Date of Birth : 06/24/58, 15 years of age at the time of his detention. Address : Quiñaco Manzanar, Lautaro commune Marital Status : Single Occupation : Student at the Santa Teresa School in Agua Santa, Lautaro Political Affiliation : None Date of Detention : June 11, 1974

Juan Eleuterio Cheuquepán Levimilla, a 16-year-old student, was detained at his home located in the Quiñaco Manzanar settlement on June 11, 1974, by a group of civilians and three Carabineros.

The circumstances of the detention were described by his sister, Lorenza Cheuquepán, and are recorded in the report that the Investigations Service attached to the judicial proceedings: "I must point out that on June 11, 1974, around 09:00 hours, I was with my siblings who at that time were: Margarita Yolanda, 10 years old; María Luci, 12; and Juan Eleuterio, only 15 years old, at our home, located within a small plot, 200 meters from where we currently live, when they knocked on the door.

When I asked who it was, they stated that it was the police and that they needed to speak with my father, Pablo Cheuquepán (R.I.P.). I proceeded to open the door without fear, realizing immediately that the house was completely guarded by a group of 10 people, among whom were three individuals dressed in Carabinero uniforms, while the others covered themselves with blankets and ski masks; they appeared to be civilian police, but I managed to recognize among them the Carabineros Domingo Antonio Campos and Mario Ponce.

Given that my father was not at home, one of them, who was carrying a carbine, proceeded to beat 'Juan' without any provocation on our part, in order to make him say where our father was, since according to them, they were investigating a theft of animals and were accusing my father of being the perpetrator.

Once my brother left the house, they 'handcuffed' his hands behind his back and placed a 'noose' around his neck, taking him in the direction of the Cautín River, which passes about 350 meters from the house, where on several occasions I saw how they 'threw' my brother into the water, only to pull him out and take him away 'wet from head to toe' to a property where other people were waiting, guarding two detainees, Julio Llaulén and Samuel Huichallán.

I followed them from a relatively close distance, avoiding being seen, as they had warned me that if no one obstructed their 'procedure,' there was a possibility that my brother would return alive. Later, they continued to the 'river bend,' a place where an open-bed red pickup truck was waiting.

In the back, the three of them were taken, handcuffed, to then take the 'Aguas Frías' road, Quinchol, in the direction of Lautaro. Since I was scared, and also because my two youngest children and little sisters were left crying at home, I returned to the house, and to this day I have never seen my brother again..." She was able to identify the Carabineros because she had known them previously.

The family was informed that the minor had been taken to the Perquenco Carabinero Station, where he was held alongside Samuel Huichallán Llanquilén and José Julio Llaulén Antilao, both of whom remain forcibly disappeared to this day, as is the victim.

Judicial and/or Administrative Proceedings

In August 1974, the minor's father (now deceased), Mr. Pablo Cheuquepán Canuimil, filed a complaint for the alleged disappearance of his 15-year-old son before the Lautaro High-Quantification Criminal Court. The complaint was processed under Case File No. 26.293.

The Judge issued a broad order to investigate to the Temuco Investigations Prefecture, and said unit sent an official letter stating that it had not been possible to carry out the order because the mechanic had recommended not using the vehicle on poor roads.

In this case, on October 28, 1974, Lorenza Cheuquepán, the victim's sister and witness to the events, testified and identified the Carabineros Mario Ponce and Domingo Campos, and the civilians Enrique Salazar (administrator of the San Bernabé estate), Ceferino Antilao, and Domingo Lagos as part of the apprehending group. She added that her brother was taken to Perquenco.

On December 9, 1974, 1st Sergeant of the Carabineros Mario Ponce Orellana appeared on page 42 and denied his participation in the detention. On the 11th of the same month and year, 1st Corporal of the Carabineros Domingo Antonio Campos Collao appeared and stated that he knew the minor's father but had not participated in his detention.

On December 13, 1973, on pages 43 verso, 44, and 44 verso, the civilians Eduardo Enrique Salazar Herrera, José Ceferino Antilao, and Domingo Lagos Lagos, all residing at the San Bernabé de Quillen estate, appeared and denied knowing the victim or having participated in his apprehension.

In December 1973, the court received the official letter from Investigations reporting on the broad order to investigate; it accounts for the Cheuquepán family's complaint and the denials by Carabineros Campos and Ponce.

In January 1975, the Judge ordered a confrontation between the two siblings of the victim (witnesses to the events), the two apprehending Carabineros, and the three civilians already identified; all maintained their statements.

On January 13 of that same year, María Mulato Levimilla appeared and declared that "on Tuesday, June 11, 1974," at approximately 11:30 hours, in a low-lying area, at a distance of approximately two hundred meters from my house, I saw that eight Carabinero officers were holding several individuals and were punishing them intensely.

Among them, I could perfectly recognize Juan Cheuquepán Levimilla. I inform Your Honor that it was my children, Mario and Juana, both minors, who warned me that the Carabineros were there, and at that moment I went to see what I previously recounted.

A while later, I left my house and encountered two vehicles, that is, two pickup trucks, and inside them were the Carabinero officers, and they were also carrying Juan Cheuquepán and José Julio Llaulén.

Later, I found the brothers Roque, Ambrosio Cheuquel, and Lorenzo Cheuquel, who were running in the direction of their homes. I did not dare to ask them why they had been detained, and they appeared quite frightened; these young men live in the Peu Peu area.

Later, I went to the scene of the events and was able to see personally how there was a significant amount of blood in that place, which apparently had been lost by the people who were punished there. I could not identify the officers."

Roque, Ambrosio, and Lorenzo Cheuquel Milla also testified before the court. Ambrosio stated: "On June 11 of last year, in the early morning, while I was going out to the field to work with my brothers Lorenzo and Roque, two Carabinero officers arrived on foot and took us to the Quiñaco place.

They gave us a few beatings, and then two more officers arrived with four detainees whom I did not know, and there they told us to go to our homes." The case was dismissed on June 4, 1975.

In February 1991, the National Commission for Truth and Reconciliation sent the records in its possession regarding the detention and disappearance of the Yaufulem Mañil brothers, José Julio Llaulén Antilao, Juan Cheuquepán Levimilla, and Samuel Huichallán Llanquilén to the Lautaro Civil Court. The Court initiated a judicial investigation under Case File No. 37.860.

Before the same Lautaro Civil Court, on May 5, 1991, Ms. Lorenza Cheuquepán Levimilla filed a criminal complaint for the kidnapping of her brother, Juan Eleuterio. In those days, the relatives of José Llaulén and the Yaufulem Mañil brothers also filed complaints.

In all three legal actions, it was requested that they be consolidated into Case File No. 37.860 of the same court regarding the alleged disappearance of these same people, a request that was granted.

In Case File No. 37.860, the victims' relatives testified, among them Juan Manuel Ñanco Ancapal, the minor's brother-in-law, who confirmed knowing that Juan Cheuquepán was detained on June 11, 1974, by Carabineros; Ignacio Gustavo Ñanco Cheuquepán, a neighbor of the victim, who declared having seen from his home, located about 40 meters from the road, young men he could not identify taking the minor away under detention; and Ms.

Lorenza del Carmen Cheuquepán Levimilla, who ratified the facts described above.

On April 5, 1991, the Investigations Service returned a report to the court with the result of the investigation that had been requested regarding the alleged disappearance of those already named. Investigations took statements from the relatives of the forcibly disappeared and some witnesses to the detentions, who coincided in pointing out that the apprehending Carabineros were Mario Ponce Orellana and Domingo Antonio Campos Collao, who were also called to testify and acknowledged having been part of the Lautaro Station staff at the time of the detentions.

Domingo Campos stated that during the time he worked at the Dollinco Post, he knew most of the cattle rustlers in that sector, whom he had several times placed at the disposal of the Lautaro Criminal Court for animal theft. Upon arriving to work at the Lautaro Station, he was part of an "operational group" destined to combat the aforementioned crimes.

Regarding the victims, he says he does not know them and did not participate in their detentions.

Retired Carabinero Mario Ponce Orellana also testified, denying his participation in the events.

The conclusion of the Investigations report is: "the effectiveness of each complaint and the existence of the corpus delicti were proven." "It was not possible to establish with certainty the persons responsible for the crimes investigated."

In May 1991, Carabineros Campos and Ponce testified in the proceedings; both reiterated their denials. In October of that year, the Judge ordered a confrontation between the apprehending Carabineros and the victims' relatives, who ratified their previous statements.

On November 7, 1991, the Lautaro Civil Judge declared the closure of the summary proceedings and the temporary dismissal of the case. Following a complaint filed by the aggrieved party, the Temuco Court of Appeals issued a ruling on December 13, 1991, that reverted the case to its summary stage and placed Mario Ponce Orellana, Domingo Antonio Campos Collao, and Eduardo Enrique Salazar Herrera under indictment and preventive detention as perpetrators of the crimes contemplated in articles 141, paragraph 1, and 142 of the Penal Code regarding the kidnapping of José Julio Llaulén and the abduction of the minor Juan Eleuterio Cheuquepán Levimilla. Once the investigation was restarted in January 1992, the driver of the vehicle, Eduardo Enrique Salazar Herrera, appeared and denied his participation in the detentions.

The defendants in the case appealed against the indictment order; the Judge declared the appeal inadmissible, so the defendants filed a complaint with the Temuco Court of Appeals.

In the complaint filed by Eduardo Salazar Herrera, it was argued that the Judge was the only one who, according to the law, could issue an indictment order and that, furthermore, the Court should only have ruled on the closure of the summary and the dismissal. The Court rejected the appeal on the grounds that the defendants had not presented new evidence.

The legal classification of the crimes was also objected to in said appeal. In the opinion of the defendants, José Llaulén and Juan Cheuquepán are dead, so the Amnesty Law should be applied, and it would not be appropriate to affirm that they have been victims of a permanent crime.

Regarding this argument, the Court stated: "it is precisely important in this investigation to establish whether Llaulén and Cheuquepán died as a consequence of the crimes of which they were allegedly victims, and on what date, in order to study the appropriateness of the statute of limitations and/or amnesty, but all of that would be the subject of study at a later stage, in the final ruling and not now."

On May 4, the Court of Appeals rejected the complaint filed by Eduardo Salazar and Carabineros Ponce and Campos.

The three defendants filed a complaint with the Supreme Court, and by the end of 1992, the Court had rejected the complaint in the case of Carabineros Mario Ponce Orellana and Domingo Campos Collao, and the ruling in the case of the civilian Eduardo Enrique Salazar Herrera was pending. The case remained in the summary stage.

Although three of the perpetrators of the minor's detention are under arrest, his fate remains unknown. The family carried out multiple efforts from the day after his detention, going to the Lautaro Station and the posts in Perquenco, Dollinco, and Quillén, in addition to inquiring at the local jail and hospital, without achieving any results.

Source: Corporation

Testimonies, photographs, letters, and other documents that families and friends provided or wrote specifically to be published are incorporated into the book "Breaking the Silence of Children and Adolescents Who Were Political Executions During the Civil-Military Dictatorship 1973-1990," which was produced by the Association of Relatives of Political Executions (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 mainly 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 in a comprehensive and careful manner each of the lives and stories of the victims.

During the research, the archive of the Association of Relatives of Political Executions was accessed, 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 04/20/2023

MEMBERS OF THE SECURITY FORCES ACCUSED IN RELATION TO THE "DISAPPEARANCE" OF MAPUCHE INDIANS IN 1974

CHILE: MEMBERS OF THE SECURITY FORCES ACCUSED IN RELATION TO THE "DISAPPEARANCE" OF MAPUCHE INDIANS IN 1974. FEBRUARY 1992. SUMMARY. AI INDEX: AMR 22/02/92/s. In December 1991, the Temuco Court of Appeals ordered the detention of two former Carabineros and one civilian for the kidnapping of two Mapuche Indians in 1974.

José Julio Llaulén Antilao, Juan Eleuterio Cheuquepán Levimilla, and five other Mapuches "disappeared" after being detained by Carabineros in the town of Lautaro on June 11, 1974. Their cases were included in the report of the National Commission for Truth and Reconciliation (CNVR), created by President Aylwin in April 1990 to investigate serious human rights violations during the period of the military government.

According to the Commission's report published in March 1991, Juan Cheuquepán, 16 years old at the time, was detained on June 11 early in the morning by Carabineros from the Lautaro police station. José Julio Llaulén Antilao, a 39-year-old farmer, was reportedly detained by Carabineros hours earlier that same day.

The CNVR, created to examine cases of "disappearances," executions, and deaths as a result of torture at the hands of state agents, concluded that 957 people "disappeared" after being detained by the army or security forces, and that 1,068 were executed or died as a result of torture.

Of these people, more than 80 were, it seems, Mapuche Indians. According to the CNVR report, several people of Mapuche origin "disappeared" after their detention in the city of Lautaro or its surroundings, in the south of central Chile, in the years immediately following the coup d'état.

According to the report, in many of these cases, relatives never filed complaints or took any other measures to pressure the authorities to clarify the whereabouts of their loved ones. The report states that they likely acted this way because they were also afraid, because they did not know the procedures they should use, and because they did not trust any of the State institutions.

The human rights issue that most concerns Amnesty International regarding Chile continues to be the fact that the officers who ordered or carried out the massive human rights violations that occurred during the military government that held power for more than 16 years have not been brought to justice.

The impunity enjoyed by those responsible for human rights violations has been, to a large extent, a consequence of an amnesty law passed in 1978, which continues to be used to close investigations into abuses that occurred before 1978, before all the facts have been clarified and judicial responsibilities determined.

According to information available to Amnesty International, the decision of the Temuco Court of Appeals is the first of its kind in the case of Mapuches who "disappeared" after being kidnapped by security forces.

Amnesty International has welcomed the court's decision to bring charges against those allegedly responsible for the "disappearance" of Juan Eleuterio Cheuquepán Levimilla and José Julio Llaulén Antilao.

Although Amnesty International does not oppose the granting of amnesties or pardons after guilty verdicts, it considers that this should not be done at the expense of the right of victims and their relatives to know the whole truth, to have justice served, and to receive compensation.

The organization believes that failing to bring those responsible for human rights violations to justice can encourage or facilitate future abuses. The organization has asked the Chilean authorities for guarantees that those responsible for the "disappearance" of Juan Eleuterio Cheuquepán Levimilla, José Julio Llaulén Antilao, and the other five Mapuche Indians detained on the same day will be brought to justice.

KEYWORDS: INDIGENOUS PEOPLES / INVESTIGATION OF ABUSES / FARMERS / STUDENTS / YOUTH / "DISAPPEARANCES" / AMNESTY FOR THOSE RESPONSIBLE FOR HUMAN RIGHTS VIOLATIONS / POLICE / This report is a summary of the document Chile: members of the security forces accused in relation to the "disappearance" of Mapuche Indians in 1974 (AI Index: AMR 22/02/92/s), published by Amnesty International in February 1992.

Anyone wishing for more information or to take action on the matter should consult the full document. If you wish for more information on other actions that Amnesty International will undertake in 1992 to draw attention to human rights violations against the indigenous peoples of the Americas, you should contact the Amnesty International Section in your country.

INTERNATIONAL SECRETARIAT, 1 EASTON STREET, LONDON WC1X 8DJ, UNITED KINGDOM. TRANSLATION BY AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL EDITORIAL, SPAIN.

Source: amnesty.org