Miguel Angel Sandoval Rodríguez, married, tailor, and militant of the MIR, was detained on January 7, 1975, by security agents on a public street. He had left his home at 12:00 hours and had indicated that he would return at 15:00 hours. He never returned home from that day on.

Fifteen days later, at 02:30 in the morning during the curfew, a group of armed civilians who did not identify themselves, but who stated they were members of the Armed Forces, proceeded to raid the house that the Sandoval family was renting, taking documentation they found in the victim's room and a trunk that belonged to the owner of the house.

These civilians were traveling in a green pickup truck without license plates.

According to the testimony of detainees at the Villa Grimaldi torture center, the victim was seen there in very poor physical condition. Villa Grimaldi was a torture center administered by the DINA that operated at Avenida Arrieta 8.200 in Peñalolén, in the La Reina commune, in the eastern zone of Santiago.

María Teresa de Jesús Villalobos Díaz, an electronics student who was detained without charges between January 14, 1975, and September 10, 1976, declared on September 13, 1976: "...they held me for 14 days at Villa Grimaldi.

While I remained there, they would wake us up at 05:00 hours. Almost every day, I saw through my blindfold how they took the men to the bathroom, blindfolded, touching each other's shoulders, with a guard whipping them.

I saw several people there whose identities are Miguel Angel Sandoval, Patricio Urbina Chamorro, Julio Flores Pérez, Alfredo García Vega, and the husband of Sonia Ríos, who was in my room. All of those people are forcibly disappeared."

For his part, Raúl Flores Castillo declared that on January 7, 1975, he was detained and taken to Villa Grimaldi, where he remained until January 14, the date on which he was transferred to the Tres Alamos Detention Camp.

In his testimony of November 22, 1976, he states: "We arrived at an unknown place that I later learned was Villa Grimaldi. They took me out of the car, my eyes still covered with tape, and they took my personal information.

They replaced the tape with a blindfold, and I was led amidst blows and kicks to a part of the Villa called the 'casas Corvi.' These were cells that were at most 1.20 cm by 1.20 cm wide. In the cell they put me in, there were already four other people. We could barely stand."

He later points out: "Between January 10 or 11, they brought Miguel Angel Sandoval Rodríguez, who is currently forcibly disappeared, to my cell in the 'casas Corvi.' He was in bad physical shape; they had beaten him a lot.

He told me that he hoped we could get out of this soon and reach Cuatro Alamos. On Sunday, January 12, they took us all out to eat lunch in the patio of the Villa and allowed us to remove our blindfolds. On this occasion, I saw several people, among them I saw Miguel Angel Sandoval R. again..."

The name of Miguel Angel Sandoval appears on a list published in the Argentine magazine LEA in July 1975, which listed 60 Chileans who had allegedly died in various countries. This publication had no editor or responsible owner, and it was not possible to establish the origin of this news.

A publication with similar characteristics, with another list of 59 people, appeared in the newspaper O'DIA in Curitiba, Brazil. These 119 people had been forcibly disappeared after having been detained between the months of June 1974 and February 1975, and most of them had been seen in secret DINA detention centers.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Chile, in Confidential Official Letter No. 512 of October 30, 1975, signed by Army Major Enrique Cid Coubles of the Human Rights Secretariat, informed the Criminal Courts that had requested information that: "There is no official record whatsoever that the persons named in the lists published in 'LEA' and 'O'DIA' have died abroad." It adds: "The authorities of the countries where, according to the publications, the events allegedly occurred, have reported nothing on the matter."

General Pinochet, when referring to these publications, declared to El Mercurio on August 21, 1975, that they were: "another treacherous way of attacking us, always seeking to cause damage and a bad image of Chile."

Despite the efforts made by his family, Miguel Angel Sandoval Rodríguez has remained forcibly disappeared since he was detained on January 7, 1975, by the DINA.

JUDICIAL AND/OR ADMINISTRATIVE ACTIONS

Teolinda Sandoval Rodríguez, the victim's sister, filed a writ of amparo (habeas corpus) before the Santiago Court of Appeals on February 18, 1975, requesting that the Ministry of the Interior, the Ministry of Defense, the DINA, and the Chief of the State of Siege Zone be officially notified to report on the detention of Miguel Angel Sandoval.

Colonel Hernán Ramírez Ramírez, by order of the State of Siege Headquarters, responded to this inquiry by stating that "no case is being investigated against this person(s) in the II Military Court, nor are they detained..."

Similar responses from the Minister of the Interior and the Secretary of the Combat Command of the Chilean Air Force were received by the Court.

On April 10, 1975, the Court decided to officially notify the Criminal Court to investigate the possible commission of a crime in the matter that was the subject of the amparo.

On April 14, 1975, the writ of amparo was rejected, and the records were sent to the respective Criminal Court.

On April 21 of the same year, the presiding judge of the Eighth Criminal Court ordered the opening of a summary proceeding under case file number 12.005.

First Detective Mario Rojas Mercado of the Eighth Judicial Precinct presented report 5696 on June 7, 1975, in which he accounted for the investigations carried out: interrogations of Teolinda Sandoval R., the victim's sister; inquiries to the Legal Medical Institute, the Public Jail, the Civil Registry, and "other inquiries made (which) have not allowed for the location of the disappeared person up to this moment."

Having appeared in the newspapers El Mercurio and La Segunda on July 23 and 24 in "lists of Chilean citizens who had allegedly died in various South American countries," in which Miguel Angel Sandoval appeared, information was requested from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which was sent as indicated above.

On November 28, 1975, the temporary dismissal of the case was declared, noting: "that the existence of the reported crime is not completely proven in the records..."

On January 15, 1976, the Santiago Court of Appeals ratified the temporary dismissal of case file 12.005.

Miguel Angel Sandoval's relatives made inquiries at the Tres Alamos detention camp, at SENDET, at the Ministry of Defense, at the Civil Registry (to verify if a death certificate existed), at the International Red Cross, and at hospitals, without obtaining any information about the victim.

Source: Corporation report

Army General (R) Manuel Contreras was transferred by the Gendarmería to the Cordillera prison after being notified of his 12-year prison sentence for the aggravated kidnapping of the MIR militant Miguel Ángel Sandoval.

In a chaotic process, the visiting judge who substantiated the case, Alejandro Solís, had to order the arrest of the military officer after he declined to appear in court.

It was for this reason that agents from the Fifth Department of the Investigative Police traveled to the residence of the retired military officer, in the upper sector of the Peñalolén commune, to apprehend him and transfer him to the Palace of Justice.

However, the procedure was delayed for at least two hours after Contreras refused to be apprehended and pulled a weapon from a desk, after which he was taken to the Borgoño barracks of the Investigative Police to record the incident.

The incident recalled the 1995 episode when Contreras refused to appear before the courts to be notified of his sentence for the homicide of former Foreign Minister Orlando Letelier, perpetrated in Washington.

On that occasion, the former military officer barricaded himself, protected by numerous bodyguards, on a farm in Osorno, from which he fled surreptitiously to reappear, after several days of tension, admitted to a Naval Hospital.

Incident at residence

Radio reports indicated that the transfer to the facility was due to the fact that the aforementioned high-ranking officer attempted to use a firearm that was on his desk, but he was subdued and taken to the police station.

His lawyer, Juan Carlos Manns, denied the fact, accusing the person in charge of the operation, Prefect Rafael Castillo, of inciting a violent incident. According to the professional, an "alternative measure" was first agreed upon to carry out a surrender "without so much scandal" at noon.

Subsequently, and when Contreras "was saying goodbye at the door of his house to General Carter—his son-in-law—Castillo made a gesture and 25 people (police) entered while the door was open, destroying everything there was, hitting the daughters, nieces, and sons-in-law" of his client, "whom they took in a violent manner without any opposition having taken place."

Manns denied that his client had used a firearm and revealed that the episode was recorded in audio by the Chilevisión program El Termómetro, whose production had called the retired military officer by phone at that moment.

A video recording released by TVN, although it does not fully clarify the facts, such as the use of a firearm or the origin of the altercation, confirms that there were conversations. However—it was explained in the newscast—the talk between the police and Contreras and his entourage would not have corresponded to a negotiation, but rather to an alibi to achieve his arrest.

After his time at the Borgoño barracks, the General (R) was transferred to the office of Judge Solís to comply with the aforementioned notification. There, dozens of people stationed at the corner of Compañía and Morandé streets tried to attack him by throwing water and a myriad of blunt objects at him upon his entry and exit.

Failed procedure

Manns himself went to the courts after 09:30 hours—60 minutes later than the deadline stipulated for his client—to be notified in his capacity as an attorney, but the judge rejected the curious suggestion.

Earlier, several former members of the DINA leadership arrived to learn their sentences, among them, Brigadier (R) Miguel Krassnoff (10 years), Colonel (R) Marcelo Moren Brito (10 years), Brigadier (R) Fernando Laureani (5 years, as an accomplice), and the Carabineros Lieutenant Colonel (R) Gerardo Godoy (5 years, as an accomplice, who will go to Punta Peuco).

The retired military officers were transferred together to the Cordillera prison, located in the former facilities of the Army's Telecommunications Command, in a Gendarmería prison van, where Contreras is also expected to arrive.

The ruling by Judge Solís—from November 17 of last year—was the first in which the Supreme Court ruled on aggravated kidnapping, ratifying the sentences and ruling out the amnesty law.

Source: January 28, 2005, El Mostrador Date: 01-28-2005

Judge Solís orders the arrest of Manuel Contreras

Retired General and former director of the National Intelligence Directorate (DINA), Manuel Contreras, is at his home in a military condominium in La Reina, despite the fact that he was supposed to appear at the Palace of Justice at eight in the morning to be notified of his 12-year prison sentence for the kidnapping of the disappeared MIR militant Miguel Angel Sandoval Rodríguez.

Around nine in the morning, six vehicles from the Civil Police arrived at the "Club de Campo Norte" facility, located at 316 Alvaro Casanova Street, waiting for the arrival of officers from that institution with the arrest warrant for the former head of the political police during the first stage of the dictatorship. At 10:25, three other cars with plainclothes officers arrived at the scene.

The main access to the condominium in the upper sector of Santiago is restricted by Carabineros personnel, who have only allowed the entry of police teams and relatives of the retired general.

The event resembles the situation in 1995, when Contreras barricaded himself in a farm in the Tenth Region before being notified of his sentence for the crime of former Foreign Minister Orlando Letelier.

His collaborators are already going to prison

At 8 in the morning, and just as it had been indicated, the other four individuals convicted in the historic sentence, issued by Judge Alejandro Solís and later ratified unanimously by the Second Criminal Chamber of the Supreme Court, which displaced the amnesty law by considering kidnapping a permanent crime, had arrived at the seat of justice.

In addition to Contreras, those beginning to serve their sentences today are the former head of the DINA's Halcón Group, Brigadier (R) Miguel Krassnoff, 10 years in prison; the former head of Villa Grimaldi, Brigadier (R) Marcelo Moren Brito (11 years); the former head of the Vampiro Group, Colonel (R) Fernando Laureani (5 years); and former agent Gerardo Godoy (5 years).

Heavily guarded by prison guards and protected by a cordon of Carabineros that kept nearly 200 relatives of dictatorship victims at a distance, who were shouting against the former agents, Krassnoff, Moren Brito, and Laureani were loaded into two Gendarmería vehicles to be transferred to the "Cordillera" prison in the Peñalolén commune; while Godoy, the only Carabinero on the list, was taken in another prison van to the Punta Peuco prison north of the capital.

The Second Criminal Chamber, in a ruling considered historic for setting a precedent in the processing of cases referring to human rights violations, maintained the sentence of Judge Solís and the Court of Appeals in November of last year, in which the five were accused of the crime against Sandoval Rodríguez.

The 1978 Amnesty Decree Law, which was issued under the regime of Augusto Pinochet (1973-1990), proposes the exoneration of criminal responsibility for all those State agents involved in violations of constitutional guarantees perpetrated between September 11, 1973, and March 11, 1978.

A TAILOR FROM THE MIR

Miguel Angel Sandoval Rodríguez, a 26-year-old tailor who was a militant in the Revolutionary Left Movement (MIR), was detained on January 7, 1975, in Santiago. His relatives reported that the victim left his house at noon and indicated that he would return at three in the afternoon.

However, he never returned. According to testimonies from people who were detained at Villa Grimaldi, he was last seen in this secret place of detention in very poor condition.

Fifteen days after his detention, at 02:30 in the morning, armed civilians raided his house, taking documentation.

Later, Sandoval appeared on the list of 60 Chileans who had allegedly died in various countries, which was published by the Argentine magazine Lea in July 1975. This media outlet had no further editions, and no writers or editors were identified in it.

Teolinda Sandoval, the sister of the disappeared man, filed a writ of amparo with the Court of Appeals on February 18, 1975, requesting that the Ministries of the Interior and Defense and the DINA be officially notified to report on the detention of Miguel Angel Sandoval.

The request never received a response. Army Colonel Hernán Ramírez, by order of the state of siege zone headquarters, responded that "no case is being investigated against this person in the II Military Court, nor is he detained."

Raúl Flores Castillo, who was also detained on January 7, 1975, and who spent 14 days in Villa Grimaldi, recounted that "between January 10 or 11, they brought Miguel Angel Sandoval Rodríguez, currently disappeared, to my cell. He was in bad physical shape; they had beaten him a lot. He told me that he hoped we could get out of this soon."

Source: January 28, 2005, La Nación Date: 01-28-2005

Historic ruling rejected amnesty

In a landmark ruling that will set a precedent for all cases involving the forcibly disappeared, the Fifth Chamber of the Santiago Court of Appeals rejected the application of amnesty to part of the DINA leadership, as it is the first such ruling in the country to issue a conviction.

The 65-page resolution justified this rejection by drawing upon all international human rights legislation to which Chile is a party, in addition to referencing the jurisprudence established in this regard by the Criminal Chamber of the Supreme Court over the last seven years.

The ruling even maintained that Chile's sovereignty is limited by international treaties that protect the fundamental rights of individuals, as mandated by the second paragraph of Article 5 of the 1980 Political Constitution, reformed for this purpose in 1989.

This ruling confirmed the findings of the visiting judge Alejandro Solís in his conviction last April against part of the DINA leadership for the 1975 kidnapping and disappearance of MIR militant Miguel Angel Sandoval Rodríguez, which rejected the application of amnesty.

This refusal affected the former head of the DINA, General (Ret.) Manuel Contreras; the former head of the Halcón Brigade and several DINA facilities, Brigadier (Ret.) Miguel Krassnoff; the former head of the Metropolitan Intelligence Brigade and the Villa Grimaldi barracks, Colonel (Ret.) Marcelo Moren Brito; the former head of the DINA's Vampiro Brigade, Brigadier (Ret.) Fernando Lauriani; and the former head of the Tucán Brigade, Carabineros Lieutenant Colonel (Ret.) Gerardo Godoy.

In a two-to-one majority vote, and as anticipated by La Nación in its December 29 edition, Judge Patricia Gómez and lawyer Hugo Llanos—with Judge Víctor Montiglio dissenting—resolved that amnesty is not applicable to a crime of kidnapping when the victim remains missing to this day, because it is a "permanent" offense that continues to be committed every day, and therefore exceeds the period covered by the amnesty between September 11, 1973, and March 10, 1978.

International Foundation

Going even deeper, the majority vote maintained that the crime of kidnapping and "Forced Disappearance of Persons"—the name of the international treaty signed by Chile in 1994—"has long constituted a very grave offense to the intrinsic dignity of the human person of an inderogable nature, as is enshrined in various international instruments of a mandatory nature for Chile."

The judges added that "what is more important is that it constitutes a crime against humanity, as defined in the Statute of the International Criminal Court, which is already in force internationally."

The vote rejecting the application of this benefit to criminals in uniform, even if retired, referred to seven international treaties on human rights legislation to which Chile is a full party. According to the judges, these treaties oblige the country to respect them even above domestic legislation, given that they have "a higher hierarchy than other international treaties, insofar as they regulate the essential rights that emanate from human nature."

Such an assertion, the majority vote states, is based on the fact that, according to the second paragraph of Article 5 of the Constitution (reformed in 1989), "the exercise of sovereignty recognizes as a limitation the respect for the essential rights that emanate from human nature.

It is the duty of the organs of the State to respect and promote such rights guaranteed by this Constitution, as well as by international treaties ratified by Chile and which are in force."

The magistrates even affirmed that when Chile signed the Inter-American Convention on Forced Disappearance of Persons in 1994, and even though "from a purely formal point of view it has not yet been incorporated into Chilean domestic law" because it lacks ratification by the Senate (it has already been ratified by the Chamber of Deputies), such a treaty has "legal consequences" for Chile.

Among them, they mention "the responsibility of the State" to ensure compliance with this legislation, as well as "the inadmissibility of the defense of due obedience to a superior order; the obligation to extradite or prosecute those responsible for the crime; the non-applicability of statutes of limitations to criminal action (due to the passage of time), and the impropriety of benefiting from acts of the Executive or Legislative power from which impunity for the crime could result."

The majority ruling also accepted the right of the Sandoval Rodríguez family to appeal to civil courts in search of monetary reparation, which had been denied by Judge Solís.

Reduction of Sentences

The majority ruling reduced the prison sentence of General (Ret.) Contreras from 15 years to 12 years, and the sentence of Colonel (Ret.) Moren Brito from 15 years to 11 years. It confirmed the 10-year sentence for Krassnoff.

These three were convicted as perpetrators. It also maintained the five-year sentence for Lauriani and Godoy as accomplices to kidnapping. The plaintiff lawyers were Nelson Caucoto for the family and Francisco Bravo for the government.

The Path of the Supreme Court is Set

This first ruling will necessarily reach the Supreme Court via an extraordinary appeal for cassation. However, it can be anticipated that the rejection of the application of amnesty will be confirmed by the judges of the Criminal Chamber of the Supreme Court.

Several of its five members have already issued votes in various rulings (though not yet at the level of a final sentence like the current one), expressing their opposition to granting this benefit to military personnel and supporting the main legal theses that constituted the pillars of the majority vote of the Fifth Chamber of Appeals.

And although in the courts each case is resolved on its merits and background, it does not appear possible that these magistrates will retract what they have supported with profuse argumentation, especially regarding international human rights legislation.

At least four of the five judges of the Criminal Chamber support the international criminal doctrine that considers kidnapping a permanent and continuous crime, as is the case of Sandoval Rodríguez.

And all five magistrates have issued rulings in which they make international human rights conventions signed and ratified by Chile take precedence over internal norms, admitting the limitation of Chile's sovereignty as established by the Political Constitution in its relevant part.

Source: Tuesday, January 6, 2003, La Nación

Date: 06-01-2003

Miguel Angel Sandoval Rodríguez, the tailor of the Resistance, made a custom-made suit for his torturers. It had been ready for years, and in its patient tailoring, those who, through their testimony and their struggle for human rights, made it possible for the former agents to finally wear their striped outfits, collaborated over the years.

The Supreme Court issued a long-awaited resolution, discarding the pressures exerted in favor of the application of amnesty. Manuel Contreras Sepúlveda, general and former director of the DINA, and Marcelo Luis Manuel Moren Brito (Army colonel, commander of Villa Grimaldi in 1975), were sentenced to twelve years in prison; Miguel Krassnoff Martchenko (brigadier, head of the "Aguila" brigade specialized in the repression of the MIR), to ten years and one day for his responsibility as a co-perpetrator; Fernando Eduardo Laureani Maturana (colonel, former head of the DINA's "Tucapel" Unit) and Gerardo Ernesto Godoy García (Carabineros lieutenant, head of the "Tucán" unit) were sentenced to five years and one day in prison as accomplices in the disappearance of Miguel Angel Sandoval Rodríguez. The Criminal Chamber of the Supreme Court reviewed the ruling issued by the Court of Appeals in January 2004, confirming the sentence of Judge Alejandro Solís. The highest court in the country reaffirmed that when the whereabouts or final destination of a detainee are unknown, the amnesty decree-law cannot be applied, because the criminal act continues. The ruling of this chamber thus valued the statements of three witnesses who saw Miguel Angel alive in the torture center: siblings María Alicia and Hugo Salinas Farfán, and Raúl Flores Castillo. The courage of the former prisoners who survived political imprisonment and torture, and the permanent struggle of the families of the forcibly disappeared and human rights lawyers, achieved justice for the first time in the case of a forcibly disappeared person. The ruling of the Second Chamber of the Supreme Court was issued unanimously. Judges Alberto Chaigneau, Enrique Cury, and Jaime Rodríguez, as well as lawyers Fernando Castro and Luz María Jordán, voted in a resounding denial of the position of Clara Szaranski and the State Defense Council. Miguel Angel Sandoval Rodríguez, ("Pablito"), a MIR militant, was a tailor. Moreno, 1.70 m tall, was 26 years old and married when he was kidnapped and forcibly disappeared. His greatest concern, according to a former detainee, was his newborn son. Tortured, he went out into the street giving false information instead of informing, which earned him more torment at the hands of the DINA. At noon on January 7, 1975, the young tailor had left his house, located at Avenida Grecia 1159 A, where he lived with his wife, Pabla del Carmen Segura Soto, and his sister, Teolinda Sandoval Rodríguez. He said he would return around three in the afternoon. He was detained in the street by the DINA between 12:00 and 15:00 hours. On the same day, Claudio Enrique Contreras Hernández had been arrested, and the day before, Gilberto Patricio Urbina. All three were part of the so-called Central Force of the MIR, a structure that was decimated by the DINA. Thus disappeared Agustín Martínez (Boris), René Acuña (Chico Pedro), Herbit Ríos (Chico Rubén), Luis Piñones (Peque Rolando), Claudio Contreras (Coco), Manuel Cortez Joo (Chico Rony), Jaime Vásquez (Joaquín), Fidel Flores (Víctor, el Niño Raúl), Hugo Ríos Videla (Peque), Washington Cid (Perico), Luis Jaime Palominos Rojas (Rolán), Alan Bruce, and Ivan Montti. Of this structure, José Hernán Carrasco Vásquez (Vicente) was subsequently executed. Fifteen days after the detention of Miguel Angel Sandoval, during the curfew, in the early morning, a group of armed civilians in a green pickup truck without license plates raided the house his family was renting. They took documents from his room and a trunk.

Source: Lucía Sepúlveda Ruiz, Punto Final, 30/11/2004

Date: 30-11-2004

Speaking with Mateo the other day, remembering old times and old friends, he said to me, "One of the great forgotten ones of our history is 'Chico Feliciano'." That phrase kept dancing in my head. And perhaps for that reason, among many other things, I decided to write these lines.

He is not the only one. There was also Pablito, or "Guatón Pablo," as we called him in the neighborhood in those beautiful times, who was forgotten for a long time. The difference is that Pablito returned to the "front page" following the Court of Appeals ruling that did not consider the Amnesty Law applicable in the case of his physical disappearance.

I say physical because Pablito (Miguel Angel Sandoval), along with Chico Feliciano (Guillermo Cornejos Campos) and many other friends and comrades, will always be present in our memories. In particular for all of us who were his friends in the San Genaro neighborhood of Renca.

In reality, whether they like it or not, they are part of the history that has to do with the Renca Commune and in particular with the MIR. Despite having been declared "disappeared" for a long time and despite the fact that those responsible for the military regime never admitted his existence in Villa Grimaldi, Pablito has taken a good measure of revenge in recent weeks with the Court of Appeals ruling that has left the Pinochet dictatorship's infamously famous Amnesty Law inapplicable.

And as a consequence of that, the detention of the person responsible for many murders, tortures, and disappearances of hundreds of comrades and friends. We always teased him about his profession as a tailor. "We, the working class, have the right to be in the revolution," I would say to tease him. "We, the students," Feliciano would say, "have always been at the vanguard of the struggle alongside the workers." "But you, as a tailor, what the hell are you doing here?" we would say, and we would laugh our heads off, making him angry.

Pablito had a very jovial character. Humble and very respectful. Much less of a "palomilla" (rascal) than us. Also very interested in reading and learning. That kind of mockery didn't last long, which, by the way, was not offensive or disparaging.

On the contrary, it was a sign of our trust as friends. We were from the same neighborhood and we knew each other very well. Feliciano, with his serious character and innate leadership, was like our older brother.

We would go to him when we had personal problems or when political doubts assaulted us. One day Pablito, very seriously, cut our usual post-meeting jokes short. "You know what, you idiots," he told us... "Since the anarchists of the early days of the workers' struggles..." Pablito's "chatter" lasted about half an hour.

He took us through the history of the Chilean labor movement and its origins. From the Mancomunales to the constitution of the CUT. Citing Recabarren, Vitale, and others. At the end, he solemnly told us, "And well, do I or do I not have the right to be with you idiots?" "But of course, compadre," we replied. "Don't take it so seriously, you idiot.

It was just jokes to brighten the calendar," and we went back to laughing our heads off. With him, there was always good humor. Even in the worst moments. We did many things together. From the simplest things in daily life to the most serious ones like wanting to change the world.

But we never stopped being the "neighborhood kids." From our beloved neighborhood that saw us grow up. From the dances, the soccer games, the loves and heartbreaks, from our material poverty, from the loyalty of friendships, and from everything that life teaches us in a working-class neighborhood.

Together with them, we spent our adolescence and, almost without realizing it, we got into "adult things." I had known Chico Feliciano since childhood. We grew up together in the same Renca neighborhood of San Genaro.

In reality, it didn't have anything of a neighborhood yet, since at that time Renca was "nothing but pastures." He was the oldest of four brothers. His father, Don Raul, was an excellent mechanic for the ETC.

His mother, Mrs. Alicia, took care of the children and the grandmother who also lived with them. They lived in a wooden house built by themselves at the entrance of what was the old San Genaro farm. An immense piece of land that was later bought by the ETC and in which some of its workers lived.

Over time, a construction cooperative was formed and the San Genaro settlement was built with well-constructed houses intended for ETC workers. The house they got was located on Street 2, in front of my cousins' and even closer to my house.

Of the four brothers, the one who hung out with us the most was Teco, the second one. Well, for soccer, parties, and the guitar, he was the most festive of the Cornejos. In the middle of his adolescence, he had the bad luck of catching a terrible infection in his knee, for which they had to amputate a leg.

He fell into a great depression that he could only overcome with the love and affection of his family and friends. Obviously, he could never play soccer again, but his character always remained the same.

The third, Pato, was always "on another wavelength," a fanatic for music, an excellent guitarist, a worshiper of Jimi Hendrix. The youngest, Queno, watched us from his short years. The most serious was always Chico Willy (Feliciano).

We called him that because of the habit of always wearing dark glasses. He got so used to it that it became an almost mandatory personal characteristic that he only abandoned after the coup and as a result of the repression.

One day when I was taking the bus that took me to the Hirmas 2 factory (Texicron) where I worked, Chico Willy got on with me. We could never have imagined that that fleeting encounter would change our lives. "Hello Flaco, where are you going?" "To work, Chico, and you?" "I'm going to the Faculty," Chico replied. "I have a test and I don't know how it's going to go." "What are you studying, Chico?" "Psychology," Chico replied. "And where are you working?" "There at Hirmas.

In the new factory." "Hey, and how many workers are there?" "There are about 700, and most of us are all young, apart from the bosses who come from Plant No. 1." "And the union, compadre, how is it doing?" "Not great, they don't pay much attention to us; they say we're just kids and we don't have any idea about social things!" "You know, Flaco, we could do something together.

Maybe if we got together to discuss a little, we could see how to do something." "Well, if you have time, one of these days I'll stop by your house and we'll talk." And that's where our second story with Chico Willy began.

Or rather, with Chico Willy and his family, since we always had limitless support from them. We met at his house and started to see what we could do at the factory level, and then it occurred to us that we could make contact with someone from the MIR to have a broader vision of the things that were happening in our country.

Chico managed to set up a meeting with A. Pascal. At that time, Andres Pascal was a fugitive from justice who, along with other MIR comrades, was being sought by the entire Chilean police force because of the bank robberies of recent times.

One day A. Pascal arrived in our neighborhood, at Chico's house to be exact. There were Chico Feliciano, Pablito, and me. He explained to us that the bank robberies were not criminal matters but "expropriations from capitalism" or "recovering for the people" what the capitalists stole from us daily.

I confess that at first, I didn't "get" his ideas much. "But there are no problems, Flaco," he told me. "I'm going to leave you connected with someone to explain to you why and how the capitalists steal from you; your labor force daily.

And what we do is nothing more than 'recovering' what they steal from you daily." That someone was Rucio James (Patricio Munita), with whom we shared so many beautiful days of our youth. We liked Andrés's speech; and even more his image as a well-educated, honest young man of "good breeding" who cared about the poorest.

It was the first time we saw someone dedicated to politics who had a speech of that nature toward us, poor kids of humble origin who had only seen "politicians of the day" come to give us lectures to gather votes and then "bye-bye." Once the elections were over, they didn't even remember us.

As our elders used to say. That simple meeting, which might appear as something anecdotal, became the founding act of the MIR in Renca. The old MIR militants will remember the importance that Renca had in the development of the MIR in Santiago.

It would be long to list and name all those who shared our houses, our humble homes in those times of honest dreams and ideals. Of those who helped us, who protected us, who showed us their integrity, their loyalty, and courage like Mrs.

Alicia and Don Raul. That is part of another story that has not yet been written. For now, these lines only have the impulse of emotion. Of the memory that arises when seeing the name of Guatón Pablo in all the newspaper headlines.

Of the revenge that is taken after thirty years and that makes us great in the memory of all that youth that one day made us grow and believe that a different world is possible.

Source: archivochile.com, no date

The facts: Miguel Ángel Sandoval Rodríguez (26 years old) was a militant of the Movement of the Revolutionary Left (MIR). A tailor by trade, he was married to Pabla del Carmen Segura Soto, with whom he lived along with his daughter and his sister, Teolinda Sandoval Rodríguez.

Likewise, Miguel Sandoval had been part of the first GAP (Group of Personal Friends), the personal guard of President Salvador Allende. On January 7, 1975, the young tailor left his house at 12:00 hours, indicating that he would return in the afternoon, which was totally frustrated when he was detained by security agents on the public thoroughfare, without a judicial or administrative order to justify it.

He was transported to the "Villa Grimaldi" center for kidnapping, torture, and extermination, administered by the National Intelligence Directorate (DINA) and located in the Peñalolén commune.

Days after his detention, Miguel Sandoval's home was raided by a group of civilians during curfew hours, who identified themselves as members of the Armed Forces, proceeding to steal documents from the victim's room along with a trunk.

The agents of said operation were moving in a green pickup truck without license plates. According to the testimony of other victims who were detained in said center, Miguel Sandoval had been seen alive between January 7 and 21, 1975, in Villa Grimaldi and with evident sequelae of having been tortured, both physically and psychologically, through the practice of the "confrontation" (careo).

Since then, his whereabouts are unknown. Faced with such aberrant facts, on February 18, 1975, the victim's sister filed an amparo appeal, stating that since the day her brother was illegitimately detained, she had no news of him.

Source: repositorio.uchile.cl, no date