Sergio Adrián Maureira Lillo, married, father of 11, an agricultural laborer with no political affiliation, was detained on October 7, 1973, at approximately 10:00 PM at his home by a Carabineros patrol from the Isla de Maipo station, commanded by Sergeant Pablo Ñancupil Raquileo and including Carabineros Jacinto Torres, Manuel Muñoz, Héctor Vargas, and David Coliqueo.

He was violently removed from his home and placed into a pickup truck belonging to the Fundo Naguayán, the very place where he worked. His detention occurred in the presence of his spouse and nine of his children.

Sergio Maureira Lillo was the first of eleven peasants who would be apprehended that night in the same operation, four of whom were his own sons. Shortly thereafter, his sons Sergio Miguel Maureira Muñoz, 27, married, father of one, agricultural laborer, and Rodolfo Antonio, 22, married, father of one, agricultural laborer, were detained in their respective homes.

Finally, the same patrol returned to the father's home, where they arrested two more sons: Segundo Armando, 24, single, agricultural laborer, and José Manuel, 26, single, agricultural laborer. All the detentions were carried out with great violence, and the homes were raided by the arresting Carabineros.

The other six peasants arrested that night were: Enrique Astudillo Alvarez and his sons Ramón and Omar Astudillo Rojas, and the three Hernández Flores brothers: Carlos, Nelson, and Oscar. According to witnesses, the detainees were tied up and lying face down on the floor of the vehicle, with the Carabineros standing over them, constantly beating them and hurling insults and death threats at them.

The spouse of Sergio Maureira and mother of four of the detainees visited various locations inquiring about the whereabouts of her husband and four sons: the Isla de Maipo station and other police stations, prisons, and facilities used as detention centers (Estadio Nacional, Estadio Chile), SENDET, the Legal Medical Institute, and the Ministry of Defense.

She also sent letters to detention centers in other cities, without receiving a positive response. On that same day, October 7, in the morning, four young men had been detained in the Plaza de Isla de Maipo by Carabineros from the local station; these young men were: Iván Ordóñez Lama, 17; Miguel Brant Bustamante, 19; José Herrera Villegas, 17; and Manuel Jesús Navarro Salinas, 20.

The fifteen detainees remained at the station throughout the day of October 7; this was the last place they were seen alive. On November 7, 1975, Chile's delegate to the United Nations, Sergio Diez, stated in his presentation to the Third Committee of the General Assembly that "many of the alleged disappeared do not have a legal existence," while others "were located in the records of the Legal Medical Institute of Santiago." Of the fifteen detained in Isla de Maipo, eight appear on the lists: among them the 4 Maureira brothers; Sergio Maureira Muñoz, listed as having no legal existence, and the other seven as deceased: 1) Enrique Astudillo Alvarez, entry 3166, date of death: October 7, 1973, at 2:00 PM. 2) Nelson Hernández Flores, entry 3238, date of death: October 11, 1973, at 2:30 PM. 3) Oscar Humberto Hernández Flores, entry 3201, date of death: October 9, 1973, at 12:30 PM. 4) José Manuel Herrera Villegas, entry 3130, date of death: October 6, 1973, at 11:30 AM. 5) José Manuel Maureira Muñoz, entry 3263, date of death: October 11, 1973, at 8:30 PM. 6) Rodolfo Antonio Maureira Muñoz, entry 3332, date of death: October 15, 1973, at 1:00 PM. 7) Segundo Armando Maureira Muñoz, entry 3335, date of death: October 15, 1973, at 4:00 PM. It was never possible to establish the origin of or the parties responsible for creating these lists; neither the Ministry of Foreign Affairs nor the Legal Medical Institute acknowledged responsibility for them. During the month of November 1978, a Catholic priest received, under the seal of confession, information about a place where numerous human remains were located. Considering the gravity of the matter, a Commission was formed to verify the information before filing a formal judicial complaint. This Commission was composed of Monsignor Enrique Alvear, Auxiliary Bishop of Santiago; Monsignor Cristián Precht, Vicar of Solidarity; Jaime Martínez, Director of the weekly "Qué Pasa"; Abraham Santibáñez, Sub-Director of the magazine "Hoy"; and lawyers Alejandro González and Máximo Pacheco. The Commission met on November 30, 1978, at the site of the discovery, an abandoned lime mine located in the town of Lonquén, a small village 14 kilometers from the city of Talagante and near the town of Isla de Maipo. There, they were able to confirm the existence of two kilns, approximately nine meters high, in one of which a large number of human remains were found. Once the information was verified, Bishop Monsignor Alvear and lawyers Pacheco and González filed the respective complaint the following day, December 1, with the President of the Supreme Court, Mr. Israel Bórquez, requesting that he report it to the Plenary of that Court. This initiated the judicial investigation that determined that the remains found belonged to the fifteen locals from Isla de Maipo detained on October 7, 1973, who had been executed by Carabineros and their remains illegally buried in the kilns. The victims' families requested the release of the bodies to provide them with a proper burial. The Court Martial ordered the Military Prosecutor to hand over the remains to whoever could legally prove kinship. The Prosecutor ordered "strict compliance with that order," but later, on the very day of the funeral, he ordered that, due to the impossibility of identifying the remains—except for those of Sergio Maureira Lillo—they should be buried in the town of Isla de Maipo. On the same day this order was issued, the families had gathered at the Recoleta Franciscana Church awaiting the remains to hold a funeral mass, only to learn at that moment that the bodies had been buried by officials of the Legal Medical Service in the Municipal Cemetery of Isla de Maipo in a common grave, with the exception of Sergio Maureira Lillo, who was buried in an individual grave. The Military Prosecutor also refused to authorize the registration of the deaths in the Civil Registry and Identification Service. Days later, a religious ceremony for the eternal rest of these victims was held at the Santiago Metropolitan Cathedral, without the presence of the remains. Years later, the Lonquén Kilns, which by that date had become a place of pilgrimage, were dynamited.

JUDICIAL AND/OR ADMINISTRATIVE ACTIONS

On March 29, 1974, the Committee for Cooperation for Peace in Chile filed a mass writ of amparo (habeas corpus), case file 289-74, with the Santiago Court of Appeals on behalf of 131 people who were disappeared as of that date and whose records had been verified by said organization.

Among these 131 protected persons were Sergio Maureira Lillo, his four sons, and the other six peasants detained in the same operation. On November 28 of that same year, the 6th Chamber of the Santiago Court of Appeals dismissed the writ.

An appeal was filed with the Supreme Court, which confirmed the denial on January 31, 1975, ordering the opening of a summary proceeding to investigate the commission of possible crimes. In the same resolution, it recommended that the Court of Appeals appoint a Visiting Minister (Ministro en Visita), an appointment that fell to Mr.

Enrique Zurita Camps. On February 24, 1975, the Investigating Minister appeared at the First Criminal Court of Santiago, initiating case file 106.657. During the investigation, the Maureira family members were summoned to testify by the Visiting Minister, thus documenting the circumstances of the detention once again.

On September 25, 1975, without any progress having been made in any of the cases of the forcibly disappeared, the summary was closed because "no further progress could be made in the investigation." On September 29 of the same year, the Visiting Minister declared himself incompetent, considering that the proceedings carried out allowed for the establishment that Sergio Maureira Lillo, his four sons, Enrique Astudillo Alvarez and his two sons, and the three Hernández Flores brothers had been detained on October 7, 1973, by Carabineros of Talagante and handed over the following day at the Estadio Nacional to the charge of SENDET, an organization that provided no information to either confirm or deny this fact. The Minister's resolution states verbatim that "consequently, the Carabineros of Talagante or SENDET must answer for the disappearance of the named persons, as this Court lacks jurisdiction in both cases." It adds an order to remit the records to the Second Military Court of Santiago. On July 1, 1976, the Military Court designated the Third Military Prosecutor's Office to continue the investigation under case file 1382-76. On August 9, one month later, the summary was declared closed, and the following day a temporary dismissal was proposed, which was approved on September 14 by the Military Judge, who ordered the case to be archived. In parallel, on June 17, 1974, the spouse of Sergio Maureira and mother of the Maureira Muñoz brothers, Purísima Elena Muñoz Contreras, filed a writ of amparo, case file 613-74, with the Santiago Court of Appeals. In the filing, she also mentions the detention and subsequent disappearance of six other peasants from the same area. A report issued by the Ministry of the Interior stated that the persons in question were not detained and that the Secretariat was unaware of their whereabouts. The Auditor of the Combat Command for Aviation Tribunals in Wartime reported that they were not detained or prosecuted by the Aviation Tribunals under that Command. The Military Court of Santiago and the Chief of the State of Siege Zone of the Province of Santiago, Brigadier General Sergio Arellano Stark, reported to the same effect. Regarding the reports received from the Carabineros, the Acting Chief of the Isla de Maipo station, Luis Acevedo Vargas, sent two official letters. In the first, dated December 10, 1974, he states verbatim that "they were indeed detained in the month of October of last year by personnel of this Unit, and were sent with an unnumbered memo, dated the 8th of the same month, for the reasons indicated therein, to the Prisoner Camp at the Estadio Nacional, where they were received in good order, as evidenced by the signature on the back of the copy of the memo, which appears to say Sergeant 2nd Class González." The aforementioned memo contains the personal data (name, age, marital status, education, occupation, ID number, and address), political affiliation, and the charges against each of the eleven detained peasants. In the case of Sergio Maureira Lillo, it states: "47 years old, married, agricultural laborer, basic education, ID card No. 16.455 from the Talagante Office, residing at Calle La Ballica s/n; with the same charges and activities as detainee No. 5." "Detainee No. 5" is one of his sons who appears as César Manuel, and it refers to Sergio, of whom it states that "he participated, along with his father and brothers, in extremist activities in the area; they are all of Mapucista affiliation. Yesterday, they arrived at the Lo Díaz plot, where the Carabinero Jacinto Torres González and his family—an official stationed at this unit—live, and forced the lock on the entrance gate to enter a field they work, insulting the spouse and threatening her, her children, and her husband with death." At the end of the text, it is requested that they be interrogated by specialized personnel at that facility, as it is presumed that the detainees are extremists who are meeting to reorganize, which has been verified by their own statements and by the initial inquiries made by the station personnel. This document is signed by Carabinero Lieutenant Lautaro Castro Mendoza, Chief of the station. In the second official letter, sent two days after the previous one, the Carabineros reiterate the detention of the individuals carried out on October 7, 1973, by station personnel, on the grounds that they were caught in a clandestine meeting at the home of Sergio Maureira Lillo. It adds that they all "are of recognized leftist extremist affiliation" and that they were planning to attack officials of that station and their families, one of whom they had already threatened. It further states that they were sent to the Estadio Nacional where "they were received in good order" and that it is unknown if they were subsequently placed at the disposal of any Court. The Court repeatedly requested information from SENDET regarding this information provided by the Carabineros, without receiving a response. In March 1975, nine months after the amparo was filed, the petitioner requested that the Court appoint a Visiting Minister. On March 10 of that year, the 1st Chamber of the Court of Appeals dismissed the amparo and ordered the records to be sent to the corresponding Criminal Court. On the other hand, on October 1, 1974, a complaint for the alleged disappearance of the eleven peasants from Isla de Maipo was filed, case file 22826-1, with the Talagante Court of Letters. In the filing, it is noted that, while carrying out some of the detentions, the Carabineros caused bodily harm to the families of the arrested; it adds that the police officers were in a manifest state of intoxication and that they stole items from some of the raided homes, such as wool, jugs of wine, and money. There is no further information on the processing of this complaint. On December 1, 1978, the Vicariate of Solidarity, represented by the Auxiliary Bishop of Santiago, Monsignor Enrique Alvear Urrutia, and the Episcopal Vicar, Monsignor Cristián Precht Bañados, filed a complaint with the Supreme Court regarding the discovery of human remains inside two old mineral processing kilns on the slopes of the Lonquén hills, in the Department of Talagante. This information had been provided days earlier by a person to a priest, under the seal of confession. Prior to the presentation to the Supreme Court, the ecclesiastical authorities formed a Commission that went to the indicated location, verifying the truth of what had been reported. In the filing, signed by Bishop Monsignor Enrique Alvear, Vicar Monsignor Cristián Precht, and lawyers Máximo Pacheco and Alejandro González, they requested that the Supreme Court "take measures to ensure a rapid and exhaustive investigation." The Supreme Court remitted the records to the Talagante Criminal Court to conduct the respective summary, initiating case file 27.123-3. As a first step, the magistrate appeared at the site on December 1, located about 3.5 km from the town of Lonquén, confirming the existence of a stone structure, approximately 9 meters high by 16 meters wide, in which there were two kilns, each with an entrance opening of 1 meter by 80 cm, and which had two pits at the top showing a large accumulation of dirt and stones. Upon inspecting one of the entrances and removing some debris, remains, pieces of fabric, and hair were extracted; observation inside revealed the presence of other human remains. In subsequent excavations, human remains were extracted and sent to the Legal Medical Institute for analysis. Some shell casings were also found. On December 6, the Plenary of the Supreme Court appointed the Minister of the Santiago Court of Appeals, Mr. Adolfo Bañados Cuadra, as Extraordinary Visiting Minister to continue the investigation into the discovery of the Lonquén remains. Several peasants living near the kilns were summoned to testify; they stated that a few days after September 11, 1973, Carabineros from the Isla de Maipo station informed them of an order prohibiting passage to the area where the kilns are located, as there was an "extremist hideout." Other peasants said they had seen military vehicles and heard gunfire. Regarding the construction of the kilns themselves, a report from the Investigations Department of Infrastructure indicated that a part of it was old, over 60 years, while inside one of the kilns there was an iron platform on which a slab had been laid based on stone and brick joined with lime or plaster, which was no older than 8 years. The report concludes by indicating that "apparently, this work was executed by throwing the mixture and then the rest of the material from the upper opening of the kiln, as there is no orderly placement of the elements, which suggests it was executed by non-specialized personnel." Regarding the ballistic analysis of three shell casings found, the Forensic Ballistics section of the Investigations Criminalistics Laboratory reported that the 7.62 NATO casings had been fired by a Swiss-made SIG 7.62 NATO SG 510-4 automatic rifle; all were fired by the same weapon of the indicated characteristics. When the Court appeared at the Isla de Maipo station, it was found that the 1973 registry books had been sent to the Third Police Station of Talagante for incineration, and regarding the weaponry, three SIG SG.510-4 automatic rifles, cal. 7.62 mm, appear in the records. At the Third Police Station of Talagante, information was obtained regarding the personnel existing at the Isla de Maipo station and the Lonquén outpost, which amounted to 21 officials. The Lieutenant was Lautaro Castro Mendoza. During the process, the list of 63 "allegedly disappeared persons who were located in the records of the Legal Medical Institute of Santiago," which was presented along with another list of "alleged disappeared persons with no legal existence" by the Chilean government to the United Nations Commission on Human Rights in 1975, was reviewed. The Court requested the autopsy protocols from the Legal Medical Institute that, according to the list, corresponded to Segundo, Rodolfo, and José Maureira Muñoz. In this regard, Dr. Claudio Molina, Director of the Institute, declared that "the inaccuracy of the list of 'presumably disappeared persons' is evident at least regarding protocol No. 3332, since the study of the corpse revealed that it was a woman." He added that he had seen this list in a 1975 publication and that, together with another doctor, he identified the signature as belonging to Dr. Vargas (former Director of the Institute), "but I do not know on what basis this professional endorsed said role." The Judge of the 7th Criminal Court of Santiago appeared at the Legal Medical Institute at the request of Minister Bañados, and it was verified that none of the people on the list appeared in the Institute's Index Book; the only thing that coincided between both lists was the data that appeared in the day of death column with the date of entry in the Registry book. At the time of this proceeding, Dr. Vargas had passed away. In the processing of case 240005-1 of the Maipo-Buin Court, which investigates the disappearances in Paine, it was established that the signature of Dr. Vargas was not the known one. In this regard, the Minister of the Interior, Sergio Fernández Fernández, reported that there was no record that the list of persons corresponded to any official communication issued or sent by that Ministry. Meanwhile, the Acting Vice-Minister of Foreign Affairs, Army Colonel Roberto Soto

Mackenney reported that the aforementioned list appeared in Volume No. 2 of "The Current Human Rights Situation in Chile," published by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in October 1975. The source of the data contained in said list corresponds to information provided by the Legal Medical Institute of Santiago in 1975." Ultimately, it was not possible to establish responsibilities for the preparation of the list.

In February 1979, following the discovery of evidence that the remains found belonged to the detainees from Isla de Maipo, proceedings began to identify the clothing found in the kilns. The victims' relatives appeared, most of whom were able to recognize the clothing their relatives were wearing at the time of their detention.

Previously, the anthropomorphic records of these 15 victims had been submitted to the Court. When the Carabineros who belonged to the Isla de Maipo station staff in September 1973 were summoned to testify, Carabinero Captain Lautaro Eugenio Castro Mendoza appeared and stated that he gave the order to detain "several subjects of the Maureira family" for being dangerous individuals linked to the interests of the previous government who were planning to attack the barracks; furthermore, "other individuals from the sector with the surname Hernández and others whom I do not recall until reaching eleven people" were also detained. He himself led the picket and defined the arrests by following a list attached to a map found in the house of one of the sons of the Maureira family. Once the arrests were completed, they were taken to the barracks where they were interrogated, confirming his suspicions "regarding their dangerousness." Castro adds that, once the interrogation was finished, he himself ordered their transfer to the Estadio Nacional, but before that, one of the detainees informed him in private that there were weapons hidden in an abandoned mine. For this reason, they headed to the abandoned mines in Lonquén in a municipal truck and a private pickup truck, with 8 to 10 Carabineros and the detainees; once they arrived at the sector, they were suddenly attacked with firearms from the hills, to which they responded by firing back, a situation that lasted about ten to fifteen minutes. Upon proceeding to look for the detainees, they verified that all of them were dead. All the Carabineros remained unharmed. Subsequently, he decided, after consulting with the personnel, to bury the bodies in the kilns to avoid reprisals against them and their families; thus, "the bodies were thrown inside and immediately afterward I ordered that earth and rubble be thrown over them." When asked about the statements he gave in other proceedings, asserting that the detainees had been transferred to the Estadio Nacional, he points out that he did not tell the truth out of fear, since "upon being arrested, all these subjects had an attitude of threat that seemed very serious to me in the sense that they could take revenge in any way against our own persons and families." Regarding the memorandum, he declares that it was signed by him but he does not recognize the signature and handwritten script at the bottom. He reiterates that there were eleven detainees and that he does not know the minors who supposedly also died that day. He was referring to Iván Ordóñez, Miguel Brant, José Herrera, and Manuel Navarro. All the Carabineros who participated in the events were armed with SIG rifles and NATO ammunition. Other Carabineros from the staff also appeared; several of them confirmed Captain Castro's version, adding that the detainees were tied with trintrollas (a type of cord), that they were lying on the platform of the truck, and that they used their hands and feet to throw stones and material from the hillsides into the kilns. On March 15, 1979, the relatives of the forcibly disappeared from the Maureira, Astudillo, and Hernández families filed a criminal complaint for kidnapping against the Carabineros who participated in the arrest, for forgery of a public instrument against Lieutenant Castro, and for qualified homicide against those who might be responsible. The following day, Minister Bañados rejected the processing of the complaint, as there was a lack of evidence to affirm that they were effectively the people found in the kilns and that, in the event that the Carabineros were the ones responsible, that Court would lack the jurisdiction to substantiate the case. On April 4, 1979, the Visiting Minister declared himself incompetent. In the resolution, the Minister points out the following conclusions: -He establishes that the identity of the bodies found corresponds to the 15 people detained on October 7, 1973, in Isla de Maipo. -He presumes that "multiple crimes of homicide were committed, apparently, in a single act." -He takes as established that the information provided by the Carabineros that the victims were taken as detainees to the Estadio Nacional is false. -He likewise deems the official information that the bodies entered the Legal Medical Institute during the years 1973 and 1974 to be false. -He establishes as "intrinsically implausible" the version of Captain Lautaro Castro, who explains the death of the detainees as the result of an armed attack caused by unknown persons at night, because "it is impossible to imagine that the opposing projectiles could have impacted, under the conditions already expressed, only the prisoners and not their captors; that from the shootout that occurred there, no trace remained, in any respect, and that, in all cases, the injuries were of such a condition that they caused the instantaneous death of the victims." -He points out that, "in none of the fifteen skeletal remains studied by the Legal Medical Institute were signs of perforations, fractures, or other types of vestiges found that could be related to firearm projectiles impacting a living organism, so the death of the fifteen people must be attributed to other causes." -He considers that the Carabineros acted in the line of duty and that in the events "the Head of the Station had direct interference and responsibility, without prejudice to that which may affect those who acted under his command." The records were sent to the Military Justice system on April 10, and in the Second Military Prosecutor's Office, case file Rol 200-79 was instructed under Prosecutor Gonzalo Salazar Swett. From this stage of the process, it is worth highlighting the statement of a witness—a brother-in-law of the Hernández brothers—who was also arrested on October 7, 1973, along with them at their home; he maintains having been with the eleven detainees during the journey to the station and, upon arriving at this facility, he only remained for about half an hour and was then taken to his home by a Carabinero. Former Carabinero official Pablo Ñancupil Raquileo, discharged in 1977, who served at the Isla de Maipo station between 1971 and 1975, also appeared. He points out that he was in charge of the detention of the Maureiras and the Astudillos, ordered personally by Lieutenant Castro; he does not remember having apprehended the Hernández brothers. He adds that in the respective searches of the homes, they did not find weapons or documents that would allow them to be classified as "dangerous." In relation to this, Lieutenant Castro had previously stated that he had been guided by a list and a map of the barracks found in the house of one of Sergio Maureira's sons to carry out the other arrests. Former Carabinero Ñancupil adds that about two days after the arrest, he saw, in a room of the police facility intended as a storeroom, "more than 10 and fewer than 25 people," lying on the floor with their hands tied behind their backs, among whom he recognized those detained by him and also three of the young men apprehended in the plaza, whom he names by their surnames: Brant, Ordóñez, and Navarro. He further states that he did not participate in the transfer of the detainees from the station and has no knowledge of their fate, although he says that, following comments from people that the detainees had not appeared, he heard a Carabinero say: "how are they going to appear... if we killed them." On July 2, 1979, the Military Prosecutor issued an indictment against Lautaro Castro Mendoza, Juan J. Villegas Navarro, Félix Sagredo Aravena, Manuel Muñoz Rencoret, Jacinto R. Torres González, David Coliqueo Fuentealba, José Belmar Sepúlveda, and Justo Romo Peralta, as authors of the crime of unnecessary violence causing the death of all those detained on October 7, 1973. On August 16, a sentence was issued that dismissed the case totally and definitively in favor of the defendants, by virtue of the 1978 Amnesty Decree Law; this resolution was appealed and confirmed by the Court Martial on October 22, 1979. On the other hand, the Military Prosecutor's Office did not return the remains, and in 1980 they were buried for a second time, apart from their families. Despite the evidence that exists in the case file, the deaths of Sergio Maureira Lillo and his four sons José Manuel, Rodolfo Antonio, Segundo Armando, and Sergio Miguel were not registered in the Civil Registry.

Source: Corporation report

Dear Grandfather, There are so many things I would like to tell you. This year I turned 47, and it hasn't been an easy life, but you know, I had the example of my grandmother Elena and I learned never to give up.

Since they took you along with my father and my uncles, she never stopped looking for you. She had to survive with the eight children who were left, and despite that, she fought for truth and justice. I think that is the most important thing I could tell you; she loved you until the last day of her life, she loved you and the children they took from her.

Grandfather, I don't know where to start. When they arrested my father along with you, my mother was left alone and she was barely 19 years old. We went to live in Santiago with my mother's sister, and I grew up for a large part of my life away from my Maureira family.

I saw them few times; besides, I think they thought it was better to be far from all this hard history and that in those times it was still dangerous to speak out. But well, as they say, blood is thicker, and life put me on the right path, here fighting for memory.

When I was young, I went back to live in Isla de Maipo for a while and I played soccer in the club you founded at the end of the 60s, the glorious Robert Kennedy, although I confess to you that I am terrible at the ball, but I put in the effort—a shame for the surname since they were famous for being good players.

I am also a shame as a peasant; I didn't inherit any of that from the Maureiras, but over time something was born in me that I am grateful to have inherited from you: injustice and the needs of the people are not indifferent to me.

I always heard about your role as a social leader, the one who organized bingos to help with an operation, the one who organized massive trips to the beach with several families with the peasant workers you worked with, the one who founded a soccer club.

When I was a child, those were stories a bit distant to me, but now they fill me with pride. Now I understand more and more who you were, and I feel so proud to be your grandson. As some more radical friends say, you were someone dangerous to the system that was imposed in Chile by blood and fire; you were a leader, someone who would not have kept quiet in the face of injustice.

Sometimes I wonder what our life together would have been like. They tell me you were fun, but quite strict, and I am quite disorganized and stubborn; it would have been a nice combination. My uncles tell me you would have kept me in line; I say I would have gotten my way anyway, since my grandmother Elena always said I was her favorite, I always had immunity in her house.

Grandfather, it also saddens me to say that many people went through what happened to you, and it is even sadder that it continues to happen in this supposed democracy. But I also tell you that Chile woke up and now the youth are fighting for a more dignified life, and those not so young as me also make our contribution, and I feel that we are going to win.

I will run out of lines, but I want to confess and I ask you to forgive me. Sometimes I blamed you for leaving me so alone; was it so important for you and my father that it was worth sacrificing everything?

I tell you, I missed hugs, I missed someone to teach me to be a good soccer player, but as I told you before, I kept growing and every day I feel closer to you. Like I heard in some song, I ended up taking the same train and I no longer feel alone; I have very good friends, Beto, Catalán, Eve, Rodrigo, Francia, Paula, Rorro, Cristián, Aunt Alicia, and so many who follow your same ideals.

Grandfather, I am married and I have three beautiful daughters, all with social consciousness and fighters, thank God, but again I ask you for forgiveness: we are Colo-Colo fans and I know you loved the U, just like my grandmother and all the Maureiras.

I told you I am stubborn; by the way, the U still doesn't have a stadium. (Don't get angry, it's a repeated but necessary joke). I know you called me "Choquero" because of how dark I turned out. We were together so little, but I tell you something: your nickname "didn't catch on," the family still calls me Carlitos even at my age, and my friends from the social-political world call me "Maureira," which I like a lot.

Grandfather, your dreams remain intact; your example, your life, your courage guide me and also guide many others who continue fighting for a dignified life. Your Choquero says goodbye. Carlos Maureira Navarrete, 47 years old, grandson of Sergio Maureira Lillo, forcibly disappeared, found in the Lonquén Kilns.

Source: epistolariodelamemoria.cl 09/11/2020

Date: 09-11-2020

On October 7, 1973, at 9:45 PM, a group of eleven peasants from the town of Isla de Maipo was detained by Carabinero officials. The police did not carry arrest or search warrants for the homes of those people.

Numerous witnesses saw how they were beaten and loaded into a white pickup truck owned by the owner of the Fundo Naguayán—where the houses of the three families were located—and how they were tied up and laid face down on the floor of the vehicle.

They were the agricultural workers: Enrique Astudillo Álvarez (51 years old), Omar Astudillo Rojas (20), Ramón Astudillo Rojas (27), Carlos Hernández Flores (39), Nelson Hernández Flores (32), Oscar Hernández Flores (30), Sergio Maureira Lillo (46), José Maureira Muñoz (26), Rodolfo Maureira Muñoz (22), Segundo Maureira Muñoz (24), and Sergio Maureira Muñoz (27).

The Carabinero officials stood on their backs. They paraded through the streets of the town to intimidate the entire population. Finally, they were taken to the station. The same fate befell four young men who had been detained that same day in the town square: Miguel Brant Bustamante (22 years old), Manuel Navarro Salinas (20), Iván Ordóñez Lama (17), and José Herrera Villegas (17).

The relatives were deceived by government authorities. They were informed that the detainees had been transferred to the Estadio Nacional in the capital. In 1974, the relatives filed a recurso de amparo (habeas corpus).

When the local authorities were questioned by the courts, they merely stated that "everyone had been transferred on October 8, 1973, to the Estadio Nacional." Which was completely false. The SENDET (National Service for Detainees) indicated contradictorily that it "did not have, and had never had, information about them." Sergio Diez—today a senator for National Renewal—and at that time a delegate of the Augusto Pinochet Ugarte dictatorship to the OAS, lied in 1975 before the whole world, saying that: "these people had no legal existence," while other "Lonquén detainees had been admitted to the Legal Medical Institute in October 1973." On November 29, 1978, an informant gave the Catholic Church the data on the exact place where the ill-fated remains of the peasants and young men were: some lime kilns in the town of Lonquén, 14 kilometers from the town of Talagante. The Vicar of Solidarity, Cristián Precht, and the Bishop of Santiago, Enrique Alvear, decided to verify the information by going to the site along with journalists—Jaime Martínez (Qué Pasa) and Abraham Santibáñez (Revista Hoy)—and lawyers Máximo Pacheco (PDC) and Alejandro González. The press reported: "In an old stone construction, about twelve meters high, attached to the slope of a hill, inside which there are two silos of two and a half meters, were the bodies (...). In the other, covered with stones from above and with an exit in its lower part, also walled up, were human remains, a skull, destroyed clothes (...)." It was a precise and painful blow to the conscience of thousands of Chileans. An open wound to this day, unspeakable. An image of pain and human misery, of horror without limit and brutality that the history of humanity will remember forever. Pinochet and his lackeys could do nothing to hide the horrendous crime. The bishop informed Israel Bórquez, president of the Supreme Court and collaborator of the regime, who sent the records to the Talagante Court. Judge Juana Godoy was appointed to begin the investigation. In December 1978, the remains were sent to the Legal Medical Institute. The plenary of the Supreme Court appointed Judge Adolfo Bañados as Visiting Minister, who ordered autopsies and ballistic examinations to be carried out and gathered the cases in which the disappearance of persons or alleged misfortune had been reported. He interrogated the relatives of the "disappeared" peasants. The police officers involved: Lautaro Castro Mendoza—head of the Isla de Maipo station—and Carabineros Juan Villegas Navarro, Félix Sagredo Aravena, Manuel Muñoz Rencoret, Jacinto Torres González, David Coliqueo Fuentealba, José Belmar Sepúlveda, and Justo Romo Peralta, gave the version before the courts that they had "taken the detainees, of high dangerousness, to the Lonquén kilns, with the object of unearthing the weaponry they had hidden, and that later—at the site—they had suffered an armed attack by unknown persons, the peasants being killed by the gunfire. Fearing reprisals, they had decided to hide the bodies in the abandoned kilns." In April 1979, Minister Bañados had to declare himself incompetent due to the prevailing legislation that grants immunity to uniformed personnel and hands over criminal cases in which they are involved to the Military Justice system. He did establish—before leaving the case—the responsibility of these police officers in the events. His resolution says: "The version (...) to try to explain the death of their prisoners, not only contradicts the merit of the case file in multiple aspects and details, in particular, of course, regarding the number of victims, but is intrinsically implausible (...) in none of the remains were signs of perforations, fractures, or other types of vestiges found that could be related to firearm projectiles impacting a living organism, so the death of the fifteen people must be attributed to other causes." The case then passed into the hands of the "Second Military Court," which indicted the Carabinero officials as "authors of the crime of unnecessary violence causing death." After a short procedure, the case was definitively dismissed by means of the Amnesty Law dictated by Pinochet, legislation to which the eight Carabineros had requested to be subject. Subsequently, the "Court Martial" confirmed that resolution. The murderer Lautaro Castro was promoted to the rank of Captain. One year after the bodies of the peasants and young men were found, the remains were handed over to their relatives. The bodies were transported by officials of the Legal Medical Institute to Isla de Maipo and buried immediately—except for Sergio Maureira Lillo—to avoid the presence of their relatives, depositing them in a common grave. The relatives, aggrieved once again by the military authorities, filed a complaint with the Court Martial—which was obliged to accept it—against military prosecutor Gonzalo Salazar Sweet, for "lack and abuse committed by not complying with the order to hand over the bodies." He was given a written censure. In January 1980, the Supreme Court decided to set it aside, considering that the prosecutor "did not incur in any fault. It was the judges themselves who imposed it on him who indicated the procedure he employed." A complaint was filed again in court for the death of the Isla de Maipo peasants. This case was carried by visiting minister Héctor Solís, who could not continue his investigation. The minister of the San Miguel Court of Appeals, Marianela Cifuentes, continued the investigation, finishing it on September 12, 2016, when she issued a first-instance sentence. The minister convicted the 7 Carabineros who detained the fifteen peasants; the former Carabineros were convicted for the crime of qualified kidnapping: Lautaro Castro Mendoza, head of the patrol, to the penalty of 20 years in prison for his responsibility as author. David Coliqueo Fuentealba, Justo Ignacio Romo Peralta, Félix Héctor Sagredo Aravena, Jacinto Torres González, and Juan José Villegas Navarro were sentenced to 15 years in prison. Pablo Ñancupil Raguileo was sentenced to 900 days in prison. The case went to the second instance, the San Miguel Court of Appeals, which on May 16, 2017, confirmed the sentence. On June 16, 2018, the Supreme Court confirmed the sentence that convicted 6 former Carabineros, given that the head of the Carabineros, Lautaro Castro, died before the conviction. On February 18, 2010, the acting Visiting Minister of the San Miguel Court of Appeals, Héctor Solís, announced the identification of 13 of the 15 bodies whose remains were found in 1978, finally allowing for the burial to take place, with the removal of the bones from the Legal Medical Service on March 26. On March 27, a public wake was held in the Civic Courtyard of the Isla de Maipo Municipality, and on Sunday the 28th, the solemn burial of the victims in the Isla de Maipo Parish Cemetery. The Lonquén Kilns were demolished to erase all vestiges and traces of memory, to definitively impose oblivion. By Arnaldo Pérez Guerra

Source: prensaopal.cl, October 7, 2020

Date: 10-07-2020