Serafin del Carmen Orellana Rojas
Obrero — 32 years old.
Background
Serafin del Carmen Orellana Rojas
Obrero — 32 years old.
Case summary
Serafin del Carmen Orellana Rojas, a 32-year-old laborer with no political affiliation, was detained by a military patrol on September 15, 1973, in the Cerro Navia commune. After being arrested and beaten at a sports club, he was taken to an unknown destination and executed by State agents, and his body has not been found.
Image AI-colorized. This is not an original photograph.
Museo de la Memoria y los Derechos Humanos[1]
On September 15, 1973, the following individuals were executed:
Carlos Alberto CASTRO LOPEZ, 20 years old, street vendor, and
Serafín del Carmen ORELLANA ROJAS, 32 years old, single, with no occupation or political affiliation.
According to testimonies and evidence gathered by this Commission, they were detained near the time of the curfew by a military patrol at a sports club located in the Cerro Navia sector. These individuals allegedly failed to obey the orders of the military personnel who were searching the premises, and were subsequently taken from the site and beaten outside.
From there, they were taken to an unknown destination.
The family members of Carlos Alberto Castro searched every detention center without success. Nevertheless, acting on information they received during those days, they decided to search among the bodies being brought by the Mapocho River, which residents of the Cerro Navia sector were burying along its banks.
They went to the Puente El Resbalón area, where they managed to see mounds of sand containing several semi-buried bodies. Among them, one was protruding; they were able to identify the body of her husband, fully exhuming him and subsequently managing to have him sent to the Legal Medical Institute.
The autopsy confirms that the blows the victim suffered ultimately proved to be the cause of his death; the protocol records the cause of death as: "vertebral trauma, spinal cord section, and severe hematomyelia."
Based on the above, this Commission reached the conviction that Carlos Castro was executed by State agents, a fact ratified by the effort to conceal his body by throwing it into the Mapocho River, outside of any justification or legal process.
Regarding the situation of Serafín Orellana, his body could not be located, but presumably, and in consideration of similar circumstances, he met the same fate as Carlos Alberto Castro López, a circumstance ratified by the fact that despite the relevant efforts, his fate or whereabouts have not been established.
Ultimately, Serafín Orellana remains forcibly disappeared since the day of his detention, with the presumption that he was executed outside of any legal process by State agents.
MemoriaViva[2]
Relatos de los Hechos
Serafín del Carmen Orellana Rojas, married, father of two, with no known political affiliation, was detained alongside his friend Carlos Alberto Castro López on September 15, 1973, near the curfew hour—5:00 PM—at the headquarters of a sports club located near his home in the city of Santiago.
The arrest was carried out by military personnel who stormed the club and were angered because the two young men did not obey their orders. Both were removed from the premises while being struck with the butts of rifles; with their hands behind their necks, they were forced into the vehicle used by their captors and taken to an unknown destination.
His wife, Mrs. Clara Zulema Saldaña Carrasco, who was 6 months pregnant, along with the girlfriend of Carlos Alberto Castro López, began an intense search through various detention centers; she even went repeatedly to the Legal Medical Institute, where she searched for her husband among a pile of corpses kept there.
The week following the apprehension, she learned that residents of Cerro Navia had buried several bodies that had been brought by the Mapocho River. Upon arriving at the riverbank near the Resbalón bridge, she found the lifeless body of Carlos Castro López, whose remains were recovered 3 days later by the Legal Medical Institute.
The autopsy report indicates that Castro López died from vertebral trauma, spinal cord transection, and intense internal hemorrhaging. Orellana Rojas's body was not found, and his wife still does not know the fate he met at the hands of his captors.
JUDICIAL AND/OR ADMINISTRATIVE ACTIONS
In August 1990, Mrs. Clara Zulema Saldaña Carrasco filed a complaint for the alleged disappearance and homicide of her husband before the 18th Criminal Court of Santiago, registered under case number 19571-4. By the end of 1992, the case was in the summary stage.
The anthropometric data of Serafín Orellana Rojas were attached to case 4449-AF of the 22nd Criminal Court of Santiago regarding the crime of illegal burial in Patio 29 of the General Cemetery of unidentified persons who died between September and December 1973.
The investigating judge ordered the excavation of 108 graves in September 1991. From there, 125 bodies were exhumed and sent to the Legal Medical Institute. Currently (as of late 1992), the forensic identification reports are pending.
Source: Corporation report
Relatos de los Hechos
The commemoration of the 47th anniversary of the coup d'état against the Constitutional Government of President Salvador Allende takes place in a new social and political context in the country. The citizenry demands a new model of development on a human scale and an end to the system imposed by the force of arms by the civil-military dictatorship.
Its main legacy is expressed in the current 1980 Constitution. Its political, moral, and institutional pillars are in crisis.
The Human Rights Movement, from the beginning of the dictatorship until its end, and subsequently during a long transition to democracy, has been fighting for the just demands of truth, full justice, and comprehensive reparation for the victims of the grave human rights violations that occurred under the military dictatorship.
It has raised its voice against attempts to criminalize legitimate social protest in a democratic state, educating in the awareness of full respect for human rights, and is now preparing to participate in the constituent process.
The vast majority of citizens wish to live better, where the economic wealth produced by the daily effort of all is better distributed. A Social State of Rights is urgent in our country, based on the values of Social Justice, Human Rights, and Solidarity.
This must arise as a product of a new democratic consensus, creating solid foundations for a new social, political, and economic coexistence expressed in a New Constitution facing the future.
47 years ago, that Tuesday, September 11, 1973, President Salvador Allende was preparing to call for a national plebiscite. On that fateful day, the presidential announcement was expected at a Public Act at the State Technical University (today the University of Santiago).
President Allende sought, through this democratic measure, to avoid the coup d'état. The civilian and military coup plotters knew of this decision and moved up the bloody coup d'état that put an end to the Popular Unity Government and destroyed the democratic state emanating from the 1925 Constitution.
Today, we are in a pandemic with all the restrictions it imposes. We pay our heartfelt tribute to those who fell under the civil-military dictatorship in our province for pursuing the dreams of Social Justice, more Democracy for the People, and Solidarity to build a Chile with greater social equality.
In our ever-present memory, their names and their exemplary conduct in the face of the adversity of the brutal repression unleashed against them, their ideals, their parties, and the social movements they represented will remain.
In our grateful memory, we express our heartfelt tribute to the victims of the dictatorship in our province:
- María Edith Vásquez Fredes (main photo)
- Elías Jana Santibañez
- Nelson Araneda Loaiza
- Roberto Valdebenito Vira
- Jaime Cuevas Cuevas
- Serafín Orellana Rojas
- Mario Alberto Pilgrin Roa
- Humberto Villagra Cruces
- Luis Pincheira Díaz
- Neftalí Figueroa Carrasco
For the Right to Live in Peace
Provincial Coordinator of Users of PRAIS Arauco
Source: lanalhue.noticias.cl 11/9/2020
Date: 11-09-2020
References
- 1Museum of Memoryhttps://interactivos.museodelamemoria.cl/victims/?p=1811
- 2