In the early hours of October 3, 1973, an operation was carried out in which thirteen other agricultural workers from the town of Paine were detained. On this occasion, the personnel belonging to the San Bernardo Infantry Regiment arrived in a red truck, with their faces painted black.

They entered the homes, from which they removed the detainees to transport them to San Bernardo and from there to the Cerro Chena Detention Center. These thirteen people were detained that night, along with others who were subsequently released:

• José Angel CABEZAS BUENO, 21 years old, single;
• Francisco Javier CALDERON NILO, 19 years old, single;
• Domingo Antonio GALAZ SALAS, 23 years old, single;
• José Emilio GONZALEZ ESPINOZA, 32 years old, married;
• Juan Rosendo GONZALEZ PEREZ, 23 years old;
• Aurelio Enrique HIDALGO MELLA, 22 years old, single;
• Bernabé del Carmen LOPEZ LOPEZ, 23 years old, single;
• Carlos Manuel ORTIZ ORTIZ, 18 years old, single;
• Héctor Santiago PINTO CARORA, 34 years old, married;
• Pedro Hernán PINTO CAROCA, 42 years old, married;
• Aliro del Carmen VALDIVIA VALDIVIA, 39 years old, married;
• Hugo Alfredo VIDAL ARENAS, 27 years old, married; and
• Víctor Manuel ZAMORANO GONZALEZ, single.

Several people who were detained at the Cerro Chena Detention Center report having been transported there along with the aforementioned detainees. In that place, they were generally kept blindfolded and subjected to torture and interrogation.

Subsequently, some of them were released. The relatives of the forcibly disappeared went on several occasions to that Detention Center, where the detention was not officially acknowledged. However, in the Recurso de Amparo (writ of habeas corpus) 283-79 filed on behalf of Ignacio Santander Albornoz and Juan Cuadra Espinoza, it was reported on April 16, 1974, by the Interior Zone Chief of the Departments of San Bernardo and Maipo that “the detainees Ignacio Santander Albornoz and Juan Cuadra Espinoza were discharged by the sentries of the Chena Prison Camp on October 4, 1973.” In the month of December, relatives were informed at the Legal Medical Service that there was a record of the entry of the remains of all these detainees and that they had been buried in Patio 29 of the General Cemetery. Around the same date, local residents discovered human remains in the Cuesta de Chada area. The relatives went there and were able to recognize, for the most part, remnants of the clothing that the detainees were wearing when they were taken from their homes. The remains, which were scattered at the site, were collected by Carabineros personnel and sent to the Legal Medical Service, where the corresponding forensic examinations were carried out, but the identities of the individuals were not determined. In the month of September 1990, the Minister of the Court of Appeals, Germán Hermosilla, constituted himself at that Medical Service in order to identify the remains that had remained unidentified since 1974. The bodies finally recognized correspond to the following individuals: José Cabezas Bueno; Francisco Calderón Nilo; Domingo Galaz Salas; Emilio González Espinoza; Juan González Pérez; Aurelio Hidalgo; Bernabé López; Héctor and Pedro Pinto Caroca; Aliro Valdivia Valdivia; Hugo Vidal Arenas, Manuel Zamorano González, Hector Castro Saez, and Juan Nuñez Vargas. According to the information indicated and gathered, the direct responsibility of State agents and civilians from Paine in the detention and death of the detainees on September 24 and October 3, 1973, is proven. Therefore, this Commission has formed the conviction that all of them are victims of a violation of their right to life, with the remains of sixteen of them having been identified: fourteen whose bones were recognized in 1990 and two whose execution was acknowledged by the authorities of the time.

Source: (Rettig Report)

The Paine Case. The Kast clan, the participation of landowners and truck owners in the execution and disappearance of 70 inhabitants

It was the owners of large estates and trucks who participated alongside State agents in the torture, execution, and disappearance of the 70 inhabitants of Paine, mostly peasants, during the military dictatorship.

The justice system has prosecuted six of them, and one was charged for crimes against humanity, Francisco Luzoro Montenegro. However, the Kast clan, who participated according to witnesses, has remained unpunished.

In 2017, the Supreme Court ratified the ruling against the first civilian convicted of crimes against humanity: Francisco Luzoro, for the murder of Carlos Chávez Reyes, Raúl del Carmen Lazo Quinteros, Orlando Enrique Pereira Cancino, and Pedro Luis Ramírez Torres.

The sentence was 20 years and one day. However, the criminal requested provisional release on bail in favor of the accused, under the argument of "not being a danger to the security of society," maintaining the obligation for the accused to sign in at court facilities.

Francisco Luzoro was the leader of the Paine truck owners, who acted as the ringleader for several civilians who provided vehicles and logistics for the repressive work of the Carabineros and military, and participated in the executions of at least seventy peasants and agricultural workers from Paine, a town located 46 kilometers southwest of Santiago, in the current Maipo province.

There were also five other civilians prosecuted, such as Rubén González Carrasco, Claudio Orregón Tudela, and Juan Francisco Luzoro as accomplices in the aggravated kidnapping of two victims. Later, Luzoro and Mario Tagle Román were charged as perpetrators of the qualified homicide of other victims.

In a third prosecution, Juan Francisco Luzoro and Ricardo Tagle Román were also prosecuted as perpetrators of qualified homicide. In 2017, the civilian Juan Guillermo Quintanilla Jerez and the retired military officer José Vásquez Silva were also prosecuted as perpetrators of the qualified kidnapping of 22 people, among them Andrés Pereira, father of the human rights lawyer Pamela Pereira.

These 22 victims were detained in the town of Paine in October 1973; from there, they were transported to the Los Quillayes ravine in the vicinity of Lake Rapel, where they were allegedly executed. The Kast clan and their impunity The accusations against the family of the far-right presidential candidate José Antonio Kast returned after the Supreme Court ruling on the "Paine Center" case became known, which involves the execution and disappearance of 38 inhabitants.

In the ruling, 11 former members of the Army and Carabineros were convicted. On the program Sin Filtros, Dauno Tótoro, a leader of the Revolutionary Workers' Party (PTR), challenged Teresa Marinovic, a constitutional convention member for the Republican Party, regarding the complicity of the Kast family in the execution and disappearance of 70 people, all men and mostly agricultural workers.

During the discussion, Tótoro invited Marinovic to read the book A la sombra de los cuervos (In the Shadow of the Ravens) (Ceibo Ediciones, 2015) by journalist Javier Rebolledo, which addresses the role of civilian accomplices in the civil-military dictatorship.

The Kast family has renown on the right; Miguel Kast, brother of José Antonio Kast, a famous right-wing operator and one of the founding pillars of the UDI, was an architect of the changes to the State (ODEPLAN) during the 80s to adjust it to the new neoliberal economic system that was being implemented at that time, but also had links to the DINA itself, as revealed in the book A la Sombra de los Cuervos by journalist Javier Rebolledo.

Voices against Agrarian Reform At the time of the Coup d'État, Miguel Kast built a good relationship with Jaime Guzmán, also a founder of the UDI. Earlier, in the 70s, while Agrarian Reform was beginning to rise from peasant organizations and agricultural worker unions in various locations such as Paine, the Kast family allegedly provided the trucks and even identified some of those who were later murdered.

Christian Kast, son of the owner of the Bavaria establishments and brother of José Antonio, was summoned to testify by the justice system in 2003. The case was reopened in 2002 by the Minister of the San Miguel Court of Appeals, María Stella Elgarrista, consolidating them into a single case, named "Paine," because 70 citizens from localities such as Pintué, El Escorial, Chada, Culitrín, and Hospital, among others, had been murdered or remained disappeared.

Francisco Luzoro acknowledged that “the operations carried out by Carabineros personnel escorted by us [the civilians] were exclusively to detain people in different places, who were then transported to the Paine Sub-police station, without knowing what their final destination was (…)” .

The Kast family had a relationship involving loans and transport that linked the military and Carabineros to the detentions.

Source: izquierdadiario.cl 17/6/2022

Date: 06-17-2022

Supreme Court confirms convictions and increases sentences for 11 former members of the Army and Carabineros for the crime of 38 peasants from Paine in 1973

The Supreme Court dismissed the application of the "half-prescription" (statute of limitations reduction) that the Fourth Chamber of the San Miguel Court of Appeals had resolved in November 2020 and increased the sentences for 10 former members of the Army and one former Carabineros officer for their responsibility in the qualified homicides of 38 peasants from various settlements in the Paine commune.

The criminal acts were committed between September 24 and October 16, 1973, in different settlements and localities of Paine. In the "El Escorial" settlement, the peasants Héctor Guillermo Castro Sáez, Juan Bautista Núñez Vargas, José Ángel Cabezas Bueno, Francisco Javier Calderón Nilo, Domingo Octavio Galaz Salas, José Emilio González Espinoza, Juan Rosendo González Pérez, Aurelio Enrique Hidalgo Mella, Bernabé del Carmen López López, Héctor Santiago Pinto Caroca, Hernán Pinto Caroca, Aliro del Carmen Valdivia Valdivia, Hugo Alfredo Vidal Arenas, and Víctor Manuel Zamorano González were detained and then murdered. In the "Campo Lindo" settlement, Ramón Alfredo Capetillo Mora was detained and then executed; in the "24 de Abril" settlement, the peasants Mario Enrique Muñoz Peñaloza, Patricio Loreto Duque Orellana, José Germán Fredes García, Carlos Enrique Gaete López, Rosalindo Delfín Herrera Muñoz, Jorge Hernán Muñoz Peñaloza, Ramiro Antonio Muñoz Peñaloza, Silvestre René Muñoz Peñaloza, Carlos Alberto Nieto Duarte, Laureano Quiroz Pezoa, Luis Ramón Silva Carreño, and Basilio Antonio Valenzuela Álvarez were detained and then murdered. In the "Nuevo Sendero" settlement, the peasants José Domingo Adasme Núñez, José Ignacio Castro Maldonado, Luis Alberto Gaete Balmaceda, Luis Rodolfo Lazo Maldonado, Samuel del Tránsito Lazo Maldonado, Carlos Enrique Lazo Quinteros, and Samuel Altamiro Lazo Quinteros were detained and then executed. Finally, in the "El Tránsito" settlement, they detained and then murdered Pedro Antonio Cabezas Villegas and Roberto Estevan Serrano Galaz; meanwhile, in the urban area of the Paine commune, René del Rosario Maureira Gajardo and Andrés Pereira Salsberg were detained and then murdered. In the sentence (docket 149.250-2020), the Second Chamber of the highest court—composed of ministers Jorge Dahm, Leopoldo Llanos, minister María Teresa Letelier, and acting lawyers Diego Munita and Leonor Etcheberry—sentenced former Army officers Jorge Eduardo Romero Campos (retired with the rank of Brigadier) and Arturo Guillermo Fernández Rodríguez (retired with the rank of Colonel) to 20 years in prison for their responsibility in the 38 cases of qualified homicide, with the first 14 occurring between September 24 and October 3, 1973, in the "El Escorial" sector, and the last 24 between October 8 and October 16, 1973, in the "Campo Lindo" and "24 de Abril" settlements. Meanwhile, former Army non-commissioned officer José Hugo Vásquez Silva, and former conscript soldiers (at the time of the events) Carlos del Tránsito Lazo Santibáñez, Juan Dionisio Opazo Vera, Roberto Mauricio Pinto Labordarie, Jorge Segundo Saavedra Meza, Víctor Reinaldo Sandoval Muñoz, and Carlos Enrique Durán Rodríguez were sentenced to 10 years in prison for their responsibility in the 38 crimes mentioned above. Meanwhile, former conscript Raúl Francisco Areyte Valdenegro must serve a sentence of 7 years and 6 months in prison for his responsibility in the 14 homicides in the "El Escorial" sector. Finally, former Carabineros officer Nelson Iván Bravo Espinoza was sentenced to 10 years and one day in prison for his responsibility in the qualified kidnappings of Ramón Capetillo Mora and Mario Muñoz Peñaloza, committed on October 8 and 10, 1973. The highest court accepted the appeals for annulment filed by the plaintiffs against the ruling of the San Miguel Court of Appeals, which had applied the figure of "half-prescription," considering that this figure should not be accepted in cases of crimes against humanity. Other criminals involved and convicted in the first-instance sentence were dismissed because they died during the course of the process; such is the case of former Army officers Osvaldo Andrés Alonso Magaña Bau, Carlos Walter Kyling Schmidt, and the civilian criminal Juan Guillermo Quintanilla Jérez.

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Exhumation of Tatiana Fariña's remains: Lawsuit seeks to clarify the death of a young woman from Concepción who died during the dictatorship The investigation by the visiting minister of the San Miguel Court of Appeals, Marianela Cifuentes Alarcón, established the following regarding the events in "El Escorial": "1st That on September 24, 1973, in the afternoon, soldiers from the Second Rifle Company of the San Bernardo Infantry School appeared at the "El Escorial" settlement in the Paine commune and detained, without legal basis, Héctor Guillermo Castro Sáez and Juan Bautista Núñez Vargas, among others. 2nd That, after their detention, Héctor Castro Sáez and Juan Núñez Vargas were transported to the Cerro Chena prison camp of the Infantry School of San Bernardo, a place where they were kept illegally imprisoned. 3rd That, on October 2, 1973, soldiers from the Infantry School of San Bernardo appeared at the "El Escorial" settlement in the Paine commune and detained, without legal basis, José Ángel Cabezas Bueno, who, immediately thereafter, was transported to the Cerro Chena prison camp. 4th That, on October 3, 1973, in the early hours, soldiers from the Second Rifle Company of the San Bernardo Infantry School, commanded by Captain Jorge Eduardo Romero Campos, left the Cerro Chena prison camp, under the charge of Lieutenant Osvaldo Andrés Alonso Magaña Bau and Second Lieutenants Carlos Walter Kyling Schmidt and Arturo Guillermo Fernández Rodríguez, with the detainees José Ángel Cabezas Bueno, Héctor Guillermo Castro Sáez, and Juan Bautista Núñez Vargas, in a red Dodge truck driven by Juan Guillermo Quintanilla Jerez, headed to the "El Escorial" settlement of the Paine commune and detained, without legal basis, Francisco Javier Calderón Nilo, Domingo Octavio Galaz Salas, José Emilio González Espinoza, Juan Rosendo González Pérez, Aurelio Enrique Hidalgo Mella, Bernabé del Carmen López López, Héctor Santiago Pinto Caroca, Hernán Pinto Caroca, Aliro del Carmen Valdivia Valdivia, Hugo Alfredo Vidal Arenas, and Víctor Manuel Zamorano González. 5th That, subsequently, in the same truck, they transported all the detainees to a ravine in the Cuesta de Chada and executed them, shooting them with the firearms they were carrying, their bodies being found abandoned at the aforementioned site some time later." Meanwhile, regarding the illicit acts in the "Campo Lindo" and "24 de Abril" settlements, it was proven that: "1st That, on October 8, 1973, officials from the Paine Carabineros Sub-police station appeared at the "Campo Lindo" settlement in the same commune and detained, without legal basis, Ramón Alfredo Capetillo Mora, who, immediately thereafter, was locked up in the aforementioned police unit. 2nd That, in the following days, Ramón Capetillo Mora was transported to the Cerro Chena prison camp of the Infantry School of San Bernardo. 3rd That, on October 10, 1973, officials from the Paine Carabineros Sub-police station appeared at the "24 de Abril" settlement in the same commune and detained, without legal basis, Mario Enrique Muñoz Peñaloza, who, immediately thereafter, was locked up in the aforementioned police unit. 4th That, in the following days, Mario Muñoz Peñaloza was transported to the Cerro Chena prison camp of the Infantry School of San Bernardo. 5th That, at the time of the events, the Paine Carabineros Sub-police station was under the charge of Captain Nelson Iván Bravo Espinoza. 6th That, on October 16, 1973, in the early hours, soldiers from the Second Rifle Company of the San Bernardo Infantry School, commanded by Captain Jorge Eduardo Romero Campos, left the Cerro Chena prison camp, under the charge of Lieutenant Osvaldo Andrés Alonso Magaña Bau and Second Lieutenants Carlos Walter Kyling Schmidt and Arturo Guillermo Fernández Rodríguez, with the detainees Ramón Alfredo Capetillo Mora and Mario Enrique Muñoz Peñaloza, in a red Dodge truck driven by Juan Guillermo Quintanilla Jerez, with the objective of detaining twenty-two people in the town of Paine. Thus, in their respective homes, located in the urban area of the Paine commune, they detained, without legal basis, René del Rosario Maureira Gajardo and Andrés Pereira Salsberg. In the "24 de Abril" settlement, Patricio Loreto Duque Orellana, José Germán Fredes García, Carlos Enrique Gaete López, Rosalindo Delfín Herrera Muñoz, Jorge Hernán Muñoz Peñaloza, Ramiro Antonio Muñoz Peñaloza, Silvestre René Muñoz Peñaloza, Carlos Alberto Nieto Duarte, Laureano Quiroz Pezoa, Luis Ramón Silva Carreño, and Basilio Antonio Valenzuela Álvarez. In the "Nuevo Sendero" settlement, José Domingo Adasme Núñez, José Ignacio Castro Maldonado, Luis Alberto Gaete Balmaceda, Luis Rodolfo Lazo Maldonado, Samuel del Tránsito Lazo Maldonado, Carlos Enrique Lazo Quinteros, and Samuel Altamiro Lazo Quinteros and, finally, in the "El Tránsito" settlement, Pedro Antonio Cabezas Villegas and Roberto Estevan Serrano Galaz. 7th That, subsequently, the aforementioned detainees were transported to the Los Arrayanes ravine, Los Quillayes sector, in the vicinity of Lake Rapel, a place where they were executed by firing squad by the aforementioned soldiers and the civilian who accompanied them, who, immediately thereafter, buried their bodies at the same site, with only bone and dental fragments of eleven of the twenty-four victims being found years later, because their bodies were removed and transported to an unknown location to this date."

Source: resumen.cl 15/6/2022

Date: 06-15-2022

Bodies of 14 peasants were collected in sacks by their families: New stage in the investigations into executions in Paine

The minister for human rights violation cases of the San Miguel Court of Appeals, Marianela Cifuentes, who is leading new proceedings in the investigation, highlighted that the bodies of the peasants remained for 16 years in refrigerated chambers at the Legal Medical Service (SML), without being handed over to their relatives.

A new stage has begun in the investigations into the case of 14 peasants from the Viña El Escorial Settlement in Paine, who were detained and executed in 1973 by agents of Augusto Pinochet's dictatorship.

The extraordinary visiting minister for human rights violation cases of the San Miguel Court of Appeals, Marianela Cifuentes Alarcón, led a series of proceedings last Monday, November 25, along with officers from the Investigative Brigade for Crimes against Human Rights of the Investigative Police (Bridehu) and personnel from the Legal Medical Service (SML) to carry out an exhaustive analysis of the terrain where soldiers from the San Bernardo Infantry School executed the 14 peasants in October 1973.

The proceedings will last for a week and include the use of a drone, a metal detector, and excavation of both the property and the settling ponds located at the foot of a ravine. "We are at the Cuesta Chada, kilometer 38, to begin the proceedings decreed in case 14-2024 for illegal burial.

In this place, in 1973, precisely on October 3, soldiers from the San Bernardo Infantry School executed 14 peasants from the El Escorial sector," indicated the visiting minister. A new stage has begun in the investigations into the case of 14 peasants from the Viña El Escorial Settlement in Paine. "That day, after their execution, the bodies were abandoned and relatives were only able to find them in the month of January 1974.

On that occasion, no work was done at the crime scene; instead, the bodies were collected by the relatives themselves, and after notifying the local Carabineros, they were placed in three burlap sacks.

The bones were disarticulated, fragmented, and were transported to the Legal Medical Service," she explained. "Subsequently, in the month of March of that year, at the Legal Medical Service, a study of these bones was carried out, managing to determine that they were approximately 14 people," she added.

Cifuentes highlighted that the victims' bodies remained for 16 years in refrigerated chambers without being handed over to their relatives. "After that, the bodies were not handed over to their relatives, but were placed in refrigerated chambers at the Legal Medical Service and remained there for 16 years until 1990, the date on which Minister Germán Hermosilla of the San Miguel Court of Appeals ordered a study of those bones to be made and constituted himself at this place," she recounted, as reported by a press release from the Judiciary. "On that occasion, he constituted himself on October 16 and 17, 1990, managing to find bone evidence, ballistic evidence, and even cultural evidence again. But it was not done with the latest technology either, and therefore, although the case related to these events, which is the main Paine case, has a final judgment, a lawsuit was filed by the Human Rights Program within the framework of the National Search Plan in order to carry out an exhaustive study of the terrain, which is what is going to be done on this occasion," she concluded. Kidnapping and homicide of 14 peasants from Paine According to the information gathered in the investigation stage, the visiting minister established the following facts: "That, on October 3, 1973, in the early hours, at the El Escorial Settlement in Paine, soldiers from the Second Rifle Company of the San Bernardo Infantry School, under the charge of Second Lieutenant Osvaldo Andrés Magaña, detained, without legal basis, Francisco Javier Calderon Nilo, Domingo Octavio Galaz Salas, José Emilio González Espinoza, Juan Rosendo González Pérez, Aurelio Enrique Hidalgo Mella, Bernabé del Carmen López López, Héctor Santiago Pinto Caroca, Hernán Pinto Caroca, Aliro del Carmen Valdivia Valdivia, Hugo Alfredo Vidal Arenas, and Víctor Manuel Zamorano González, to then execute them along with Juan Bautista Núñez Vargas, Héctor Castro Sáez, and José Cabeza Bueno, in the Cuesta Chada sector, to which they were transported in the aforementioned red Dodge truck, driven by Juan Guillermo Quintanilla Jerez, shooting them with the firearms they were carrying, their bodies being found abandoned at the aforementioned site some time later."

Source: elciudadano.cl, November 27, 2024

Testimony of Verónica and María González Pinto (excerpt)

José Emilio González Espinoza is one of the seventy forcibly disappeared and executed men of Paine. He was 32 years old at the time of his detention and execution; he worked as an agricultural laborer and had no known political affiliation.

He was married and had four children. On October 3, 1973, he was detained at the El Escorial estate by military personnel from the San Bernardo Infantry School, where twelve other peasants were detained, whose names appeared on a list carried by the captors.

The operation, which included arrests and raids, was carried out outside all legality. His remains were found in the Cuesta Chada. The bodies were identified and handed over in 1991 by the Legal Medical Institute of the time.

Below, we present the testimony of Verónica and María González Pinto, daughters of José Emilio. This testimony is based on conversations held between Verónica, María, and the researchers from Germina, conocimiento para la acción.

Felicinda Pinto, wife of José Emilio and mother of Verónica and María, also participated. We are the daughters of José Emilio González Espinoza. When my dad disappeared, we lived at the El Escorial estate.

For me, Verónica, it was two days before I turned one year old; Mary was four years old; my mom was pregnant with Angélica, and my older brother was five. My brother and Mary are the ones who have a few more memories of what my dad was like, because I, at one year old, really don't have many memories.

My mom tells us that he was very jealous of us and that once he wanted to hit Mary because she was playing with her cousin, but he was a good father. The few memories I have of him are nice memories. The memories we have of him are the ones my mom tells us, really, what he was like as a dad, that he was very loving toward his children.

I remember he would give me bread with chili and I would eat it; he would show me affection and I would ride a horse with my dad (María González). Since I was the youngest, every day he would take me for a walk around El Escorial; it was pure countryside, it was dirt, but he liked my mom to keep me clean and tidy, so that he would arrive home, shower, and go out for a walk with me; that happened every afternoon.

When he left, it was different, because according to my mom, I waited for him. We have an uncle who looked a lot like my dad and he would come to see me in the afternoons, as if to cushion the pain, the absence, a little; I would get happy, and when he got closer, I would start to cry because I realized it wasn't my dad.

We have seen a lot of suffering in my mom. I think that to this day my mom cries for him, although she has had a partner for many years and our stepfather is a very good man. My mom remembers my dad a lot because her life changed a lot; with my dad, she had a person who worried 100 percent about her; he would go to the supermarket and buy our clothes; she just had to be at home and live, and from one day to the next, she was left with nothing.

She was left without a husband, without a house, without money; she was left pregnant with her four little kids and she had a very hard time. She went from having stability in every sense with my dad to going through all this alone, because she was alone in the world.

When my younger sister was born, there was a curfew and no one could go out, so my mom came walking from up at El Escorial; there must be seven kilometers and she walked until someone took pity on her; the same military men took her to the Hospital and left her there, but alone, with her bag, with the contractions, with everything that a birth entails.

And all alone because no one dared to accompany her or take her to the Hospital because of the curfew. Once Angélica was born, they told my mom that she wasn't capable of having her and they kept her in the Hospital and handed her over to the Red Cross.

My mom had to steal her own daughter because the social worker told her, "You have so many kids, why are you going to take care of this one!" They had everything ready: they were taking my sister to the United States, and the day before they were going to take her, my mom stole her from the Red Cross. "She is my daughter, you can't take her from me," she said, and the Red Cross people and the police arrived; my mom said, "No, over my dead body, you are not taking my daughter." The detention The military arrived at the house at four in the morning, kicking the doors and looking for a José Espina. My grandpa said, "There is no José Espina here," so they asked my dad, "And what is your name?", "José Emilio González Espinoza," he replied. "Ah, he works for us too, let's just take him," and they took him. At four in the morning, they took my husband; the military and civilians almost tore down the door latch, they opened it with a kick, they hit my father-in-law and my brothers-in-law, and then, because surely someone had told them that we lived there, they went to the last room where we were and they were looking for Juan Emilio Espina, and my husband's name was José Emilio González Espinoza, and I said, "And why are you taking him if my husband doesn't know how to read or write?" - "We are taking him to give a statement and he will arrive later," he never arrived (Felicinda Pinto). My older brother only remembers that my dad told him, "Okay son, I'm going and I'll be back; while I'm not here, you take care of your mom and your sisters," because we were only women, and to this day my brother has fully assumed the role; he has breakfast with my mom, gives her money for food, takes her to the doctor, comes to see her every day, very worried, and about us too. I still get scared of planes because in the time they took my husband, planes and helicopters passed by all day and night. The sound of water doesn't do me any good either, because outside the house there was an irrigation ditch and when they took him, that sound was engraved in my mind. It's nice to hear the running water, but it's bad for me, just like the planes and the people (Felicinda Pinto) ... (excerpt)

Source: germina.cl 2014

Song written by Fernando, son of Juan Emilio González Espinoza.

I need you. I was only five years old when dad left my side. It was an early morning, a day in October, when dad was leaving. Someone knocked on the door, dad opened it, and a machine gun appeared. From his hands, handcuffs hung; since that time, he has not returned.

Days, months, and years have passed, and dad has not returned. Dad, I need you; I want to be with you and be your friend. Dad, to tell you I love you, to share my dreams and my longings. Dad, wherever you are, I will always remember you.

I didn't like going out to the street and seeing the children happy, smiling, hand in hand with the loved one that life had taken from me. Dad, I need you; I want to be with you and be your friend.

Source: germina.cl 2014