On September 17, 1973, Juan Segundo UTRERAS BELTRAN, a 23-year-old street vendor, was forcibly disappeared. Background information and testimonies collected by this Commission indicate that he was detained at his home on September 17, 1973, during curfew hours, by a military patrol in the commune of Cerro Navia.

Given the existence of eyewitnesses to the detention and having reviewed other evidence, this Commission has formed the conviction that Juan Segundo Utreras Beltrán was detained and forcibly disappeared by state agents.

Source: (Rettig Report)

Ten parachutes decommissioned by the Chilean Army that moved with the wind on the banks of the Mapocho River were part of the landscape of Cerro Navia in the La Estrella and Petersen sector at the end of September last year.

This installation, called "Temporary Memorial: Absent Body," financed by the 2019 Neighborhood Ideas for Development Competitive Fund of the Municipality of Cerro Navia, and which was the degree project of young architect Miguel Uribe (25), commemorated for two weeks the executions carried out in this place by members of the Armed Forces at the beginning of the dictatorship. "At 15 years old, my mother, Sandra Rubilar, who lived her entire childhood in front of the banks of the Mapocho, saw how they took people down from trucks and threatened the people in the apartment blocks so that no one would look out the windows. They made them run toward the river and applied the 'law of flight' to justify their execution. Later, the neighbors would go down and bury the people. I knew the testimonies of what happened there since I was a child; I grew up with them," relates Miguel Uribe. He interviewed witnesses, researched the press of the time, and also reviewed the Rettig Report, where on page 113 it states that "in the area corresponding to the current commune of Cerro Navia, the residents themselves buried some of the bodies abandoned there for humanitarian reasons." It even mentions two residents of the commune, Carlos Alberto Castro (20) and Serafín Orellana (32), whose bodies were found in this place. "I thought of making a memorial that would be temporary and a call for appropriation by the neighbors who were aware of these events. It is also called ephemeral because it happens at a specific moment and then ceases to exist. A space that would repair the history of the commune and the injustice of these deaths," explains Miguel Uribe. Building this installation with parachute fabric arose from another analysis. "During the dictatorship, one of the methods of disappearance was to throw bodies into the river or the sea from a height in helicopters; with the parachutes, I sought to provide a pause in the fall of those bodies that had no pause, that were discarded," he relates. The Army Paratrooper School provided him with the material, which he later had to return; "the idea was to resignify something that came from an institution that was complicit in all these events." The design of the pavilion had to be removable, so he made a structure with tubular steel profiles and pieces that he designed himself that could withstand the wind. The length of the memorial also recalled the distance that the prisoners ran before being executed. It was 62 meters of distance from the Costanera Sur to the riverbank. After motivating the community in the sector and with the support of the Ribera Sur neighborhood council of the Villa California neighborhood, he presented the project to the neighborhood funds of the Municipality of Cerro Navia, where there is an item that deals with memory and culture, and he finally obtained the funding he required. Helped by the neighbors, friends, and his own parents, he carried out the installation of the memorial, which his professors evaluated on-site and which received the highest grade. In Miguel's opinion, "what the project proposed is not to commemorate the pain, but the contemplation. It was about creating a space in an abandoned place, where no one circulates. An arid site where the parachute pavilion generated a shadow, a place from which to look at the riverbed." "The idea was to enjoy being under the parachutes that moved with the wind. The sensation was one of calm; you could see the movement of the fabrics and the sound that the movement translated into, a very contemplative experience," he concludes.

Source: cerronavia.cl 10/12/2020

Date: 12-10-2020

SML managed to identify remains of two victims from Patio 29

The bodies, which were handed over to their families, correspond to Juan Utreras Beltrán and Luis Dávila García. Previously, they had been identified incorrectly. The Legal Medical Service (SML) handed over to their families the remains of two victims of the dictatorship that had been previously identified incorrectly, as reported this Saturday by that agency.

The remains correspond to Juan Segundo Utreras Beltrán, 23 years old at the time of his disappearance, and Luis Herminio Dávila García, 18, both street vendors, who were detained between September and October 1973 by agents of the regime.

Their remains were identified thanks to the joint work of a multidisciplinary forensic team from the SML, as well as genetic analyses performed by the University of North Texas, in the United States. Both are part of the victims who were buried as "NN" (unidentified) in Patio 29 of the General Cemetery.

With Utreras and Dávila, 45 of the 124 victims of Patio 29 have now been identified in this second phase.

Source: cooperativa.cl 19/11/2011

Date: 11-19-2011

The SML handed over the remains of two victims of the Patio 29 case

Juan Segundo Utreras Beltrán and Luis Herminio Dávila García were identified through the joint work of a multidisciplinary forensic team from the Special Forensic Identification Unit and genetic analyses performed by the University of North Texas.

During Friday and this Saturday, the Legal Medical Service (SML) handed over to their families two victims associated with the Patio 29 case. They are Juan Segundo Utreras Beltrán and Luis Herminio Dávila García, who were identified through the joint work of a multidisciplinary forensic team from the SML's Special Forensic Identification Unit and genetic analyses performed by the University of North Texas.

Their identities were previously reported to the families by the judge investigating the case, Alejandro Solís Muñoz. Juan Segundo Utreras Beltrán, a street vendor, was 23 years old when he was detained at his home in the commune of Cerro Navia on September 17, 1973.

Since then, his whereabouts were never known. Given the existence of eyewitnesses to the event, plus other evidence, the Rettig Commission confirmed with certainty that Juan Utreras was detained and forcibly disappeared by state agents.

Meanwhile, Luis Herminio Dávila García, 18, was also a street vendor and had no political affiliation. He was detained on the night of October 15, 1973, at his home, in front of witnesses, by two Carabineros from the San Joaquín police station, who wounded him with gunfire before loading him into a police van.

Source: soychile.cl 19/11/2011

Patio 29: Behind the Iron Cross (BOOK)

Patio 29 was usually intended for the burial of the indigent, psychiatric patients, and people who died without being identified (NN). However, between September 1973 and January 1974, its graves were used to hide victims of the repression as NN.

Javiera Bustamante and Stephan Ruderer reconstruct the painful history of the place, using testimonies from the families of the forcibly disappeared, letters, documents, and other sources. The book also accounts for the arduous process of identification and handover of the bodies, as well as the irregularities that characterized these proceedings.

The powerful photographs that illustrate the volume were taken by visual artist Mara Daruich. Bustamante, Javiera; Ruderer, Stephan

Source: ocholibros.cl undated