14 years old, single, street vendor, forcibly disappeared in October 1973 in Chillán.

RIQUELME BRIONES, ERIKA DEL CARMEN

: 17 years old, single, street vendor, forcibly disappeared in October 1973 in Chillán. Erika del Carmen Riquelme Briones and her brother Juan Antonio Riquelme Briones were detained in the first half of October 1973, in the city of Chillán, by Carabineros officers.

They have remained disappeared since that date. According to witnesses, they were detained as they were arriving from the city of Talca, while passing in front of the Carabineros station in the Zañartu neighborhood, by police officers from that unit.

A person who was detained with them and who was released the day after the detention notified their mother of the event; when she went to the location to ask about her children, their detention was denied.

The minors were widely known in the area for being street vendors. Considering the evidence gathered and the investigation conducted, the Superior Council of this Corporation reached the conviction that Erika del Carmen Riquelme Briones and Juan Antonio Riquelme Briones disappeared after having been detained by State agents. For this reason, it declared them victims of human rights violations.

Source: (Corporation Report)

After 23:00 hours on September 28, 1973, Jorge Narváez Salamanca, a 15-year-old third-year high school student at the Mulchén Lyceum and a militant of the FER, the student branch of the MIR, was kidnapped.

The gang that arrived at his home kicked down the front door and held his mother at gunpoint with a machine gun. In that group were civilians and Carabineros, who took the minor from his home; to this day, there is no information regarding his whereabouts.

Jorge Narváez Salamanca's mother and other witnesses were able to identify among the kidnappers young people from the Mulchén Lyceum itself, such as José Horacio Pacheco Padilla, José Pacheco Padilla (19 years old), Carlos Campos Pérez (18 years old), Rolf During Pholer (19 years old), Alberto Raúl Antonio Tirapegui Silva (20 years old), and Eduardo Antonio Bopp Negrete.

All of them were part of a group of civilians that operated in that commune alongside Carabineros after the Military Coup of September 11, 1973. It was common to see them outside the police station with police personnel, among whom was Lieutenant Jorge Maturana Concha.

Four days before his kidnapping and disappearance, specifically on September 24, Jorge Narváez had been detained for a few hours after being apprehended by Carabineros inside his high school, following a report by young people belonging to the far-right paramilitary group Patria y Libertad, some of whom participated in his detention days later.

It should be noted that Lieutenant Jorge Maturana Concha and the young Carlos Campos Pérez are also identified as responsible for the arrest and disappearance of Gabriel Valentín Lara Espinoza, 18 years old, a student at the same Mulchén Lyceum.

The event occurred on September 22, 1973, under circumstances similar to those recounted in the case of Jorge Narváez, with whom he shared political militancy within the FER, the student organization of the MIR.

The case of Jorge Narváez Salamanca is one of 40 cases of infants and/or adolescents who were forcibly disappeared in Chile; 8 of these cases belong to the Biobío region and are registered in the reports of the National Commission for Truth and Reconciliation (Rettig Report).

In addition to these 40 disappeared minors, this same Rettig Report identifies 150 children and adolescents who were victims of political execution during the 17 years the military dictatorship lasted, seven of them in Biobío.

The subsequent report on political imprisonment and torture (Valech Commission) was able to identify at least 102 infants and adolescents who were detained or kidnapped by State security agencies during the dictatorship.

Furthermore, the same document accounts for fifteen pregnant women who were executed or disappeared, whose children's whereabouts remain unknown. For the case of Jorge Narváez Salamanca, there are open proceedings against civilians and former Carabineros officials, with first-instance sentences.

Other detained and disappeared minors from the Biobío region Segundo Enrique Cabezas Pérez : He was 14 years old when he was detained along with his older brother, José Hugo, a 22-year-old agricultural worker.

They were detained in their home, located in the El Tránsito neighborhood of Los Ángeles, by Investigative Police (Investigaciones) personnel on October 5, 1973. Aliro Segundo Oporto Duran : He disappeared on November 7, 1973, at 17 years of age, in the Ralco sector, then a commune of Santa Bárbara.

That day, his family had traveled to Los Ángeles to pick up his father, who was being released after having been detained on September 11, 1973. In the mid-afternoon, Carabineros entered Aliro Oporto's home, where only he, two of his siblings, and a neighbor were present.

Terrified, the young man fled through the back door of the house, being struck by shots fired by one of the uniformed officers. That was the last time he was seen alive. His body was not found. Víctor Adolfo Ulloa Pino : He was 16 years old when he was detained on September 18, 1973, along with his brother, Juan Eladio, at their home, located at Calle Valdivia N°521 in Los Ángeles.

They were taken to the police station in the same city, interrogated by Captain Fabres, and sent the same day to the Los Ángeles Regiment. According to testimony provided 17 years later by a witness who was a conscript at the Los Ángeles Regiment in September 1973, the Ulloa Pino brothers were kept locked up in miserable conditions in a small guardhouse inside the military facility for approximately 15 days, and were subsequently taken from the location to an unknown destination.

On October 15, 2004, after subjecting bone fragments found in 1990 at the La Mona estate, near Los Ángeles, to DNA testing, the justice system determined that two of them contained the DNA of the Ulloa Pino brothers.

Santos David Melgarejo Rojas, 17 years old, street vendor, was detained by Carabineros from the Second Precinct of Concepción on January 14, 1979, in the Agüita de la Perdiz neighborhood. Erika del Carmen Riquelme Briones: She was 17 years old and was detained while arriving from the city of Talca, along with her brother, by police officers from the Carabineros station in the Zañartu neighborhood.

A person who was detained with them and who was released the following day notified their mother of the event, to whom the detention of her children was denied. Juan Antonio Riquelme Briones: He was 14 years old when he was detained.

They were coming from Talca along with his sister Erika; they were detained by police officers from the Carabineros station in the Zañartu neighborhood. A person who was detained with them and who was released the following day notified their mother of the event, to whom the detention of her children was denied.

Source: resumen.cl, October 12, 2023

Date: 10-12-2023

Breaking the silence of children and adolescents who were victims of political execution during the civil-military dictatorship 1973-1990 (BOOK)

Testimonies, photographs, letters, and other documents that families and friends provided or wrote specifically for publication are incorporated into the book “Breaking the silence of children and adolescents who were victims of political execution during the civil-military dictatorship 1973-1990” , which was produced by the Association of Relatives of Political Executed Persons (AFEP) with the support of the Ministry of Cultures, Arts, and Heritage, through the Culture, Memory, and Human Rights Unit, and the Human Rights Chair of the University of Chile.

The publication, based primarily on the Report of the National Commission for Truth and Reconciliation (1991) and the Report of the National Commission for Reparation and Reconciliation (1996), seeks to reconstruct each of the victims' lives and stories in a comprehensive and careful manner.

During the research, access was granted to the archive of the Association of Relatives of Political Executed Persons, where documents that families have preserved over the years are kept. Illustrations by Álvaro Gómez were also included.

The creation process was a complex challenge that involved combining delicacy, respect, and methodological rigor to state a painful and inescapable truth in this work.

Source: cultura.gobierno.cl 4/20/2023