Around 11:00 in the morning on September 13, 1973, eight Carabineros, including Sergeant Mario Ponce, arrived at the "Juan Catalán" indigenous community in a pickup truck, which they left some distance away due to the poor condition of the access road.

The police approached Manuel Catalán, an agricultural worker and married man, after which two of them entered his home and proceeded to search the premises, telling his spouse, Juana Margarita Ñiripil Millalén, that she should not leave the house under any circumstances and that her husband would be back in the afternoon.

As the victim did not return home that night, his spouse went the following day to the Lautaro Carabineros Station, where she was asked to bring food and clothing for the detainee. On September 15, they returned his dirty clothes to her, which were bloodstained, as were his boots.

For eight days, she went to the police station bringing clothing and food until the 23rd of that month, when she was told that he had been transferred to the Temuco Prison, without any explanation for the situation.

At the Temuco Prison, they denied that he was being held there, and the same occurred at the Tucapel Regiment and the city's Military Prosecutor's Office. All efforts made by his spouse to locate his whereabouts were unsuccessful.

JUDICIAL AND/OR ADMINISTRATIVE ACTIONS

On December 10, 1979, his spouse filed a complaint for alleged disappearance before the Lautaro Court of Letters, in which she denounced the events affecting Manuel Elías Catalán Paillal, informing the Court that, given the negative result of the countless efforts she had made to find his whereabouts, she presumed that the victim had been killed by his captors.

Source: Vicaría de la Solidaridad

The minister visiting Human Rights cases for the courts of appeal of Temuco, Valdivia, Puerto Montt, and Coyhaique, Alvaro Mesa Latorre, convicted two retired members of the Carabineros for their responsibility in the qualified kidnapping of the peasant farmer Manuel Catalán Paillal, which occurred beginning in September 1973 in the Muco Bajo sector, Lautaro commune.

The magistrate sentenced officer Jorge Schweizer Gómez to 12 years in prison in his capacity as the perpetrator of the crime, classified as a crime against humanity. Meanwhile, retired non-commissioned officer Domingo Campos Collao was sentenced to 3 years in prison as an accessory to the crime.

In the investigation, the minister was able to establish that "Manuel Elías Catalán Paillal, a 27-year-old peasant farmer, residing in the Comunidad Juan Catalán, Muco Bajo sector of the Lautaro commune, was detained on September 13, 1973, by a patrol of Carabineros from the 1st Lautaro Station (...).

Without apparently carrying a judicial order authorizing them for such an act, they proceeded to search the home and detain Catalán to take him to the police unit." Since then, the detainee's spouse was never able to see him again. In the civil aspect, the State was ordered to pay a total compensation of 800 million pesos to the victim's family members.

Source: soychile.cl, December 28, 2020 Date: 12-28-2020

Two retired Carabineros convicted for the kidnapping of a Lautaro peasant farmer in 1973

Additionally, in the civil aspect, the State was ordered to pay a total compensation of 800 million pesos to the victim's family members. Two retired Carabineros were sentenced to 12 and 3 years in prison, as perpetrator and accessory, respectively, for the qualified kidnapping of a peasant farmer in Lautaro in September 1973.

This is the case of Manuel Catalán Paillal, who lived in the Muco Bajo sector of the Toqui commune, for which the Minister visiting for Human Rights violations, Álvaro Mesa, convicted the two retired uniformed officers.

First, the retired officer, Jorge Schweizer Gómez, was sentenced to 12 years in prison as the perpetrator of the crime against humanity, at a time when he held the rank of Major at the 1st Lautaro Station.

Second, the retired non-commissioned officer, Domingo Campos Collao, was sentenced to 3 years in prison as an accessory to the crime committed while he was serving as a Sergeant in the aforementioned Carabineros unit.

The event dates back to September 13, 1973, when Manuel Elías Catalán Paillal, 27, residing in the Comunidad Juan Catalán, was detained by a Carabineros patrol traveling in a pickup truck. After his detention, the young peasant farmer was taken to the 1st Lautaro Station, and to this day, there is no news regarding his whereabouts.

Meanwhile, in the civil aspect, the State was ordered to pay a total compensation of 800 million pesos to the victim's family members.

Source: radiouniversal.cl, 12/28/2020 Date: 12-28-2020

Minister Mesa convicts retired Carabineros for kidnapping in Lautaro

The minister visiting Human Rights cases for the courts of appeal of Temuco, Valdivia, Puerto Montt, and Coyhaique, Alvaro Mesa Latorre, convicted two retired members of the Carabineros for their responsibility in the qualified kidnapping of the peasant farmer Manuel Catalán Paillal, which occurred beginning in September 1973 in the Muco Bajo sector, Lautaro commune.

The magistrate sentenced officer Jorge Schweizer Gómez to 12 years in prison in his capacity as the perpetrator of the crime, classified as a crime against humanity. Meanwhile, retired non-commissioned officer Domingo Campos Collao was sentenced to 3 years in prison as an accessory to the crime.

In the investigation, the minister was able to establish that "Manuel Elías Catalán Paillal, a 27-year-old peasant farmer, residing in the Comunidad Juan Catalán, Muco Bajo sector of the Lautaro commune, was detained on September 13, 1973, by a patrol of Carabineros from the 1st Lautaro Station (...).

Without apparently carrying a judicial order authorizing them for such an act, they proceeded to search the home and detain Catalán to take him to the police unit." Since then, the detainee's spouse was never able to see him again. In the civil aspect, the State was ordered to pay a total compensation of 800 million pesos to the victim's family members.

Source: soychile.cl, 12/25/2020 Date: 12-25-2020

Temuco: SML handed over the remains of a peasant farmer who was forcibly disappeared in 1973

The Legal Medical Service (SML) handed over the remains of Manuel Elías Catalán Paillal this Friday in Temuco. He was a peasant farmer from Lautaro, in the Araucanía Region, who was detained and forcibly disappeared by Carabineros in September 1973.

The body was exhumed from a mass grave in the Lautaro cemetery, and subsequently, DNA samples compared with his family members allowed for his identification so that he could be buried in his community. There are three retired Carabineros prosecuted for this case, and the investigation remains open.

Source: cooperativa.cl, 9/28/2018 Date: 09-28-2018

Relatos a Contraluz: Photography as an exercise in Human Rights memory

On a day like today, 72 years ago, on December 10, 1948, the United Nations General Assembly adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, a legal text that establishes the fundamental civil, economic, political, social, and cultural Human Rights that member States must adopt.

Since 1950, Human Rights Day has been celebrated. Thus, in its first article, the Declaration states: "All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood." In the spirit of that equity in dignity and rights, during the Agrarian Reform, which began in the 1960s, many Mapuche and peasant farmers began a political process of political, social, and cultural organization, territorial recovery, and the struggle for collective rights, which was photographically recorded by journalist Norman Gall, Portuguese photographer Armindo Cardoso, and photographer and filmmaker Raymond Depardon, among many others. The process of organization and struggle was harshly repressed during the civil-military dictatorship led by Pinochet, during which Human Rights were systematically violated in Chile and Wallmapu through detentions, political executions, torture, and political persecution, among others. To date, there has been no justice, and the perpetrators, intellectual and material authors of the crimes against humanity, have mostly remained unpunished. As a result of the above, Claudia Monasterio and photographer Sebastián Meza, from the production company Suridentidad, created an audiovisual record in the documentary "Relatos a Contraluz, Fotografía y Memoria, Cautín 1967-1973," which gathers accounts from protagonists and family members of Mapuche forcibly disappeared and political execution victims from 1967 until the beginning of the military dictatorship in 1973. Thus, the documentary narrates, through the testimonies of Samuel and Patricia Catalán, María Ulloa, Heraldo Avendaño, Clodovet Millalén, and Alonso Azocar, and the photographic record of Cardoso, Depardon, and Gall, among others, the process during and after the Agrarian Reform. It is a "record of the exercise of memory by children, protagonists, and survivors of that sociopolitical process that led to harsh repression after the 1973 Military Coup in rural areas throughout the country," they comment. In the framework of the commemoration of International Human Rights Day, and considering how rights continue to be violated today in Chile and Wallmapu, now under State repression by the government of Sebastián Piñera, we spoke with Claudia Monasterio about her motivation to investigate these archives of an era that is always necessary to keep alive in memory. Claudia, tell us, from your work based on images, about your interest in reviewing these memories. The subject matter is a bit out of the ordinary, even for the orientation of the communication school where they came to see me, because although my lines of work have always been around the social, today communication is also very concerned with the commercial. It is a marketing instrument and schools are also aiming a bit in that direction, so this work acts as a bit of resistance to that and is also proposed as a memory work project around the image, giving continuity to what I do extra-academically, which is what I dedicate myself to on a day-to-day basis, which is photography. How was your work with the children of the forcibly disappeared and political execution victims? It is an experience that had different approaches. Some of those who participated are active in the issue of memory because they belong to the Association of Relatives of the Forcibly Disappeared and Political Execution Victims; other people relate through more familiar and personal themes of closeness. I must say that the role of my partner, Sebastián, plays a super important role there. He is the son of a former political prisoner, María Ulloa, who appears in the film, and whose Mapuche partner was executed in the context of the State repression of the dictatorship. So, those sources of trust, so to speak, were opened through those relationships that already existed from before, through María. How do you see the possibilities that the film opens in these times of revolt and struggle? I believe that the audiovisual contribution is always an instrument for rescue and preservation. There are some studies in academia, but we all know that those contents move in certain circles and it is very difficult for them to be disseminated, so, being an audiovisual product, "Relato a Contraluz" can break spatial borders to reach other perhaps similar contexts, through the exhibition of the material. Something very important is that it opens a space for exchange between people who lived through this repression, and sharing these painful and sometimes hopeful experiences in relation to the struggles that are carried out today in the territories. This exchange between people from different eras who have experienced repression placed us at the Paine Memorial, where the peasant struggle was carrying out a process of land recovery, and the participants in the film exchanged very valuable experiences. Just as the repression against the Mapuche is made invisible, there is also mismanagement regarding what happened to poor peasant farmers at that time. In memory circles, work is being done, but there is a lot of work to be done and we think we are contributing in that sense. What will be the circulation circuit of the film? We had thought of a very local circuit, intended as a return to the participants who opened these spaces of trust, where the land seizures were carried out during the Agrarian Reform, and where the photographers we used to make this activation of memory were. They went into the Lafkenche zone, also in Muco Bajo, near Lautaro; those stories are situated in those sectors. Unfortunately, due to the pandemic, this could not be carried out, so the launch will be at Ficwallmapu – International Festival of Indigenous Cinema and Arts in Wallmapu, which will be held virtually between January 25 and 29, 2021 – which is a special festival for us because it is from the territory and works on these issues. Later, with the tours, we hope to reach the places originally planned.

Source: mapuexpress.org, 12/10/2020 Date: 12-10-2020 RELATOS A CONTRALUZ - FINAL TRAILER https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XcD9iJ3jkqk&t=208s video available

See the synopsis of the film below

Final trailer for the film by Claudia Monasterio and Sebastián Meza, Relatos a Contraluz, which gathers the accounts of family members of Mapuche forcibly disappeared and political execution victims who were part of the peasant movement from 1967 until the 1973 coup d'état.

The accounts arise from the review of images from the photographic record of authors such as Armindo Cardoso, Raimond Depardon, and Norman Gall, who went into the fields seeking to depict the process of Mapuche and peasant struggle in the framework of the Agrarian Reform. Regional premiere: January / 2020

Source: suridentidadproducciones.cl, 12/2019