• Juan Antonio ACUÑA CONCHA, 34 years old, railroad engineer for Ferrocarriles del Estado, member of the Partido Socialista, president of the San Rosendo Supply and Price Board (JAP), and union leader. He presented himself voluntarily to the Carabineros in San Rosendo and was released. That same day, he was detained by Carabineros arriving from Laja.
• Luis Alberto ARANEDA REYES, 43 years old, railroad engineer for Ferrocarriles del Estado and member of the Partido Socialista. He was detained on September 15 by Carabineros officers from the Laja station.
• Mario Manuel BECERRA AVELLO, 18 years old, high school student. He was detained on September 13 by Carabineros officers from Laja as he was preparing to board a train to Curacautín.
• Rubén Antonio CAMPOS LOPEZ, 39 years old, Director of the Laja Consolidated School, councilman for the same district, and member of the Partido Socialista. He was detained at his home on September 16 by Carabineros officials.
• Dagoberto Enrique GARFIAS GATICA, 23 years old, employee of the Compañía Manufacturera de Papeles y Cartones. He was detained in San Rosendo on September 15 by Carabineros officers.
• Fernando GRANDON GALVEZ, 34 years old, employee of the Compañía Manufacturera de Papeles y Cartones, member of the Partido Comunista, and union delegate. He was detained at his workplace by Carabineros from Laja on September 14.
• Jack Eduardo GUTIERREZ RODRIGUEZ, 45 years old, contractor and member of the Partido Socialista. He was detained at his workplace on September 13.
• Juan Carlos JARA HERRERA, 17 years old, high school student. He was detained by Carabineros officers from Laja on September 17.
• Mario JARA JARA, 21 years old, furniture maker's assistant. He was detained on September 15 at his home by Carabineros from Laja.
• Jorge Andrés LAMANA ABARZUA, 27 years old, employee of the Compañía Manufacturera de Papeles y Cartones (CMPC), member of the Movimiento de Acción Popular Unitaria (MAPU), Welfare Delegate for the Cóndor company union, and director of the CMPC industrial union. He presented himself voluntarily to police authorities on September 15.
• Alfonso Segundo MACAYA BARRALES, 32 years old, merchant and member of the Partido Comunista. He presented himself voluntarily to the Laja station on September 13 and was placed under house arrest. On September 15, he was detained again.
• Heraldo del Carmen MUÑOZ MUÑOZ, 27 years old, employee of the Compañía Manufacturera de Papeles y Cartones, member of the Partido Socialista, and director of the Supply and Price Board (JAP). He was detained upon leaving his workplace by Carabineros from Laja on September 13.
• Wuilzon Gamaniel MUÑOZ RODRIGUEZ, 26 years old, employee of the Compañía Manufacturera de Papeles y Cartones. He was detained on September 14 by Carabineros from Laja.
• Federico RIQUELME CONCHA, 38 years old, employee of the Cóndor company. He was detained on September 13 on the street by Carabineros officers.
• Oscar Omar SANHUEZA ORTIZ, 23 years old, primary school teacher. He was detained at his home by a Carabineros patrol from Laja on September 15.
• Luis Armando ULLOA VALENZUELA, 51 years old, laborer and member of the Partido Comunista. He was detained on September 14 at his workplace by Carabineros from Laja.
• Raúl URRA PARADA, 23 years old, employee of the Compañía Manufacturera de Papeles y Cartones, member of the Partido Comunista, union delegate, and firefighter with the Third Company of Laja. He was detained on September 13, upon leaving his workplace, by Carabineros from that location.
• Juan de Dios VILLARROEL ESPINOZA, 34 years old, laborer, member of the Partido Comunista, and union leader. He was detained by Carabineros from Laja on September 14 at his workplace.
• Jorge Lautaro ZORRILLA RUBIO, 25 years old, mine worker in Argentina who was on vacation in Chile. He presented himself voluntarily on September 15 at the San Rosendo police station upon learning he was being sought by Carabineros.

All of them were transported in the early hours of September 18, supposedly toward the Los Angeles Regiment, a place they never reached. On October 11, 1973, their bodies were discovered by locals buried in a sand pit at the Fundo San Juan, located on the road between Laja and Yumbel.

This fact was reported to the Yumbel Court, which took cognizance of the matter, ordered the exhumation of the bodies, and subsequently their burial in the Yumbel Parish Cemetery, where they remained until 1979.

The Archbishopric of Concepción filed a complaint in the Laja Criminal Court on July 24, 1979, case file No. 2,770, against the Carabineros of that same town, which led to the initiation of a judicial investigation and the appointment of a Visiting Judge by the Court of Appeals of Concepción.

This investigation allowed for the identification of the victims and the determination that they had been executed by Carabineros officers from Laja on the same day, September 18, at the site where their remains were found.

Until that date, their families had searched for them fruitlessly in various facilities. On March 18, 1980, the Visiting Judge declared himself incompetent, and the case files were transferred to the Ad-hoc Military Prosecutor's Office of Concepción, file No. 323-80.

The case was definitively dismissed on June 9, 1980, by the Judge of the 3rd Military Court, and the dismissal was approved by the Supreme Court on December 3, 1981, file No. 564-80. The amnesty law, Decree Law 2.191 of 1978, was applied to the perpetrators of the deaths.

In 1979, while judicial investigations were being carried out, the body of Luis Onofre SAEZ ESPINOZA, 37 years old, employee of the Compañía Manufacturera de Papeles y Cartones, member of the Movimiento de Acción Popular Unitaria (MAPU), and leader of the company's Union No. 1, was discovered in the same location.

He had presented himself voluntarily, accompanied by the parish priest of Laja, at the Los Angeles police station on September 20, where he was detained. From the time of his detention, his family had no further news of him until his remains were found at the Fundo San Juan.

The information presented, all duly accredited, allows this Commission to form the conviction that the 20 previously identified individuals were victims of grave human rights violations for which State agents were responsible, as they detained them, executed them outside of any legal process, hid their bodies, and prevented their families from knowing their fate and burying them.

Source: (Rettig Report)

‘Las Cruces,’ regarding the link between CMPC and the Laja and San Rosendo Massacre in 1973, premieres on November 7. A documentary co-directed by Teresa Arredondo and Carlos Vásquez Méndez. The film exposes, based on judicial statements, the crime committed by the police against 19 workers days after the 1973 Coup d'État.

After 40 years, one of the involved police officers broke the pact of silence. Distributed by the Red de Salas de Cine de Chile. The documentary premiered at FID Marseille in July 2018, where it won the Jury's Special Mention.

Since that date, it has had a successful circuit through national and international festivals. Teresa Arredondo: “The audience will encounter a film that, through serious investigation, attempts to keep historical memory alive.” In 2011, the filmmakers became interested in this case. “From the beginning, it struck us that the massacre was directed by Carabineros, not the army.

Many of the police officers who executed the workers knew them. After 40 years, one of the police officers broke the pact of silence, and today the trial remains open. It struck us that ‘La Papelera’ (CMPC), as it was known at the time, which was a private company, participated in the massacre and collaborated logistically in the detention of its workers.

So, the decisive moment was when we met the victims' families and realized that so many years later, with all the statements made, they are still trying to obtain justice. Our primary reason was to try to keep memory alive.

In some way, we thought there was a possibility that the memory of the families could also become part of a collective memory, that this memory could also be part of everyone who sees the film. The opposite of forgetting is not necessarily remembering, but rather respect, approach, understanding, accompaniment, and agreement,” notes Arredondo.

The director adds

“The audience will encounter a film that, through serious investigation, attempts to keep historical memory alive, beyond ideologies. Any moral and political system must prevent the recurrence of genocides.

Our film modestly aims to address this task by documenting this history, making it alive and present, offering an interpretation of a terrifying history while attempting to return a landscape to its inhabitants.” For Arredondo, the documentary has an important factor: “The film is a film about the present; it addresses a history that still resonates in the landscape surrounding Laja and San Rosendo, a landscape stripped of all innocence.

The families still suffer the consequences of everything that happened and carry that cross, like a stigma. Our intention was to record the echo of those events in the present; for that, it is necessary to allow the viewer to see in depth, to listen with attention, and time is very important if you want to make an open film, where the viewer is invited to complete it with their own reading of the elements that are displayed in the room.” “We are not sure if there is a message in ‘Las Cruces’; perhaps it contains many questions, some non-conclusive reflections, but something that never ceases to surprise us, every time we see it, is to confirm what Hannah Arendt said: the banality of evil in contexts of totalitarianism is a reality. The Laja case has been, for many years, a high-impact human rights case in Chile. It is also one of the few cases that clearly links a private company to crimes against humanity,” emphasizes Arredondo. Leiva Araos: “The majority are still afraid to speak and take a position.” For producer Claudio Leiva Araos, one of the challenges was filming the documentary entirely in 16 mm: “We had to bring the film from Mexico and then go back there to develop it. We filmed very little, only 240 minutes; we usually filmed half a day, and the rest of the time we recorded the inhabitants of Laja and San Rosendo in an improvised sound studio reading the confessions of the Carabineros and some reports from the exhumations. This was the most difficult part of the shoot. From the beginning, we knew that it would be locals from Laja and San Rosendo who would do the readings. But we would not include direct family members of the victims in those reading sessions. It was difficult to find people who would lend their voices to the film. Although they are interested in the subject, the majority are still afraid to speak and take a position. The entire economy of the area is backed by CMPC. The film crew suffered some harassment from the company. What is read is brutal; that these people agreed to collaborate on this project to give life to that cold and technical judicial archive was a gesture for which we will be eternally grateful, as we witnessed in that exercise how these events deeply affect the community of Laja and San Rosendo in the present; they were very brave.”

And he adds

“Based on the police testimonies, we know that CMPC was complicit in those crimes. But this case has been unresolved for so long that one wonders: why does no one want to open Pandora's box? Which is nothing more than recognizing the participation of businessmen in the crimes of the Dictatorship.

The arguments of those who claim to be unaware of the human rights violations from the beginning of the Dictatorship are unsustainable. I believe that the role played by historical memory is fundamental in the construction of a common space, and its permanence is a fundamental condition for the experience of political exercise, given the fragility to which we are subjected today with the contemporary social experience.

In this particular case, the true instigators and accomplices of this crime are still free. They continue to accumulate power; therefore, in this moral context, talking about reconciliation from certain political and/or economic sectors is immoral.

We already know that many times, moral principles like justice or truth are at the service of power, but it is time to change the paradigms, because without true justice, it is impossible for there to be forgiveness.” The documentary ‘Las Cruces’ is being released commercially thanks to the public call for ‘Estrenos chilenos en red’ organized by the Red de Salas de Cine de Chile, which includes screenings in the cities of Santiago, Valparaíso, Constitución, Chillán, Valdivia, and Puerto Varas.

TECHNICAL DATA

Title: Las Cruces Year: 2018 (Production date July 2018) Duration: 80 min Country: Chile Filming Format: 16 mm Film Type: Documentary Directors: Teresa Arredondo | Carlos Vásquez Méndez Producers: Claudio Leiva Araos | Patricio Muñoz G.

Photography: Carlos Vásquez Méndez Sound: Andrea López Millán Editing: Carlos Vásquez Méndez | Martín Sappia [EDA] Image Post-production: Kiné Imágenes (Daniel Dávila) Sound Post-production: Sonamos (Roberto Espinoza) Distributed by: Red de Salas de Chile

AWARDS

Mention Spéciale – Compétition Internationale / 29th FIDMarseille – Festival International de Cinéma de Marseille Special Jury Prize – Chilean Feature Film Competition / 25th Valdivia International Film Festival Best National Feature Film / FIDOCS 22 Santiago International Documentary Festival Special Mention Latin American Competition / 33rd Mar del Plata International Film Festival Best Mercosur Film in Latin American Competition / RECAM – 33 Mar del Plata IFF Tato Miller Award for Best Latin American Film / SICA – 33 Mar del Plata IFF Best Film – National Feature Film Competition / 7th Antofagasta Film Festival – ANTOFACINE Best Feature Film – 11th FECICH Chilean Film Festival 2019 Best Photography – 11th FECICH Chilean Film Festival 2019 Best Screenplay – 11th FECICH Chilean Film Festival 2019 Best Feature Film Citizen Jury Award – 11th FECICH Chilean Film Festival 2019 Special Mention, 20th Havana Film Festival New York Special Jury Mention, 15th Rengo Film Festival – CHILE

Source: piensachile.com 2019

Case known as Laja-San Rosendo: Concepción Court issues conviction for the homicide of 19 forestry workers and peasants in 1973.

The Court of Appeals partially revoked the challenged resolution issued by the minister for extraordinary causes regarding human rights violations of the Concepción Court of Appeals, Carlos Aldana Fuentes.

The Concepción Court upheld the appeals filed by the plaintiffs against the resolution that sentenced nine retired Carabineros and one civilian for their responsibility in the crime of qualified homicide of 19 forestry workers and peasants. These crimes were perpetrated in September 1973, within the framework of the case known as the “Laja-San Rosendo” case.

In the resolution, the appellate court confirmed the sentence that condemned Alberto Juan Fernández Michell to life imprisonment as the perpetrator of the qualified homicides of Fernando Grandón Gálvez, Jorge Andrés Lamana Abarzúa, Rubén Antonio Campos López, Juan Carlos Jara Herrera, Raúl Urra Parada, Luis Armando Ulloa Valenzuela, Óscar Omar Sanhueza Contreras, Dagoberto Enrique Garfias Gatica, Luis Alberto del Carmen Araneda Reyes, Juan Antonio Acuña Concha, Juan de Dios Villarroel Espinoza, Heraldo del Carmen Muñoz Muñoz, Federico Riquelme Concha, Jorge Lautaro Zorrilla Rubio, Manuel Mario Becerra Avello, Jack Eduardo Gutiérrez Rodríguez, Mario Jara Jara, Wilson Gamadiel Muñoz Rodríguez, and Alfonso Segundo Macaya Barrales.

In the case of José Jacinto Otárola Sanhueza, Mario Sebastián Montoya Burgos, and Manuel Enrique Cerda Robledo, the Concepción Court determined that they participated in the 19 homicides as perpetrators, rather than as accessories, and therefore increased their sentences from 5 years of imprisonment to 15 years and one day of incarceration.

Likewise, it ratified the sentences issued against Gerson Nilo Saavedra Reinike, Pedro del Carmen Parra Utreras, Víctor Manuel Campos Dávila, and Nelson Casanova Salgado, increasing them from 5 years and one day to 15 years and one day of incarceration, as perpetrators of the 19 qualified homicides.

Meanwhile, in the case of Anselmo del Carmen San Martín Navarrete, the Concepción court set a sentence of 5 years and one day of imprisonment, with the benefit of intensive supervised release, to be served in his capacity as an accessory to the crimes.

Regarding the employee of the Compañía Manufacturera de Papeles y Cartones (CMPC) of Laja, Pedro Luis Jarpa Foerster, the Third Chamber revoked the sentence that had acquitted him of responsibility, sentencing him instead to 5 years and one day of imprisonment as an accomplice in the qualified homicides of the victims: Fernando Grandón Gálvez, Jack Gutiérrez Rodríguez, Heraldo Muñoz Muñoz, Raúl Urra Parada, Federico Riquelme Concha, Juan Villarroel Espinoza, and Wilson Muñoz Rodríguez.

Finally, the Concepción Court confirmed the acquittal of Alejandro Lionel Aguilera Covarrubias, as his responsibility for the events as an accomplice was not proven; and confirmed the acquittal of the former police officer René Luis Alberto Urrutia Elgueta, as his participation in the crime of illegal burial, committed at the end of October 1973 in a mass grave at the Yumbel Parish Cemetery, was not proven.

The Facts During the investigation phase of the case, Minister Carlos Aldana established the following facts: A.- That between September 13 and 17, 1973, a date when the country was under a state of siege, the following people were detained in the communes of Laja and San Rosendo by personnel from the Laja Carabineros Station, without a competent judicial or administrative order, and transferred to the aforementioned police unit located at Calle Las Viñas No. 104 in the same city: Fernando Grandón Gálvez, Jorge Andrés Lamana Abarzúa, Rubén Antonio Campos López, Juan Carlos Jara Herrera, Raúl Urra Parada, Luis Armando Ulloa Valenzuela, Óscar Omar Sanhueza Contreras, Dagoberto Enrique Garfias Gatica, Luis Alberto del Carmen Araneda Reyes, Juan Antonio Acuña Concha, Juan de Dios Villarroel Espinoza, Heraldo del Carmen Muñoz Muñoz, Federico Riquelme Concha, Jorge Lautaro Zorrilla Rubio, Manuel Mario Becerra Avello, Jack Eduardo Gutiérrez Rodríguez, Mario Jara Jara, Wilson Gamadiel Muñoz Rodríguez, and Alfonso Segundo Macaya Barrales. It is specified that the victims Grandón, Gutiérrez, Muñoz, Urra, Riquelme, Villarroel, and Muñoz Rodríguez, workers at CMPC, were detained by Carabineros between September 13 and 14, 1973, at the entrance/exit gate of their workplace, the CMPC Laja Paper Plant, where an individual (Jarpa Foerster) held a list with each of their names, pointing out to the Carabineros who each of them was, thereby facilitating their identification and detention. That on the same dates and until September 17, 1973, the other individuals indicated above were detained and transported in CMPC paper company vehicles, which had allegedly been provided by the heads of said company for the transport of the detainees and driven by a CMPC employee to the Laja Station.

B.- The aforementioned individuals were placed in the cells of the indicated police unit, remaining there until the night of September 17, 1973, at which time they were taken out by uniformed personnel and loaded into vehicles belonging to the CMPC paper company, supposedly to be transferred to the Regiment in the city of Los Ángeles; however, while traveling along Route Q-90, near the Perales Bridge, the convoy turned onto a side road for about 500 meters in a southerly direction, entering the so-called Fundo San Juan, in the commune of Yumbel, where the Carabineros personnel from the Laja Station, who were armed with rifles and carbines, made them get out of the vehicles, forcing them to lie on the ground, side by side, face down and with their hands tied. The police officers then positioned themselves behind them, at which point the officer in charge stood to one side and, armed with his revolver, gave the order to shoot them, which was carried out by the Carabineros present, who were positioned in a firing line, impacting the bodies of the detainees with bullets and causing injuries that resulted in their deaths. Immediately thereafter, the same police officers, using shovels they had brought for the purpose, dug a 60-centimeter-deep grave where they threw the bodies, which they covered with a layer of earth. Once this operation was finished, they returned to the Laja Station, remaining silent about what had occurred. Days later, Carabineros officers returned to the area to cover the bodies with lime, of the type used at CMPC, which had allegedly been provided by employees of the same company.

C.- Approximately one month after these events occurred, at the end of October 1973, dogs in the area found human remains, a fact noticed by a person passing through the area, who reported it to the Carabineros of Yumbel.

Following this report, the commissioner of said station, Major Héctor Orlando Rivera Rojas, ordered the then-Orderly Officer, Lieutenant René Luis Alberto Urrutia Elgueta, to go to the site and verify the report.

Upon verifying the find, he informed the commissioner, who ordered the corresponding report to be drawn up by the Salto del Laja Carabineros Station and sent to the Yumbel Court of Letters, where he took it personally, accompanied by the chief physician of the Yumbel Hospital, who stated to the then-Judge of Letters of that locality, Corina Mera, the impossibility of receiving the bodies at said facility for health reasons.

She agreed that they should be transported directly to the parish cemetery for burial in a mass grave, which the aforementioned Orderly Officer carried out using a trailer pulled by a tractor, during the night, during the hours when the curfew was in effect.

D.- This procedure was carried out without performing the required autopsies on the bodies found, and they were buried without obtaining the corresponding health authorization, nor the competent judicial order.

In civil matters, the Court increased the compensation granted by Minister Aldana Fuentes to the victims' families, ordering the State of Chile to pay a total compensation of $5,440,000,000 (five billion four hundred forty million pesos).

Resolution agreed upon with the dissenting vote of Minister Bluck Bahamondes, regarding the following aspects: 1.- Regarding the acquittal of the accused Pedro Jarpa Foerster, the dissenting judge is of the opinion to confirm the first-instance decision, considering that although it is proven that he facilitated the identification of the seven workers who were detained at the exit of the CMPC Plant, there is insufficient evidence to conclude that said accused could have anticipated that the Carabineros officers were going to kill them.

On this point, the dissenting judge especially considers that the detentions took place on September 11, 1973, just after the coup d'état had been perpetrated, when there was still no news of deaths or disappearances, so Jarpa Foerster could surely have anticipated and accepted that the detained workers whose identification he cooperated with could be beaten or kept deprived of their liberty for their supposed political ideology, but he had no way of anticipating the commission of the homicides, and much less did he have any control over the treachery or premeditation with which they were committed.

2.- Regarding the first-instance decision to convict Anselmo San Martín as an accessory to 19 crimes of qualified homicide, the dissenting judge was in favor of revoking the judgment under review and instead acquitting him of the charges brought against him, noting that the first-instance judge established participation while ignoring the contradictions that exist in this regard among the various pieces of evidence.

Indeed, Vidal Riquelme maintained various versions during the investigation, stating that he does not remember San Martín having gone in the convoy (page 1693); that he dug the grave (page 1561); that he did not see him at Fundo San Juan (page 1700).

Parra Urra declared that he does not know if San Martín was covering the station (page 1699) and on page 3125 states that he did participate in the executions; León Godoy states on page 1691 that he does not remember if San Martín stayed at the station and on page 1697 vta, states that he did; Fernández Michell affirms on page 1695 vta, that he did stay at the station; Saavedra maintains on page 1698 that he does not remember seeing him at the Fundo; Parra Utreras indicates on page 1699 that he did not see San Martín in the operation; Campos Dávila declares in a similar sense on page 1700 vta.

For the dissenting judge, these contradictions make it impossible to form a conviction that the accused San Martín participated in the convoy that transported the detainees to Fundo San Juan and compel the issuance of an acquittal.

Source: diarioconstitucional.cl 8/15/2021

Date: 08-15-2021