José Sofanor Saldivia Saldivia, single, a forestry worker for CONAF in Temuco and a sympathizer of the Salvador Allende government, was detained on September 28, 1973, under unknown circumstances. He was taken to the Tucapel Regiment in Temuco, from where he was removed during the night of that same day.

At that military unit, he was seen by prisoner León Gómez Araneda, who states in his testimonial book that he saw and recognized him, and that during the night he was taken out of the Regiment along with a mathematics professor.

He later learned that both had been executed by firing squad at the Quepe Bridge and their bodies thrown into the river. Local residents were strictly forbidden by the uniformed personnel from collecting them, burying them, or reporting the event, under threat of suffering the same fate.

Mr. Roberto Morales Urra, an anthropologist, states in a report and research paper that in September 1973, the city of Temuco was living in a climate of extreme tension. The prison was overcrowded with prisoners, and the "Diario Austral" and local radio stations continued to broadcast edicts with lists of people who were required to turn themselves in... "On the 28th (of September 1973), Sofanor Saldivia was murdered."

José Saldivia Saldivia wrote periodically to his home in the city of Ancud; the last letter addressed to his mother is dated September 3, 1973, in which he expresses his concern about the situation in the country. His family did not have the financial resources to travel and investigate the situation he was in after September 11, 1973, which is why no efforts were made on his behalf.

JUDICIAL AND/OR ADMINISTRATIVE ACTIONS

José Saldivia was seen alive for the last time on the night of September 28, 1973, when he was removed from the Tucapel Regiment in Temuco; since that date, he has remained in the status of forcibly disappeared. There are no recorded judicial actions.

A series of activities to remember and pay tribute to the Ancud victims of the civil-military dictatorship will be held this October 19 by the PRAIS group of the Ancud commune. On Wednesday, October 19, starting at seven in the evening, an activity will be held at the Red Cross headquarters in Ancud, located on Calle Los Carrera, featuring music and other artistic expressions, and a documentary about the lives of these young people from Ancud murdered by the dictatorship will be screened.

Some initiatives will be carried out as part of a project called "Never again a land of oblivion." Funded by the Memory and Human Rights Unit of the Ministry of Cultures, Arts, and Heritage, as noted by Julio Mayorga of the PRAIS group of Ancud, who explained that these are basically tributes to four young people from Ancud murdered by agents of the dictatorship and to those who suffered repression by State agents during that period.

"PRAIS Ancud, within the framework of its Human Rights project 'Never again a land of oblivion,' wants to hold a tribute on October 19, the day of Ancud memory, for the treacherous, mournful, and cowardly death of four of our young comrades from Ancud," said the Ancud PRAIS leader.

Read also: Request for Memory Site approved for former PDI barracks in Puerto Montt

"On October 19, 1973, they executed Francisco Avendaño Bórquez and Mario Cárcamo Garay by firing squad; they detained and tortured Carlos Mascareña Díaz, who died as a result of those tortures, and our comrade Sofanor Saldivia disappeared in the mountains of Panguipulli," added Julio Mayorga.

Young people murdered during the dictatorship

To remember them, he indicated, on Wednesday, October 19, starting at seven in the evening, an activity will be held at the Red Cross headquarters in Ancud, located on Calle Los Carrera, featuring music and other artistic expressions. A documentary about the lives of these young people from Ancud murdered by the dictatorship will be screened.

"A Human Rights short film named after the project, 'Never again a land of oblivion,' will premiere. Directed by filmmaker Igor Viveros. It is a small, succinct, but intimate, friendly, and everyday biography of Pancho Avendaño, the life of Mario Cárcamo Garay, and the passage through this life of Carlos Mascareña and José Sofanor Saldivia," added Julio Mayorga.

He explained that the documentary piece contains testimonies from family members, colleagues, and friends of Francisco Avendaño, Mario Cárcamo, Carlos Mascareña, and José Sofanor Saldivia.

Before that activity, at six-thirty in the evening on the same Wednesday, October 19, an art action will take place at Plaza Centenario, in front of the Police Station, by the Ancud company Isla Teatro.

It consists of the presentation of a short, minimalist play that seeks to denounce and bring back to memory the actions and conduct of human rights violations committed at the Ancud Police Station by State agents.

Source: diariopuertovaras.cl 18/10/2022 Date: 18-10-2022

JOSE SOFANOR SALDIVIA SALDIVIA

José Sofanor Saldivia Saldivia, single, a forestry worker for CONAF in Temuco and a sympathizer of the Salvador Allende government, was detained on September 28, 1973, under unknown circumstances. He was taken to the Tucapel Regiment in Temuco, from where he was removed during the night of that same day.

At that military unit, he was seen by prisoner León Gómez Araneda, who states in his testimonial book that he saw and recognized him, and that during the night he was taken out of the Regiment along with a mathematics professor.

He later learned that both had been executed by firing squad at the Quepe Bridge and their bodies thrown into the river. Local residents were strictly forbidden by the uniformed personnel from collecting them, burying them, or reporting the event, under threat of suffering the same fate.

Mr. Roberto Morales Urra, an anthropologist, states in a report and research paper that in September 1973, the city of Temuco was living in a climate of extreme tension. The prison was overcrowded with prisoners, and the "Diario Austral" and local radio stations continued to broadcast edicts with lists of people who were required to turn themselves in... "On the 28th (of September 1973), Sofanor Saldivia was murdered."

José Saldivia Saldivia wrote periodically to his home in the city of Ancud; the last letter addressed to his mother is dated September 3, 1973, in which he expresses his concern about the situation in the country. His family did not have the financial resources to travel and investigate the situation he was in after September 11, 1973, which is why no efforts were made on his behalf.

Source: Association of Relatives of the Forcibly Disappeared

Minister Álvaro Mesa takes statements from witnesses regarding human rights violations in Panguipulli and Temuco

The minister on special assignment for human rights violation cases in the jurisdictions of Temuco, Valdivia, Puerto Montt, and Coyhaique, Álvaro Mesa Latorre, appeared at the Court of Appeals of Valdivia to take statements from witnesses in three cases he is investigating, regarding crimes committed in Panguipulli and Temuco between September and October 1973.

"Case file 15.213, titled Alberto Reinante Raipán, relates to an event that occurred on October 10, 1973. Reinante Raipán was detained at his home, located on the Trafún estate, in the Liquiñe sector, inside the Forestal Panguipulli timber complex.

Later, this person disappeared and was eventually executed. Here, a statement is being taken from a member of the Carabineros staff from that time," reported Minister Mesa Latorre.

Furthermore, he explained, "(...) statements are being taken from witnesses in case 21.820 of the Panguipulli Court, regarding Juan Ávila Velásquez, who was detained around September 18, 1973, inside Liquiñe, at the moment he was looking for his sister Yolanda Ávila Velásquez and his brother-in-law, José Gregorio Liendo Vera, known as Commander Pepe."

"In case 5.215 of the Court of Appeals of Valdivia regarding José Sofanor Saldivia Saldivia, the victim was a CONAF worker who was detained by soldiers from the Tucapel Regiment on September 28, 1973, and taken to that military unit.

Witnesses indicate that he allegedly participated in the assault on the Neltume Carabineros de Chile station and that he was executed on the Villarrica bridge, over the Toltén River," concluded the visiting minister.

Source: pjud.cl 29/5/2024

The man who never existed: three names for a disappeared person without an identity (Part III)

In the midst of the investigation regarding the name of the person who was executed in Lake Villarrica in 1974, the Justice system considered that it could be one of three forcibly disappeared persons: Silvio Bettancourt, Luis Vásquez, and José Saldivia, all of whom are ruled out today.

In the midst of the proceedings carried out by Minister Álvaro Mesa to find the identity of the political prisoner who was executed in 1974 in Lake Villarrica, which we have been reporting on these days, the clerk working with the judge, Gonzalo Millalén, communicated with different Courts of Appeals in the country, reporting the existence of an unidentified person (NN) who needed to be identified.

The first Court to respond was that of Punta Arenas, which reported the case of Silvio Francisco Bettancourt, who arrived from San Antonio to Magallanes in 1968 to study petrochemical engineering at the current University of Magallanes (Umag), at that time a branch of the former State Technical University (UTE).

In 1972, he began to militate in the MAPU (Unitary Popular Action Movement) and the following year, after his professional internship, according to a report on the subject in the Umag, he began working at ENAP.

After the coup d'état, his name appeared on an edict in which he was ordered—along with other people—to present himself to the new authorities, something he decided not to do, choosing instead to head to Río Gallegos, in Argentina. However, he never arrived at the address he was heading to, and his whereabouts remain unknown to this day.

Bettancourt's photo was shown to several of the former soldiers of the Tucapel regiment, but no one recognized him as "El Nortino," as they called the young man between 25 and 30 years old who was detained for a long time in a room located next to the regiment's guard post, from where they moved him in 1974 to the shores of Lake Villarrica to be executed.

The composite sketch

On January 23, 2018, the forensic sketch artist of the PDI Criminalistics Laboratory of Valdivia, Cristian Ardiles, spent several hours meeting with Heraldo Espinoza, one of the two main witnesses to the crime, in order to create a descriptive portrait of the victim, which the expert estimated they had achieved with an 80% likeness.

Silvio Bettancourt's sister, Jenny, who resides in Switzerland, had not seen that portrait. However, upon being shown it, she is categorical in stating that it is not her brother, whom she believes never reached Río Gallegos, but rather thinks he was detained before crossing the border, to then be held in some military or police barracks in Magallanes.

Another possible identity investigated in the Villarrica case was that of teacher Luis Justino Vásquez Muñoz, a militant of the Socialist Party, former councilman of San Fernando, and leader of the Central Workers' Union (CUT), who was a target of suspicion by uniformed personnel even before the coup.

In fact, as his son told the detectives who investigated the case, on September 7 they had already raided his house, at 855 Curalí Street in San Fernando, taking him into custody for the day, although they released him at nightfall.

On November 20, however, he disappeared while going to his work at a rural school in the Polonia sector. In 2018, the family learned of the discovery of a body in the Araucanía Region, in Pucón, which they initially thought could be him, which was later ruled out.

According to his sister Olga, Luis Vásquez (34 years old at the time of his detention) was arrested by unknown subjects who put him in a white jeep, and since then nothing more was known about him. The family went through the same search journey as so many other families of the time, asking for him at the National Stadium, the Chile Stadium, and in every police station and regiment they found.

When they were contacted by the PDI to check the descriptive portrait corresponding to "El Nortino," a small light of hope appeared, but it quickly vanished: "Upon being shown the photograph of the composite sketch on page 28, I do not recognize my brother Luis Justino; it doesn't look like him at all," stated Olga.

The Saldivia case

The last identity of a forcibly disappeared person that was considered as a possibility was that of José Sofanor Saldivia Saldivia, who was detained two weeks after the coup d'état. According to what Minister Mesa indicated in the middle of last year, when he appeared at the Court of Appeals of Valdivia to conduct investigations regarding this case, "the victim was a CONAF worker who was detained by soldiers from the Tucapel Regiment on September 28, 1973, and taken to that military unit.

Witnesses indicate that he allegedly participated in the assault on the Neltume Carabineros de Chile station and that he was executed on the Villarrica bridge, over the Toltén River."

However, his body has never been found, and his identity does not correspond to that of the NN murdered in the lake either, because when his sister Elizabeth was questioned about it in 2018, on which occasion they showed her the composite sketch, she said that "regarding the photograph shown to me by PDI officials from Ancud, related to the disappearance of my brother José Sofanor Saldivia Saldivia, I do not recognize him as such, since his features are not his."

Today, as explained in the first article of this three-part series, the case is closed definitively, following the ruling of the Supreme Court, which acquitted the only person ever convicted in it, and the identity of "El Nortino" remains shrouded in a nebula.

That is why the only thing left is to try to identify that anonymous victim. Any information regarding this can be provided to the PDI, the Court of Appeals of Temuco, the Human Rights program, or even this newspaper.

By Carlos Basso Prieto

Source: elmostrador.cl, April 7, 2025

Relatives of 1973 victims in Ancud held a commemorative act

Residents of the Pudeto commune remembered 39 years since the disappearance of their loved ones.

At the memorial located on Salvador Allende Avenue, family members and friends laid a floral offering and held minutes of silence, reiterating their call for justice to be served for the disappearance and murder of the young people from Ancud.

Mario Cárcamo Garay and Francisco Avendaño Bórquez, 27 and 21 years old respectively, were both executed by firing squad on October 19, 1973, in the city of Puerto Montt. Sofanor Saldivia Saldivia, 25 years old, was a forcibly disappeared person in Temuco, and Carlos Mascareña Díaz died from torture in Puerto Montt at the age of 22. All of them appear on the memorial inaugurated in 2004 in Ancud.

Blanca Cárcamo, Mario Cárcamo's sister, stated that she felt "sadness because the years go by and one never stops suffering. Because for them, there has still been no justice, nothing," she asserted.

Likewise, José Oscar Pérez, Mario's nephew and a friend of Francisco and Carlos, pointed out that "it is a special day. But more than joy, it means a deep sorrow, since 39 years after the catastrophe caused by the Military Dictatorship in the country, we have not had justice. It is not really known who the murderers were who executed these people."

"I think the country lacks a high degree of conscience to someday achieve justice. That is all we family members ask for. Justice. Let it be known who they are. Not like what Ricardo Lagos left behind, 50 years of silence. That does not count for us. We want justice, and I wish it were now, already."

For his part, Guido Alvarado, a high school classmate of the young members of the Revolutionary Left Movement (MIR) and president of the Association of Former Political Prisoners in Ancud, stated that "we decided to make a monolith here in Ancud, so that it is known that there were four victims of the military dictatorship here: two executed by firing squad, one forcibly disappeared, and one dead from torture."

Source: soychile.cl 20/2012