Juan de Dios Salinas Salinas, married, 3 children, farm laborer, was detained on September 14, 1973, at 7:00 a.m. at his home, Parcela A in Lonquén. The apprehension was carried out by a group of Carabineros belonging to the Isla de Maipo police station, under the command of Sergeant Emeterio Bravo Moraga and Carabineros David Caliqueo Fuentealba and Justo Romo Peralta.

The owner of the plot accompanied the captors and was forced to point out where the victim lived. He was placed into a Nile green Chevrolet pickup truck.

That same day, Guillermo del Carmen Bustamante Sotelo was detained at the "El Gomero" estate; he remains forcibly disappeared to this day. Other workers from the same estate were detained along with him, but they were subsequently released.

The entire group was taken to the Isla de Maipo police station, where they remained with Juan de Dios Salinas. Salinas was removed from that location on September 16; it is unknown where he was taken or for what purpose.

According to information provided by the Rural Headquarters to his spouse, the victim had been transferred to the Estadio Nacional.

He never appeared officially registered at that facility, and as later reported by the National Executive Secretariat of Detainees (SENDET), he was not listed as a detainee.

Significant progress was made in the judicial complaint to verify his detention by the Carabineros.

Heriberto Weisse testified before the Investigations police: "On September 14, around 7:00 a.m., Carabineros officers from the Isla de Maipo precinct arrived at my home and asked me for the location of the house of one of my workers named Juan de Dios Salinas Salinas.

I indicated the address, and from the patio of my house, I was able to see when this person was detained and put into a pickup truck, not knowing the place to which he was taken."

Likewise, through inquiries made by the Investigations Service itself, the Service officially informed the Court that, upon consulting the Carabineros of Isla de Maipo, they reported that on October 8, 1976, an unnumbered minute was drafted with the list of detainees sent to the Estadio Nacional, but that no copy of said minute exists in that unit.

New and important evidence accumulated during the investigation, with the Carabineros who participated in the detention providing testimony. Corporal 1st Class Moisés Aguilera Sandoval stated that "effectively, this person (Juan Salinas Salinas) was sent to Santiago, to the Estadio Nacional.

I was on duty as the guard Sub-officer at the Isla de Maipo precinct. He was transferred immediately to Santiago."

For his part, Sergeant Emeterio Bravo Moraga stated: "Effectively, on September 14, 1973, in the company of David Caliqueo and Justo Romo, both from the Isla de Maipo precinct, we went to the home of Juan de Dios Salinas, who was detained and transferred immediately to the Estadio Nacional.

Outside of him, there were other detainees, all union leaders from the Unidad [Popular] sector... All these detainees were handed over with a list, but most of the time they did not return a copy of it."

Another Carabinero, David Caliqueo Fuentealba, testified: "...on September 14, 1973, we headed under the command of Sergeant Emeterio Bravo and Carabinero Justo Romo to the home of Juan de Dios Salinas. He was detained by superior orders that we were following. That same day they were sent to the Estadio Nacional."

Finally, Carabinero Ignacio Romo Peralta stated the same circumstances as the others. Regarding the handover of the detainees to the Estadio Nacional, he says that "my Sergeant did it, and I do not know if they gave him any list of the detainees, and since many detainees were arriving at the barracks in those days, a list was made, but other detainees were always added along the way..."

For their part, the detainees held with the victim affirmed having remained with him at the Isla de Maipo precinct. One of them, Miguel Gómez Rojas, stated that he remained in a cell with Salinas until September 16, the day he was transferred to the Estadio Nacional along with other detainees, "leaving Juan de Dios Salinas and Vergara at the precinct." This was ratified by Gastón Véliz Gómez, Pedro Moya Reyes, and Jaime Pizarro G.

The other detainee who remained at the location, Orlando Vergara Herrera, declared that he did not know what happened to the victim after September 16.

JUDICIAL AND/OR ADMINISTRATIVE ACTIONS

On December 12, 1974, a complaint for Alleged Disappearance was filed before the Talagante Court, registered under No. 23008-3.

In said investigation, witnesses to both the detention and his stay at the Isla de Maipo precinct testified. The arresting Carabineros also testified.

Furthermore, the Court requested reports from the Military Judge, the Aviation Court, the National Secretariat of Detainees (SENDET), and the Legal Medical Institute. All responses received were negative regarding the victim's whereabouts.

On February 6, 1976, the judge issued a temporary dismissal of the case, and on April 21 of the same year, the Santiago Court of Appeals approved said resolution, considering "that with the background information accumulated, it has not been possible to justify in the records the commission of a crime or quasi-crime on the occasion of the disappearance of Juan de Dios Salinas Salinas."

Subsequently, on August 3, 1979, a complaint for Kidnapping was filed before the 2nd Military Court of Santiago, which was requested to be consolidated with case 200-79, followed before the 2nd Military Prosecutor's Office against Lautaro Castro Mendoza, the Carabinero officer in charge of the Isla de Maipo station, and others, for the crime of unnecessary violence causing the death of fifteen peasants found in the Lonquén Ovens in 1978.

The 2nd Military Court, on September 7 of the same year, resolved to remit the records to the Talagante Court of Letters, finding that the reported facts were the same as those investigated in case file 23006-3 of said court.

As a result, the complaining party filed a complaint against Military Judge Enrique Morel, which was declared inadmissible by the Court Martial on October 18, 1979.

Thus, the records were sent to the Talagante Court of Letters, where the summary was reopened.

The complainants testified there; at the end of 1992, this case is under dismissal per Art. 409-2, pending consultation.

The anthropometric data of Juan de Dios Salinas Salinas were attached to case 4449-AF of the 22nd Criminal Court of Santiago for the crime of illegal burial in Patio 29 of the General Cemetery of unidentified persons who died between September and December 1973.

The investigating judge of the case ordered the excavation of 108 graves in September 1991. From there, 125 bodies were exhumed and sent to the Legal Medical Institute. Currently (end of 1992), the forensic identification reports are awaited.

In addition to the judicial actions filed on his behalf, his mother, Amelia Salinas S., denounced the case to international organizations with the aim of achieving actions before the government of Chile to locate the victim's whereabouts. Despite this, the fate of Juan de Dios Salinas Salinas remains unknown to this day.

Source: Rettig Report

Aware of how difficult it is in these times (1987) to refer to the "Lonquén Case," it will be done in some way, since although very painful, it is part of the history of the island, as Lonquén is a very important district of its commune and because the 17 victims resided in Isla de Maipo.

We must keep in mind that the national authorities have considered the process closed. The relatives of the victims wait with resignation for justice to be served one day, and the opposition to the regime demands the reopening of the case and the punishment of the guilty.

It is undoubted that all accusing eyes are directed against the military regime, as uniformed personnel are the main suspects. But it happens that in this terrible episode, the government has no participation whatsoever.

Viewed impartially, its responsibility lies solely and exclusively in not ordering a thorough investigation; by doing so, it would undoubtedly emerge successful and strengthened before national and international public opinion, since the entire island population gossips about who the suspicions fall upon in this matter.

This includes the families of the martyrs, but fear forces everyone to remain silent. For this reason, this author, with a clear conscience and heart, will limit himself to summarizing it as part of the History of Isla de Maipo.

Everything began on September 12, 1973, about twenty hours after a Military Junta took power in Chile following a coup d'état. Then, a police patrol arrived at the "Santa Claus" plot (A) located in the Los Cuatro Caminos sector of Lonquén, proceeding to raid the home of Mr.

Juan de Dios Salinas, without detaining anyone. Two days later, on September 14 at 5:30 a.m., another patrol appeared at the location, taking the head of the household into custody. Other neighbors in the sector also fell in the raid, among them Mr.

Guillermo Bustamante Sotelo, a resident of the Gabriela Mistral neighborhood of La Islita. All were taken as detainees to the La Isla precinct and locked in a dungeon.

In the early hours of September 17 to 18, when the clock pointed to approximately 2:30 a.m., Salinas and Bustamante were taken from among their companions, and their whereabouts were never known again.

They were the only ones who were not found in the lime kiln. 20 days later, on Sunday, October 7, Mr. Sergio Adrián Maureira Lillo, 46, and his sons Sergio Miguel, 28, married with two children; Rodolfo, 27, married with one child; José Manuel, 25, single; and Segundo Armando, 23, single, were detained in their homes.

Minutes later, Carlos Segundo Hernández Flores, 39, and his brothers Nelson, 32, and Oscar Nibaldo, 30, met the same fate. All those named were neighbors of each other, residing on Camino La Ballica, and were founding members of the "Robert Kennedy" Sports Club, an institution they created while impacted by the fate of that American family, without thinking—or perhaps having "in mente"—that their destiny would one day be similar.

The raid continued at number 694 of Avenida El Rosario, capturing Mr. Enrique René Astudillo Rojas, 65, and his sons Ramón Osvaldo, 27, and Omar Enrique, 20, who had just arrived from the northern city of Iquique, where he had completed his military service in the "Carampangue" Regiment.

All of them, as has been established, were accused of being communists. This ceases to have a basis, since Mr. Felipe Segundo Acevedo Vera, who was indeed a communist with an unparalleled curriculum in the commune, was not detained.

He was the first councilman of that collective in the history of Isla de Maipo, and in 1973 he was a very important member of the CUT (Central Única de Trabajadores de Chile) and organized the island unions into a single federation, which became the basis for what later became common throughout the country.

However, he was not detained and was able to move freely through the town. This graphically demonstrates to us that it was not the Marxists who were being persecuted here, but rather very specific individuals and families.

Other innocent victims were a group of cheerful boys, "somewhat disorderly" according to a policeman later, composed of Manuel Jesús Navarro Salinas, 20; Miguel Angel Brant Bustamante, 19; Iván Ordóñez Lama, 17; and the young man from Santiago, José Manuel Herrera Villegas, who on that fateful day had the unfortunate idea of visiting his grandmother, María Acevedo, who was ill, and was returning to the capital.

He was apprehended in "La Plaza" along with the other boys when he was only 17 years old.

The bodies of all the named martyrs were found in the abandoned lime kilns of Cerro Lonquén five years after their detention, awakening global indignation and the condemnation of the United Nations. Only time will determine, sooner or later, what was the reason or cause that covered so many island homes and families in blood and pain.

After the fall of the military regime, it was established that prisoners Juan de Dios Salinas and Guillermo Bustamante Sotelo were executed at the Naltagua Bridge in the early hours of September 18, 1973.

Source: http://www.inoschile.cl/ , By Guillermo Inostroza Rojas

Retired Carabineros Captain Marcelo Castro died at age 72 inside the prison.

On Saturday, one of the officers who led the massacre in the "Lonquén Ovens Case," which involved 15 peasants, died. The high-profile case, which became known in 1978, was one of the first to provide evidence of the murders during the military dictatorship.

Marcelo Castro, 72, died in the prison while serving a sentence for two counts of qualified kidnapping. He had requested a presidential pardon from President Bachelet, which was denied. The retired Carabinero was sentenced in 2010 to 10 years and one day of major imprisonment in its medium degree as the perpetrator of the kidnappings of Juan de Dios Salinas and Guillermo Bustamante Sotelo.

Source: 24horas.cl 10/12/2017 Date: 10-12-2017

Justice for the disappeared of Isla de Maipo

These are 15 residents of this town, near Santiago, who were disappeared during the dictatorship.

The Chilean justice system today sentenced seven retired Carabineros for the crimes of kidnapping and homicide of fifteen people in a town near Santiago in October 1973, whom they murdered and buried in ovens in the town of Lonquén.

According to judicial sources, the visiting minister (special judge) for human rights violation cases of the San Miguel Court of Appeals, Marianela Cifuentes Alarcón, sentenced Marcelo Castro Mendoza to 20 years in prison for his responsibility as the perpetrator of qualified kidnapping.

Source: elespectador.com 12/9/2016 Date: 12-09-2016

LONQUÉN: 37 YEARS OF WAITING FOR A DIGNIFIED FUNERAL

Killed by beatings

Until now, it was believed that the first disappeared detainees found had been riddled with bullets by Carabineros from the Isla de Maipo precinct before being thrown into the Lonquén ovens. But international experts confirmed to the relatives that the cause of death—according to the traces on the remains of the 15 peasants—was due to blunt force trauma.

There has not been a more horrendous event in Isla de Maipo than the murder of the 15 peasants at the hands of Carabineros from the precinct that existed in the commune in 1973. Today, the pain that has remained in the victims' families for almost 35 years becomes more intense after learning another great detail of the story: they were not murdered with gunfire, but were simply beaten to death, to then be thrown into the lime kilns in Lonquén.

Only 517 bone fragments of the 15 victims were saved from disappearing forever and were identified after anthropological and odontological analyses by a group of international experts summoned by the Government.

Spanish expert Francisco Echeverria was able to state with certainty that the remains we have separated and examined correspond to the 15 victims who were found in 1978, and it was established that the cause of death corresponds to a violent homicidal death.

There are no bullet impact injuries; they are blunt force traumatic injuries. Death was caused by beatings. According to the expert, the old report from the Legal Medical Service did not establish this fundamental fact.

Until now, the relatives were convinced that their loved ones, although they had suffered beatings at the Isla de Maipo precinct, were finally riddled with bullets before being thrown into the Lonquén lime kilns.

The bodies of the following were found in these lime kilns: Sergio Maureira Lillo, 46 years old. Rodolfo Antonio Maureira Muñoz, 22 years old. Sergio Miguel Maureira Muñoz, 27 years old. Segundo Armando Maureira Muñoz, 24 years old.

José Manuel Maureira Muñoz, 26 years old. Óscar Hernández Flores, unidentified. Carlos Hernández Flores, 39 years old. Nelson Hernández Flores, 32 years old. Enrique Astudillo Álvarez, 51 years old. Omar Astudillo Rojas, 20 years old.

Ramón Astudillo Rojas, 27 years old. Miguel Brant Bustamante, 17 years old. Iván Ordóñez Lamas, 17 years old. José Manuel Herrera Villegas, 17 years old. Manuel Navarro, unidentified.

The discovery was made through the confession of a peasant to a priest.

The ovens were two old nine-meter-high chimneys once used for the preparation of lime, located inside the El Triunfador agricultural cooperative, about 14 kilometers from the city of Talagante. The official version to justify the Lonquén crime was that once detained at the Isla de Maipo precinct, one of the peasants confessed that there were weapons hidden in some ovens at the abandoned Lonquén mine.

That alone was enough for them to transport the captives, who, according to the same explanation, attacked the police, resulting in everyone dying in an armed confrontation. Curiously, no Carabinero was injured.

At the beginning of April 1979, visiting minister Adolfo Bañados declared himself incompetent, and the process for this case passed to the military justice system. On July 2, the military prosecutor issued an indictment against Captain Lautaro Castro Mendoza and Carabineros Juan Villegas Navarro, Félix Sagredo Aravena, David Coliqueo Fuentealba, José Belmar Sepúlveda, Jacinto Torres González, Manuel Muñoz Rencoret, and Justo Romo Peralta as the perpetrators of the death of the 15 Lonquén victims.

However, on August 16, the Amnesty Law was applied to them; they were released, and the case was dismissed. This resolution was confirmed by the Court Martial on October 22, 1979.

Removal of Televisions

The discovery of the bodies of the 15 peasants at the end of 1978 was an alert for Pinochet, who determined, with an encrypted message decrypted by each regiment, the so-called "Operation Removal of Televisions," as the Army itself called it internally.

The order was clear: exhume the bodies of murdered prisoners and throw them into the sea. The means? Helicopters from the Army Aviation Command and the Chilean Air Force, which collaborated, for example, in the case of the 26 bodies of Calama, victims of the Caravan of Death.

In various proceedings, there are statements from sub-officers, now retired, who acknowledge having had in their hands the cryptogram sent from the Army General Command ordering the reporting of clandestine graves to clean them up.

The discovery of the Lonquén victims put an end to the concealment of the truth about the forcibly disappeared, which had been a permanent policy of the dictatorship. For Isla de Maipo councilman Emilio Astudillo, what was revealed surprised us bitterly after knowing how people who wore the Carabineros uniform could be so cruel to our relatives and brutally beat them to death.

That is more chilling. It hurts the soul and heart more to know how they were really murdered. Councilman Astudillo was 16 years old in '73. He had to assume the responsibility of becoming the head of the household and taking care of his mother and younger siblings after being left without his father and his other older brothers, Ramón and Omar.

In addition, he had to endure the burden of searching for them for five years in concentration camps with the hope of finding them alive. Only those who live it can realize the psychological damage it causes to a person and their family. Only with the discovery of the victims in the Lonquén ovens in '78 did we have some peace and conformity, because we knew it was them.

The memorial The relatives of the Lonquén victims say they have wanted to build a memorial to deposit the remains of their loved ones who have already been identified in the country; but so that what happened with the remains of Patio 29—where the bodies were poorly delivered to their families—does not happen to them, both they and the Government opted for samples of the victims' bodies to be sent to a laboratory in Texas, where the results certified that they are indeed their relatives, murdered and thrown into the Lonquén ovens, subsequently exhumed from the mass grave in Isla de Maipo and transferred to the Legal Medical Service in Santiago. In 2006, the relatives achieved the exhumation and hoped that after two years they could have the remains of their relatives to give them burial. We must not forget that the Lonquén victims were the first discovery of forcibly disappeared persons in the country, when the dictatorship denied that they existed. Even at the United Nations, the legal existence of our relatives was unknown. The former ambassador to the UN in those years, Sergio Diez, said that our companions had no legal existence or had gone abroad of their own free will. Therefore, the Lonquén discovery marked a before and after regarding the forcibly disappeared in Chile, maintains Emilio Astudillo. The memorial will, however, contain 17 graves, because the relatives agreed to include the names of JUAN DE DIOS SALINAS SALINAS and GUILLERMO BUSTAMANTE SOTELO, killed in September '73 at the NALTAGUA bridge by the same police officers from the Isla de Maipo precinct.

Source: radiokonciencia.worpress.com 26/3/2010 Date: 26-03-2010

OFFICER SENTENCED TO 10 YEARS

In September 1973, then-Lieutenant Lautaro Castro ordered them to be executed. 10-year sentence for (R) officer for the crime against peasants. The sentence was handed down by the San Miguel Court minister, Marta Hantke, for the kidnapping and disappearance of Juan de Dios Salinas and Guillermo Bustamante Sotelo.

The prisoners were riddled with bullets on the Naltahua bridge in Isla de Maipo in September 1973. The (R) officer was arrested yesterday by the Investigations Police in Valparaíso and brought to the magistrate's office, as he did not appear to be notified of the conviction.

He was then released. Castro had previously been a fugitive for two months when, upon being prosecuted, the judge issued an order for his preventive detention. He was then located by the PDI Human Rights Brigade.

The (R) officer is the same one who participated in the murder and concealment of the bodies of 15 peasants from Lonquén after the military coup. However, that process was amnestied during the dictatorship.

That Friday, September 14, the two peasants were taken from the Isla de Maipo precinct in a pickup truck by Carabineros David Coliqueo, Justo Romo, and Jacinto Torres, forming a patrol under the command of then-Lieutenant Lautaro Castro.

The detainees were told they were being transferred to the Estadio Nacional, but Castro ordered them to stop on the Naltahua bridge and instructed the police to take the prisoners down. The members of the patrol acknowledged in the process that they fired on the peasants by order of Castro and that their bodies were thrown into the Maipo River, remaining disappeared to this day.

Then Castro ordered them to clean the blood that remained on the bridge. The first-instance sentence must be reviewed by the San Miguel Court of Appeals, and then by the Criminal Chamber of the Supreme Court, the final instance before it becomes final.

Castro should serve his sentence if it does not undergo substantial reductions that allow him to serve it in freedom. The judge did not convict the material authors of the double crime due to the collaboration they provided in the investigation.

The lawyer for the Ministry of the Interior's Human Rights Program, Joseph Beraud, who is handling this case for this agency, highlighted "the excellent investigation by the magistrate."

Source: afepchile.cl 22/8/2008 Date: 22-08-2008

Reconstitution of execution that occurred 31 years ago

The head of the First Talagante Court, Moisés Pino, will carry out tomorrow, September 14, the scene reconstruction of an execution that occurred 31 years ago on the same date. It concerns the crime committed by Carabineros of the Isla de Maipo precinct against two peasants from the same area, namely Guillermo Bustamante and Juan de Dios Salinas.

The uniformed officers were also linked to the deaths of other people who were found years later in the Lonquén Ovens, thanks to the work of former minister Adolfo Bañados, whose discovery led to the removal of bodies nationwide, called "removal of televisions." The proceeding will be carried out in the same place where the events occurred, that is, on the Naltagua Bridge, the place where these peasants were shot and then thrown into the rushing waters of the Maipo River, after which their fate is unknown until now, and they appear as forcibly disappeared in the Rettig Report.

Not only will the magistrate, his clerk, the court secretary, and the former uniformed officers be at the scene, but also the relatives of the victims, making it an event of particular characteristics, taking into consideration that it is carried out on the same date the deaths occurred.

In the case, there are at least three confessions from former Carabineros who assure that both peasants were murdered without a judicial process, and whose execution was ordered by an officer of that unit, whose identity this media outlet reserves until the execution of the proceeding.

As in most cases of human rights violations, the files on the repressive situations that appear on the Internet account for all the judicial efforts that were made for years to know the facts, as well as the fate of the two peasants, but all were insufficient.

Source: September 20, 2004 El Mostrador Date: 20-09-2004