Osvaldo Segundo Barriga Gutiérrez, 23 years old, a student and Socialist Party militant, was detained on November 21, 1975, along with his friend and business partner, Hernán Eusebio Catalán Escobar, at a place known as "La Cascada," in the commune of Toltén, Pitrufquén Department.

They were detained on a public road by Carabineros officers belonging to the Comuy police station, who were accompanied by a group of civilians residing in Faja Maissa, identified as Luis Granzotto, Francisco Cifuentes, and Luis Salazar, all of whom actively participated in the police procedure. Both young men were taken to an unknown destination.

Osvaldo Barriga resided in the city of Loncoche, where he worked with his friend Catalán in a shoe repair shop. He had moved to that city after September 11, 1973. His mother's home, located in the city of Pitrufquén, was raided on several occasions starting in the first days of October 1973 by Carabineros, who entered the house under the pretext of searching for non-existent weapons while also asking for Osvaldo Barriga.

His mother, Mrs. Marta del Carmen Gutiérrez Véjar, learned of his detention through a communication from Catalán's mother and an anonymous letter sent to her informing her of the events. Once aware of her son's situation, she began making the necessary inquiries to locate him or learn of his fate at the hands of his captors, only to be met with a systematic refusal by the authorities to officially acknowledge the detention.

Only the Pitrufquén Carabineros stated that they were aware of the detention of both young men and suggested directing inquiries to the Military Prosecutor's Office in Temuco. At that court, it was claimed that the captors had likely taken the detainees directly to Santiago without first processing them through the Prosecutor's Office.

JUDICIAL AND/OR ADMINISTRATIVE ACTIONS

In June 1975, Mrs. Laura Escobar Contreras, mother of the young Hernán Catalán Escobar, filed a report for alleged disappearance regarding her son and Osvaldo Barriga before the Pitrufquén Court of Letters, in which she detailed the circumstances of the arrest.

During the processing of the case, registered under file number 6313, the presiding judge, Mr. Carlos Leonello Bottacci L., issued an order for the Pitrufquén Carabineros to investigate and a summons for the civilians identified as Aquiles Granzotto, Francisco Cifuentes, and Luis Salazar, who had allegedly acted as captors alongside the Carabineros.

The police institution returned the investigation order, reporting that it was not possible to locate the disappeared persons and that, furthermore, no one knew them and they did not appear to be residents of the area.

In October 1976, Carabineros Sergeant 2nd Class Eudosio Díaz Ibacache, head of the Comuy station, appeared before the court and stated that he did not know the affected parties and therefore had no information to contribute to the investigation, presuming that the two people mentioned by the court may have been detained by the Toltén Carabineros.

In November of that same year, the judge declared Eusebio Catalán and Osvaldo Barriga to be in default for all legal purposes.

In May 1977, Carabineros Lieutenant Juan Arnoldo Erices Araya, from the Toltén station, appeared before the Pitrufquén Court and stated that it was unlikely that Toltén police officers had participated in the detention of the two affected individuals, because the "La Cascada" location corresponds to the Comuy sector.

In November 1977, the Minister of the Interior, General Raúl Benavides Escobar, reported that the aforementioned persons were not registered in that Ministry's records, nor was there any record of any order or resolution affecting them.

On the 26th of that same month and year, the judge temporarily dismissed the case on the grounds that the perpetration of the crime that led to the formation of the proceedings had not been fully justified.

This resolution was approved by the Court of Appeals in December of that year, despite the fact that the most important measure decreed in the processing of the case—the summons under arrest warrant for the 3 civilian captors mentioned in the disappearance report—remained pending, as they had not been found by the date of the aforementioned resolution.

However, the Court did note to the Judge that he should not have declared the disappeared persons in default, as they were neither accused nor defendants.

In June 1979, the case was reopened and the summary proceedings resumed, with the records transferred to the Visiting Minister Alfredo Meynet González for consolidation with case 2-79, which investigated the cases of the forcibly disappeared persons from the Temuco Department.

In May 1979, the Investigative Police, the agency that carried out the investigation order issued by the Minister, reported that it had interviewed the respective mothers of the two forcibly disappeared persons, who ratified their previous statements.

Although the 3 civilians who acted alongside the Carabineros in the detention of the victims were mentioned in the filing, there is no record that they provided statements to the Minister, nor does the investigation order carried out by the Investigative Police mention them.

On November 25, 1979, the Visiting Minister declared himself incompetent and referred the records to the IV Military Court of Valdivia, on the grounds that all the persons whose disappearance was being investigated had been detained by uniformed personnel.

In December 1979, the Military Court accepted jurisdiction and ordered the instruction of case 1192-bis-79 to the Cautín Military Prosecutor's Office. In June 1980, Luis Granzotto Cibert appeared before the Prosecutor's Office and stated, in relation to the events in which he was implicated, that he had never had any involvement in such events, did not know the people mentioned who allegedly acted alongside him in the detention of the victims, and had never known of any COFAMA official with the surname Cifuentes (as claimed in the report).

Regarding Luis Salazar, he stated that he knew him, but that Salazar had lived in Argentina for many years and had only visited on a few occasions, and he did not believe or recall that he had done so on the date mentioned as the time of the detention.

He added in his statement that a separate report indicated that one of the captors was Aquiles Granzotto, who is his nephew and lives in Gorbea, and whom he did not believe would have been involved in such acts.

On October 24, 1980, the Military Judge dismissed the case totally and definitively by virtue of the 1978 Amnesty Decree Law.

Source: Corporation report

A former Carabineros captain and a former sergeant major have been detained for their responsibility in the kidnapping and disappearance of two Mapuche individuals and several others. Former Carabineros Captain Carlos Moreno Mena and former Carabineros Sergeant Major Reinaldo Alberto Lukowiac Luppy are being held in Temuco, involved in the disappearance of two Mapuche individuals in 1973 (during the Pinochet dictatorship), who remain forcibly disappeared to this day: Luis Caupolicán Calfuquir Villalón and Pedro Curihual Paillao.

Also included in the same proceedings are the forcibly disappeared persons Enrique Tenorio Fuentes, former Regional Director of Education; Luis Gastón Lobos Barrientos, then-Intendant of Temuco and former Deputy of the Republic; Raúl Stepke Muñoz, a farmer; and Osvaldo Segundo Barriga Gutiérrez, a student.

Both State agents, Moreno and Lukowiac, are in preventive detention accused of the kidnapping and disappearance of the seven people described above, all from the Pitrufquén commune, and for the coercion and mistreatment of a hundred other people between 1973 and 1975.

The proceedings begin with the specific case of Enrique Tenorio Fuentes, and it is certain that the involved civilians will be summoned.

Luis Caupolicán Calfuquir Villalón is the father of Marcelo Calfuquir, María Elena, and Lautaro, who are currently responsible for several Indigenous programs and projects, and Patricio, who was murdered by the dictatorship in 1981. All of them, along with their mother Elena Henríquez, were prisoners and were mistreated in the dictatorship's concentration camps and prisons.

Pedro Curihual Paillal is a member of Luis's family and is the current head of the Mapuche Communal Association of Pitrufquén. The former agents are being held at the Second Carabineros Precinct of Temuco.

Visiting Minister Fernando Carreño IX Region, Araucanía.

Source: mapuche-nation.org, October 29, 2005.

Date: 10-29-2005