28 years old, single, agricultural worker, forcibly disappeared on October 11, 1973, in Panguipulli. Sergio Luis Paillamilla Treulén was detained that day in the area of the Complejo Maderero y Forestal de Panguipulli by military personnel, along with a brother and other individuals.

Since then, there has been no further news of his whereabouts. According to the account provided by his brother, a surviving witness to the events, he was detained along with Sergio Paillamilla at their family home, located on the La Gloria estate in Panguipulli.

In the early hours of October 11, 1973, a picket of uniformed men raided the place and detained both of them. They were loaded onto a truck carrying other unidentified detainees. They were taken toward the hills in the area and finally to the Chinquel estate, where they were locked in a shed.

He was released, but there was no further news of his brother Sergio, despite the intense search carried out by the family. Considering the evidence gathered and the investigation conducted by this Corporation, the Superior Council reached the conviction that Sergio Luis Paillamilla Treulén was detained by State agents and disappeared while being held in that status.

For this reason, it declared him a victim of human rights violations.

Source: Corporation Report

The space is a tribute to the forcibly disappeared Mapuche, of whose fates only that of the student Nelson Curiñir, kidnapped by repressive forces in 1973, was barely known. Mapuche historian Hernán Curiñir wants the world to know the news, recounts a video published by the newspaper Al Jazeera.

As Curiñir explains, the center of this plaza goes through this place to the Kwel (or Kuel); a sacred space where, only one day a year, the sunrise passes directly from one side to the other. The Mapuche Research and Development Association, AID Mapuche, held a private ceremony on Friday, November 24, 2017, the day the solar event allowed for the consecration of the Kuel, which consists of a mound of earth characteristic of the Wallmapu territories.

It is the first time a memorial has been formally opened to the 171 Mapuche victims of the Chilean military dictatorship, whose memory will be surrounded by a forest of 700-year-old boldo trees. "Our tribute is to project the future, inspired by their legacy," Hernán Curiñir noted to the media outlet Araucanía Cuenta.

Shortly after the military coup led by Augusto Pinochet in 1973, Curiñir's 23-year-old brother, Nelson, a leftist university student, was detained by soldiers and was never seen again. It took Nelson Curiñir's family 20 years to discover that the...

Thousands of Chileans were victims of political executions or were forcibly disappeared during the Pinochet dictatorship. But the fate of the indigenous Mapuche victims has received minimal attention until now, in a country where they have long been discriminated against, as reported by Lucía Newman of Al Jazeera.

María Elena Calfuquir, in conversation with Al Jazeera, recalls how the secret police referred to her father, who was a teacher and poet, as "the Indian." She says they were all reviled for being Mapuche. "My father came back vomiting and urinating blood from the beatings he received when they brought him from prison.

Hours later, they took him away again and he disappeared forever. We have never been able to accept his death," she says. The Mapuche people welcome the memorial with the hope of showing Chile that they were not only victims of a dictatorship, but of a society that has never fully recognized their suffering.

As Araucanía Cuenta reports, the project is part of a complex that includes meli chemamull, Mapuche funerary statues made of meli wood, and is framed within a comprehensive investigation into the forcibly disappeared Mapuche, funded by the European Union.

The Araucanía media outlet highlights that, so far, both the Chilean and Argentine states have remained on the sidelines regarding funding or other contributions to the project, which is located in the Isla Cautín urban park in Temuco.

Source: elciudadano.com 2017