Representation: President of the Neighborhood Council of the Pudahuel district. Member of the Communist Youth Date of Detention: August 24, 1974 * Name: WASHINGTON HERNAN MATURANA PEREZ Date of Birth: 12-21-48, 25 years old at the time of his detention Address: Salesianos 907, San Miguel, Santiago Marital Status: Single Occupation: Merchant Representation: Member of the Communist Youth Date of Detention: August 24, 1974

REPRESSIVE SITUATION

Juan Bautista Maturana Pérez, married, father of two, a merchant, and Washington Hernán Maturana Pérez, single, brothers and both members of the Communist Party, have remained forcibly disappeared since August 24, 1974, the date on which they were detained along with other members of their family by DINA agents.

Around 16:00 hours that Saturday, 3 individuals in civilian clothes arrived at the residence on Calle Salesianos No. 907 in the commune of San Miguel. After identifying themselves as "police," they asked for the head of the house, Roberto Maturana, who was not on the premises at that time.

For this reason, the individuals decided to take his spouse, Elsa Pérez, and his son, Washington Maturana, who were at home, into custody. They were placed into a white Citroën vehicle without license plates and taken to an unknown destination.

Upon learning of what had happened, Juan Bautista Maturana immediately went to his parents' home to learn more details about what had happened to his mother and younger brother. Later, in order to report the events, he went to the 12th Carabineros Precinct of San Miguel, where he was told they had no information about the incident and that they would send a patrol to the detainees' home.

Once at the scene, the police indicated that, due to the characteristics of the event, the captors must have been agents of the Military Intelligence Service (SIM) and that it would be best for him to go to the Military Prosecutor's Office located on Calle Vidaurre to request information regarding his detained relatives.

At the moment Juan Bautista Maturana was about to take a taxi to head to the Military Courts, the same Citroën in which his relatives had been taken stopped near him; two individuals got out and detained him, taking him to the DINA facility located at Calle Londres No. 38, where his mother and brother were being held.

His detention was witnessed by his spouse, Fanny Saavedra, and other neighbors who were in the vicinity.

Later, the agents returned to the house on Calle Salesianos 907, stationing themselves there to wait for the other members of the family who were not found that afternoon. During the night of that August 24, 1974, while the agents remained in the building, a brother of the victims, Jaime Maturana Pérez, arrived, unaware of what had happened earlier.

Once inside the home, he was also detained. Later, at 23:00 hours, the father of the victims, Hernán Maturana Pérez, arrived at the house and was also immediately detained and taken to the facility at Calle Londres 38, where all the family members who had been detained throughout the day were able to reunite.

Along with being transferred to another facility, Cuatro Alamos, about 15 days later, the parents, Elsa Pérez and Hernán Maturana, were released, while their sons Washington and Juan Bautista remained there. The other brother, Jaime Maturana, was transferred to the Tres Alamos facility, and his detention was acknowledged by the Ministry of the Interior, as recorded in the judicial proceedings.

Years later, and after the family had carried out a series of procedures before administrative authorities and international organizations, on December 14, 1977, around 21:30 hours, three individuals appeared at the home of the victims' father.

They identified themselves as members of the Vicariate and the Investigations police; they then asked Mr. Hernán about his sons. Upon receiving the response that both had remained disappeared since their detention by DINA agents, they replied that his sons might be abroad, to which the father indicated that they were not police officials or from the Vicariate, but rather DINA agents.

They then left the house, indicating they would return.

In July 1975, the Chilean newspapers La Segunda and El Mercurio reproduced articles from two apocryphal foreign publications, the weekly LEA from Argentina and the newspaper O'DIA from Curitiba, Brazil, which provided a list of Chileans killed in alleged clashes with the Argentine police in the province of Salta.

The name of Juan Bautista Maturana Pérez appeared in the Brazilian publication. When consulted by the Courts of Justice, the Chilean Ministry of Foreign Affairs could not verify the veracity of the facts mentioned in the publications, casting doubt on their credibility; the Argentine authorities provided the same response.

It should be noted that the names of the people appearing in the publications correspond to 119 Chileans who were detained by the DINA and subsequently forcibly disappeared.

To this date, the Maturana Pérez brothers remain in the status of forcibly disappeared, following their detention by DINA agents.

JUDICIAL AND/OR ADMINISTRATIVE ACTIONS

On August 27, 1974, a Writ of Amparo (Habeas Corpus) was filed with the Court of Appeals of Pedro Aguirre Cerda. The filing was registered under case No. 997-74 and was presented by Fanny Saavedra on behalf of her spouse Juan Bautista Maturana Pérez, Washington Maturana Pérez, Jaime Maturana Pérez, Hernán Roberto Maturana Pérez, and Elsa Pérez Garcés.

The writ was rejected on December 2, 1974, with the Court basing its decision on information provided by administrative and military authorities stating that the victims had not been detained.

Hernán Maturana filed a complaint with the 1st Criminal Court of San Miguel for the kidnapping of his sons Washington and Juan Maturana Pérez. The case was registered on October 30, 1974, under case No. 41.511, in which a series of proceedings were ordered to clarify what had happened to the detainees.

The National Executive Secretariat of Detainees (SENDET) informed the Judge that the persons mentioned in his inquiry were not registered as detainees in that organization's files.

The Investigations Police (Policía de Investigaciones) submitted an official report regarding an investigation order issued by the Court, in which, dated November 30, 1974, it is stated that inquiries made in hospitals, prison facilities, and other entities did not allow for the whereabouts of the victims to be determined.

On December 9, 1974, case No. 41.676, initiated on December 5, 1974, by an official letter from the Court of Appeals and which aimed to investigate the same facts, was consolidated with the present case.

On December 20, 1974, SENDET reported that it only had records for Jaime Maturana Pérez, who was at that date detained in the Puchuncaví prisoner camp.

The Investigating Judge decided to close the summary proceedings on January 27, 1975. Furthermore, given that the commission of the reported crime that originated the case had not been fully established, he decreed a temporary dismissal.

Subsequently, on July 30, 1975, a request was made to reopen the case file, resume the summary proceedings, and conduct new investigations derived from the information that appeared in La Segunda regarding alleged clashes between Chilean citizens and Argentine police in the trans-Andean province of Salta. The judge granted the request.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs, through its Human Rights Secretariat, headed by Army Major Enrique Cid Coubles, responded to the Court's inquiry regarding the case of the "119" that "there is no official record that the persons named in the lists published in 'LEA' and 'O'DIA' have died abroad," adding that there is also no record that they left the country.

The response is dated September 9, 1975.

On October 7, 1975, the closure of the summary proceedings and the temporary dismissal of the case were decreed once again. The Court of Appeals approved the resolution on January 16, 1976.

On June 26, 1980, Hernán Maturana filed a criminal complaint for the kidnapping of his sons Washington and Juan Maturana. The action was directed against DINA agents Germán Jorge Barriga Muñoz, Emilio Troncoso Vivallos, Heriberto del Carmen Acevedo, and Julio Leyton Robles, whom he identified as responsible for the kidnapping of his two sons.

The Judge accepted the complaint and ordered a series of requested proceedings, among others, summoning the accused DINA agents to appear. Despite having been summoned on countless occasions by the Judge, they never appeared in Court.

In March 1981, it was requested that the case be heard by a Visiting Minister of the Court of Appeals, a situation that was denied. In August 1981, the Judge decreed the closure of the summary proceedings and the temporary dismissal of the case.

It is very different to walk down Calle Londres today, in the heart of Santiago, than it was to have done so blindfolded to enter No. 38, a clandestine center of political imprisonment and torture during the dictatorship.

However, the memorial that has just been inaugurated there will allow visitors to see plaques that repeat the effect of the tiles that the detainees managed to glimpse from under their blindfolds upon entering "Yucatán," the name the DINA gave to that clandestine barracks.

Among the cobblestones of the narrow street, in front of the dilapidated house that was the headquarters of the Socialist Party until the coup d'état, 300 white marble and black granite plaques were installed.

They remember the 96 Chileans who were forcibly disappeared from there between September 1973 and the end of 1974. Survivors, family members, and comrades of the fallen, as well as public figures, artists, and authorities, attended the inaugural act of this space.

The Londres 38 Collective, the promoter of the initiative, emphasized that "Never Again" is not a matter of the future, but a current task that, however, "is not guaranteed by the mere knowledge of the horror.

It is necessary to promote a rational and political judgment on what happened and on its relationship with this time, in which we continue to live with impunity. There is an unsatisfied demand for truth and justice, and as long as there is no full response to that demand, the past will continue to be part of our present."

For the families, "the memory associated with this site, hidden for so long and so many times, is to account for the political and generational identity of the victims, the vast majority of whom were militants of the MIR, young people who were an active part of the social and political struggles of the time.

Men and women who chose to resist the dictatorship, part of those who from the beginning fought to recover democracy. It is for this reason that today they cannot be absent from its construction: a society that prides itself on being democratic cannot be so if it forgets those who fought for it, because that oblivion does not weigh only on the kidnapped and disappeared, on the omitted, but on the society itself that forgets a piece of its own life."

Camouflage and silence

From that house at Londres 38, located very close to the San Francisco church, whose bells the detainees could hear, the DINA began the terrorist practice of the disappearance of detainees. The existence of the place, whose location the survivors identified thanks to the ringing of the bells, was denied by the Armed Forces for decades.

In democracy, the silence persisted, but the survivors testified in court about the horrors experienced at Londres 38, confronting former torturers and confirming statements made during the time of the dictatorship. This was fundamental in allowing for the convictions of the DINA's high command.

The army—which had leased the house to the O’Higginiano Institute—had "camouflaged" the place by giving it the number 40 to make it difficult to locate. After years of strenuous struggle by human rights collectives and survivor groups, the house was declared a national monument in 2005.

The groups linked to this battle for memory, the Londres 38 Collective, the 119 Collective, and Memoria 119, formed a working group with the government to discuss the objectives and the plan for the comprehensive recovery of the building, which is in a very deteriorated state.

Members of the 119 Collective expressed their satisfaction with this achievement, which contributes to "cleansing the homeland of so much oblivion and impunity, recovering the valuable testimony, dreams, and projects of so many, among whom are our dear forcibly disappeared relatives from the list of the 119, offering it as a lesson and historical heritage for all of society."

The memorial is a project managed by the Londres 38 Collective, designed by María Fernanda Rojas, Macarena Silva, Heike Höpfner, and Pablo Moraga with the support of the human rights program of the Ministry of the Interior (more information at www.londres38.cl).

The collectives not only had to fight so that the property at Londres 38 would not be sold to private individuals, but also to reverse the government's decision to install the headquarters of the Human Rights Institute there.

The mobilization of family members, survivors, and friends of the disappeared managed to break the silence cast over this torture house, the only one that was not materially destroyed, as happened with Villa Grimaldi or José Domingo Cañas.

LUCIA SEPULVEDA RUIZ

(Published in "Punto Final" edition No. 673, October 24, 2008)

Source: puntofinal.cl 10/24/2008 Date: 10-24-2008

In case File No. 3-2014, instructed to investigate the crime of qualified kidnapping, it has been ordered to issue an URGENT official letter to you in order to request, if possible, that you send an email and/or make a statement on your social and digital networks to all your collaborators, with the objective of locating witnesses to the detention of Juan Bautista Maturana Pérez and Washington Hernán Maturana Pérez, detained on August 24, 1974, from their home located at Calle Salesianos No. 907 in the Commune of San Miguel, with both remaining in the status of forcibly disappeared to this date.

Sincerely,

MARIANELA CIFUENTES ALARCON

EXTRAORDINARY VISITING MINISTER

Source: villagrimaldi.cl (no date)