Miguel Rojas Rojas, married, father of 7, a small-scale farmer and member of the Socialist Party, and his son Gilberto Antonio Rojas Vásquez, married, father of 2, a carpenter and member of the Communist Party, were detained on October 13, 1973, at the former "El Palomar" estate, located in the commune of Parral.

The arrests were carried out by Carabineros from the Catillo Station, among whom was Sub-Officer Major Diógenes Toledo Pérez. The identified Carabinero was traveling with military personnel conducting detentions in the area, and a private vehicle driven by a civilian was used on this occasion.

This version is confirmed by the statements of witnesses who testified both judicially and extrajudicially. Margarita Vásquez Gatica, the spouse of Miguel Rojas, states that "on October 13, 1973, at approximately 5:00 a.m., a patrol of Carabineros from the Catillo Station, which reports to the Parral Police Station, arrived at our home.

Among the members of the patrol was a Carabinero named Diógenes Toledo Pérez, an acquaintance of ours. The police entered the house and announced that they were taking my spouse into custody, without giving reasons or showing a competent warrant.

They immediately went to the house of Juan Llanos, located on the same estate, and proceeded to detain my son Gilberto Rojas Vásquez, who at that date resided in Santiago and was visiting the house of his in-laws." The witness adds, in one of her statements, that the Carabineros, accompanied by other uniformed personnel, entered her home with violence and, after searching it, took the victim into custody.

Upon removing the detainees, the aforementioned Carabinero stated that both had to provide a brief statement at the station under his command and would then be released. For his part, Gilberto Rojas's father-in-law, Juan Llanos E., adds: "on October 13, 1973, around 5:15 a.m., a pair of Carabineros consisting of Sub-Officer Diógenes Toledo and another Carabinero, whose name I do not know as it was the first time I saw him, arrived at my home at the 'El Palomar' estate...

Both uniformed men entered my bedroom, and once inside, Sub-Officer Toledo said, 'here is Gilberto Rojas, get up,' and when Rojas put on his clothes, they took him away as a detainee... On the day of the events, my son-in-law was visiting my house, as he resides in the city of Santiago." From that moment on, their relatives began making inquiries to locate their whereabouts.

Margarita Rojas Vásquez, daughter and sister of the victims respectively, went the following day to the Parral Carabineros Station. From there, they communicated with the Catillo Station, where they were told that they were being held at that location.

Continuing her search, she went to the Catillo Station, where she was informed that they had never been detained there and that there was no record in their books of their entry into that police facility.

The recurso de amparo (writ of habeas corpus) adds: "...since we knew that Sergeant (Diógenes Toledo), who was the Chief of the Catillo Station, we asked him where our father was being held... He denied the fact of having been at our house the day before.

Later, he acknowledged it and said that he had handed them over to the military, but he refused to say who or where." The spouse of Miguel Rojas concludes by stating: "Toledo later told me that he knew nothing, only that after detaining them, he had placed them at the disposal of the Linares Prosecutor's Office." A resident of a nearby hamlet, Juan Salazar, informed the family that on the very night of the events, he was being held in detention and heard a Carabinero official from the station interrogating Miguel Rojas about the ownership of a wallet he was showing him.

For their part, police authorities, during the course of the investigation, provided different and contradictory versions. The acting chief of the Catillo Precinct, Pablo Luarte V., informed the Court that there were no records of these detentions in that unit, and concluded by stating: "It is presumed that they subsequently abandoned the place for an unknown destination to avoid being detained again, as they are known extremists." First Corporal Emiliano Vargas of the same Catillo Precinct declared to the Investigations police: "that when they detained Miguel and Gilberto Rojas, his only participation was to indicate their addresses to the military personnel who were on duty at that time." In this way, the detention is acknowledged. However, later before the Court, he denied this statement, saying that on the date of the events he was not performing duties at the Catillo Station and that, according to versions he gathered from locals, Sub-Officer Toledo had arrived with military personnel to detain the two forcibly disappeared persons. For his part, Sub-Officer Major Diógenes Toledo Pérez denies in his statements having participated in the detentions and concludes by saying: "Mr. Miguel Rojas and his son Gilberto Rojas, plus their entire family, were political activists. I presume that this person or a large part of them left the country, as there are many mountain passes in that area." The detention and subsequent disappearance of both are situated within the repressive context that occurred in the town of Catillo on September 13, 1973, where, in addition to the victims, Ruperto Torres Aravena, Ramiro Romero González, and Alfredo Durán Durán were also detained. Since that date, the whereabouts of all the victims remain unknown. Thus, despite the multiple efforts made to find the whereabouts of the victims, their fate remains unknown to this day.

JUDICIAL AND/OR ADMINISTRATIVE ACTIONS

In November 1975, Margarita Rojas Vásquez filed a recurso de amparo with the Chillán Court of Appeals, registered under No. 96524. That court requested reports from the Parral Carabineros and the Ñuble Military Prosecutor's Office.

The Court had to reiterate its order to the Parral Carabineros due to the lack of a response and gave them a 24-hour deadline to comply. The Ñuble Military Prosecutor's Office reported that there was no case against them, and the Parral Carabineros denied their detentions at both the Catillo Station and the 3rd Parral Police Station.

They also reported that Sub-Officer Major Diógenes Toledo Pérez was transferred to the 4th Illapel Police Station in March 1975. Based solely on this information, the Chillán Court of Appeals rejected the recurso de amparo on November 19, 1975, and ordered the records to be sent to the Parral Criminal Court "so that the possible commission of a crime in the reported events may be investigated." Thus, the Parral Criminal Court initiated a case ex officio, registered under No. 30702.

In this case, an order to investigate was given to the Investigations Police and the 3rd Parral Police Station - Catillo Temporary Precinct. The Court received a response from the Temporary Precinct in December 1975, reporting on interviews conducted with relatives and procedures carried out at that Precinct, stating that the detention of both victims was not recorded "either in the books or the files of the Precinct." At the same time, the Investigations Service, Talca Prefecture, on November 25 of the same month, reported on interviews with relatives and procedures carried out at the Catillo Station. Regarding this last point, the report provided by First Corporal Emiliano Vargas Amaza adds that both victims were not registered as detainees on the day indicated by the complainant. He adds that Sub-Officer Major Diógenes Toledo was at the Salamanca Sub-prefecture "and that when they detained Miguel and Gilberto Rojas, his only participation was to indicate their addresses to the military personnel who were on duty at that time." On December 30, 1975, the court ordered the appearance of Corporal Emiliano Vargas and issued a request to the Illapel Court to interrogate Sub-Officer Diógenes Toledo. Corporal Emiliano Vargas A. provided a contradictory statement when he testified before the court on January 16, 1976. He stated that on the date of the events, he was not serving at the Catillo Station and added that when they were fulfilling an order to investigate, "they learned from the locals in the sector that Sub-Officer Toledo, who was serving at the Station, had arrived in the company of military personnel at the home of Hipólito Llanos and from there they took the two disappeared persons into custody." Another important statement in the case is that provided by Carabineros Sub-Officer Major Diógenes Toledo Pérez before the Illapel Court. In it, he denies having participated in the detentions of the two mentioned persons "as these were commanded by superiors, both from the Army and the Carabineros." On January 23, 1976, a little more than a year into the judicial investigation, the judge closed the summary and ordered the temporary dismissal of the case "because the perpetration of the crime that gave rise to the formation of this process has not been legally proven." This resolution was approved the following day by the Chillán Court of Appeals. Finally, on December 4, 1976, a criminal complaint for the crime of kidnapping was filed with the Parral Court of Letters, expanding on the information gathered by their relatives. The case was reopened, and the summoning of new witnesses was ordered. In addition, an order to investigate was given to the Investigations Police, and summons were issued for Carabineros Diógenes Toledo and Gilberto Parra. The judge later ordered the reiteration of the summons for the mentioned Carabineros because the procedure had not been carried out. The subsequent processing of the case is unknown. For its part, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, upon ending its mandate in January 1991, forwarded the victims' records to the Parral Court of Letters so that a judicial investigation could be carried out in light of the information collected by that body.

Source: Corporation report

Callín was sent to buy yeast and never returned. His mother waited for him at the door until she died. She would say: "But how? He just went to buy something, how can he take so long?" and she would sit on her doorstep to wait for him.

Callín was always a restless boy; he liked to hang out with the older ones. They would gather in the corner plaza, make graffiti in favor of Allende, or hand out pamphlets. At sixteen, he believed in the revolution.

His family, eight or nine siblings, children of peasants, never got involved in politics, but Callín did. He worked shining shoes in the Plaza de Armas of Parral, where you can still see the shoeshine stands, although all of them have disappeared.

Claudio Jesús Escanilla Escobar was his name, but everyone in Parral called him El Callín. On September 13, he was detained by a military patrol. He was with Nelson León and Emiliano Mena, but they would be released days later.

Mrs. Julia, his mother, was told by the shoeshine boys in the plaza that the military and the Carabinero sergeant Luis Hidalgo had detained him, and that, apparently, he was a prisoner at the Parral Police Station.

And indeed, on September 14, they transferred him to the jail, where Mrs. Julia could only leave him clothes and food, as they never allowed her to see him. Along with Callín, thirty-three other people were detained, most of them young people who were not yet twenty-two.

Children of workers, peasants, poor people who, for one reason or another, were detained, taken to the Parral Police Station, and then never heard from again. Even then, the idea was circulating that they had been taken to Colonia Dignidad, the German enclave that operated with total impunity for decades in Chile and was directed by the former member of the Hitler Youth, Paul Shäffer.

The first to be detained was Luis Evangelista Aguayo Fernández, twenty years old; he was followed by Hugo Enrique Soto Campos, eighteen years old and a high school student. Aurelio Clodomiro Peñailillo Sepúlveda, thirty-two years old and retired due to disability, was also detained.

Also Oscar Eladio Saldías Daza, twenty years old, from a low-income family, who worked to take care of his mother and a five-year-old niece they were raising. Also Enrique Ángel Carreño González, the only university student, who was released and then arrested, never to be heard from again.

Also José Ignacio Bustos Fuentes, fifty-two years old, a peasant who lived with his mother, who toured the military barracks of Linares and Talca, but no one ever saw him again. Also Rafael Alonso Díaz Meza, twenty-three; Irineo Alberto Méndez Hernández, twenty-two; Manuel Eduardo Bascuñán Aravena, twenty-three; Óscar Abdón Retamal Pérez, nineteen and a student; Roberto del Carmen Romero Muñoz, twenty-three and an agricultural worker.

In October, the following people disappeared: Armando Edelmiro Morales Morales, nineteen and a high school student. Luis Enrique Rivera Cofré, twenty-one, father of nine-month-old Vladimir Rivera Órdenes and an unborn child who would also be named Luis.

Also disappeared were Víctor Julio Vivanco Vásquez, nineteen; and José Hernán Riveros Chávez, twenty-three. In Catillo, a community near Parral, Miguel Rojas Rojas and Gilberto Rojas Vásquez, father and son, were detained.

Also Ruperto Oriol Torres Aravena, fifty-eight, a peasant and father of three children who were left orphaned. Also Ramiro Romero González, twenty-eight, a peasant, married, two children. And Alfredo Durán Durán, forty-eight, who worked at the Civil Registry.

The last cases of forcibly disappeared persons in Parral correspond to 1974, plus one murdered woman, Bella Aurora Sepúlveda Valenzuela. These were twelve men, eight of whom were linked to a singular repressive event known as the "El Águila" case.

Among them were Aroldo Vivían Laurie Luengo and Hernán Sarmiento Sabater. The last detainees were José Luis Morales Ruiz, twenty-one, an artisan who had two children, and Juan Francisco Ponce González, of whom there is no record and who does not even appear in the Rettig Report.

In the majority of the detainees, except for those involved in the "El Águila" case, the name of Luis Hidalgo appears, a kind gentleman who, until the day of his death, walked through the center of Parral with total impunity.

No one ever confronted him, for fear, of course. He was not convicted, he did not step foot in jail, he did not repent, and it is most likely that for many, he is one of the most prominent figures of Parral.

When I asked Mrs. Julia why she went out every day to sit outside her house, she replied: "In case Callín appears, so he knows this is his house." No one could ever get her up from there until she died, waiting for the son who on that fateful day went out to buy yeast.

Book: En el pueblo hay una casa pequeña y oscura. Author: Vladimir Rivera Órdenes (Parral, 1973) is a screenwriter, narrator, and teacher. Chronicle: El orgullo de ser parralino.

Source: ruil.cl 08/30/2021 Date: 08-30-2021

Supreme Court ordered the State to pay one billion pesos to four victims of "Operation Colombo"

According to judicial sources, the total sum of the compensation must be divided among the relatives of the forcibly disappeared persons between 1973 and 1974. The Chilean Supreme Court ordered the State today to pay one billion pesos (about 1.3 million dollars) to four victims of human rights violations during the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet (1973-1990).

According to judicial sources, the total sum of the compensation must be divided among the relatives of the forcibly disappeared persons between 1973 and 1974. The cases were reviewed by the second chamber of Chile's highest court and only consider the civil aspect.

In the first case, it is ordered to pay 190 million pesos (about 263,000 dollars) to the father and siblings of Luis Guajardo Zamorano, a prominent national cyclist, who has been listed as a forcibly disappeared person since July 20, 1974, and a victim of "Operation Colombo." Operation Colombo was an operation in which 119 opponents of the Pinochet dictatorship were murdered, mostly students, professionals, and several minors, members of the Movement of the Revolutionary Left (MIR).

In the second case, the ruling requires the State to pay 700 million pesos (about 972,200 dollars) to the relatives of Miguel Rojas Rojas and Gilberto Rojas Vásquez, father and son who were detained on October 13, 1973, by personnel from the Catillo station at the El Palomar estate in the city of Parral, in southern Chile.

The resolution details that 100 million pesos (about 138,800 dollars) must be paid to Juan, Miguel, Margarita, Ana, and Luis Rojas Vásquez, children of Miguel Rojas Rojas; and another 100 million pesos to each child of Gilberto Rojas Vásquez: Luis and Carmen Rojas Llanos.

The third case orders the payment of 110 million pesos (about 153,000 dollars) to the spouse and children of Juan de Dios Salinas Salinas, detained on September 14, 1974, in the town of Isla de Maipo, lands that border the Chilean capital.

The sentence specifies the payment of 50 million pesos (69,400 dollars) for Luisa Sepúlveda Arias, the victim's spouse, and 20 million pesos (27,800 dollars) for each of the children: Paz, Juan, and Pía Salinas Sepúlveda.

The note details that in all three cases, the highest court established that the crimes constitute crimes against humanity and, therefore, are imprescriptible and not subject to amnesty in the criminal and civil aspects.

As the ruling states, "given the context in which the illicit act was verified with the intervention of State agents," the Judiciary highlights that "Chile cannot evade its legal responsibility to repair said debt." "In this way, the right of the victims to receive the corresponding compensation implies, of course, the reparation of all damage that has been caused to them, which is made possible by the reception of International Human Rights Law into our domestic legislation," it specified.

Source: elmostrador.cl 01/26/2016 Date: 01-26-2016

Relative of Forcibly Disappeared Persons in Parral asks from Germany for the intercession of Bishop Troncoso to find his father and brother.

Juan Rojas Vásquez is the son of Miguel Rojas Rojas and brother of Gilberto Rojas Vásquez, both forcibly disappeared in October 1973, who gave a complete presentation on the work being done to promote national folklore in foreign lands.

Juan Rojas is the director of the Grupo Cordillera, composed of compatriots mostly from the Maule Region and from the German country itself who have been joining the group. In an international dialogue, he indicated to elsemanario.cl that "As a relative of the forcibly disappeared of the Linares Province, I expressed to Monsignor Troncoso, who is in charge of the Pastoral of Migrations of the Chilean Episcopal Conference, the possibility of making new efforts in order to find the whereabouts of our loved ones, and that the Church has an important responsibility in this regard.

I would like to know what really happened to my father and brother; in that sense, I am looking for a definitive answer and I ask God to be able to end this matter, live peacefully, and end the questions." The Bishop met with the Chilean colony residing in Stuttgart after finishing his Ad Limina visit to the Vatican.

Juan Rojas Vásquez added that his loved ones disappeared from the commune of Parral on the dawn of October 13, 1973, after being taken from their homes and, according to what is stated in the Rettig Report, "taken to testify at the Catillo Station" near Colonia Dignidad in the foothills of Parral. "I never heard from them again," said Rojas.

Source: elsemanario.cl First Electronic Newspaper of Linares