Julio was my only son and he was 27 years old when he was detained and forcibly disappeared in Santiago, Chile. He had studied at the Universidad del Trabajo del Uruguay (UTU). In 1972, he decided to marry, and his daughter, Analía Sol, was born.

We were both Tupamaro militants, but neither of us knew it due to the compartmentalization that existed because of the infiltration of our country's police. In 1972, I was forced to leave Uruguay and traveled to Chile; the urgency of my trip made it impossible for us to see each other.

Shortly after, Julio had to leave Uruguay and we met here. We would meet at a predetermined place once a week until April 1973, when I left Chile for Cuba. I never heard from him again, and I always thought he had managed to leave and escape Pinochet’s dictatorship.

That is how María Fernández began her account to the National Commission for Truth and Reconciliation one morning in August 1990, when she still dreamed of finding her son alive, who eighteen years earlier had sought political refuge in Chile.

Julio Cesar Fernández had been born into a working-class home in Montevideo where, on Saturdays and Sundays, mate was brewed amidst long political discussions; politics was never foreign to him, nor was repression.

He arrived in Chile like his mother, with nothing more than a bundle of clothes and a desire to participate in the political future. He was restless and sometimes a bit passionate in his discussions, a reason that cost him his marginalization from the organization the Tupas had in Chile, leaving him disconnected from any local political organization.

Isolated and without contacts, he was there on September 11, 1973. His only support was Alicia Cheuquepán, a Chilean woman who had fallen for his green eyes, and they shared a narrow room in a boarding house owned by the merchant Andrés Opazo, a man who sympathized with the military.

On October 11 of that year, both were detained and taken to Colina. That is what Alicia told Julia Rodriguez, Fernández’s former partner with whom he had had a daughter; she only added to the account that she had been released a few days later without knowing anything more about Julio Fernández.

Julio Cesar’s fate would be more tragic. After suffering torture at the Army facilities in Colina, he would be transferred to the Tejas Verdes extermination camp, under the domain of Manuel Contreras. The story of his time at Tejas Verdes was reconstructed by three women who, being adolescents at the time the events occurred, shared part of his misfortune.

Ana Graciela Becerra recounts the encounter with Fernández as follows: "At the end of October or the beginning of November, I don't remember the exact day, in one of the cabins we had to pass by, I saw a bundle, which through glances I could observe was a person.

After this, together with my cellmates, we began to make contact with him. He was a beautiful young man, with green eyes and a gaze that caught one's attention; he was very mistreated both physically and psychologically, he was dirty, with long hair, and upon speaking with him we realized he had a foreign accent; at that moment I believed he was Argentine." Alejandrina Letelier Caruz, a high school student detained at Tejas Verdes, remembers: "He commented to me that they had brought him from Santiago, and also that he needed a map to be able to escape and that he didn't care about the number of guards in the place or that it was mined." Mariela Bacciarrini Inostroza recounts the end of Fernández as follows: "Through comments from Ana Becerra, a person who was detained with me in the cell, I learned that in the shack next to us, there was a young foreigner, whom I never saw. A few days later, he disappeared. After this, in the early hours of the morning, I don't remember the exact day, Lieutenant Quintana took me out to take me to the banks of the river, where Major Miranda, the Prosecutor at that time, was waiting for me. He accused me of having given information about the Camp and the Army officials who worked there to the young foreigner, who told me verbatim 'That this information was a military secret and that for reasons of this fact, he had died'." Nelson Vásquez, detained at Tejas Verdes, gives an account of how the detained foreigners were: "I arrived at a cabin where there were women and men and it was noticeable that they were not Chilean, by their way of speaking; they were young people, university students, to whom I offered water... I was struck by a young man who was in that hut, because he was tall, dark-skinned, with green eyes, brown hair, a lock of blonde hair stood out from him; also, since he had his chest bare, I could see that cigarettes had been put out on it, leaving a broken line on his chest; the women were naked and very damaged." Onofre Aguila Parra makes a similar mention of the foreigners: "In the month of October 1973, towards the end, it was getting dark when a truck arrived full of detained people of different nationalities, Argentines, Uruguayans, Central Americans; there must have been more than twenty, whom they transferred to a tower adapted for the situation, too small for the number of people they put inside; suffice it to say they couldn't even sit down, there were even women; practically that tower was a tin of sardines." Although the detention of Julio Cesar Fernández and other foreigners, nor what their fate was, has never been acknowledged by the armed forces, nor by those who were part of their government, the Army sub-officer (R) who was in charge of the Tejas Verdes camp, Ramón Luis Carriel, says: "In relation to the person mentioned to me as Julio Cesar Fernández, I do not remember him, but the presence as detainees of some young Uruguayans, between 18 and 25 years old, is in my memory; it was said of all of them that they belonged to the 'Tupamaro' movement and that they had been detained in the city of Santiago." Julio Cesar, Charles Horman, Frank Terrugi, and other foreigners who were murdered after the coup d'état, all of them had arrived in Chile to cooperate in the construction of a more just, more human society. Their dreams remained forever in that country that was the asylum against oppression.

Source: Nancy Guzman

On October 11, 1973, Julio César FERNANDEZ FERNANDEZ, a 24-year-old Uruguayan artisan associated with the Tupamaro Movement, who had entered the country in August 1972, disappeared. That day, he was detained along with his partner by State agents.

Witnesses report having seen him detained at the Tejas Verdes Prisoner Camp in San Antonio during the months of October and November 1973. Since then, nothing more has been heard of him. This Commission has reached the conviction that Julio César Fernández was detained by State agents and that, while in such status, he disappeared, this fact constituting a grave violation of human rights.

This conviction is based on the testimonies received and the fact that since then nothing more has been heard of him, nor is there any record of him leaving the country.

Source: (Rettig Report)

Various activities (union, political, religious, humanitarian, etc.): Militant of the Textile union Union, movement, political sector, and/or reference activity at the time of disappearance:

MLN

ANNEX OF HISTORICAL DATA REGARDING THE DISAPPEARANCE

Date of disappearance: October 12, 1973 Place of disappearance (locality, city, country): Santiago de Chile, Chile, from his detention at Avda. España No. 471 Time and circumstances thereof: Detained at the home of his girlfriend with whom he lived and presumably denounced by the owner of the boarding house Forces that intervened in the detention: Police: Plainclothes Carabineros Description of the operation (with reference to circumstances, use of vehicles and weapons, duress): Raid, plainclothes Carabineros Identification of other victims involved in the detention operation (full name, identity document, age, marital status, address, reference group): Detained along with his girlfriend of Mapuche descent Witnesses to the events (circumstances of the testimony, complete identifying data of the witness, link to the disappeared person, existence of statements by the same indicating the venue where it was provided): Owner of the boarding house and his girlfriend Existence of a search of the home or workplace of the disappeared person, whether before, during, or after the detention, whether referring to the disappeared person or persons linked to him (circumstances, date, authority, judicial order or other, witnesses, etc.): One year after September 11, 1973, plainclothes Carabineros agents arrived at the boarding house, raiding the place and detaining the girlfriend, who was released three days later. Upon her return, she commented that she had been in several detention centers and reported that she had been tortured. Actual or alleged place of detention (identification, description, sources of information, if there are several, indicate them): COLINA PARACHUTING SCHOOL (Detained in the first instance)

TEJAS VERDES REGIMENT.

Identification of testimonies of the confinement (who saw the disappeared person in the detention center, date, conditions of the disappeared person, practice of interrogations of the same, identification of the agents who carried them out, etc.): According to the testimonies, Mr.

Julio Fernández was confined in the Tejas Verdes prisoner camp, in very poor condition, tortured at night, confined in a wooden shack between the dining room and the bathroom of the Chilean women's section.

ANNEX OF INFORMATION ON ACTIONS PRESENTED BY VIRTUE OF THE DISAPPEARANCE

ACTIONS IN THE JUDICIAL SPHERE

Criminal Complaint

1. In the 10th Criminal Court of Santiago, Case File 40211/7 for alleged disappearance. In the 10th Civil Court of Santiago, reopening of the summary proceedings on 3/22/91, due to the alleged appearance of the body in patio No. 29 of the Central Cemetery of Chile.

As of December 1992, the case had pending proceedings. Case file No. 51071/11 of the First Court of San Antonio, evidence is presented for 21 cases of disappeared and executed persons, which occurred to detainees at the Tejas Verdes Military Engineers School Regiment in the years 73 and 74.

In the 10th Civil Court of Santiago, File No. 4021/6; Decree: simple order to investigate, Date September 4, 1995, for the crime of alleged disappearance: Process: 40.211/6 Criminal complaint against Gen. Augusto Pinochet, Gen. Manuel Contreras, and other responsible parties. Filed on 10/23/00. Court Case File 2182

ACTIONS IN THE LEGISLATIVE SPHERE

Complaints to specific political sectors: Legislators of the Encuentro Progresista and Nuevo Espacio Complaints to individual parliamentarians: Guillermo Chifflet (EP), Rafael Michelini (NE)

ACTIONS BEFORE NON-GOVERNMENTAL ORGANIZATIONS

Organization

SERPAJ

FEDEFAM

Vicaría de la Solidaridad

ACTIONS IN THE UN SPHERE

Organization before which it was managed: UNHCR Type of action: Complaint Date(s): 5/74 Existence of record: registration in the list of searched persons

OTHER ORGANIZATIONS

National Commission for Truth and Reconciliation Last information, January 2001 File No. 65, Name FERNANDEZ FERNANDEZ JULIO CESAR, militancy TUPAMARU, Metropolitan Region, date of detention 10.11.73, date of death 11.01.73, organization ARMY, facility TEJAS VERDES CAMP, destination SEA SAN ANTONIO, 40 miles.

Source: Information extracted from http://www.tau.org/familiares/desaparecidos.htm :

With dissenting vote. Supreme Court revoked sentence and issues conviction for kidnappings of Uruguayan citizens.

The decision, regarding the sentence imposed on Gladys Calderón Carreño, was agreed upon with the dissenting votes of ministers Fuentes and Cisternas, who were in favor of acquitting her of the charges, ratifying the first-instance decision.

In a split decision, the Supreme Court issued a final judgment against 13 retired members of the Army as co-perpetrators of the crimes of qualified kidnapping of Nelsa Zulema Gadea Galán and Julio César Fernández Fernández, who have been forcibly disappeared since late 1973.

In its ruling, the highest Court revoked the appealed sentence of July 25, 2012, in that part which acquitted the judicial defendants Ricardo Fortunato Judas Tadeo Soto Jerez, Jorge Rosendo Núñez Magallanes, Gladys de las Mercedes Calderón Carreño, Klaudio Erich Kosiel Hornig, Ramón Luis Carriel Espinoza, Fernando Armando Cerda Vargas, and Rodolfo Toribio Vargas Contreras, and it is declared in its place that all of them are convicted as co-perpetrators of the crimes of qualified kidnapping of Nelsa Zulema Gadea Galán and Julio César Fernández Fernández, to the single penalty of five years of minor imprisonment in its maximum degree, accessory penalties of absolute perpetual disqualification for political rights and absolute disqualification for public offices and positions during the time of the sentence, and the payment of the costs of the case. Likewise, the Supreme Court confirmed the aforementioned sentence in all other appealed aspects, with the declaration that the custodial sentence imposed on the convicted Valentín del Carmen Escobedo Azua, Raúl Pablo Quintana Salazar, Vittorio Orvieto Tiplizky, Ramón Acuña Acuña, Juan Manuel Guillermo Contreras Sepúlveda, Nelson Patricio Valdés Cornejo, and David Adolfo Miranda Monardes is reduced to five years of minor imprisonment in its maximum degree, for the same crimes indicated in the previous section. Finally, and with the requirements contemplated in Law No. 18.216 being met in the case, the ruling concludes by granting all the convicted persons the alternative benefit of supervised release, having to submit to the control of the Gendarmerie for a term of five years and comply with the conditions established in article 17 of the aforementioned law in the manner determined in the respective Regulation. The decision, regarding the sentence imposed on Gladys Calderón Carreño, was agreed upon with the dissenting votes of ministers Fuentes and Cisternas, who were in favor of acquitting her of the charges, ratifying the first-instance decision. For their part, Ministers Juica and Brito considered it inappropriate to recognize the defendants the qualified mitigating circumstance of article 103 of the Penal Code, so they were in favor of maintaining the appealed sentence in that chapter.

Source: diarioconstitucional.cl 9/8/2015

Date: 09-08-2015