Chilean. Born on June 30, 1944. 32 years old. He worked as a bricklayer. In Chile, he was a member of the Partido Comunista Chileno, but in our lands, he became involved with the Peronismo de Base. He was illegitimately deprived of his liberty on the night of June 6, 1977, at 23:00 hours, at his home on Calle 13 in Chapadmalal, Mar del Plata, when 15 men in civilian clothes identified as Federal Police, along with some uniformed personnel carrying long guns, broke in.

They forced him and his brother, Raúl René, to leave and took them both away. After hours passed without their return, his sister, Mirna Rojas Fajardo, proceeded to report the events to the 4th, 3rd, and 1st police precincts, as well as to the Federal Police delegation and the GADA 601; everywhere she went, she was informed that they did not know the whereabouts of her brothers.

Raúl René, a labor delegate at “Ascensores Volta,” was detained for a period of one year and eight months until he was released and expelled from the country, exiling himself to France, where he still resides.

But Hernán Artemio Rojas Fajardo never appeared alive again. It should be noted that the report by the National Commission on the Disappearance of Persons (CONADEP) lists the date of the kidnappings as June 7, 1976. The Mar del Plata-based “Colectivo Faro de la Memoria” lists it as June 7, 1977.

Source: robertobaschetti.com

Hernán Rojas Fajardo was taken from his home in 1977, in front of his mother and siblings, four of whom had to leave the country. “My mother died of sadness,” testified his sisters at the trial.

By June 1977, the Rojas Fajardo family consisted of ten siblings, and most of them lived in Estación Chapadmalal, some even in their mother’s house. On Tuesday the 7th, the family’s life changed completely: Hernán was dragged from his bed and kidnapped by military personnel in front of his mother and several of his siblings.

From that moment on, an untiring search began, marked by intimidation and permeated by fear. 42 years later, that search has yielded no results, and Hernán’s sisters find no solace. They try to “understand over and over again why,” recounting that another of their brothers was detained under torture for almost two years, noting that due to fear, four of them had to go into exile, and stating that their mother “died of sadness.”

Mirna, Nélida, Alicia, and Nora, Hernán’s sisters, recently testified as witnesses in the trial for crimes against humanity that has been taking place at the Oral Federal Tribunal of Mar del Plata since April of last year. The trial involves 43 defendants accused of crimes committed in Subzone 15—a jurisdictional area—and in the clandestine detention centers “La Cueva” and the Naval Base.

Hernán Artemio Rojas Fajardo, a militant of the Peronismo de Base, was kidnapped on June 6, 1977, around 23:00 hours, at his home in Estación Chapadmalal, where he lived with his mother and some of his siblings.

There, after warning the neighbors to keep all lights off and not to go outside, a dozen men in civilian clothes and some in uniform broke in armed and began to take the male siblings out of the house until it was Hernán’s turn and one of them said, “it’s him.” From that day on, his family never knew anything more, despite an untiring search, and today he remains forcibly disappeared.

Some years earlier, one of Hernán’s brothers, Raúl René—who was a delegate at the company Ascensores Volta—was detained for a year and eight months until he was released and expelled from the country, after which he went into exile in France, where he passed away.

THE SEARCH EVERYWHERE

Mirna was the first of the four sisters to testify before judges Mario Portela, Roberto Falcone, and Alfredo Ruiz Paz, and before questions from prosecutor María Eugenia Montero. She was the one who, since that June 6, 1977, visited numerous official, police, and military offices, facing mistreatment and receiving no answers.

The woman lived half a block from her mother’s house and was there that night. “They made my brothers who were in bed come out to see if they were the ones—I don’t know what they were looking for—and when the third one came out, they said ‘that’s him’ and took him away.

One person from a truck said it wasn’t him, then another passed by, and when they took Hernán out, they said it was him,” she recalled. Despite some discrepancies in the account, typical of the passage of time, she noted that the men were armed, some in civilian clothes and others in official uniforms.

“They told us to stay calm, not to do anything, that they were taking him to ask him a few questions and that he would return in 48 hours. They turned off the lights and told us we could only turn them on after an hour,” Mirna added to her memories.

When asked by the prosecutor, she said she did not know of any political militancy of Hernán’s, although she did recall that he associated with a group belonging to the Ejercito Revolucionario del Pueblo (ERP).

Thus, the woman began to describe the numerous presentations and visits she made in search of answers, in search of someone telling her what had happened and where her brother was.

“I went to all the police stations; they told me he was in one, then in another. The last time they told me they had taken him to La Plata to Unit 9; I went there, and he wasn’t there either. They made you go from one place to another and treated you badly, and you didn’t get any results,” she lamented, noting: “We couldn’t talk to anyone; we were scared, we were afraid.”

Likewise, she recalled: “When I went to the Army Corps, a priest attended to me and told me they would find him soon, that I should stop looking, that I should stay calm.”

One of the episodes of intimidation that Mirna recalled occurred when she went with her brother Sergio to the 4th police precinct. “You sign it, or we’ll take you inside or kill you,” she recalled them saying to her brother when she wanted to sign the statement made in an attempt to find out something about Hernán.

Another episode of intimidation, and in this case also violence, occurred when another of her brothers, Rolando, went to a different police station. “When he went to look for him at a police station, they told him they were giving him ten seconds to leave.

They gave him a beating and threw him into the street,” she recounted, illustrating how difficult it was for each of them to remain in the country.

Thus, as the months passed, four siblings left as refugees for abroad, specifically to France: Raúl René, Rolando—both now deceased—Sergio, and Héctor.

THE PREVIOUS DETENTION OF A BROTHER

One of the points the sisters agreed on in their account was the suffering the family had already endured due to the earlier detention of Raúl René, another of the brothers, who—like several of them—worked for Ascensores Volta.

He was one of four delegates and had been taken into custody along with the other three. “They had taken him to Sierra Chica; he was there for a year and eight months without charges,” Mirna recalled.

In her turn, Nélida, another of the sisters, added that Raúl had been taken into custody from his work—approximately around 1975—and that in prison “they had tortured him with the cattle prod; he couldn’t even speak.”

In this sense, she recalled everything her mother had suffered back then and stated that when they were taking Hernán away, she asked how they could take another of her children, after everything they had already been through.

“My mother lived and suffered those things before, that’s why she said why were they taking another one,” she noted, recalling that in addition to Raúl, Rolando, Sergio—who was still working there when Hernán was kidnapped—and Hernán himself had also worked at Volta, although at the time of the event he was working in the construction of the Estadio Minella.

THE PAIN OF A UNITED FAMILY

The suffering the entire family went through, though primarily their mother, was another common point in the account of the four sisters. Nélida lamented never having had any news from the justice system until this moment of the trial, 42 years later.

“My mother became ill after this; she was bedridden for ten years, she lost her strength, she never walked again,” the woman stated, recalling “how they denigrated her” when, prior to Hernán’s kidnapping, they went to visit Raúl while he was detained.

“My mother died of sadness; she always lived with her ten children, we all grew up living around her,” she expressed.

Alicia, for her part, recalled with suffering how they waited for communications from her sister Mirna regarding whether there was any news about Hernán, always with the disappointment of never being able to know anything.

“42 years have passed and we never had answers, we always waited,” she lamented.

In her turn, Nora, another of the sisters, remarked that the suffering of each of them had to do with the fact that “they were very close,” and she even recalled the Sunday family meals, just as her mother enjoyed them.

Thus, she referred to the passage of time, and in a low and deeply moved tone, she expressed: “I have a 42-year-old son, I am going to turn 73, I have cancer. I am going to die at any moment and I won’t know where they took my brother, why, why.”

Source: quedigital.com.ar 4/8/2019

Eleven defendants for crimes against humanity processed with preventive detention

This was decided by the federal judge of Mar del Plata, Santiago Inchausti. They are accused of the crimes of homicide, illegal deprivation of liberty, torture, and illicit association. Crimes committed against 222 victims are being investigated.

Federal Court No. 3 of Mar del Plata, presided over by Judge Santiago Inchausti, decreed the processing with preventive detention of individuals accused of crimes against humanity within the framework of case no. 5,664 (and its related cases), titled “Subzone 1/15 regarding illegal deprivation of liberty,” in which kidnapping procedures are being investigated in the territory that covered Subzone 1/15, which included the localities of General Lavalle, General Juan Madariaga, Mar Chiquita, Balcarce, General Alvarado, General Pueyrredón, Lobería, Necochea, and San Cayetano.

The processing with preventive detention was issued against: Aldo Carlos Máspero, Virtom Modesto Mendiaz, Eduardo Jorge Blanco, Jorge Luís Toccalino, Norberto Benito Stura, Eduardo Carlos Isasmendi Sola, Juan Carlos Tejeda, Jorge Héctor Lamacchia, and Alberto Armando Sampietro.

They are accused of being leaders or organizers in the crime of illicit association, a charge that concurs in a real manner with the crimes of illegal deprivation of liberty doubly aggravated by the use of violence and threats, which in turn concurs materially with the imposition of torture aggravated by having been committed against political persecutees, in real concurrence with the crimes of illegal deprivation of liberty doubly aggravated by the use of violence and threats and the imposition of torture aggravated by having been committed against political persecutees and qualified homicide (arts 45, 55, 210, second paragraph, 144 bis inc. 1st and last paragraph –law 14.616– in accordance with art. 142 incs. 1st and 5th –law 20.642–, 144 ter, 1st and 2nd paragraph –law 14.616–, arts. 80 subsection 6th of the Penal Code, and arts. 306 and 312 of the C.P.P.N).

Processing with preventive detention was also ordered regarding Raúl Julio Gomez Sabaini and Emilio Ricardo Degiampietro, considering them leaders of the illicit association (article 210 of the Penal Code), with a personal bond ordered for them, which, once fulfilled, will allow both to regain their freedom.

In addition, an attachment of three million pesos ($3,000,000) was set for all of them.

Finally, it must be emphasized that the procedural object of this investigation consists of 222 cases, of which 63 were never brought to justice, despite the habeas corpus petitions filed and rejected at the time.

Of the total number of cases, the victims who fall within this context are: 1) María Dolores Muñiz, 2) María Lujan Gutiérrez (04/76), 3) Fabián Andrés López Corrales (20-21/04/76), 4) Antonio Luís Conti Cabrera (19/06/76), 5) Gregorio Nachman (19/06/76), 6) Gladys Noemí García Niemann (19/06/76), 7) Patricia Marta Pedroche Marcalain (19/06/76), 8) Ángel Daniel Román Suarez (19/06/76), 9) Nora Ester Román Suarez (19/06/76), 10) Juan Jacinto Burgos (29/07/76), 11) Héctor Luís Cuccaro Maldonado (25/08/76), 12) Jorge Alberto Lopez Uribe (26/08/76), 13) Antonio Angel Garutti Sacco (26/08/76), 14) María de las Mercedes San Vicente Bergmann (28/08/76), 15) Rodolfo González Oga (28/10/76), 16) Luís Alberto Bereciarte (24/9/76), 17) Paulo Alberto Nazaro Gil (14/10/76), 18) Amilcar Severo Fuentes Corral (26/10/76); 19) Carlos José Guillermo Berdini Pereda (8/11/76), 20) Alcira Angela Giacomozzi Ruíz (20/11/76), 21) Néstor Alfredo Confalonieri Villanueva (22/11/76), 22) Rubén Julio Fazio Beni (10/12/76), 23) Carlos Anta Noriega (between 1 and 2/01/77), 24) Guillermo Enrique Pérez Pavon (25/01/77), 25) Carlos Alberto Waitz Misenta (26/01/77), 26) Carlos Alberto Bruni (24/2/77), 27) Hugo Carlos Girat Gutierrez (12/04/77), 28) Ruben Ernesto Guevara Ibañez (21/04/77), 29) Miguel Angel Delio (05/77), 30) Hernán Artemio Rojas Fajardo (07/05/77), 31) Enrique Alberto Colomer Mantegazza (20/05/77), 32) Roberto Colomer Mantegazza (20/05/77), 33) Cristina Margarita Fernández López (20/05/77), 34) Luís Ernesto Bustamante (24/05/77), 35) Héctor Roberto Vieytes Pizzaro (25/05/77), 36) Raúl Ricardo Bustamante (28/05/77), 37) Edirma Nélida Vieytes Alvarez (30/5/77), 38) Daniel Fausto Garramone (31/5/77), 39) Pedro Ismael Marquez (01/06/77), 40) Juan Felipe Miyares (10/06/77), 41) Aldeber Elgart (21/6/77), 42) Juan Carlos Valle Borda (05/07/77), 43) Miguel Rondon Rodríguez (14/07/77), 44) Omar Rondon Rodríguez (14/07/77), 45) Oscar López Lamella (07/10/77), 46) María Adriana Casajus González (November 77), 47) Oscar Francisco Bergero Carballo (22/11/77), 48) Ercilla Angela Koosistra Kundt (27/11/77), 49) Rolando Raúl Garelik Urrutia (29/11/77), 50) Hugo Ricardo Garelik Urrutia (29/11/77), 51) Rafael Enrique Garnica (December 77), 52) Susana Aurora Collinet (6/12/77), 53) Américo Eliza Castellanos (03/12/77), 54) Juan Telmo Ortiz Acosta (14/12/77), 55) Diana Noemi Conde (15/03/78), 56) Marcelo Reinaldo Hartung Flores (17/07/78), 57) Rosa Veniani (October 78), 58) Mario German Rodríguez Coria (04/01/79), 59) Palmira Amelia Ciuca (7/01/79), 60) Julio Martires Manza Galarza (08/01/79), 61) Donaldo David Molina Cornejo (08/01/79), 62) Juan Antonio Rodríguez Gavilán (08/01/79), and 63) Claudio Zurita Brocchi (20/07/79).

Source: cij.gov.ar 30/6/2014