Fernando Opazo has never forgotten the day his brother-in-law, Felidor Vera Cárcamo, arrived unexpectedly at his house on the “El Mirador” estate, located about 10 kilometers inside Valle Simpson along the road to Los Palos lake.

Felidor had a confused look and a dejected expression on his face. The first thing he asked Fernando was if he had seen Juanito. –No, I haven’t seen him, but he must be around. Yesterday I heard a truck pass by that was unloading wood –Fernando replied. –Do you know that they said on the radio that the soldiers killed him there at the post? –Felidor added, as if speaking to himself. –What?!

That can’t be! You must be mistaken –Fernando countered, in a tone that mixed uncertainty with certainty. –Come with me, let’s go see –Felidor proposed, appealing to the last shred of hope he had left inside.

Immediately, both farmers set off walking through the fields, wanting to decipher what happened to the young Juan Bautista Vera Cárcamo, who was just beginning the construction of his house on a plot of land adjacent to the home of his older sister, Herminda, and his brother-in-law Fernando, in an area near Valle Simpson.

As they approached the post –about 300 meters away– the sheepdogs that accompanied them rushed to sniff a trail of blood staining the ground. Terrified, still unable to believe what they were seeing, Fernando and Felidor inspected the site.

The evidence at the scene was more than eloquent. They found bullet casings, apparently from a rifle. Fernando picked one up in his hand, looked at it with a very deep gaze, and then collected the rest while Felidor followed him.

In total, they found 14, which Fernando prudently decided to hide in the hollow of an old log. The farmers continued their tour of the area. Nearby, on a piece of lenga wood, clear bullet marks could be seen, and on the ground, the tracks of a truck.

Felidor buried his face in both hands; there was no longer any doubt: Juan must be dead. Now they had to inform the rest of the family of what had happened and find out where the body was so they could bury him.

They knew it would not be easy to recover Juanito’s body; the military was everywhere, controlling everything; the dictatorship had imposed the new order through oppression. However, their grief and love for their brother were much stronger than the fear of suffering the same fate, and that gave them the courage to search for him, to claim him, and to overcome any obstacle.

Both decided that Felidor would go to the Regimiento n.° 14 in Coyhaique to ask for information and, if necessary, beg the commander to hand over the remains. At the same time, Fernando would have to break the bad news to his wife.

Pain had flooded them: young Juan had fallen victim to a cowardly and incomprehensible crime. And his body was not even to be found. At the time of his death, Juan Bautista Vera Cárcamo was a cheerful 23-year-old.

He was born on June 3, 1950, into a family of farmers in the Ensenada sector of Valle Simpson, in the outskirts of Coyhaique. He was the youngest of 6 siblings: Sofía, Herminda, Segundo Leonardo, Felidor, and María Magdalena.

His parents were Leonardo Vera Castro and Elba Cárcamo Vera. When Juan Bautista was only 1 year old, his mother died prematurely, the victim of a sudden illness. Immediately, Herminda and Sofía, the older sisters, at 14 and 15 years old, assumed the household chores and the responsibility of caring for the younger ones.

Leonardo Vera dedicated himself with tenacity to the task of raising his children. He worked hard in the fields alongside his older children to support the family. The Vera children had to help their father with the demanding farm work in a hostile climate.

At first, the tasks they performed were the lightest, such as pulling the yoke of oxen or helping to cut grass. As they grew, the difficulties increased, and they performed the hardest work. In this context, the Vera Cárcamo siblings could not attend school regularly.

Juan Bautista only reached the second grade; he learned to read and write, but he had to drop out because the school was too far away, and the harsh weather, in addition to the precarious roads, made it impossible for him to continue studying.

Despite the early absence of his mother and a life of hardship, the siblings grew up in an environment surrounded by affection and the warmth of a home. Juan Bautista, or Juanito, as his family called him, being the smallest in the house, was practically a son to his older sisters and brothers.

Fernando Opazo came to live in the Valle Simpson sector in 1957. There he met the Vera Cárcamos and Juanito when he was 7 years old. Later, he would remain linked to the family by marrying Herminda. Fernando remembers that he was a very thin, blond boy with fair skin, curly hair, and green eyes. “He was a cheerful young man; he liked to play the guitar and ride horses.

He was always singing or whistling through the fields,” he recalls. When Juan Bautista was 14, his father passed away. Then the young man abruptly left his childhood behind to face life as his older siblings already were.

Segundo Leonardo, the oldest of the boys, like many farmers of the time, was forced to emigrate in search of better opportunities. At the time, these were on the other side of the mountain range, in the booming Argentine oil city of Comodoro Rivadavia.

For their part, Juan and Felidor stayed at home, facing the difficult social conditions of the countryside, working on the properties adjacent to the Valle Simpson sector. Soon, Juan became a lanky young man of great height and an elongated face, in which his large green eyes stood out.

Of a sociable personality, his friends and family knew him as El Güite, a nickname whose meaning or origin no one remembers. Juan’s youth took place in a time of great economic, political, and social transformations.

The agrarian reform process was the most significant transformation for the agricultural sector, farmers, and agricultural workers. It had begun in 1965 when Eduardo Frei Montalva was president, but it had gained greater strength during the Unidad Popular government.

Juan, like other small farmers and laborers of the time, embraced the struggle for land ownership for production and cradled the hope of becoming the owner of the fruits of his labor. Proud of the upbringing he received in his family, he was never discouraged.

He saw in this series of changes, which the UP government was promoting, the possibility of progressing, educating himself, and getting ahead. Salvador Allende, with his policies, tried to improve the country’s literacy conditions, massify education, improve basic educational levels, and provide access to culture for the marginalized popular sectors.

In this way, his concerns led Juan to tune into the new ideas, demands, and struggles of the peasant movement of the time. At the beginning of the 70s, he became a sympathizer of the Partido Socialista and began working at the Corporación de Reforma Agraria (CORA).

There he met Juan Morales Landaeta, the area head of that service in Aysén, who would later be accused of being his bodyguard. Juan Bautista set out to work to fulfill his dreams and aspirations, so he decided to build a “rancha” (shack) to settle in the countryside and begin raising animals on the 33 hectares of the “El Mirador” estate, which he had inherited from his parents.

This way, he could become independent and stop working as a laborer on other people’s land. As soon as the coup d’état occurred, and the State of Internal War was declared throughout the country, Juan Bautista was required by a military decree to present himself before the new authorities.

But he decided not to present himself. He left and sought refuge in the countryside that saw him grow up, that land where he always felt protected. Once there, he continued working on the construction of the house he had planned to erect to settle there permanently.

By that date, Juan had ordered the wood necessary to achieve his goal. The truck with the material would arrive soon; he only had to wait a very short time to begin construction. In the early hours of Wednesday, October 10, 1973, First Corporal Juan José González Andaur –after having received orders from his superior, Captain Joaquín Molina, and he from Colonel Humberto Gordon Rubio himself– broke into one of the dormitories of the Regimiento Reforzado Motorizado n.° 14 Aysén in Coyhaique.

About 40 young conscripts were sleeping peacefully in the room, distributed in 3-tier bunk beds. With a firm and authoritative voice, as was his custom, González Andaur woke up nine soldiers, among them Tomás Paredes Venegas, Luis Klenner Cofré, and José Silva Gutiérrez.

He ordered them to form up and board a Mercedes Benz Unimog truck that was ready to take them to carry out a mission in the town of Valle Simpson. Corporal González was known among the conscripts for his despotic and violent character, so his orders had to be carried out quickly and without questioning.

He was also one of the trusted men of Molina and Gordon Rubio. –Soldiers! We have to go find a subversive and hopefully bring him back cold to Coyhaique –shouted González, while handing them one by one SIG rifles and 2 full magazines with 25 rounds each.

When dawn had already broken, the military patrol arrived at the property of brothers César and Manuel Millar in the vicinity of Valle Simpson. González ordered part of his patrol to raid the small dwelling in search of weapons or any document that would prove any political militancy.

They found 2 rusty and old carbine bullets and a pair of axes. Obviously, without possessing any judicial warrant, the corporal decided to detain the Millar brothers and put them on the truck so they could guide him through the sector in search of his target: the bodyguard of the terrorist Morales Landaeta.

Regarding Morales, a CORA official, the accusation of having hidden weapons weighed on Intendant Añasco, Harold Felmer, and other government officials. Juan Bautista was making wood with his axe when he was ambushed by the patrol commanded by Corporal González.

After subduing him with violence, the soldiers raided the young farmer’s post, finding only his work tools. –Tell me, you idiot, where do you have the weapons hidden?! –González berated him again and again between shouts and rifle-butt blows.

Juan, the quiet young man of libertarian dreams, only had an axe and a small knife with him. Minutes passed and the corporal lost his patience. He ordered Juan Bautista to run across the field. The young man resisted. It was not difficult to assume that if he moved away from the patrol, they could shoot him.

González insisted, impatient

–Run, damn it! Juan again did not obey the order. The corporal pushed him violently. The farmer had no choice but to move away at the same time that González Andaur gave the order to his soldiers. The conscripts opened fire, aiming into the air.

González, with fierce and tireless stubbornness, again shouted at Juan to run away. This time would be the last. Coldly, the corporal took his weapon and, without hesitation, shot the young man in the back, and at the same time reiterated his order to the conscripts to open fire.

Upon receiving the stampede of rifle bullets, Juan collapsed face down. Corporal González approached calmly, turned him over, and fired one last shot after verifying that Juan Bautista was still alive. –See?

That’s how it’s done –he boasted with the conviction of an expert executioner. They loaded the body onto the bed of the truck to transport it to Coyhaique. They left it on the floor and covered it with a blanket.

The conscripts sat with their feet resting on the warm corpse. González was satisfied; he had fulfilled his mission and had taught the soldiers how one should deal with the enemy. –Get used to smelling and being impregnated with the blood of the executed –he told the soldiers.

Upon arriving at the regiment, the patrol was received by Captain Joaquín Molina. Corporal González, proud of his feat, informed his superior that the mission was accomplished and that the person came back dead, just as he had been requested.

The officer congratulated him effusively, and then he himself would go to inform the all-powerful Gordon about the progress in the elimination of the opponents.

Molina addressed the soldiers

–You, duck’s beak –he said to them as a warning while making a gesture with his hand at the height of his mouth as if sealing it. At around 14:30 hours on Wednesday, October 10, Herminda left her house to fetch water.

No more than 500 meters from the place, her younger brother Juan was working on the wood for his construction. Suddenly, she heard some loud detonations in the distance. Her mind, accustomed to the unalterable tranquility of the countryside, was unable to imagine the terrible scene that was taking place a few meters away, so she constructed her own logical explanation. “It must be the sound of the wood being unloaded from the truck,” she told herself.

Later, her husband, Fernando, upon arriving home, commented that he had seen the tracks of a large vehicle. Talking, they came to the conclusion that it must have been the truck with the wood for Juanito’s house.

The next day, after the visit of her brother Felidor, her husband informed her that Juan Bautista had been murdered by some soldiers. And the greatest pain came. Herminda broke into bitter weeping. Juanito, the brother she raised, cared for, and loved like her own son since he was one year old, could not leave like that.

He was a good, hardworking, affectionate, and harmless boy. She wondered, without finding an answer, what such a bad thing could her brother have done to be murdered in such a cruel way? If he was accused of something, why wasn’t he judged and recognized his right to defend himself as is done with all human beings?

Why was he killed like that, as if his life were worth nothing? That same day, Fernando and Felidor went to the Regimiento n.° 14 and the police stations, the main detention centers, in search of information or any clue about Juan.

They felt helpless; they were just farmers, they had no one to turn to and nowhere to demand justice; furthermore, in those days, the atmosphere in the streets of the town was more than hostile. Military checkpoints had been implemented at different points in the city.

Coyhaique was smaller and more isolated than it is today; the military ruled, the same ones who had killed their brother and had the entire population terrified. On the sidewalks, one could breathe fear and distrust.

But the love for their family and the dignity learned from their parents gave them the strength and courage to persist in their inquiries. After wandering without rest, and faced with persistent efforts, Felidor found his younger brother’s body in the morgue of the Hospital de Coyhaique.

There was no way for the military to deny the brutal crime or to have been able to hide the body. Felidor knew, with the certainty that comes from his heart, that he would not lose him twice, and he was willing not to move until they returned his brother’s body.

The soldiers seemed to care little about Felidor’s determination, as they knew they could continue acting in impunity. The authorities allowed them to see the corpse together with Paulo Saúl Vásquez, the husband of a cousin.

Upon seeing the conditions in which the thin, lifeless body of El Güite was in, the men were moved. Fernando remembers that he had at least 14 holes from bullet impacts, and it was noticeable that they had shot him in the back.

His thorax was almost destroyed. The death certificate indicated the cause of death: “Imparted by military authority–bullet wound.” María Magdalena Vera Cárcamo was the sister closest in age to Juanito.

They were only one year apart, so together they shared countless moments and childhood adventures in the extensive fields, hills, and mountains of the “El Mirador” estate. She worked in those years as a domestic worker in Coyhaique.

On October 12, she unexpectedly received a visit at her workplace from her neighbor, Luis Millar Aguilar, who informed her of what had happened to her brother. María could not believe what Millar told her.

She felt deep pain, but she still joined Felidor and her brothers-in-law at the morgue. But there, the officials did not allow her to see her brother’s body. In the morgue, a soldier with contempt, coldness, and arrogance ordered them to take down from a truck a rustic, unpolished wooden coffin, painted with tar, and put the deceased inside it.

Since Juanito was very tall, the coffin was too small, and they had to accommodate the body a bit bent. The military prevented them from dressing the body; they could only wrap it in a blanket. María Magdalena, Felidor, Fernando, and Paulo were transported, along with Juan’s body, in a military truck to the El Claro cemetery, on the outskirts of Coyhaique.

At all times, they were threateningly pointed at by the soldiers guarding them, so they made the trip in silence and with their heads bowed. The body, like others, would be buried illegally. When they arrived at the cemetery, at gunpoint, amidst shouts, shoves, and rifle-butt blows, the family members themselves were ordered to dig a shallow grave and quickly bury the coffin with Juanito’s body.

Upon finishing, they were denied the right to place a cross and a tombstone then and later. Before leaving, the uniformed men warned the Vera Cárcamos not to return and gave them 5 minutes to disappear from the place, otherwise “we will shoot you,” they threatened.

María observed the site very well and looked for some reference that would allow her to recognize later where her brother was buried. The bravery of the siblings to remain by Juan Bautista’s body that day at the hospital prevented Juan Vera Cárcamo from becoming a forcibly disappeared person.

Ten days later, the official version appeared in the newspaper “El Llanquihue” of Puerto Montt. The information issued by the military authority indicated that an “extreme left-wing activist” had been killed, who “tried to attack the military officials with an axe” and that they proceeded to use their weapons.

The article also identified him as a bodyguard of Juan Morales Landaeta, another alleged “extreme left-wing activist.” For her part, Sofía Vera Cárcamo lived in a settlement called “El Triunfo,” located in the Ensenada Valle Simpson sector.

Sofía’s grief was as great as that of her other 2 sisters, but her pain was accentuated more on the day her husband, Miguel Cumian González, died under strange circumstances. Miguel was an agricultural leader with whom she had 5 small children.

One day he traveled to the city, and in the night hours, unknown persons took him and a friend from the place where they were, and 5 hooded men beat them brutally until they left them unconscious. Later, and after agonizing for several days at the Hospital de Coyhaique, he passed away on January 5, 1979, as a result of the beating received, without ever being able to recognize his aggressors.

The friend survived. The family never filed a complaint, because after what they experienced with Juan Bautista, little trust remained in the justice system. They were living in times of abuse and impunity.

Despite the military warning, the Vera Cárcamo siblings always returned to the El Claro cemetery. They chose moments when there were many people, to blend in with the crowd. They approached timidly, fearing being watched, and little by little they began placing new signs on the mound of earth.

At first, they delimited the grave with sticks and stones, as they kept in mind the military’s prohibition on placing a cross. Later, they made small arrangements on the tomb and, with the passage of time, they made a fence around the grave.

However, they had to wait until well after democracy was restored to seek justice. Only in March 2012 did the visiting minister Luis Sepúlveda Coronado decree the exhumation of the body from the Río Claro cemetery in Coyhaique, with the aim of sending it to Santiago to the Instituto Médico Legal.

These expert reports managed to corroborate the identity of Juan Bautista Vera Cárcamo and the causes and circumstances of his death. Despite the time that has passed, his sisters, now elderly, keep their memories clear and the pain intact.

They have lived their lives with the wound always open and the constant sorrow. Their light eyes moisten every time they remember their beloved younger brother. Their greatest longing all these years has been to be able to hold a proper funeral and give him a Christian burial, as Juan deserved.

Finally, more than 40 years after his death, the remains were returned to the family in mid-2014. After a long wait, they were finally able to offer their brother and uncle a wake and funeral in accordance with their religious beliefs.

This time, it was his family members who chose the place where his remains will rest forever; the place chosen was the Villa Frei cemetery, very close to the land where they grew up. “His soul will finally be able to rest in peace,” whispers Sofía with a broken voice.

However, beyond the results of the investigation, the clarification of the truth, and the prosecution of those responsible, they have lived their entire lives without punishment, as if they were respectable citizens.

More than once, Juan Bautista’s brothers and nephews have encountered González, the then-corporal who led the slaughter, walking freely through the city of Coyhaique. For them, the years of impunity have been an open wound.

On April 28, 2011, a complaint was filed with the First Civil Court of Coyhaique for the crimes of homicide of Juan Bautista Vera Cárcamo and another for illicit association, in the Judicial Prosecutor’s Office of the Court of Appeals of Santiago.

In the ruling, Minister Sepúlveda sentenced the then-First Corporal Juan José González Andaur, as co-author of the crime of qualified homicide, to the penalty of 10 years and one day in prison, without benefits due to the length of the sentence; the then-conscript soldiers José Sergio Silva Gutiérrez and Luis Octavio Loy Gómez, as co-authors of the crime of qualified homicide, to the penalty of 5 years of minor prison in its maximum degree; and the conscripts Luis Fernando Klenner Cofré and Tomás Ernesto Paredes Venegas to the penalty of 3 years and one day of minor prison in its maximum degree, granting them the benefit of supervised release. This first-instance sentence is currently awaiting the Court of Appeals to hear the appeals and rule in the second instance for the crime of qualified homicide, committed against the person of Juan Bautista Vera Cárcamo: the beloved Juanito. Author: Claudia Andaur Andaur Published by the Human Rights Group of Coyhaique, 2014

Source: Stories of Absence and Memory (book), 2014

Coyhaique Court sentences former conscripts for the homicide of a farmer in Valle Simpson

The appellate court ratified the challenged sentence that sentenced the conscript soldiers to 5-year prison terms, with the benefit of supervised release, as co-authors of the crime. In a unanimous ruling, the Court of Appeals of Coyhaique confirmed the sentence that condemned four retired members of the Army for their responsibility in the crime of qualified homicide of Juan Bautista Vera Cárcamo, an illicit act perpetrated on October 10, 1973, in the rural sector of Valle Simpson in the commune.

The appellate court ratified the challenged sentence that sentenced the then-conscript soldiers José Sergio Silva Gutiérrez, Luis Octavio Loy Gómez, Luis Fernando Klenner Cofré, and Tomás Ernesto Paredes Venegas to 5-year prison terms, with the benefit of supervised release, as co-authors of the crime.

In the investigation stage, Minister Luis Sepúlveda managed to prove the following sequence of events: -That in the first days of the month of October of the year 1973, approximately on the 10th of that month and year, the 1st Corporal of the Regimiento N° 14 Aysén, Juan José González Andaur, who was also an instructor and vehicle driver of that military institution, arranged that together with some conscript soldiers, they would go to the neighborhood sector of Villa Frei, with the purpose of detaining a person according to a list or roll that he himself carried.

For the above, he recruited around 7 conscript soldiers from different sections, to whom he indicated that they were going to carry out a raid and/or detentions, without indicating to them either the place or the people they were going to raid or detain. -That, as a result of the above, said military patrol, as has been said, composed of Corporal González Andaur and around 7 conscript soldiers, among whom were Tomás Ernesto Paredes Venegas, Luis Fernando Klenner Cofré, and José Sergio Silva Gutiérrez, went to the rural property where Vera Cárcamo lived, located in the sector known as Valle Simpson, approximately 23 kilometers from Coyhaique, and when they approached this residence, the military patrol noticed that there was a settler who was performing field work and using an axe with which he was making stakes. -That, Corporal González Andaur proceeded to stop the Unimog truck, getting out of it and heading to where said settler was, who turned out to be Juan Bautista Vera Cárcamo, to whom he indicated that he was the person they were looking for and that he “had an order to take him arrested to the Regimiento 14 Aysén,” without any judicial or administrative order having been shown to him, but rather that said corporal was acting due to, as he said, a verbal order that had been given to him by the Regiment Commander, General Humberto Gordon. -That, the conscript soldiers Tomás Ernesto Paredes Venegas, Luis Fernando Klenner Cofré, and José Sergio Silva Gutiérrez, who formed the military patrol, each separately, when providing their versions of the facts, declare that said farmer was ambushed and that Corporal Juan González Andaur gave him an order to run in the direction of the military truck, which the man obeyed, and when he was running, said corporal gave them an order for all of them to shoot the settler in the back, a situation that is recognized by the corporal, even though he declares that the order he gave was because the farmer Vera Cárcamo had resisted being arrested and attempted to attack him with the axe, although at no time did he touch him. -That, after those shots occurred, Corporal González Andaur approached the settler Vera Cárcamo and verified that he was dead and gave an order for the conscript soldiers of the patrol to load the corpse into the back of the Unimog truck, with some of them remaining to guard the corpse, while González Andaur drove the truck back to the Regimiento 14 Aysén, and subsequently, still with the corpse on the vehicle, moved the vehicle to the facilities of the Regional Intendancy where the Regiment Commander had offices in his capacity as Regional Intendant, then he took the truck again and took it to the Regiment where Captain Joaquín Molina allegedly gave him instructions to go and bury the deceased clandestinely in the neighborhood cemetery of the El Claro Sector, which he effectively did in the presence of some family members of the victim, who were ordered to remain silent about these events. -That, finally, as a result of the present investigation, the precise place where Juan Bautista Vera Cárcamo had been buried was located, whose body was exhumed and subsequently, according to forensic reports, his remains were identified and handed over to his family members for his Christian burial.

Source: pjud.cl, October 1, 2018