On September 11, 1973, at 10:00 AM, he left his home to run errands in the city center. Since that date, his family only knew that he was detained by Carabineros from the Niblinto Station, along with a friend, Nelson Ugarte, on September 14, 1973.

A witness to this detention was Jorge Vera Gonzalez, currently in exile in Holland. On September 12, 13, and 14, various patrols of Carabineros and the Armed Forces raided the disappeared person's home, asking for his whereabouts and those of his brother Luis, who was detained a few days later and prosecuted by the Military Prosecutor's Office of Ñuble.

Months later, and over the course of three days, military and Carabinero patrols appeared at his home on several occasions, again asking for the disappeared person. Afterward, they did not return.

LEGAL ACTIONS

The family members have not taken legal action to date out of fear, and because of what happened to their other son, Luis, who was prosecuted and detained for a long time. They will initiate them, encouraged by the statement of the Minister of the Interior on June 17 last (1978), which in the relevant part states: "Whatever the concrete truth in each situation, it can be investigated by the Courts of Justice..."

ADMINISTRATIVE ACTIONS

Personal efforts by family members before the Carabinero, military, and Government authorities of Chillán.

He was born at the Herminda Martín Hospital in the city of Chillán on June 30, 1951. His parents are Mr. Humberto Romero Pérez and Mrs. María Agustina Lagos Sepulveda. José was the 4th child in the family; his mother's fertile womb gave birth to 4 more children.

At that time, his father worked as the "wrench," since everything that resembled technical work was his responsibility at the Fundo Santa Rosa de Cato. He took his first steps in what is now the Quilamapu experimental field.

His blond, wavy hair falling over his green eyes and his childlike joy were some of the reasons that compelled his father to take more than one photo of him. The patio of his mother's house was marked by the passage of his coligüe stick horse, or simply by the sight of him riding bare, as his body could not stand the baggy trousers that oppressed his freedom.

His childhood was happy and he matured quickly; he did not plant a tree, nor did he have time to write a book, and he did not live to give us a child. He only left us the example that to be called a man, one must resemble Jesus.

The family moved to Chillán, where they remain to this day. This was in 1957; they arrived to live in the maternal grandfather's house at Calle Andrés Bello No. 10, later moving to live at San Martín No. 125, then to the Pantoja pavilions, and finally to their own home in the Población Purén.

He spent his first year of primary school at School No. 9, and from there, he moved to No. 7, where he finished that education. He completed his secondary studies at Liceo No. 2 of Chillán. In 1970, he fulfilled his mandatory military service.

He stood out for his camaraderie and good physical condition; he earned a stripe and, most importantly, won a competition in which he was the best of the conscripts that year—a trophy proves it, as his name is carved upon it.

He continued his studies at the Liceo and graduated in 1972. He took the Academic Aptitude Test, and his score was sufficient to enroll in the Universidad de Chile, Chillán campus, where his organization asked him to work in Social Assistance to be closer to those who suffer.

Studies took a back seat as he was absorbed by what moves the most conscious children of this people, all this in the heat of the problems that affected him directly as a student and in the observation of what was happening around him, of those who suffer from a lack of schools, work, health, and housing and who have the right to a better life.

His first steps in political life were with the FER (Revolutionary Student Front), from where he was recruited into the MIR. His commitment was total, as befits fighters who truly want deep social change.

The 1973 Military Coup caught him in this role, and he did not hesitate to stand by the side of the fighters for democracy, which at that moment was being violated by the owners of the economic power of this country.

The borders between rich and poor have a guardian that manifests itself when the rich want it to. He traveled with a group of comrades to the Andean foothills to fight from there for the Government that the Chileans had chosen for themselves.

At the Niblinto station, they were shot at, and two of his friends were murdered with the weapons that the people had placed in the hands of the police. The rest managed to leave the area and headed into the first mountain ranges.

The following day, September 15, he separated from the group in the company of Nelson Rubén Varas Aleny. That afternoon, they were seen and pursued by peasants from Minas del Prado, beaten until they were almost dead, taken to a shed and locked up, poked by locals with pointed coligüe sticks, and handed over to police forces who subsequently executed them near that place.

The names of all the civilians who participated in this barbarity are known; those names were handed over to investigations. We are still waiting for justice to arrive; we cannot forgive the guilty without punishment. With this wound, there can be no reconciliation.

Source: (Extracted from the book Memoria Histórica de los Detenidos Desaparecidos de Ñuble)

In 1978, in the context of the remains found of political disappeared persons in Lonquén, like thousands of murdered people, my brother José was again illegally exhumed and made to disappear. The murderers knew where he had been buried after he was thrown into the Niblinto River, since in September 1973, some students from the seminary school in Chillán took on the humanitarian task of burying him on the riverbank.

When the students were burying them, they were seen by Carabineros from Coihueco. I am Luis Romero Lagos, brother of José Fernando Romero Lagos, a forcibly disappeared person; I wish for the information on the Memoria Viva page to be supplemented.

In the lawsuit filed by the Ministry of the Interior, the judge in charge of the case sentenced Carabinero Captain Luis Valdés Castillo of the 6th Precinct of Chillán Viejo to three years with a suspended sentence.

Subsequently, the Court of Appeals of Chillán overturned the sentence and acquitted Captain Valdés Castillo, who was in charge of the contingent that murdered my brother, and who today lives peacefully at Avenida Ecuador 640 in the city of Chillán.

The lawyer for the Ministry of the Interior did not file an appeal for annulment, therefore it was not possible to argue before the Supreme Court, and we were denied the possibility of going to the Inter-American Court of Human Rights to argue a denial of justice.

Total impunity, even though members of the army, among them Mr. Nindo Palavecino, acknowledged BEFORE THE COURTS that Luis Valdés Castillo was in charge of the patrol of murderers. Likewise, at the moment they went to look for them in Minas del Prado, the army non-commissioned officer Enedino Días acknowledged that Luis Valdés Castillo was "personally" in charge of the Carabinero patrol that went to look for them with the support of soldiers from the Mountain Regiment R.I. 9 of Chillán.

This soldier, Enedino, recognized my brother and told Valdés Castillo, and the latter stated, "we have to kill him because otherwise he will kill you in the future." We will soon send the original of the proceedings.

Source: Luis Romero Lagos. Received by memoriaviva on 18-5-11

As part of the official commemoration of a new anniversary of the Coup d'État, the Casa de Bello continued with the presentation of this recognition. Led by Rector Ennio Vivaldi, the ceremony ratified the institutional commitment to memory, reparation, truth, and justice that has been developed in recent years.

Emotion and joy were among the feelings of people from different generations who met this Tuesday, September 11, in a packed Main Hall of the U. de Chile Central House, which, as part of the official ceremony commemorating a new anniversary of the Coup d'État, held the second presentation of the "Posthumous and Symbolic Degree" recognition and the posthumous and symbolic academic degree to forcibly disappeared and political execution victims.

Those honored on this occasion were political execution victims José Modesto Amigo Latorre, Tatiana Valentina Fariña Concha, Sócrates Augusto Ponce Pacheco, and Frank Randall Teruggi Bombatch; and the forcibly disappeared Clara Elena Canteros Torres, Bernardo de Castro López, Jorge Humberto D'Orival Briceño, Jorge Enrique Espinosa Méndez, Néstor Alfonso Gallardo Agüero, José Fernando Romero Lagos, and Eduardo Humberto Ziede Gómez.

These 11 students from the University join the 101 who received the distinction last April, as part of an institutional memory exercise described as "indispensable" in light of recent events related to justice and human rights violations.

At the ceremony, three students whose families could not attend the first presentation of degrees were also honored. These are Juan Andrés Blanco Castillo, Juan Aniceto Meneses Reyes, and Carmen Margarita Díaz Derricarrere. "This University today lives in this act a moment of unusual commotion, but we would like to think that beyond this moment, there will remain in us and in you this spirit of configuring a country in which those we are honoring today would have been happy," said Rector Ennio Vivaldi regarding this process, which is in charge of the Committee for Posthumous Degrees, composed of the Human Rights Chair and the Andrés Bello Central Archive of the Vice-Rectorate of Extension and Communications, the Legal Directorate, and the Vice-Rectorate of Academic Affairs. Along with highlighting the importance of the names "because behind them there are stories, there are friends and families who have never stopped fighting for their recognition, for fighting against oblivion in a country that insists on burying the past," the Vice-Rector of Extension and Communications, Faride Zeran, explained that "faced with our country's debts in these matters, the Universidad de Chile has decided, as it has so many times in its history, to act in accordance with its historical memory, with the ethical debt that an institution like this has to the country and to the victims of human rights violations," which is why, she stressed, the process remains open, overcoming the difficulties of the lack of an archive policy and the destruction of the same. For her part, the president of the FECh, Karla Toro, while remembering the Engineering student murdered during the dictatorship, Patricio Manzano, emphasized that this act of reparation "cannot be an endpoint. On the contrary, it must be a starting point to be able to advance decisively in a true policy of memory by our University," a task in which, she said, students must play a leading role. A living memory "On a day like today, 45 years ago, we learned to wait, and we continue to wait for truth and justice. We deserve nothing less than that. That is why these acts are extremely important, because they vindicate us," said Alejandra Parra, representative of the Association of Relatives of Political Executions, adding that "it is important that we leave this legacy to the new generations." Parra also had words regarding the role of society in matters of memory and human rights, since "it depends on us that the impunity to which we have been subjected, especially this year, does not continue. We can continue the fight, ask for truth and justice, and fight against impunity." For her part, Mireya García, representative of the Association of Relatives of Forcibly Disappeared Persons (AFDD), thanked the Universidad de Chile for this act of memory "because symbolic acts have an enormous value for us; they go beyond the symbolic and are transformed into acts of vindication of what their lives were, and they were also students." García also highlighted the need for "society as a whole to be part of this fight because the disappeared belong to everyone, they belong to us all, because the executed belong to us all, because the tortured are all of us." The ceremony was attended by Pro-Rector Rafael Epstein; the Vice-Rector of Academic Affairs, Rosa Devés; the Vice-Rector of Extension and Communications, Faride Zeran; the Vice-Rector of Research and Development, Flavio Salazar; the Vice-Rector of Economic and Institutional Management, Daniel Hojman; the Vice-Rector of Student and Community Affairs, Juan Cortés, along with the Legal Director (s), Ignacio Maturana. Along with them, the Dean of the Faculty of Philosophy and Humanities, Carlos Ruiz Schneider; the Dean of the Faculty of Physical and Mathematical Sciences, Francisco Martínez; the Dean of the Faculty of Veterinary and Animal Sciences, Mario Maino; the Dean of the Faculty of Architecture and Urbanism, Manuel Amaya; the Dean of the Faculty of Social Sciences, Roberto Aceituno; the Dean of the Faculty of Agronomic Sciences, Roberto Neira; the Dean of the Faculty of Arts, Luis Orlandini; the Dean of the Faculty of Economics and Business, José De Gregorio; the Dean of the Faculty of Dentistry, Irene Morales, and the Director of the Institute of Public Affairs, Hugo Frühling, attended; in addition to the president of the FECh, Karla Toro, and representatives of the University Senate and the Evaluation Council, among others. Also participating in this meeting, which was open to the entire university community and the public, were musician Roberto Márquez—vocalist of Illapu—and actors Paulina Urrutia and Daniel Muñoz, who were the masters of ceremony; in addition to Joan Turner and Amanda Jara, the National Human Rights Award winner Fabiola Letelier, architect Miguel Lawner, musician Fernando García, university authorities, and members of the diplomatic corps.

Source: medicina.uchile.cl 12/9/2018 Date: 09-12-2018