MILITARY INTELLIGENCE SERVICE [SIM]; the others were released.

On the afternoon of December 11, 1973, I was transferred to the SIM, to the interrogation rooms, which in reality were rooms for intimidation and exhaustion, adjacent to a second torture room. The interrogations were in charge of

DOMINGO BASCUÑAN

,

PATRICIO ABARZUA

[el PATO],

MARIO PACHECO

,

RENÈ PAREDES

, and the pediatrician,

GREGORIO BURGOS

[DINA]. All of them belonged to the SIM. The torture room resembled a clinic, with syringes, a power generator, a metal cot, and a wooden cabinet that resembled a soccer goal, where I was hung by my feet and hands facing the floor.

There was also music to drown out the screams of pain. The floor of the room was made of wood and was splattered with the blood of the prisoners who had been tortured. It was striking that there were photos of Miguel Enríquez and Salvador Allende.

There, I was beaten facing the photos. When they tired of the beatings and I was bleeding from my mouth and nose, they threw me to the floor, where they kicked me all over my body. I lasted between 3 and 4 hours in that room.

The beatings were followed by electric shocks and cigarette burns. Not content with that, one of the torturers hung from my back while they suspended me from the horizontal bar of the "goal." The consequences can be imagined, as to this day I suffer from severe back pain.

After the torture, I was transferred like a sack by two soldiers to a secret room [motel] for incommunicado detention at the SIM, where 24 other comrades were in terrible health due to the excessive torture.

The psychological consequences of this treatment still linger in my mind. The motel was far from the prisoner camp, and the conditions in which we lived there were inhumane. We did not see the light of day.

There was no other way to relieve ourselves than in a grease bucket that we emptied every three days at night. There was never medical attention for those who came from torture. The guards stole the food that the families brought.

Worse than everything, we were subjected to returning to torture whenever it pleased the torturers. As a result, I developed the beginnings of epilepsy; I could not walk, I could not put on my shoes, nor could I even sit or bend my back.

My comrades fed me by hand. We became covered in fleas and lice because we could not wash ourselves. One day, the INTERNATIONAL RED CROSS arrived at the concentration camp. The camp administration hid us.

However, after 3 months, thanks to the action of the Archbishopric of Los Angeles and the INTERNATIONAL RED CROSS, the detainees were released. After some time, and by order of the SIM, I was transferred again to the torture center to be interrogated regarding the LAJA case.

Under promises of immediate freedom and departure from the country, they tried to get me to sign a statement regarding the death of the 19 comrades murdered on a Papelera estate. With my refusal, I returned to the regime of beatings and incommunicado detention.

When I was in the concentration camp, I had to witness a cowardly murder. A peasant lost his mind due to the beatings and the life we were leading; for this reason, one day he took a very small wooden board and hit a soldier on his helmet with it.

This was seen by Lieutenant Walter Krug Rivera, a recognized torturer and murderer, who ordered all the prisoners who were nearby to turn around so as not to see, and ordered us to go to our cells. Then he took out his pistol and emptied it into the poor, demented peasant.

The INTERNATIONAL RED CROSS found out about this cowardly murder, as they were shown the place of death where the bloodstains were still visible on the cement. In mid-1974, I was transferred to the public prison of Los Angeles, as I had to go to trial for the LAJA case.

After a few days, I was visited by the SIM, who offered me immediate freedom as long as I signed a false statement, to which I again refused. As a result of my refusal, I was again held incommunicado in very poor health.

At the end of 1974, I was brought before a WAR COUNCIL FOR THE LAJA CASE, along with 8 comrades, where, as no charges were proven against me, I was released on parole with a sentence of 345 days, as it was always maintained that the process remained open; that is, I remained 1 year and three months in prison and the Los Angeles concentration camp.

Source: Fortinmapocho.com, July 9, 2007

Laja-San Rosendo: Concepción Court issues conviction for the homicide of 19 forestry workers in 1973

The Concepción Court increased the compensation granted by Minister Aldana Fuentes, ordering the State to pay a total compensation of $5,440,000,000 to the victims' families. The Concepción Court accepted today—Saturday, August 14—the appeals filed by the plaintiffs against the resolution that convicted nine retired Carabineros and one civilian for their responsibility in the crime of qualified homicide of 19 forestry workers.

These crimes were perpetrated in September 1973, within the framework of the case known as "Laja-San Rosendo." In a split decision (case roll 787-2020 and accumulated), the Third Chamber of the appellate court—composed of ministers Juan Villa Sanhueza, Carola Rivas Vargas, and Nancy Bluck Bahamonde—partially revoked the challenged resolution, issued by the minister on extraordinary visit for human rights violation cases of the Concepción Court of Appeals, Carlos Aldana Fuentes.

In the resolution, the appellate court confirmed the sentence that convicted Alberto Juan Fernández Michell to life imprisonment as the perpetrator of the qualified homicides of Fernando Grandón Gálvez, Jorge Andrés Lamana Abarzúa, Rubén Antonio Campos López, Juan Carlos Jara Herrera, Raúl Urra Parada, Luis Armando Ulloa Valenzuela, Óscar Omar Sanhueza Contreras, Dagoberto Enrique Garfias Gatica, Luis Alberto del Carmen Araneda Reyes, Juan Antonio Acuña Concha, Juan de Dios Villarroel Espinoza, Heraldo del Carmen Muñoz Muñoz, Federico Riquelme Concha, Jorge Lautaro Zorrilla Rubio, Manuel Mario Becerra Avello, Jack Eduardo Gutiérrez Rodríguez, Mario Jara Jara, Wilson Gamadiel Muñoz Rodríguez, and Alfonso Segundo Macaya Barrales. In the case of José Jacinto Otárola Sanhueza, Mario Sebastián Montoya Burgos, and Manuel Enrique Cerda Robledo, the Concepción Court considered that they participated in the 19 homicides as perpetrators, and not as accessories, and therefore increased their sentences from 5 years of imprisonment to 15 years and one day of incarceration. Likewise, it ratified the convictions issued against Gerson Nilo Saavedra Reinike, Pedro del Carmen Parra Utreras, Víctor Manuel Campos Dávila, and Nelson Casanova Salgado, increasing them from 5 years and one day to 15 years and one day of incarceration, as perpetrators of the 19 qualified homicides. Meanwhile, in the case of Anselmo del Carmen San Martín Navarrete, the Concepción court set the sentence he must serve at 5 years and one day of imprisonment, with the benefit of intensive supervised release, in his capacity as an accessory to the crimes. Regarding the employee of the Compañía Manufacturera de Papeles y Cartones (CMPC) of Laja, Pedro Luis Jarpa Foerster, the Third Chamber revoked the sentence that acquitted him of responsibility, sentencing him instead to 5 years and one day of imprisonment as an accomplice in the qualified homicide crimes of the victims: Fernando Grandón Gálvez, Jack Gutiérrez Rodríguez, Heraldo Muñoz Muñoz, Raúl Urra Parada, Federico Riquelme Concha, Juan Villarroel Espinoza, and Wilson Muñoz Rodríguez. Finally, the Concepción Court confirmed the acquittal of Alejandro Lionel Aguilera Covarrubias, as it was not proven that he held responsibility for the events as an accomplice; and confirmed the acquittal of the former police officer René Luis Alberto Urrutia Elgueta, as his participation in the crime of illegal inhumation, committed at the end of October 1973 in a mass grave at the Yumbel Parish Cemetery, was not proven. The events During the investigation stage of the case, Minister Carlos Aldana managed to establish the following facts: "

A.-

That between September 13 and 17, 1973, a date when the country was in a state of siege, in the communes of Laja and San Rosendo, the following people were arrested—by personnel of the Laja Carabineros Station—without a competent judicial or administrative order and transferred to the aforementioned Police Unit located at Calle Las Viñas No. 104 in the same city: Fernando Grandón Gálvez, Jorge Andrés Lamana Abarzúa, Rubén Antonio Campos López, Juan Carlos Jara Herrera, Raúl Urra Parada, Luis Armando Ulloa Valenzuela, Óscar Omar Sanhueza Contreras, Dagoberto Enrique Garfias Gatica, Luis Alberto del Carmen Araneda Reyes, Juan Antonio Acuña Concha, Juan de Dios Villarroel Espinoza, Heraldo del Carmen Muñoz Muñoz, Federico Riquelme Concha, Jorge Lautaro Zorrilla Rubio, Manuel Mario Becerra Avello, Jack Eduardo Gutiérrez Rodríguez, Mario Jara Jara, Wilson Gamadiel Muñoz Rodríguez, and Alfonso Segundo Macaya Barrales. It is specified that the victims Grandón, Gutiérrez, Muñoz, Urra, Riquelme, Villarroel, and Muñoz Rodríguez, workers of CMPC, were arrested by Carabineros between September 13 and 14, 1973, at the entrance-exit gate of their workplace, the CMPC Laja Paper Plant, a place where an individual (Jarpa Foerster) held a list with each of the names, pointing out to the Carabineros who each of them was, thereby facilitating their identification and arrest. That on the same dates and until September 17, 1973, the other persons indicated above were arrested and transported in CMPC paper company vehicles, which had been provided by heads of said company for the transport of the detainees and driven by a CMPC employee to the Laja Station.

B.-

The aforementioned persons were placed in the cells of the indicated police unit, remaining in them until the night of September 17, 1973, at which time they were taken out by uniformed personnel and loaded into vehicles that belonged to the CMPC Paper Company, to be, supposedly, transferred to the Regiment of the city of Los Angeles; however, while they were traveling along Route Q-90, at the height of the Perales Bridge, the convoy entered a side road about 500 meters to the south, entering the so-called San Juan estate, in the commune of Yumbel, where the Carabineros personnel from the Laja Station, who were armed with rifles and carbines, made them get out of the vehicles, forcing them to lie on the ground, side by side, face down and with their hands tied, with the police officers proceeding to position themselves behind them, at which moment the officer in charge stood to one side and, armed with his revolver, gave the order to shoot them, which was carried out by the Carabineros present, positioned in the firing line, impacting the bodies of the detainees with bullets, causing injuries that resulted in their death. Immediately after, the same police officers, using shovels they carried for that purpose, dug a 60-centimeter-deep grave where they threw the bodies, which they covered with a layer of earth. Once this operation was finished, they returned to the Laja Station, keeping silent regarding what had happened. Days later, Carabineros officials returned to the sector to cover the bodies with lime, of the type used at the CMPC, which had been provided by officials of the same company.

C.-

That approximately one month after these events occurred, at the end of October 1973, dogs in the sector found human remains, a fact noticed by a person passing through that place, who reported it to the Carabineros of Yumbel.

Faced with this report, the commissioner of the aforementioned barracks, Major Héctor Orlando Rivera Rojas, ordered the then Order Officer, Lieutenant René Luis Alberto Urrutia Elgueta, to go to the site and verify the veracity of the report, communicating the discovery to the commissioner, who ordered the corresponding report to be drawn up by the Salto del Laja Carabineros Station and sent to the Yumbel Court of Letters, where he took it personally, accompanied by the chief physician of the Yumbel Hospital, who stated to the then Judge of Letters of that locality, Corina Mera, the impossibility of receiving the bodies in the aforementioned facility for health reasons, with the judge agreeing that they be transferred directly to the parish cemetery for their burial in a mass grave, which the aforementioned Order Officer complied with using a trailer pulled by a tractor, at night, during the hours when the curfew was in effect.

D.-

That this procedure was carried out without performing the required autopsies on the bodies found, and they were inhumed without obtaining the corresponding sanitary authorization, nor the competent judicial order." In the civil aspect, the Concepción Court increased the compensation granted by Minister Aldana Fuentes to the victims' families, ordering the State of Chile to pay a total compensation of $5,440,000,000 (five billion four hundred forty million pesos).

Resolution agreed upon with the dissenting vote of Minister Bluck Bahamondes, in the following aspects: 1.-Regarding the acquittal of the accused Pedro Jarpa Foerster, the dissenter is of the opinion to confirm the first-instance decision, estimating that although it is proven that he facilitated the identification of the seven workers who were arrested at the exit of the CMPC Plant, there is not sufficient evidence to estimate that said accused could have anticipated that the Carabineros officials were going to kill them.

On this point, the dissenter especially keeps in mind that the arrests were verified on September 11, 1973, just after the coup d'état had been perpetrated, when there was still no news of deaths or disappearances, so Jarpa Foerster could surely have imagined and accepted that the detained workers whose identification he cooperated with could be beaten or kept deprived of liberty for their supposed political ideology, but he had no way of anticipating the commission of the homicides, and much less did he have any control over the treachery or premeditation with which they were committed. 2.-Regarding the first-degree decision to convict Anselmo San Martín as an accessory to 19 crimes of qualified homicide, the dissenter was in favor of revoking the judgment under examination and instead acquitting him of the charges formulated against him, keeping in mind that the first-degree judge considers the participation proven while ignoring the contradictions that exist in this regard between the various elements of the charge. Indeed, Vidal Riquelme maintained various versions during the investigation, stating that he does not remember San Martín having gone in the convoy (page 1693); that he dug the grave (page 1561); that he did not see him at the San Juan Estate (page 1700). Parra Urra declared that he does not know if San Martín was covering the barracks (page 1699) and on page 3125 states that he did participate in the executions; León Godoy points out on page 1691 that he does not remember if San Martín stayed at the station and on page 1697 vta, states that he did; Fernández Michell affirms on page 1695 vta, that he did stay at the station; Saavedra maintains on page 1698 that he does not remember seeing him at the Estate; Parra Utreras indicates on page 1699 that he did not see San Martín in the operation; in a similar sense, Campos Dávila declares on page 1700 vta. For the dissenter, these contradictions prevent forming a conviction that the accused San Martín participated in the convoy that transported the detainees to the San Juan estate and compel the issuance of an acquittal.

Source: pjud.cl, August 14, 2021

Roll 27-2010: Laja Paper Mill case

Seen

The present case, roll 27-2010, from the first instance of the Illustrious Court of Appeals of Concepción, and accumulated rolls 2,770, 2,776, and 2,760 of the Laja Criminal Court; 359-2010, 103-2011, 116-2011, 329-2011, 347-2011, 462-2011, 465-2011, 600-2011, 644-2011, 722-2011, and 791-2011, all of the 34th Criminal Court of Santiago, and roll 323-80 of the 3rd Military Court of Concepción, has been instructed in order to investigate the facts presented in the complaints on pages 71, 112, 134, 631, 1018, 1283, 1848, 1793, 2980, 3284, 3768, 3862, 3921, 4366, filed by the relatives of 19 victims and against those who may be responsible for the crimes of kidnapping and qualified homicide of Fernando Grandón Gálvez, Jorge Andrés Lamana Abarzúa, Rubén Antonio Campos López, Juan Carlos Jara Herrera, Raúl Urra Parada, Luis Armando Ulloa Valenzuela, Oscar Omar Sanhueza Contreras, Dagoberto Enrique Gárfias Gatica, Luis Alberto del Carmen Araneda Reyes, Juan Antonio Acuña Concha, Juan de Dios Villarroel Espinoza, Heraldo del Carmen Muñoz Muñoz, Federico Riquelme Concha, Jorge Lautaro Zorrilla Rubio, Manuel Mario Becerra Avello, Jack Eduardo Gutiérrez Rodríguez, Mario Jara Jara, Wilson Gamadiel Muñoz Rodríguez, and Alfonso Segundo Macaya Barrales (19 victims) , detained between September 13 and 17, 1973, by Carabineros officials of Laja without a legal or judicial order and transferred to the Police Unit of said locality, where they were visited by their relatives, who brought them food and clothing during their stay at the aforementioned police facility until September 17, 1973, the last day there is news of them as of the date of filing the aforementioned criminal actions. Subsequently, it became known that they were executed by their captors on the night of September 17, 1973, at the San Juan estate in the commune of Laja and their bodies buried in graves dug in the open field of the aforementioned place.

SEVENTY-FIRST

Eduardo René Cuevas Jara, in the scene reconstruction proceeding whose records are on pages 2682 and 3816, asserts that he was arrested on September 11, 1973, between 4:00 PM and 4:30 PM, along with 18 or 19 other workers, among them Araneda and Acuña , as a result of a list of people that Mr.

Pedro Jarpa had, being beaten by Sergeant Rodríguez , and they were transferred to the Station in several jeep-type trucks, without remembering who was driving them. He specifies that as the workers came out, they were called by Pedro Jarpa , as their names appeared on a list that had been prepared by Carlos Ferrer and Humberto Garrido

Source: Judiciary, January 7, 2020

Supreme Court confirms convictions of nine former Carabineros for the crimes against 19 forestry workers in Laja and San Rosendo in 1973

The Supreme Court convicted nine former Carabineros for their responsibility in the crimes of qualified homicide of the forestry workers Fernando Grandón Gálvez, Jorge Andrés Lamana Abarzúa, Rubén Antonio Campos López, Juan Carlos Jara Herrera, Raúl Urra Parada, Luis Armando Ulloa Valenzuela, Oscar Omar Sanhueza Contreras, Dagoberto Enrique Garfias Gatica, Luis Alberto del Carmen Araneda Reyes, Juan Antonio Acuña Concha, Juan de Dios Villarroel Espinoza, Heraldo del Carmen Muñoz Muñoz, Federico Riquelme Concha, Jorge Lautaro Zorrilla Rubio, Manuel Mario Becerra Avello, Jack Eduardo Gutiérrez Rodríguez, Mario Jara Jara, Wuilzon Gamadiel Muñoz Rodríguez, and Alfonso Segundo Macaya Barrales, perpetrated in September 1973 in the communes of Laja and San Rosendo, in the province of Biobío. In a unanimous ruling (case roll 82.317-2021), the Second Chamber of the highest court—composed of Minister Manuel Antonio Valderrama, ministers María Soledad Melo, María Loreto Gutiérrez, the lawyer (i) Pía Tavolari, and the lawyer (i) Ricardo Abuauad—partially invalidated the challenged sentence, issued by the Concepción Court of Appeals in August 2021, only in the part that convicted the civilian Pedro Luis Jarpa Foerster, a former executive official of the CMPC, to 5 years and one day of imprisonment as an accomplice to the homicides of seven workers and, in its place, decreed his acquittal as the responsibility attributed in the crimes was not proven. In addition, it rejected the cassation appeals in form and substance filed by the other convicted persons. In all other respects, the highest court confirmed the sentence of the Concepción court that convicted the former Carabineros officer Alberto Juan Fernández Michell to the sentence of life imprisonment as the perpetrator of the qualified homicides of the 19 victims. Meanwhile, the former Carabineros José Jacinto Otárola Sanhueza, Mario Sebastián Montoya Burgos, Manuel Enrique Cerda Robledo, Gerson Nilo Saavedra Reinike, Pedro del Carmen Parra Utreras, Víctor Manuel Campos Dávila, and Nelson Casanova Salgado remain convicted to the sentence of 15 years and one day of imprisonment, as perpetrators of the 19 qualified homicides. While the former Carabinero Anselmo del Carmen San Martín Navarrete was sentenced to 5 years of incarceration, with the benefit of intensive supervised release, as an accessory to the crimes. The sentence established an error of law in establishing the responsibility of Jarpa Foerster. In this regard, the resolution points out: "In this case, as an initial matter, it should be indicated that the sentenced Jarpa, in the first instance, was acquitted of his participation in the mournful events, a decision that was reversed by one of the chambers of the Concepción Court of Appeals, who considered the existence of testimonies that allow him to be visualized in acts of cooperation... allowed them to conclude that he executed acts of cooperation prior to the perpetration of the homicides of the seven people he details, facilitating their identification and arrest, acting at least with eventual intent, keeping in mind the context in which these arrests occurred, carried out by police officials who acted without any judicial order, with the country being in a state of siege after the military coup of September 11, 1973, which led them to conclude that he could not have helped but project or imagine that the identification he made of the workers, supposedly contrary to the new de facto regime, would end in their death." Executions and illegal inhumation Between September 13 and 17, 1973, a date when the country was in a state of siege, in the communes of Laja and San Rosendo, the workers were arrested—by personnel of the Laja Carabineros Station—and transferred to the aforementioned police unit: Fernando Grandón Gálvez, Jorge Andrés Lamana Abarzúa, Rubén Antonio Campos López, Juan Carlos Jara Herrera, Raúl Urra Parada, Luis Armando Ulloa Valenzuela, Oscar Omar Sanhueza Contreras, Dagoberto Enrique Garfias Gatica, Luis Alberto del Carmen Araneda Reyes, Juan Antonio Acuña Concha, Juan de Dios Villarroel Espinoza, Heraldo del Carmen Muñoz Muñoz, Federico Riquelme Concha, Jorge Lautaro Zorrilla Rubio, Manuel Mario Becerra Avello, Jack Eduardo Gutiérrez Rodríguez, Mario Jara Jara, Wilson Gamadiel Muñoz Rodríguez, and Alfonso Segundo Macaya Barrales. The workers of the Compañía Manufacturera de Papeles y Cartones (CMPC) Grandón, Gutiérrez, Muñoz, Urra, Riquelme, Villarroel, and Muñoz Rodríguez were arrested by Carabineros at the entrance-exit gate of their workplace, the CMPC Laja Paper Plant, a place where a superior official held a list with each of the names, pointing out to the Carabineros who each of them was, thereby facilitating their identification and arrest. Likewise, the other persons indicated above were arrested and transported in CMPC paper company vehicles, which had been provided by heads of said company for the transport of the detainees and driven by a CMPC employee to the Laja Station. The detainees were placed in the cells, remaining in that facility until the night of September 17, 1973. That night, they were taken out by uniformed personnel and loaded into vehicles that belonged to the CMPC Paper Company, to be, supposedly, transferred to the Regiment of the city of Los Angeles. However, while they were traveling along Route Q-90, at the height of the Perales Bridge, the convoy entered a side road about 500 meters to the South, entering the so-called San Juan Estate, in the commune of Yumbel, where the aforementioned Carabineros, who were armed with rifles and carbines, made them get out of the vehicles. Immediately, they forced them to lie on the ground, side by side, face down and with their hands tied, with the Carabineros proceeding to position themselves behind them, at which moment the officer in charge stood to one side and, armed with his revolver, gave the order to shoot them to murder them. Immediately after, the same Carabineros, using shovels they carried for that purpose, dug a 60 cm deep grave where they threw the bodies, which they covered with a layer of earth. Once this operation was finished, they returned to the Laja Station, keeping silent regarding what had happened. Days later, Carabineros officials returned to the sector to cover the bodies with lime, of the type used at the CMPC, which had been provided by officials of the same company. One month after these crimes occurred, at the end of October 1973, dogs in the sector found human remains, a fact noticed by a person passing through that place, who reported it to the Carabineros of Yumbel. Faced with this report, the commissioner of the mentioned barracks ordered a subordinate to go to the site. He verified the veracity of the report and informed the commissioner, who ordered the corresponding report to be drawn up by the Salto del Laja Carabineros Station and sent to the Yumbel Court of Letters, where he took it, accompanied by the chief physician of the Yumbel Hospital. The aforementioned physician stated to the then Judge of Letters of that locality, Corina Mera, the impossibility of receiving the bodies in the hospital facility for health reasons. Faced with that, the judge ordered that they be transferred directly to the parish cemetery for their burial in a mass grave, which the police officer complied with using a trailer pulled by a tractor, at night and during the hours when the curfew was in effect. This procedure was carried out without performing the required autopsies on the bodies found, and they were inhumed without obtaining the corresponding sanitary authorization, nor a competent judicial order. by Darío Núñez

Source: resumen.cl, March 2, 2024