The brothers Ceferino Antonio Yaufulem Mañil, 23, single, 1 child, agricultural laborer; Miguel Eduardo Yaufulem Mañil, 24, single, agricultural laborer; and Oscar Rumualdo Yaufulem Mañil, 18, single, agricultural laborer, with no political affiliation, were detained in June 1974 under the following circumstances: One day in June 1974, which their parents cannot recall with exactitude, Ceferino Antonio Yaufulem traveled to Lautaro for the purpose of selling coal, an activity he performed regularly.

He did not return. The following day, his father, José Segundo Yaufulem Pinto, was detained by Carabineros from Lautaro and held at the local police station. In that facility, he was able to see his son in detention.

Days later, on June 11, around 10:00 a.m., civilians and Carabineros—one of them identified as Domingo Campos—detained Miguel Eduardo and Oscar Rumualdo Yaufulem Mañil. Both brothers were forced to leave their home located in the Curanilahue reservation in the commune of Lautaro with their hands on their necks and were made to walk until they reached the road to Curacautín, where a pickup truck was waiting for them.

That same day, June 11, the same patrol, composed of 7 civilians and 3 Carabineros, detained José Julio Llaulen Antilao, who resided in the Mulato reservation in the commune of Lautaro, and Juan Eleuterio Cheuquepán Levinilla, 16, a student who resided in the place known as Quiñaco Manzanar, also in the commune of Lautaro.

Subsequently, the identities of two of the Carabineros who carried out the arrests were established: Mario Ponce Orellana, a Carabineros non-commissioned officer retired in 1977; Domingo Antonio Campos Collao, a retired Carabineros non-commissioned officer; and the civilian Eduardo Enrique Salazar Herrera, the driver of the pickup truck used in the detentions.

Carabineros informed Juan Cheuquepán's family that they were investigating a livestock theft, for which they also blamed Juan's father. Since they did not find the father at home that day, they took the minor instead.

The parents of the brothers Ceferino Antonio, Miguel Eduardo, and Oscar Rumualdo Yaufulem Mañil carried out numerous efforts and inquiries aimed at determining the whereabouts and fate of their sons, without achieving any results; they remain to this day as forcibly disappeared.

JUDICIAL AND/OR ADMINISTRATIVE ACTIONS

Ms. Emilia Mañil Pairiqueo carried out efforts at the time of the events, most of which were directed toward the Carabineros, who always denied the facts.

In February 1991, the National Commission for Truth and Reconciliation sent the information in its possession regarding the detention and disappearance of the Yaufulem Mañil brothers, José Julio Llaulen Antilao, Juan Cheuquepán Levinilla, and Samuel Huichallán Llanquilén to the Lautaro Court of Letters, a tribunal that began processing the complaint under Case File No. 37.860.

Before the same Lautaro Court of Letters, on April 29, 1991, the mother of the Yaufulem Mañil brothers filed a criminal complaint for the kidnapping of her three sons. Days later, on May 5 and 6, the relatives of José Llaulen and Juan Cheuquepán also filed complaints.

In all three legal actions, it was requested that they be joined to Case File No. 37.860 of the same tribunal regarding the alleged disappearance of these same individuals, a request that was granted.

In Case File No. 37.860, the victims' relatives testified, including Emilia Mañil Painequeo, a witness to the detention of Miguel and Oscar Yaufulem, and José Segundo Yaufulem Pinto, the father of the affected parties.

The latter witness declared that he had been detained in June 1974, one day after his son Ceferino Antonio, and that he had seen him while being held at the Lautaro police station. Both witnesses identified Antonio Campos as one of the Carabineros who carried out the arrests.

On April 5, 1991, the Investigations Service returned a report to the tribunal with the results of the investigation that had been requested regarding the alleged disappearance of the aforementioned individuals.

Investigations took statements from the relatives of the forcibly disappeared and from some witnesses to the detentions, who coincided in pointing out that the Carabineros who carried out the arrests were Mario Ponce Orellana and Domingo Antonio Campos Collao.

They were also called to testify and acknowledged having been part of the Lautaro police station staff at the time of the detentions. Domingo Campos stated that during the time he worked at the Dollinco police outpost, he knew most of the cattle rustlers in that sector, whom he had several times placed at the disposal of the Lautaro Criminal Court for livestock theft.

Upon arriving to work at the Lautaro police station, he became part of an "operational group" intended to combat the aforementioned crimes.

Regarding the affected parties, he stated that he did not know them and had not participated in their detentions.

Retired Carabinero Mario Ponce Orellana also testified, denying his participation in the events.

The conclusion of the Investigations report was: "the veracity of each complaint and the existence of the corpus delicti were proven." "It was not possible to establish with certainty the persons responsible for the crimes being investigated."

In May 1991, Carabineros Campos and Ponce testified in the proceedings, reiterating their denial. In October of that year, the Judge ordered a confrontation between the Carabineros who carried out the arrests and the victims' relatives, who ratified their previous statements.

On November 7, 1991, the Judge of Letters of Lautaro declared the summary closed and ordered the temporary dismissal of the case. Following a complaint filed by the aggrieved party, the Temuco Court of Appeals issued a ruling on December 13, 1991, that reverted the case to its summary stage and ordered the prosecution and preventive detention of Mario Ponce Orellana, Domingo Antonio Campos Collao, and Eduardo Enrique Salazar Herrera as perpetrators of the crimes contemplated in Articles 141, paragraph 1, and 142 of the Penal Code regarding the kidnapping of José Julio Llaulén and the abduction of the minor Juan Eleuterio Cheuquepán Levinilla. Once the investigation was restarted in January 1992, the vehicle driver, Eduardo Enrique Salazar Herrera, appeared and denied his participation in the detentions.

The defendants in the case appealed against the indictment; the Judge declared the appeal inadmissible, so the defendants filed a complaint with the Temuco Court of Appeals.

In the complaint filed by Eduardo Salazar Herrera, it was argued that the Judge was the only one who, according to the law, could issue an indictment and that, furthermore, the Court should only have ruled on the closing of the summary and the dismissal. The Court rejected the appeal on the grounds that the defendants had not presented new evidence.

Also in said appeal, the classification of the criminal acts was challenged; in the opinion of the defendants, José Llaulén and Juan Cheuquepán are dead, so the Amnesty Law should be applied rather than defining them as a permanent crime.

Regarding this argument, the Court stated: "it is precisely important in this investigation to establish whether Llaulén and Cheuquepán died as a result of the crimes of which they were victims, and on what date, in order to study the applicability of the statute of limitations and/or amnesty, but all of that would be the subject of study at a later stage, in the final judgment and not now."

On May 4, the Court of Appeals rejected the complaint filed by Eduardo Salazar and by Carabineros Ponce and Campos.

The three defendants filed a complaint with the Supreme Court, and by the end of 1992, the Court had rejected the complaint in the case of Carabineros Mario Ponce Orellana and Domingo Campos Collao, and the ruling in the case of the civilian Eduardo Enrique Salazar Herrera was pending. The case remained in the summary stage.

Although three of the perpetrators of the detention of the affected parties were being held for their participation in the case of other forcibly disappeared persons from June 1974, the fate of the brothers Ceferino Antonio, Miguel Eduardo, and Oscar Rumualdo Yaufulem Mañil remains unknown.

For further information, see the file for Juan Eleuterio Cheuquepán Levinilla, detained on June 11, 1974.

Source: Corporation report

In a split decision, the Temuco Court of Appeals reduced to 15 years of effective imprisonment the sentence against former Carabineros non-commissioned officer Domingo Antonio Campos Collao, as the perpetrator of the qualified kidnappings of community members Samuel Huichallán Levián, Ceferino Antonio Yaufulem Mañil, Miguel Eduardo Yaufulem Mañil, and Oscar Rumualdo Yaufulem Mañil.

The crimes of kidnapping and disappearance of these individuals were perpetrated starting in June 1974 in the commune of Lautaro.

The first-instance sentence of 20 years of imprisonment, issued by Minister Álvaro Mesa Latorre, condemned the responsible party to 20 years of effective imprisonment. The Second Chamber of the Temuco appellate court (case file 982-2020)—composed of ministers María Georgina Gutiérrez Aravena, Cecilia Subiabre Tapia, and lawyer (ad hoc) Roberto Contreras Eddinger—relied on a "lack of aggravating factors" to justify its decision to reduce the sentence; this resolution was adopted with the dissenting vote of Minister María Georgina Gutiérrez, who was in favor of confirming the 20-year sentence imposed on the convicted man by the extraordinary visiting minister.

During the investigation stage, Minister Mesa Latorre managed to prove the culpable participation of the convicted man; the other participants in the criminal acts, for the most part, have already died, leaving behind a trail of crimes and a cloak of impunity. The absent, initially, and later the late and slow work of the justice system, is primarily responsible for the prevailing impunity.

In the course of the proceedings, Minister Mesa Latorre established the following facts:

«That starting on September 11, 1973, at the 1st Carabineros Station of Lautaro, the command in charge of the unit, including Major Jorge Enrique Schweizer Gómez and Captain Marcial Edmundo Vera Ríos, organized and coordinated a special group of Carabineros, including Juvenal Santiago Sanhueza Sanhueza, Enrique Ferrier Valeze, Mario Ponce Orellana, a Carabinero, and Corporal Domingo Antonio Campos Collao, among others, who, under the orders of Lieutenant José Orlando Huerta Ávila, collaborated with army personnel from the La Concepción Regiment of Lautaro, carrying out joint patrols in the rural area under the jurisdiction of the aforementioned police unit, while simultaneously identifying the names and addresses of individuals who were subsequently detained and taken to the police station to be interrogated in different areas of that unit; or who were removed by this special group of Carabineros and military personnel to be taken to locations unknown to this date.

That Ceferino Antonio Yaufulem Mañil, a small Mapuche farmer, 24 years old, married, one child, with no known political affiliation, was detained in the city of Lautaro on June 11, 1974, during the morning, by Carabineros officials from that city, including Corporal Domingo Antonio Campos Collao, after having traveled to that location from his home located in the Curanilahue Mapuche community for the purpose of selling coal and buying merchandise and wood for the construction of his house.

During the afternoon, his home was raided by Carabineros. After he did not arrive home, his family carried out a series of efforts to find his whereabouts, for which his father, Mr. José Segundo Yaufulem Pinto, was detained by Lautaro Carabineros officials and taken to the local police station, where he was able to observe his son, Ceferino Antonio, inside one of the cells, having been brutally beaten.

The following day, he saw his son being removed by Carabineros officials, after which all information regarding his whereabouts is unknown.

The brothers Oscar Rumualdo Yaufulem Mañil, a small Mapuche farmer, 18 years old, single, with no known political affiliation, and Miguel Eduardo Yaufulem Mañil, 25 years old, single, a small Mapuche farmer, with no known political affiliation, were detained on June 11, 1974, at approximately 2:30 p.m., by Perquenco Carabineros officials, including one from the Lautaro police station staff, who was Corporal Domingo Antonio Campos Collao, at their home located in the Curanilahue Mapuche community, commune of Lautaro.

Both brothers were forced to leave their house with their hands on their necks and were made to walk until they reached the road to Curacautín, where a pickup truck was waiting for them. They were then taken to a nearby river where they were submerged.

That Samuel Huichallán Levián, a small Mapuche farmer, married, three children, with no known political affiliation, was detained during the morning of June 11, 1974, by Lautaro Carabineros officials, including Corporal Domingo Antonio Campos Collao, at his home located in the Quiñaco Manzanar indigenous community, commune of Lautaro.

A witness to the above was his spouse, Mrs. Petronila Rañil Llanquilén, who was heavily beaten by the arresting group, and who was also able to observe when they were beating her spouse heavily on the banks of the Quiñaco stream, meters from their home. After his detention, all traces of him were lost».

Source: RESUMEN.CL 6/21/2021 Date: 06-21-2021

State must pay one billion pesos to relatives of small farmers who were forcibly disappeared

Along with condemning and repudiating these events, Minister Álvaro Mesa applied the legal accessory penalties of absolute perpetual disqualification from public office and positions to those convicted of the qualified kidnappings of the Yaufulem Mañil brothers and Samuel Huichaillán, which occurred in June 1974 in the commune of Lautaro.

The extraordinary visiting minister for human rights violation cases in the jurisdictions of Temuco, Valdivia, Puerto Montt, and Coyhaique, Álvaro Mesa Latorre, sentenced retired Carabineros non-commissioned officer Domingo Campos Collao to 20 years of imprisonment as the perpetrator of the crime of qualified kidnapping of Samuel Huichaillán Levián, Miguel Eduardo Yaufulem Mañil, Ceferino Antonio Yaufulem Mañil, and Óscar Rumualdo Yaufulem Mañil.

These crimes were perpetrated in June 1974 in the commune of Lautaro.

In the ruling, the visiting minister also applied to Campos Collao the legal accessory penalties of absolute perpetual disqualification from public office and political rights, and absolute disqualification from holding professional positions for the duration of the sentence, plus the payment of court costs.

During the investigation stage, Minister Mesa Latorre established as proven: "starting on September 11, 1973, at the 1st Carabineros Station of Lautaro, the command in charge of the unit, including Major Jorge Enrique Schweizer Gómez and Captain Marcial Edmundo Vera Ríos, organized and coordinated a special group of Carabineros, who, under the orders of Lieutenant José Orlando Huerta Ávila, collaborated with army personnel from the La Concepción Regiment of Lautaro, carrying out joint patrols in the rural area under the jurisdiction of the aforementioned police unit, while simultaneously identifying the names and addresses of individuals who were subsequently detained and taken to the police station to be interrogated in different areas of that unit; or who were removed by this special group of Carabineros and military personnel to be taken to locations unknown to this date."

He also considered it proven that Ceferino Antonio Yaufulem Mañil, a small Mapuche farmer, was detained in the city of Lautaro on June 11, 1974, by Carabineros officials from that city, while he was selling coal and buying merchandise and wood for the construction of his house. After being detained, his home located in the Curanilahue Mapuche community was raided by Carabineros.

"After he did not arrive home, his family carried out a series of efforts to find his whereabouts, for which his father, Mr. José Segundo Yaufulem Pinto, was detained by Lautaro Carabineros officials and taken to the local police station, where he was able to observe his son, Ceferino Antonio, inside one of the cells, having been brutally beaten.

The following day, he saw his son being removed by Carabineros officials, after which all information regarding his whereabouts is unknown," the resolution states.

Likewise, the ruling adds that the brothers Oscar Yaufulem and Miguel Yaufulem were detained that same day and were forced to leave their house with their hands on their necks, being made to walk until they reached the road to Curacautín, where a pickup truck was waiting for them. They were then taken to a nearby river where they were submerged.

The parents of the 3 brothers carried out numerous efforts and inquiries aimed at determining the whereabouts and fate of their sons, without achieving any results; they remain to this day as forcibly disappeared.

Likewise, it adds: "that Samuel Huichallán Levián, a small Mapuche farmer (...) was detained during the morning of June 11, 1974, by Lautaro Carabineros officials, including Corporal Domingo Antonio Campos Collao, at his home located in the Quiñaco Manzanar indigenous community, commune of Lautaro.

A witness to the above was his spouse, Mrs. Petronila Rañil Llanquilén, who was heavily beaten by the arresting group, and who was also able to observe when they were beating her spouse heavily on the banks of the Quiñaco stream, meters from their home. After his detention, all traces of him were lost."

In the civil aspect, the sentence ordered the state to pay a total indemnity of $1,000,000,000 (one billion pesos) to the victims' relatives.

Source: araucaniadiario.cl 8/10/2020