The events took place in Peñalolén in 1973. The repressors were traveling in a pickup truck that had been illicitly requisitioned from Miriam Contreras Bell, personal secretary to former President Salvador Allende.

The Supreme Court rejected the appeals in cassation filed against the sentence that convicted four retired Carabineros officers from the staff of the then 13th Los Guindos Police Station, for their responsibility in the crimes of abduction of a minor, aggravated kidnapping, and homicide, offenses perpetrated in October 1973 in the current commune of Peñalolén.

In a unanimous ruling (case file 20.937-2018), the Second Chamber of the high court—composed of ministers Carlos Künsemüller, Haroldo Brito, Manuel Antonio Valderrama, Jorge Dahm, and lawyer (i) María Cristina Gajardo—confirmed the challenged sentence, issued by the Santiago Court of Appeals, which sentenced Juan Gregorio Paredes Rodríguez to 10 years and one day in prison as the perpetrator of the aggravated homicide of José Adrián Ramírez Díaz; plus 3 years and one day in prison for the abduction of the minor Pedro Hugo Pérez Godoy.

Meanwhile, Francisco Fernando Contreras Torres must serve a single sentence of 10 years and one day in prison as the perpetrator of the aggravated kidnapping of Héctor Manuel Peña Catalán and Luis Armando Vergara González; Pedro Alejandro Lorenzo Herrera Mossuto must serve a single sentence of 7 years as the perpetrator of the aggravated kidnapping of Héctor Manuel Peña Catalán and Luis Armando Vergara González; and Bernardo Segundo Pérez Arriagada was sentenced to 7 years in prison as the perpetrator of the aggravated homicide of José Adrián Ramírez Díaz.

In the investigation of the case, substantiated by the visiting judge Leopoldo Llanos, the following facts were established:

«Pedro Hugo Pérez Godoy, single, 15 years old, primary school student, with no political affiliation, whose residence was located at Manzana 10, Site 20, Villa Los Guindos in the commune of Ñuñoa; and José Adrián Ramírez Díaz, single, 20 years old, assistant to a street market merchant, with no political affiliation, illiterate, member of a family of eleven siblings, residing at Manzana 17, Pasaje 152, house 6882, Villa Pedro Lagos in the commune of Peñalolén, on October 17, 1973, were walking along a street near their homes, together with a friend, José Romilio Sepúlveda Merino.

At the moment they reached the intersection of Los Orientales and Ictinos streets, in the commune of Ñuñoa, current Peñalolén, at approximately 3:00 PM, they were detained, without cause, nor any administrative or judicial order, by officers belonging to the 13th Carabineros Police Station of Ñuñoa (…) The young men were forced to climb into the back of the pickup truck.

The truck where José Ramírez Díaz and Pedro Hugo Pérez Godoy remained deprived of their liberty was driven from the police post to the premises of the Viña Cousiño Macul, where the vehicle stopped and the detainees were made to get out, and were forced to walk to the bank of the San Carlos canal. It was at this site that, from a few meters away, they were shot with firearms».

In the case of Vergara and Peña, it was established that «on October 15, 1973, Luis Armando Vergara González, married, father of one child, 22 years old, laborer, with no political affiliation and whose residence was located at Villa Lautaro, Manzana E, Site 18, Población Lo Hermida in the commune of Ñuñoa, was apprehended without legal cause in its vicinity, at approximately 9:15 PM, by two Carabineros officers belonging to the 13th Los Guindos Police Station of Ñuñoa, who were traveling in a red pickup truck that had been illicitly requisitioned from Miriam Contreras Bell, personal secretary to the former President of the Republic Salvador Allende.

Immediately, the captors, together with the detainee, headed to the home of Hernán Manuel Peña Catalán, married, father of two children, 20 years old, who worked as a driver, with no political affiliation whatsoever.

Although his residence was located at Villa El Duraznal, Manzana 7, Site 5, Población Lo Hermida in the commune of Ñuñoa, he could not be found by the police at that location. However, after a search carried out in the vicinity of his home, Peña Catalán was detained and, together with Vergara González, they were taken to the aforementioned Police Station».

Source: elciudadano.cl, November 25, 2021

A few weeks after the coup, a group of Carabineros took revenge for a fight during a soccer match in the Población La Faena. On International Human Rights Day, we tell this story, which is part of the podcast Ñuñoa tiene memoria, which narrates stories of places where dictatorship crimes occurred in the commune.

In September 1973, two soccer teams from the Población La Faena faced each other on the San Carlos field. The pickup game was between neighbors of the neighborhood: on one side was the Unión Victoria team, made up of residents from the west of Ictinos Street; on the other, the Club Deportivo Cordillera, made up of those who lived to the east.

The ball rolling across the dirt field kept the eight players on each side distracted from the enormous crisis being experienced at that time. None of them knew yet that the country's cruel destiny would intersect with the outcome of that match.

On International Human Rights Day, at El Desconcierto we remember this story, which is part of the Ñuñoa tiene Memoria Podcast by Ñuñoa tu Radio in co-production with the Corporación Estadio Nacional, Memoria Nacional, which tells the stories of places in the commune where there were human rights violations during the dictatorship, but in many cases are not recognized today.

What happens on the field does not stay on the field

There were only a few days left until the coup d'état led by Augusto Pinochet. However, in this sector of the capital, which at that time belonged to Ñuñoa, the concern was how Unión Victoria could overcome the goal difference against Deportivo Cordillera. The enthusiastic soccer players were young. The youngest was 15 years old, the oldest 22.

A kick or simply a taunt—time has made these details fuzzy—strained the atmosphere, and insults led to punches. Héctor Vásquez Sepúlveda, a neighbor from La Faena who switched from Unión Victoria to Cordillera, got into a fight with Francisco Contreras Torres, who belonged to his former team and was a Carabinero from the 13th "Los Guindos" Police Station (current 18th Police Station of Ñuñoa).

The intensity of the fight increased. Juan Manuel Veloso Ortiz, also a Carabinero from the 13th Police Station, a coworker and teammate of Francisco Contreras, joined the brawl to support him. On the opposing side, Hernán Peña Catalán, Luis Vergara González, José Ramírez Díaz, and Pedro Pérez Godoy got involved.

The San Carlos field was the scene of a pitched battle, although nothing different from what happens in hundreds of matches that occur every weekend in the neighborhoods of Santiago.

"What happens on the field, stays on the field," some commented after the fight, but that was not the case. "The match was between them, two teams, a normal pickup game. My dad's team was winning and, I don't know, they got annoyed and started throwing punches.

My dad hit him, because he was good with his fists. Then the coup d'état happened and the cop took it upon himself to go look for him. I think that was an abuse of power," recalls José Barahona Ulloa, son of Héctor Vásquez.

Abuse of power

The laborer Luis Vergara González was heading to his house in Villa Lautaro a few minutes after 9:00 PM, the time set by the Military Junta for the curfew that day, October 15, 1973. It had been a little over a month since the bombing of La Moneda and with it the seizure of power by the Armed Forces.

Luis was a few blocks from his house when a red pickup truck approached him, which until a few weeks earlier had belonged to Miria Contreras Bell, personal secretary to the late President Salvador Allende.

But the 22-year-old worker did not know that and only saw a vehicle from which Francisco Contreras, the policeman with whom he had fought on the San Carlos field, got out. Together with another Carabinero, they subdued him to take him into custody. The vehicle quickly set off: he would not be the only one.

A couple of streets away, in Villa El Duraznal, was the house of Hernán Peña, a 20-year-old driver who had also participated in the pickup game. At his home, they only found his two children and other relatives, so the police decided to "sweep" the neighborhood until they found him. They took him away as well. The destination was the "Los Guindos" Police Station.

"They were detained in a civilian car, which curiously had been taken from, had been confiscated from, the secretary of President Allende. It belonged to 'La Payita'," relates Alejandro Ancalao, doctor in history and head of the Heritage Department of the Municipality of Ñuñoa, an organization that is investigating the victims of the dictatorship in the commune.

"Is 'Beto' there?"

Ancalao narrates that two days later, the police repeated the routine with Pedro Pérez Godoy, who was a 15-year-old boy, and José Adrián Ramírez Díaz, who was a 20-year-old young man, a seventh-grade student who worked as a street market assistant. They were detained on Ictinos Street.

These two young men were taken to the same place as their teammates from Deportivo Cordillera; however, it was already overwhelmed by the number of detainees, so they were transferred to the Quilín Police Post, under the 13th Carabineros Police Station.

At 1:00 AM, they were taken out of the police facility and transported in "La Payita's" red pickup truck to the premises of the Viña Cousiño Macul.

The vehicle stopped before a panoramic view of Santiago under curfew. Carabineros, under the instructions of Lieutenant Pedro Herrera Mossuto, made the amateur soccer players from the La Faena neighborhood get out and forced them to walk to the bank of the San Carlos canal.

At that place, the officers drew their firearms and shot them. The wounds caused the death of José Ramírez, while the whereabouts of Pedro Pérez remain unknown to this day.

"Is 'Beto' there?", was heard only hours later on October 18, 1973, in front of Héctor Vásquez's house. The young man from Deportivo Cordillera was bathing, and his siblings received the two Carabineros dressed in civilian clothes who were asking for him, Francisco Contreras and Juan Manuel Veloso.

The officers were known to the family because they lived in the neighborhood. It seemed like a simple visit from some neighbors.

When Héctor came out of the bathroom, they asked him to accompany them because he had to provide a statement at the police station regarding the fight at the soccer match. The police took him away on a public bus, where they coincidentally ran into the young man's mother, who became worried when she saw the scene.

The Carabineros told her not to worry, that they only needed to take his testimony and he would be back home soon. Since that day, Beto has been a forcibly disappeared person, just like Luis Vergara and Hernán Peña, about whom no further information has been obtained since their kidnapping.

Héctor Vásquez's girlfriend at the time, Mercedes Ulloa Almonacid, who was expecting a child with him at the time of his kidnapping, recalls: "I found out because his sister told me that he had been lost, that some people had taken him, but they didn't know if they were Carabineros because they weren't dressed as Carabineros; that he had been lost and then two, three, or four days passed (…) His sister started looking for him later.

A week passed and he didn't appear. They had told us that his mother had seen him."

13th Carabineros Police Station during the dictatorship

Historian Alejandro Ancalao explains that the case of the young men from the La Faena neighborhood brings to light that the crimes of the dictatorship were against the entire population and not just directed at a political sector. "The objective was not only political people, with political participation, but it was the entire society.

To implant terror, fear, in the entire society, and that was done indiscriminately," he argues.

The head of the Heritage Department of the Municipality of Ñuñoa adds that many of these abuses were carried out thanks to "the henchmen, those who accuse or denounce neighbors due to problems between them, and we end up with cases of forcibly disappeared persons who had absolutely no political relationship, but were simply due to the arbitrariness of public officials."

"Between 1973 and 1990, all the police stations in the country were places of detention. All of them. There is not one that did not have detainees, that did not have forcibly disappeared persons within them, or where there was no torture within some.

All of them are recognized, and some were destroyed in the final days of the dictatorship to be able to erase some cases," the expert concludes based on official reports.

In 2017, the Supreme Court sentenced former Carabineros Francisco Contreras Torres and Pedro Herrera Mossuto to seven years in prison for the disappearance of Héctor Vásquez. Furthermore, in 2021, the high court determined a 10-year and one-day prison sentence for officer Juan Paredes Rodríguez for the aggravated homicide of José Ramírez Díaz and the abduction of the minor Pedro Pérez Godoy; another 10 years and one day for Francisco Contreras Torres for the aggravated kidnappings of Hernán Peña and Luis Vergara, the same crime for which it sentenced Pedro Herrera Mossuto to 7 years in prison.

Likewise, Bernardo Pérez Arriagada was sentenced to 7 years in prison for the murder of José Ramírez Díaz.

Héctor Vásquez's son, José Barahona, maintains that "they gave the cop very little" and says, nearly 50 years after the event: "I have little hope that he is alive; what I have hope for is that his bones might appear."

Despite the sentences, those close to the victims and neighbors of the police station know very little information about the case. For example, Mercedes Ulloa states that she knew the other victims besides Héctor Vásquez, her boyfriend at the time. "But I didn't know that the same thing had happened to them, that they had taken them, that they had killed them," she says.

Ñuñoa tiene memoria is a work by Edgar Pfennings de la Vega on the script and research, Felipe Zenteno on the music, and Rodrigo Montanter and Fernando Pereira on the sound.

Other sites in the commune that are remembered in this podcast are the current 18th "Los Guindos" Police Station, the former Campus Oriente of the University of Chile, and the Investigations Barracks at Obispo Orrego No. 241, in addition to the partially recognized Estadio Nacional and José Domingo Cañas.

Source: eldesconcierto.cl, December 11, 2022