Luis Alberto Gómez Cerda, a union leader and member of the Socialist Party, was detained on September 13, 1973, at 5:30 PM by Carabineros from Tocopilla. After September 11, 1973, events occurred in Tocopilla that resulted in the detention, forced disappearance, and political execution of political and union leaders.

In many of these cases, Carabineros from the city's police station acted directly. There are several such cases, among them that of Luis Alberto Gómez Cerda, a socialist militant and union leader.

At the time of his detention, Gómez Cerda was living in the guest house that Codelco maintained in Tocopilla, along with his family. Without further explanation, he was put into a private pickup truck and taken to the Carabineros police station.

The apprehension took place in the presence of his spouse, Gladys Díaz Bolgeri, his 7-year-old daughter, the director of the Guest House, Lucía Saudi, and a doctor from the Chuquicamata Hospital, José Arriagada.

He remained held incommunicado at the police facility for two days. On the morning of September 15, 1973, when his wife went to the police station, the duty corporal informed her that Luis Alberto Gómez had been released at 9:00 PM the previous day, due to a lack of evidence against him.

She could not suppress her astonishment. Not only had her husband not returned home, but he had supposedly been released in the middle of a curfew. She would never hear from him again.

She then exhausted all efforts to find Luis Alberto Gómez. She visited police stations, prisons, and hospitals; she traveled to Santiago and went to the Estadio Nacional. In short, she knocked on one door after another. She learned nothing about the fate of the affected man.

In one of her many interviews, the Chief of the Plaza of Chuquicamata told her that Gómez Cerda was being sought by order of the Military Prosecutor's Office of Calama and that he might be detained at the regiment in that city, which did not correspond to reality.

To this date, the victim remains forcibly disappeared.

JUDICIAL AND/OR ADMINISTRATIVE ACTIONS

Although there is no further information on the matter, it is known that three complaints were filed regarding the victim's alleged disappearance. The first, in 1974, at a criminal court in Antofagasta. The other two, on August 25, 1978, and April 6, 1979, at the Criminal Court of Tocopilla.

None of them yielded results, and none provided an answer that would allow for knowledge of the fate of Luis Alberto Gómez Cerda, who was detained by Carabineros and held at the Tocopilla police station.

Source: (Corporation Report)

They say that Luis Gómez Cerda had an enviable voice, due to his gifts for singing and that leader-like tone which, added to deep, large green eyes, made him the obvious choice when selecting a master of ceremonies for any event.

The second youngest of five siblings, he was born and raised in San Antonio, the port where he would later meet his wife, with whom he shared time in the symphonic choir and traveled across Chile to participate in different festivals.

And how he danced the cueca! His movements were so spectacular that, on the day of their wedding, they decided to change the traditional waltz for a mischievous zapateo.

“Well, there’s a reason I was born on September 18!” says his daughter Alejandra.

He was so passionate about sports that he practiced soccer, athletics, cycling, and swimming—a physical and adventurous impetus that led him to join the Third Fire Company of San Antonio.

He had two daughters, to whom he passed on love and respect for the maternal figure. He always took care of his mother, in the face of a father who distanced himself early from their lives. They say he inherited from her an affectionate and welcoming way of being, palpable in his multiple activities for the benefit of the community around him.

He showed that social streak at Codelco. He first worked in El Salvador as a clerk in 1971. Later, he was transferred to the Chuquicamata Division, where he stood out for organizing and participating in medical operations for remote and difficult-to-access towns.

On September 13, 1973, Luis, a 33-year-old supervisor at the Tocopilla thermoelectric plant, union leader, and socialist militant, was detained by Carabineros at the Codelco Guest House where he lived with his family.

That night, his wife Gladys and his daughter Alejandra, then almost 3 years old, as well as the director of the housing facility in Tocopilla and a doctor from the Chuquicamata Hospital, saw when he was taken in a private pickup truck to the police station.

After two days of incommunicado detention, on September 15, his wife was informed that he had been released the previous night, in the middle of a curfew.

They never heard from him again. The National Commission for Truth and Reconciliation formed the conviction that his disappearance was forced and that the perpetrators were State agents.

Currently, the search for Luis continues in Tocopilla, where proceedings have been requested in the context of joint work by his daughter, relatives of other victims, the Human Rights Program of the Ministry of Justice, and the visiting minister in charge of his case.

Information based on the testimony of his daughter, Alejandra Gómez.

Source: codelco.cl

Workers from SERPAJ arrived at the General Cemetery of Antofagasta to pay tribute and lay a floral offering at the memorial that remembers the forcibly disappeared of the region, an action framed within a new day commemorating the International Day of the Disappeared.

Raising the message #NoMeCalloNiTeOlvido (#IDoNotStaySilentNorDoIForgetYou), the goal is not only to reconstruct the fractured and wounded memory of our country but also to demand truth and justice, accompanying the thousands of families who are still searching for their loved ones, who still have no news about their whereabouts, forming part of the more than 3,000 forcibly disappeared left by the civil-military dictatorship in Chile.

In this sense, Hanna Goldener, regional director of SERPAJ Antofagasta, highlighted that “Today, 44 years after the Coup d'État, the need for memory, truth, justice, and reparation for so many families is more urgent than ever.

Let us not forget that in our region there were 46 detention centers, and unfortunately 88 political executions and 10 forcibly disappeared. Therefore, with this tribute, we seek to remember them and so many Chileans who gave their lives for a country project based on freedom and justice.”

CONTRIBUTION DURING THE DICTATORSHIP

SERPAJ Chile has had a presence in Antofagasta since 1977. In the midst of the military dictatorship, its work focused on developing various actions around Popular Education and Human Rights, also carrying out community work in the Nueva Balmaceda sector and the La Bandera neighborhood.

Ten years later, in 1989, the work had already extended to 5 neighborhoods where they worked together with women, young people, and residents.

Along with this, there was also an office in the city center, a space open to the community where talks, seminars, and various sessions were held that sought to be a contribution to combat the repression and violence of the dictatorship. Among the many actions that were developed, for example:

• Training support for the Democratic Women's Coordinator in Antofagasta.
• Vigil in favor of political prisoners.
• Sessions, courses, and workshops on Popular Education in the areas of Education for Democracy, Human Rights, Non-Violence, and Women.
• Educational support for the families of the forcibly disappeared.
• Support for the Human Rights Commission of Tocopilla.

On this day, as the Peace and Justice Service, we cannot let impunity hinder actions in search of truth and reparation; therefore, we demand:

• The closure of the School of the Americas and the cessation of sending national troops to be trained in this training niche for repression dependent on the United States government.
• The definitive closure of Punta Peuco and the cessation of detention centers with special privileges for criminals convicted of crimes against humanity.
• It is urgent to declassify the Valech Commission files and put an end to the 50 years of silence that will allow for granting truth, rest, and peace to the families of the executed and forcibly disappeared.

Source: serpaj.cl 31/8/2017 Date: 08-31-2017

Removals: The new priority of the Human Rights Program

The horror that gripped Chileans on November 30, 1978, when for the first time the evidence was more than the words of the Military Junta and the discovery of remains in the Lonquén Kilns demonstrated the hidden crimes of the dictatorship and opened the door to a new, much more treacherous episode: the exhumation of bodies and their destruction.

Several years had to pass before the word "removal" began to circulate as a certain fact in the hallways of the courts, along with the irrefutable evidence of Cuesta Barriga and Fuerte Arteaga.

The small fragments found in Calama also alerted to the dynamiting of bodies that were later moved, since after Lonquén it was necessary to better cover up the crimes and eliminate any trace of evidence.

Aware of this reality, the Human Rights Program of the Ministry of the Interior considered that its mandate to help in the investigations, following the traces of the forcibly disappeared, should not stop only at the first crime, but advance in the search for the ultimate truth of the forcibly disappeared.

Based on the mandate granted by Law 19.123 of February 8, 1992, the Program has been analyzing for weeks in its regular Tuesday legal team meeting the cases in which to become a party to investigate this new episode.

After the presentation made in Cuesta Barriga, which did not bear fruit and which now awaits the Court of Appeals to determine whether Minister Amanda Valdovinos or the head of the Third Criminal Court of Santiago, Mario Carroza, should oversee the opening of a summary on this crime, the Program insisted on the Fuerte Arteaga case.

And there the answer was the same as in the previous process: Minister Valdovinos—who is searching for the remains of the forcibly disappeared from La Moneda at the military facility—reported that it must be the corresponding criminal courts that initiate an investigation into the matter.

Calama, Tocopilla, and Purén

With the adverse outlook, the Program is now playing its cards more calmly and is analyzing in parallel asking for an investigation into removals in three cases: Calama, Tocopilla, and Purén.

In the first place, the remains of thirteen people who were allegedly found a few days ago in the Moctezuma pampas, about 15 kilometers from Calama, remain unlocated.

Although it is not yet indicated to whom these pieces correspond, preliminary reports speak of body removals due to the small remains found. In the area, the remains of Carlos Berger Guralnik (PC), Daniel Jacinto Garrido Muñoz (no affiliation), David Ernesto Miranda Luna (PC), Manuel Segundo Hidalgo Rivas (PC), Domingo Mamani López (PS), Luis Alfonso Moreno Villarroel (PS), Rosario Aguid Muñoz Castillo (PS), Alfredo Víctor Ortega Cuevas (PS), Rafael Enrique Pineda Ibacache (PS), Haroldo Ruperto Cabrera Abarzúa (PS), Sergio Moisés Ramírez Espinoza (no affiliation), Jorge Ruben Yueng Rojas (no affiliation), and Bernardo Cayo Cayo (PC) are still missing.

All of them appear—according to the report of the Armed Forces presented within the framework of the Roundtable for Dialogue—as having been thrown into the sea off the coast of Tocopilla.

The case is being handled by the judge with preferential dedication, head of the Second Criminal Court of Loa-Calama, Jaime Medina.

In Tocopilla, the entity dependent on the Ministry of the Interior has its eyes on the possibility of identifying the whereabouts of a group of forcibly disappeared persons who were allegedly buried in the La Veleidosa mine. The bodies of Claudio Rómulo Tognola Ríos and Carlos Miguel Garay Benavides have already been located, but the remains of Luis Alberto Gómez Cerda are still missing.

The visiting minister Juan Guzmán Tapia has reviewed the sector at least twice and is now waiting for the visiting minister Gabriela Corti, in Valparaíso, to finish the work at the defunct Isla Riesco detention center, in order to use the heavy machinery necessary for the excavations.

The student from Arica

The other episode that could involve the Program refers to Sergio Amador Pantoja Rivera, a student who was performing his compulsory military service in the Rancagua Regiment of Arica and who, while on a military campaign in the town of Putre, was detained after an interrogation conducted by personnel of the Military Intelligence Service (SIM) and taken from the camp on October 24, 1974, together with conscript Juan Peña Fuenzalida, by a group of uniformed men, who transported them tied and blindfolded in a jeep to an unknown destination.

It is estimated that from January 2, 1974, the victim was at the Coraceros Regiment of Viña del Mar, until on October 3, 1974, he was transferred to the "Rancagua" Motorized Infantry Regiment of the city of Arica, where his trail was lost. Here, reports also speak of the possibility that his body was buried and then exhumed.

Source: Primera Linea, April 24, 2002 Date: 04-24-2002

Judge Guzmán relegates cases and opens a new investigation

Fulfilling its basic mandate to help judicial processes aimed at finding the forcibly disappeared, the Human Rights Program, formerly known as the National Reconciliation Corporation, will become a co-adjuvant party in the 22 cases in which visiting minister Juan Guzmán Tapia declared himself incompetent.

The Program is also refining the strategy to become a party in the processes handled by Judge Guzmán regarding the forcibly disappeared or political executions whose remains have not yet been found. The point not yet resolved is whether they will present briefs according to the episodes already established—Villa Grimaldi, Pisagua, Calle Conferencia, Liquiñe, Operation Condor, Operation Colombo—or only with respect to each of the victims the magistrate is investigating.

To date, Guzmán has only received the brief signed by the Undersecretary of the Interior, Jorge Correa Sutil, for the Mapocho mine shaft case, and it is expected that the government-dependent body will soon request proceedings to speed up this case, which is not among Guzmán's priorities.

With this, the Program seeks for the processes to progress simultaneously and to fulfill the challenge of finding the greatest number of remains of the forcibly disappeared.

Although the judge originally stated that he was incompetent in 27 processes, in recent days, at the request of the plaintiffs, he has decided to revoke some of his resolutions.

This is what happened in the case of Luis Alberto Gómez Cerda, Claudio Rómulo Tognola Ríos, and Carlos Miguel Garay Benavides, whose investigation had been delegated to the Tocopilla Court of Letters and today, together with the rest of the cases of the forcibly disappeared in that area, will form a new investigation file titled "Tocopilla," to which the visiting minister will dedicate himself in depth in the coming days.

Gómez Cerda was detained on September 13, 1973, while working at the Chuquicamata Division of the Copper Corporation (Codelco) of Tocopilla (Cobrechuqui); there are no reliable records establishing what happened to him regarding his socialist militancy.

The story is different for Tognola Ríos—an obstetrician (PS) who worked at the Tocopilla hospital maternity ward and at the Chemical and Mining Society of Chile (Soquimich), and whose trail was lost on September 16, 1973—and for Garay Benavides—a Cobrechuqui supervisor (PC), detained on September 12, 1973—since, according to the plaintiffs, their bodies are in the "La Veleidosa" mine, where excavations were already carried out, which resulted in the discovery of a large number of bone remains that would correspond to them.

Another process that will return to Guzmán's hands is the case of Isidoro Carrillo Tornería and others, where Vasili Carrillo acts as a plaintiff, a case that had been rejected by the magistrate and handed over in August of this year to the duty court of Concepción.

But the most transcendental achievement for the plaintiffs was that the minister again accepted the disappearance of Cardenio Ancacura Manquian (PS) and Manuel Jesús Hernández Inostroza, because according to the report that the Armed Forces delivered at the conclusion of the Roundtable for Dialogue, their remains were thrown into Lake Ranco, Tenth Region.

Due to the background provided by the Armed Forces, this case constitutes a significant contribution to human rights processes for the plaintiffs, so it should not be abandoned by the minister.

According to the head of the legal area of the Human Rights Program, lawyer Roberto Garretón, once they know the final list of cases in which Guzmán declared himself incompetent, the immediate step would be to ask for visiting ministers in the corresponding cases and, independent of that, the entity must participate in the investigation.

Cases that Guzmán will not review

Among the cases relegated by Guzmán so far, it was established that the investigation into the execution of Mario Alvarado Araya, Faruc Aguad Pérez, Wilfredo Sánchez Silva, and Artemio Pizarro Aranda, who lost their lives at the hands of Army personnel in the Las Coimas sector in San Felipe, will be seen by visiting minister Gabriela Corti in Valparaíso.

For its part, the disappearance on November 17, 1975, of socialist militant Miguel Enrique Rodríguez Vergara will be investigated by the judge with exclusive dedication Raquel Lermanda, head of the Ninth Criminal Court of the capital.

The same will happen with the execution on public roads suffered on September 24, 1973, by Arnoldo Camu Veloso, legal advisor to President Salvador Allende, whose process will remain in the hands of the exclusive judge María Ines Collins, of the Eighth Criminal Court of Santiago.

Other cases in which Guzmán declared himself incompetent:

• Luis Rodríguez Arancibia, Alfredo Moreno Neira, Luis Verdejo Contreras, and Jaime Max Bastián Leiva: will be sent to the Twentieth Criminal Court of Santiago.
• Hugo Riveros Gómez: will be in charge of the 18th Criminal Court of the capital.
• Juan Isaías Heredía Olivares: will be seen by the Court of Letters of Los Angeles.
• José Esaú Velásquez Velásquez and others: will remain in the hands of the Chaitén Court.
• Guillermo Vargas Gallardo: will be investigated by the duty Criminal Court of Copiapó.
• Humberto Salas Salas: will be reviewed in the duty Criminal Court of Osorno.
• Máximo Astolfo Bermúdez Ballón and Juan Rafael Bermúdez Gaete: will be analyzed by the 26th Criminal Court of Santiago.
• Tránsito Cabrera Ortiz: will be seen by the Criminal Court of Talcahuano.
• Máximo Segundo Neira Salas: will be investigated by the duty Court of Talcahuano.
• Salvador Cautivo Ahumada: will be investigated by the duty Court of Arica.
• Miguel Vega: will be analyzed by the duty Court of Curicó.
• José Alfonso Constanzo Vera: will be in charge of the duty Court of Talcahuano.
• Susana Estrella Obando: will be investigated by the duty Court of Punta Arenas.
• Lisandro Salvador Sandoval Fuentes: will be reviewed by the 14th Criminal Court of Santiago.
• Silvio Francisco Betancourt Bahamondes: will be analyzed by the duty Court of Punta Arenas.
• Ramón Luis Vivanco Díaz: in charge of the Second Court of Letters of San Bernardo.
• Guillermo Amador Alvarez Cañas: will remain in the hands of the duty Court of San Antonio.
• Ariel Monsalves Martínez: will be seen by the Second Court of Letters of San Bernardo.
• Bernardo Mario Lejderman and María del Rosario Avalos Castañeda: will be investigated by the Court of Letters of Vicuña.

Judge Sergio Muñoz interrogated former CNI chief Roberto Schmied for the Alegría Mundaca case;

Visiting minister Sergio Muñoz interrogated today the former official of the National Intelligence Center (CNI), Brigadier (R) Roberto Schmied Sanzi, to establish if he bears responsibility as author, accomplice, or cover-up in the process for the homicide of carpenter Juan Alegría Mundaca, a crime connected to that of Tucapel Jiménez.

Alegría Mundaca was murdered in 1983 by CNI agents to cover up the homicide of the union leader. On July 19 of last year, the Seventh Chamber of the Court of Appeals sentenced the former operational chief of the CNI, Alvaro Corbalán, and the former agents of that organization Carlos Herrera Jiménez and Armando Cabrera to life imprisonment as authors of the crime, while punishing Osvaldo Pincetti with ten years in prison.

In addition, Hugo Alarcón Vergara, former driver for Alvaro Corbalán, is under prosecution.

At the time the crime was committed, Schmied was the deputy director of the dissolved CNI and is attributed the status of accomplice for being the superior officer in the chain of command of the agents of that organization who have already been convicted.

The version provided by Schmied in Muñoz's interrogation indicates that he never had knowledge of the operation because at that time he was out of the country, according to his passport which is included in the file.

Source: Primera Linea, September 28, 2001 Date: 09-28-2001

Tocopilla: Search proceedings carried out for victims of forced disappearance

The action is the result of the work of the families and the Human Rights Program team.

The field investigation was carried out within the framework of the reactivation of the case called “La Veleidosa,” whose search actions were carried out in the mine of the same name, in the La Coca Mine, Caleta Guanillo, the Playa Los Chinos sector, and other sites of interest that have already been identified by the Human Rights Program of the Ministry of Justice and are currently under study.

This case is the result of the first complaints filed by the victims' families and the Human Rights Program team in January 2023.

The proceedings were led by the extraordinary visiting minister of the Court of Appeals of La Serena, Vicente Hormazábal, and took place in the context of receiving information that accounted for the fate of six victims, who were detained by State agents in 1973, executed outside the mine shaft, buried inside it, and finally dynamited.

The investigative action included a visual inspection by sea and vertical exploration, through geotechnical topographic scanning and a descent and ascent strategy, led by a specialized rescue group.

Marcelo Orellana, head of the legal area of the Human Rights Program and in charge of the case, pointed out that “this investigation has been worked on in coordination with the relatives, who have provided the necessary information to carry out the inquiries.”

“Today they have been present at the proceedings together with the team from the Human Rights Program, the Legal Medical Service, the Maritime Governorate, Sernageomin, and others,” explained Orellana.

The victims These are male individuals who worked in the area, with the exception of Agustín Villarroel Carmona, who was passing through the city. The victims were detained by State agents between September 11 and 17, 1973.

The victims Claudio Tognola Ríos (42); Luis Segovia Villalobos (28); Carlos Garay Benavides (25), and Agustín Villarroel Carmona were executed and thrown inside the La Veleidosa mine, with their remains found in 1990.

Meanwhile, Luis Alberto Gómez Cerda and Manuel del Carmen Muñoz Cornejo, both 33 years old at the time they were detained by State agents, remain disappeared to this day. The bet and the hope is to find them in the La Veleidosa mine. Otherwise, other sites of interest will be explored for the search.

The National Search Plan is mandated to carry out the necessary investigations, and not only in this case, but in all of them. This is one of the reasons why it was conceived as a State policy.

The families

• “Our families have united because we know that if they find one, they will find the other.”

Very little is known about the victims who still remain disappeared. But from the scarce information that exists, it is intuited that both were together.

These are Manuel del Carmen Muñoz Cornejo, a Soquimich worker, and Luis Alberto Gómez Cerda, a Cobrechuqui (now Codelco) official, both detained at their workplace on Thursday, September 13, 1973.

“My dad was 33 when they took him; I was three years old and I don't remember, but I know we were eating. At that time, we were still living in the Cobrechuqui guest house. We had been in Tocopilla for a few months and were waiting for the assignment of the fiscal house.

My dad was taken by Carabineros; they were in a white Soquimich pickup truck and said they were taking him to the Tocopilla police station.

My mom went to ask about him that night, but they told her he was held incommunicado. To bring him food and blankets the next day. She did so, but again they told her he was held incommunicado...

The next day she returned: they had released him the night before, close to the curfew time... And that was the last that was known of him.

Today I have expectations. Expectations in what Minister Cordero said. It is so important for us to know the trajectory of what happened. To this day, we don't even know where they killed him.

Regarding the National Search Plan, the first thing I must say and thank is that they listened to us. Together we filed the complaint for inhumation and exhumation in La Veleidosa. We have also worked in other places of interest, such as the La Coca mine and sites within Tocopilla itself.

We have provided information to the Human Rights Program and to Minister Hormazábal, who unfortunately is no longer there, because he is now a minister of the Court of Appeals of Valparaíso...

What happened to my dad coincides with the case of Manuel Muñoz Cornejo, who also remains disappeared. Our families have united because we know that if they find one, they will find the other.”

The testimony is from Alejandra (53), daughter of Luis Alberto Gómez Cerda and granddaughter of Mercedes Cerda; in 1973 she was the head of the household, with three children and 58 years old at the time they took Luis.

‘Menchita,’ as she was affectionately called, was the tireless seeker. She searched in the north and in the south. She walked around with clothes and food that she ended up giving to the other detainees, because hers was not there. She passed away at 73 without knowing anything about her son.

• In the 90s

“The search that was done in 1990 started in May, thanks to the joint work with the Human Rights Commission of Tocopilla of that time, with Marisol Ramírez and other people from the team.

First, we did dissemination work to find testimonies, and once that was achieved, the complaint was filed before Judge Jorge Cortés-Monroy for illegal inhumation in the La Veleidosa mine.

It was a very grassroots effort. We had the collaboration of Tocopilla, of the Tocopilla Mining Company; the same members of the commission were sifting the earth, and it was local miners who entered the mine.

The first remains began to appear in June. A group of forensic anthropologists who belonged to the GAF (Forensic Anthropology Group)—Elías Padilla, María Olga Allamand, David del Pino, and the doctor Alfredo Sierra—arrived there.

The search was difficult because the government of the time provided minimal resources. The one who helped with the expenses was ‘Normita’—Norma Tejada Palacios—who at that time was the governor of Tocopilla. The food came from those resources plus contributions from people in Tocopilla.

It was difficult due to inexperience and distrust because democracy was just starting and many of the Carabineros who had participated in the detentions, torture, and disappearances remained in the same positions. In July, the first and only body appeared. It was Carlos Garay Benavides.

Of the others, only bone remains could be found; one of them was my dad, Claudio Tognola Ríos. Only his left hand and a shoe were found of him.

The search continued until October of that year because we could not find anyone else.

Since 1973, we knew they were in that mine, because a miner told my mom. He told her to get the permits to enter, and of course, they never gave them to her.

Years passed. The mine was dynamited at least twice.

On the last day of the search, before closing the mine, they found my dad's hand. In January 1991, Judge Cortés Monroy called me to inform me that that hand was my dad's.

When the search ended, we were worried; we had the feeling that time was missing, people were missing, and more remains of those we had already found, but we could not continue due to a lack of resources.

After a long time, in which the judges who did not have the interest to advance in the search, in 2000, Judge Juan Guzmán took the case. With the information we gave him, he organized the entry into the mine and they noticed that it had to be reinforced, but for that, resources are needed. Judge Guzmán asked for them, but the State denied them, and the mine could not be reopened.

We always had the intention of returning to search, and by those wonderful things in life, we met the daughters of Manuel Muñoz Cornejo and Luis Gómez Cerda and we united to try again, and not only in the mine, but also in other sites of interest, and we formed the Association of Relatives of Victims of Tocopilla and began to work with the Human Rights Program.

In parallel, the National Search Plan began to take shape. Thanks to the plan, to Minister Hormazábal, and to the information we had collected, it was possible to file a complaint in January 2023 to search for the missing remains.

From that moment to date, we have done joint work with the Human Rights Program team and the National Search Plan. We have already gone to the field three times and work is being done to reinforce the mine.

We feel hopeful and supported by the National Search Plan, because although there have been discrepancies along the way in how to face things or coordinate, we have always maintained a good dialogue. We have always reached an understanding to advance in the special objective, which is to first find those who are missing and then find more remains of our relatives.

I am hopeful and grateful to have found the people who make up the Association. It has not been an easy path, not only because of knocking on doors without an answer, but also because it has been difficult to find people who are firm in the thought and objective of finding truth, justice, and reparation. I feel very accompanied, confident, and hopeful of finding good results.”

The testimony is from Paola (58), daughter of Claudio Tognola Ríos.

Source: minjusticia.gob.cl 4/4/2024