23 years old, single, ENAP engineer, forcibly disappeared on September 13, 1973, in Punta Arenas. Silvio Bettancourt Bahamonde, a leader of the Movimiento de Acción Popular Unitaria (MAPU), was sought by the military authorities in the area.

He disappeared on the day he decided to leave Punta Arenas to head toward Río Gallegos, Argentina. According to witness statements, Silvio Bettancourt worked in Posesión, a locality in Tierra del Fuego, as an engineer for the Empresa Nacional del Petróleo (ENAP).

In the first edict issued by the headquarters of the State of Emergency Zone, he was ordered to present himself before the military authority. He had traveled to Punta Arenas and, after meeting with some friends, made the decision to leave the country via Río Gallegos, Argentina, a journey he intended to make on foot.

Without managing to achieve his goal, he disappeared without a trace. Witnesses declared during the judicial investigation that, in the days and weeks following September 11, 1973, several of his friends were detained and interrogated regarding their political ties to him.

One of the witnesses declared before the Court that, during the interrogations, his captors explicitly alluded to not being interested in Silvio Francisco Bettancourt, as he was already dead. A former security agent who requested that his statement remain confidential claimed to have seen Silvio Bettancourt at a military facility while he was being interrogated and tortured.

Considering the information received and the investigation carried out by this Corporation, the Superior Council reached the conviction that Silvio Francisco Bettancourt Bahamonde 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: (Corporación)

Sister of Silvio Francisco Bettancourt, the only forcibly disappeared person in the region: “41 years after his disappearance, we are confident that we will find his remains.” Jenny Bettancourt Bahamonde had not returned to Punta Arenas since 2008.

She has now returned for two reasons: to participate alongside her mother in the heartfelt tribute that the Universidad de Magallanes paid to her disappeared brother Silvio last Monday, and also to attend the screening of a documentary about the life of her loved one, which will be presented this Friday at 7:00 PM at the Casa de los Derechos Humanos, located at Avenida Colón 636, and which was filmed in Switzerland, San Antonio, and Punta Arenas.

Silvio Francisco Bettancourt is considered the only forcibly disappeared person in Magallanes during the Coup d'État. He was 23 years old, an engineer at ENAP, and his trail was lost on September 13, 1973, with no further news of him ever being heard.

He was a militant of the MAPU. In 1972, Silvio graduated as a petrochemical engineer from the Universidad Técnica del Estado (UTE), currently the Universidad de Magallanes. “That time, in December 1972, when he graduated, my mom and I arrived in Punta Arenas from San Antonio with great excitement and memories.

At that time, my brother spoke on behalf of his classmates. Therefore, last Monday’s act on the university campus was very moving because it was like reliving what happened 42 years ago. Now I also came accompanied by my mother, and I was the one who spoke.” Her words were of gratitude, not only to the Universidad de Magallanes but also to the Chilean community in Switzerland, whose generosity allowed Jenny to travel to Chile.

In 1982, for family reasons, Jenny Bettancourt settled in Switzerland, thinking that her brother, of whom she had no news since 1973, might have settled in a European country. In that sense, she made repeated calls in Switzerland without success. “Only that year did we learn that our brother was considered a forcibly disappeared person,” she emphasized.

They had always thought that Silvio had boarded a ship in Río Gallegos, Argentina, which is why “we had the intimate hope that he might have evaded the repressive net, but later we realized that he actually never left Punta Arenas.” Despite being considered a case of a forcibly disappeared person, the family does not have any testimony from anyone who saw him in any military barracks or detention center.

There is only the version of a former intelligence services agent. Judicial Process The criminal case for the disappearance of Silvio Bettancourt remains fully active, in the hands of a minister of the Punta Arenas Court of Appeals, despite the fact that the process has been dismissed a couple of times.

This Thursday at 9:00 AM, Jenny has an interview scheduled with the minister investigating the criminal case, where she will be informed about the status of the investigation. “We have the intimate hope that a good result will be reached,” remarked the optimistic sister, who believes that because the investigation is in the hands of a Court minister, it suggests that “there is progress.” The hopes are that his remains can be found and that, despite the time that has passed, the truth will be known and justice will be served. “I believe he disappeared between Punta Arenas and the border, because he never reached his destination, Río Gallegos. We believe that upon leaving the city, a military patrol must have detained him and from there he must have fallen into the hands of one of the four branches of the Armed Forces,” she stated. For Jenny, not knowing “anything about our loved one has been a true ordeal, because we have never been able to mourn.” Faced with this enigma, she urged people who might possess any information to provide it to police agencies or directly to the Court of Appeals. “Nothing makes us turn back in this search, and the physical distance that separates us from the place of his disappearance does not intimidate us,” she noted. She stated that her family’s love is alive and, more than ever, the wait continues: “We have patience and we will wait to find his remains.” Finally, she reminded the community that in Punta Arenas there was a young man who disappeared for his ideas and his fight for a better Chile, and in that regard, she said she had contributed a grain of sand so that an International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance exists in this land. Last Monday, the Universidad de Magallanes paid tribute to Silvio Bettancourt, and at the same time, the authorities of the higher education institution installed a plaque in his memory at a memorial set up on the campus on Avenida Bulnes. La Prensa Austral

Source: elespejodiario.com 15/6/2023

Date: 15-06-2023

Tribute paid to the only forcibly disappeared person in Magallanes

At the end of the Prat neighborhood, at Cirujano Videla and General del Canto, where he was last seen in September 1973, a heartfelt tribute was paid this Tuesday to Silvio Francisco Bettancourt, the only forcibly disappeared person in Magallanes.

The remembrance was framed within the International Day of the Victims of Enforced Disappearances. Present at the emotional act was the former rector of UMAG and former director of INACH, José Retamales, who was a classmate of Bettancourt at the Universidad Técnica del Estado.

Regional authorities also attended. In the activity organized by the Group of Daughters, Sons, Granddaughters, and Grandsons for Memory, they expressed gratitude for the extraordinary work carried out by the visiting minister Marta Jimena Pinto, which “has allowed the criminal case to have its first defendant, retired Navy Captain Patricio Figueroa Domic, indicted for his responsibility as a direct perpetrator of the crimes of illegal detention, aggravated kidnapping, and the application of torture to the detriment of Silvio Bettancourt Bahamonde.” They advocate for this procedure to have concrete results before Minister Pinto’s departure from the Judiciary, and for it to be known “what they did with Pancho’s body and for the other perpetrators of this cowardly crime to be identified.”

Source: laprensaaustral.cl 31/8/2022

Date: 31-08-2022

Minister Pinto indicts retired Navy officer for the disappearance of Silvio Bettancourt

After almost half a century, the criminal case for the only disappeared person recorded in Magallanes on the occasion of the 1973 coup d'état has its first defendant. This is retired Navy Captain Patricio Figueroa Domic, indicted for his responsibility as a direct perpetrator of the crimes of illegal detention, aggravated kidnapping, and the application of torture to the detriment of Silvio Francisco Bettancourt Bahamonde.

The indictment order was issued by the visiting minister for Human Rights cases, Marta Jimena Pinto, who is investigating a complaint filed by the family. The information gathered so far in the process indicates that Bettancourt Bahamonde was detained by personnel from the intelligence service of the Austral Military Region while he was attempting to cross into Argentina, kept hidden, and transferred at least between the Armored Regiment No. 5 of Ojo Bueno, Fundo Los Roblecitos, and the building at Colón No. 636 (known as the "Palacio de la Risa"), where he was allegedly subjected to illegal duress between September 11 and 16, 1973, after which his whereabouts were lost. According to the investigation's findings, Silvio Bettancourt worked as an ENAP engineer in Posesión and traveled to Punta Arenas the day after the coup d'état to meet with people close to him to decide what route he would take to leave the country, as he was being called in an edict to present himself before military authorities. A second indictment In another case instructed by Minister Pinto, the same Patricio Figueroa Domic was indicted as the perpetrator of illegal detention and aggravated kidnapping of Lucy Adriana Neira Pino, events that occurred between September 11, 1973, and July 1974. At this procedural stage, it was established that the victim was detained while on her way to work, around 7:45 AM on September 11, 1973, by troops from the Cochrane Regiment, placed in a military jeep to be taken to the III Naval Zone of Punta Arenas, and subsequently, in a bus with other detainees, transferred to the Cochrane Detachment, where she was held in a barracks with the others. However, after a few hours, they were taken out of there, leaving her alone in the place, where she remained until she was allowed to return to her home in May 1974. During that entire period, she was subjected to illegal duress and various types of torture. The visiting minister ordered the imprisonment of the defendant at the Barracks No. 2 of the Marine Corps Garrison (V) Salinas, Viña del Mar, and granted him release on bail, upon payment of a $100,000 bond, which must be consulted with the Punta Arenas Court of Appeals.

Source: laprensaaustral.cl 23/7/2022

Date: 23-07-2022

Francisco Bettancourt, the only forcibly disappeared person in the Magallanes region

Sister of Silvio Francisco Bettancourt, the only forcibly disappeared person in the region: “41 years after his disappearance, we are confident that we will find his remains.” Jenny Bettancourt Bahamonde had not returned to Punta Arenas since 2008.

She has now returned for two reasons: to participate alongside her mother in the heartfelt tribute that the Universidad de Magallanes paid to her disappeared brother Silvio last Monday, and also to attend the screening of a documentary about the life of her loved one, which will be presented this Friday at 7:00 PM at the Casa de los Derechos Humanos, located at Avenida Colón 636, and which was filmed in Switzerland, San Antonio, and Punta Arenas.

Silvio Francisco Bettancourt is considered the only forcibly disappeared person in Magallanes during the Coup d'État. He was 23 years old, an engineer at ENAP, and his trail was lost on September 13, 1973, with no further news of him ever being heard.

He was a militant of the MAPU. In 1972, Silvio graduated as a petrochemical engineer from the Universidad Técnica del Estado (UTE), currently the Universidad de Magallanes. “That time, in December 1972, when he graduated, my mom and I arrived in Punta Arenas from San Antonio with great excitement and memories.

At that time, my brother spoke on behalf of his classmates. Therefore, last Monday’s act on the university campus was very moving because it was like reliving what happened 42 years ago. Now I also came accompanied by my mother, and I was the one who spoke.” Her words were of gratitude, not only to the Universidad de Magallanes but also to the Chilean community in Switzerland, whose generosity allowed Jenny to travel to Chile.

In 1982, for family reasons, Jenny Bettancourt settled in Switzerland, thinking that her brother, of whom she had no news since 1973, might have settled in a European country. In that sense, she made repeated calls in Switzerland without success. “Only that year did we learn that our brother was considered a forcibly disappeared person,” she emphasized.

They had always thought that Silvio had boarded a ship in Río Gallegos, Argentina, which is why “we had the intimate hope that he might have evaded the repressive net, but later we realized that he actually never left Punta Arenas.” Despite being considered a case of a forcibly disappeared person, the family does not have any testimony from anyone who saw him in any military barracks or detention center.

There is only the version of a former intelligence services agent. Judicial Process The criminal case for the disappearance of Silvio Bettancourt remains fully active, in the hands of a minister of the Punta Arenas Court of Appeals, despite the fact that the process has been dismissed a couple of times.

This Thursday at 9:00 AM, Jenny has an interview scheduled with the minister investigating the criminal case, where she will be informed about the status of the investigation. “We have the intimate hope that a good result will be reached,” remarked the optimistic sister, who believes that because the investigation is in the hands of a Court minister, it suggests that “there is progress.” The hopes are that his remains can be found and that, despite the time that has passed, the truth will be known and justice will be served. “I believe he disappeared between Punta Arenas and the border, because he never reached his destination, Río Gallegos. We believe that upon leaving the city, a military patrol must have detained him and from there he must have fallen into the hands of one of the four branches of the Armed Forces,” she stated. For Jenny, not knowing “anything about our loved one has been a true ordeal, because we have never been able to mourn.” Faced with this enigma, she urged people who might possess any information to provide it to police agencies or directly to the Court of Appeals. “Nothing makes us turn back in this search, and the physical distance that separates us from the place of his disappearance does not intimidate us,” she noted. She stated that her family’s love is alive and, more than ever, the wait continues: “We have patience and we will wait to find his remains.” Finally, she reminded the community that in Punta Arenas there was a young man who disappeared for his ideas and his fight for a better Chile, and in that regard, she said she had contributed a grain of sand so that an International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance exists in this land. Last Monday, the Universidad de Magallanes paid tribute to Silvio Bettancourt, and at the same time, the authorities of the higher education institution installed a plaque in his memory at a memorial set up on the campus on Avenida Bulnes.

Source: elespejodiario.com, SATURDAY, JANUARY 9, 2021

Date: 09-01-2021

Relatives of forcibly disappeared person file a complaint for kidnapping and homicide in Punta Arenas

On September 13, 1973, the 23-year-old ENAP engineer Silvio Bettancourt Bahamonde, a leader of the Movimiento de Acción Popular Unitaria (MAPU) and the only forcibly disappeared person of the military regime in Magallanes, disappeared in Punta Arenas.

Almost 44 years after his detention at the hands of Armed Forces personnel, his mother and sister filed a complaint for aggravated kidnapping, illegal duress, aggravated homicide, and illicit association against all those who may be responsible, whether as perpetrators, cover-ups, or accomplices in the disappearance of their relative.

On August 21, the criminal complaint was filed with the Punta Arenas Court of Appeals, following the regular channel used in the old penal system due to the date on which the events allegedly occurred.

According to the criminal action filed by Mrs. Cecilia Bahamonde Jourdain, mother of Silvio Francisco, and Jenny Bettancourt, his sister, at the time of the coup d'état, the victim was working at the ENAP camp in Posesión, from where he traveled after learning of the armed uprising, not knowing until that moment that he was one of the most wanted by the security forces of the time.

Upon his arrival in Punta Arenas, he was quickly informed that he was required to surrender by the imposed authorities, so he decided to travel to Río Gallegos to evade his persecutors. Thus, he received help and was transported to the outskirts of the city, in those years, in the vicinity of General Salvo and Videla streets in the Prat neighborhood, the place where he was last seen alive.

The complaint details that, after the analysis of the case led by Minister Marta Jimena Pinto, “from the statements and conclusions contained in the case files (in the records), it can be inferred that Silvio Bettancourt was intercepted shortly after being left alone in the Prat neighborhood, detained, probably taken to the ‘Los Roblecitos’ farm, savagely tortured and killed, accidentally or intentionally, and subsequently buried in some nearby place.” The judicial action attaches the death certificate issued by judicial ruling for the disappeared person, who is recorded as presumably deceased on December 31, 1975.

Source: elmagallanico.com, August 28, 2017

Date: 28-08-2017

Relatives of forcibly disappeared person Silvio Bettancourt file a complaint against the State

On September 13, 1973, the 23-year-old ENAP engineer Silvio Bettancourt Bahamonde, a leader of the Movimiento de Acción Popular Unitaria (MAPU) and the only forcibly disappeared person of the military dictatorship in the Magallanes region, disappeared in Punta Arenas.

Almost 44 years after his detention at the hands of Armed Forces personnel, his mother and sister filed a complaint for aggravated kidnapping, illegal duress, aggravated homicide, and illicit association against all those who may be responsible, whether as perpetrators, cover-ups, or accomplices in the disappearance of their relative.

On August 21, the criminal complaint was filed with the Punta Arenas Court of Appeals, following the regular channel used in the old penal system due to the date on which the events allegedly occurred.

According to the criminal action filed by Cecilia Bahamonde Jourdain, mother of Silvio Francisco, and Jenny Bettancourt, his sister, at the time of the coup d'état, the victim was working at the ENAP camp in Posesión, from where he traveled after learning of the armed uprising, not knowing until that moment that he was one of the most wanted by the Military Intelligence Service personnel of the time, which was dependent on the V Army Division whose commander-in-chief was General Manuel Torres de la Cruz.

Upon his arrival in Punta Arenas, Bettancourt was quickly informed that he was required to surrender by the imposed authorities, so he decided to travel to Río Gallegos to evade his persecutors. Thus, he received help and was transported to the outskirts of the city, in those years, in the vicinity of General Salvo and Videla streets in the Prat neighborhood, the place where he was last seen alive.

The text of the complaint details that, after the analysis of the case led by Minister Marta Jimena Pinto, “from the statements and conclusions contained in the records, it can be inferred that Silvio Bettancourt was intercepted shortly after being left alone in the Prat neighborhood, detained, probably taken to the ‘Los Roblecitos’ farm, savagely tortured and killed, accidentally or intentionally, and subsequently buried in some nearby place.” The judicial action attaches the death certificate issued by judicial ruling for the disappeared person, who is recorded as presumably deceased on December 31, 1975.

Source: ovejeronoticias.cl 28/8/2017

Date: 28-08-2017

Universidad de Magallanes remembered former student, the only forcibly disappeared person in the region

Silvio Francisco Bettancourt Bahamonde was 17 years old when he arrived in Punta Arenas from San Antonio to study at the then-Universidad Técnica del Estado, pursuing a degree in Petrochemical Engineering, which he chose for his future.

However, a few years later, when the Coup d'État occurred in our country, nothing more was heard of him, and today, he is one more on the list of disappeared persons in Chile for whom his family continues to wait for justice.

During the anniversary week of the Universidad de Magallanes, its authorities wanted to pay a special posthumous tribute to their former student, with the purpose of also making the case known to the university and Magallanes community in general to promote respect for Human Rights, the same rights that were violated in Bettancourt’s case on September 13, 1973, making him the only case of a forcibly disappeared person in Magallanes during the military dictatorship.

Thus, a special site at the university was dedicated to installing a commemorative plaque in memory of this former student on behalf of the university community: a stone in one of the main courtyards of the institution with the name of the Universidad Técnica del Estado.

Present at the ceremony were direct relatives of the young Bettancourt: his mother Cecilia Bahamonde and his sister Jenny Bettancourt, who traveled from Switzerland to attend this emotional occasion, as well as university authorities led by the rector, Juan Oyarzo, political authorities such as the Regional Ministerial Secretary of Education, Margarita Makuc, the Regional Ministerial Secretary of Government, Baldovino Gómez, and Deputy Gabriel Boric, human rights groups from the region, and representatives of the Committee for the Defense of the Rights of the People (CODEPU).

Source: prensaantartica.cl, November 2, 2014

Date: 02-11-2014

MEMORIAL TO BE INAUGURATED FOR PUBLIC EMPLOYEES WHO WERE VICTIMS OF THE DICTATORSHIP

This Monday, September 8, the National Association of Public Employees (ANEF) will hold a ceremony to inaugurate a memorial in honor of the public servants who were forcibly disappeared and killed during the dictatorship. The tribute will be attended by government authorities, social organizations, and human rights groups.

“This is done with all the respect that we, as an association, hold for preserving the memory of our country. On this occasion, we want to immortalize our officials and leaders, who also bequeathed to us their ethics and union struggle, and who were murdered during the worst period of our history.

And in remembering our fallen comrades, we also make a call for life and peace,” commented the ANEF general secretary, Bernardo Jorquera.

Joining the ANEF leaders who announced the memorial was Deputy Tucapel Jiménez—son of the ANEF union leader of the same name, who was murdered by Army agents in 1982—as well as the leader of the Association of Relatives of Political Executions, Alicia Lira.

More than 380 cases will appear on a plaque at the ANEF headquarters, which will be inaugurated on Monday, September 8, at 11:00 AM. The list was provided to the union by the Ministry of the Interior and includes President Salvador Allende Gossens and Tucapel Jiménez.

“This inauguration dignifies the working class and the union movements,” said Alicia Lira, who is the widow of a Treasury official murdered in the first days following the coup d'état.

“These acts of keeping memory alive, of remembering the fallen, are important because memory is fragile and it is good to keep it alive. We want young people to never again live through that dark history that we experienced as a country, and that is why it is important to remember the fallen and seek truth and justice, with the purpose that these things never happen again,” affirmed Deputy Jiménez.

Source: cronicadigital.cl 5/9/2014

Date: 05-09-2014

Judge Guzmán delegates cases and opens a new investigation

Fulfilling its basic mandate to assist judicial processes aimed at finding the forcibly disappeared, the Human Rights Program, formerly known as the National Reconciliation Corporation, will become a co-adjuvant party in the 22 cases in which the special judge (ministro de fuero) Juan Guzmán Tapia declared himself incompetent.

The Program is also refining its strategy to become a party in the proceedings handled by Judge Guzmán regarding the forcibly disappeared or victims of political executions whose remains have not yet been found.

The unresolved point is whether they will file briefs according to the episodes already established—Villa Grimaldi, Pisagua, Calle Conferencia, Liquiñe, Operation Condor, Operation Colombo—or only with respect to each of the victims the magistrate is investigating.

To date, Guzmán has only received the brief signed by the Undersecretary of the Interior, Jorge Correa Sutil, for the Mapocho mine shaft case, and it is expected that the government-dependent entity will soon request proceedings to expedite this case, which is not among Guzmán's priorities.

With this, the Program seeks for the proceedings to progress simultaneously and to fulfill the challenge of finding the greatest number of remains of the forcibly disappeared.

Although the judge originally stated that he was incompetent in 27 proceedings, in recent days, at the request of the plaintiffs, he has decided to revoke some of his resolutions.

This is what happened in the case of Luis Alberto Gómez Cerda, Claudio Romulo Tognola Ríos, and Carlos Miguel Garay Benavides, whose investigation had been delegated to the Tocopilla Court of Letters. Today, along with the rest of the cases of the forcibly disappeared from that area, they will form a new investigation file titled "Tocopilla," which the special judge will focus on in depth in the coming days.

Gómez Cerda was detained on September 13, 1973, while working at the Chuquicamata Division of the Copper Corporation (Codelco) in Tocopilla (Cobrechuqui); there are no reliable records of his socialist militancy or what happened to him.

The story is different for Tognola Ríos—an obstetrician (PS) who worked at the Tocopilla hospital maternity ward and at the Chemical and Mining Society of Chile (Soquimich), and who went missing on September 16, 1973—and for Garay Benavides—a Cobrechuqui supervisor (PC), detained on September 12, 1973.

According to the plaintiffs, their bodies are likely in the "La Veleidosa" mine, where excavations have already been carried out, resulting in the discovery of a large number of skeletal remains that may correspond to them.

Another proceeding that will return to Guzmán's hands is the case of Isidoro Carrillo Tornería and others, where Vasili Carrillo acts as a plaintiff, a case that had been rejected by the magistrate and handed over in August of this year to the duty court in Concepción.

But the most transcendental achievement for the plaintiffs was the minister's decision to again accept the disappearance of Cardenio Ancacura Manquian (PS) and Manuel Jesús Hernández Inostroza, as according to the report provided by the Armed Forces at the conclusion of the Dialogue Table, their remains were thrown into Lake Ranco, Tenth Region.

Due to the information provided by the Armed Forces, this case constitutes a significant contribution to human rights proceedings for the plaintiffs and therefore should not be abandoned by the minister.

According to the head of the legal area of the Human Rights Program, lawyer Roberto Garretón, once they know the final list of cases in which Guzmán declared himself incompetent, the immediate step would be to request visiting judges (ministros en visita) in the corresponding cases and, independently of that, the entity must participate in the investigation.

Cases that Guzmán will not review

Among the cases relegated by Guzmán so far, it was established that the investigation into the execution of Mario Alvarado Araya, Faruc Aguad Pérez, Wilfredo Sánchez Silva, and Artemio Pizarro Aranda, who lost their lives at the hands of Army personnel in the Las Coimas sector in San Felipe, will be seen by special judge Gabriela Corti in Valparaíso.

For its part, the disappearance on November 17, 1975, of socialist militant Miguel Enrique Rodríguez Vergara will be investigated by the judge with exclusive dedication Raquel Lermanda, head of the Ninth Criminal Court of the capital.

The same will happen with the execution on public roads suffered on September 24, 1973, by Arnoldo Camu Veloso, legal advisor to President Salvador Allende, whose proceeding will remain in the hands of the exclusive judge María Ines Collins, of the Eighth Criminal Court of Santiago.

Source: Primera Linea 28 de Septiembre 2001

Date: 28-09-2001

Relatives of a forcibly disappeared person file a complaint for kidnapping and homicide in Punta Arenas

On September 13, 1973, the 23-year-old ENAP engineer Silvio Bettancourt Bahamonde, a leader of the Movement of Unitary Popular Action (MAPU) and the only forcibly disappeared person of the military regime in Magallanes, disappeared in Punta Arenas.

Nearly 44 years after his detention at the hands of Armed Forces personnel, his mother and sister filed a complaint for qualified kidnapping, illicit coercion, qualified homicide, and illicit association against all those found responsible, whether as perpetrators, cover-ups, or accomplices in the disappearance of their relative.

On August 21, the criminal complaint was filed with the Punta Arenas Court of Appeals, following the regular channel used in the old penal system due to the date on which the events occurred.

According to the criminal action filed by Cecilia Bahamonde Jourdain, mother of Silvio Francisco, and Jenny Bettancourt, his sister, at the time of the coup d'état, the victim was working at the ENAP camp in Posesión, from where he traveled after learning of the armed uprising, not knowing until that moment that he was one of the most wanted by the security forces of the time.

Upon his arrival in Punta Arenas, he was quickly informed that he was required to surrender to the imposed authorities, so he decided to travel to Río Gallegos to evade his persecutors.

Thus, he received help and was taken to the outskirts of the city, in those years, in the vicinity of General Salvo and Videla streets in the Prat neighborhood, the place where he was last seen alive.

The complaint details that, after the analysis of the case led by Minister Marta Jimena Pinto, and from the statements and conclusions contained in the records, it can be inferred that Silvio Bettancourt was intercepted shortly after being left alone in the Prat neighborhood, detained, likely taken to the Los Roblecitos estate, savagely tortured and killed—accidentally or intentionally—and subsequently buried in some nearby place.

The judicial action attaches the death certificate issued by judicial ruling for the disappeared person, who is listed as presumably deceased on December 31, 1975.

Source: radiopolar.com, 28 de Agosto 2017

The man who never existed: three names for a disappeared person without identity (Part III)

In the midst of the investigation regarding the name of the person who was executed in Lake Villarrica in 1974, the Justice system considered that it could be one of three forcibly disappeared persons: Silvio Bettancourt, Luis Vásquez, and José Saldivia, all of whom are ruled out today.

In the midst of the proceedings carried out by Minister Álvaro Mesa to find the identity of the political prisoner who was executed in 1974 in Lake Villarrica, which we have been reporting on these days, the clerk working with the judge, Gonzalo Millalén, communicated with different Courts of Appeals in the country, reporting the existence of a John Doe (NN) who needed to be identified.

The first Court to respond was that of Punta Arenas, which reported the case of Silvio Francisco Bettancourt, who arrived from San Antonio to Magallanes in 1968 to study petrochemical execution engineering at the current University of Magallanes (Umag), at that time a branch of the old State Technical University (UTE).

In 1972, he began to militate in the MAPU (Movement of Unitary Popular Action) and the following year, after his professional internship, according to a report made on the subject at Umag, he began working at ENAP.

After the coup d'état, his name appeared in a proclamation, in which he was ordered—along with other people—to present himself before the new authorities, something he decided not to do, choosing instead to head to Río Gallegos, in Argentina. However, he never reached the address he was heading to, and his whereabouts remain unknown to this day.

Bettancourt's photo was shown to several of the former soldiers of the Tucapel regiment, but no one recognized him as "El Nortino," as they called the young man between 25 and 30 years old who was held for a long time in a room located next to the regiment's guardhouse, from where they moved him in 1974 to the shores of Lake Villarrica to be executed.

The composite sketch

On January 23, 2018, the forensic sketch artist of the PDI Criminalistics Laboratory of Valdivia, Cristian Ardiles, spent several hours meeting with Heraldo Espinoza, one of the two main witnesses to the crime, in order to create a descriptive portrait of the victim, which the expert estimated they had achieved with an 80% resemblance.

Silvio Bettancourt's sister, Jenny, who resides in Switzerland, had not seen that portrait. However, upon being shown it, she is categorical in pointing out that it is not her brother, whom she believes never reached Río Gallegos, but rather thinks he was detained before crossing the border, to then be held in some military or police barracks in Magallanes.

Another possible identity investigated in the Villarrica case was that of the teacher Luis Justino Vásquez Muñoz, a militant of the Socialist Party, former councilman of San Fernando, and leader of the Central Workers' Union (CUT), who was a target of suspicion by uniformed officers from even before the coup.

In fact, as his son told the detectives who investigated the case, on September 7 they had already raided his house at 855 Curalí Street, in San Fernando, taking him into custody for the day, although they released him at nightfall.

On November 20, however, he disappeared when he was going to his work at a rural school in the Polonia sector. In 2018, the family learned of the discovery of a body in the Araucanía Region, in Pucón, which they initially thought could be him, which was later ruled out.

According to his sister Olga, Luis Vásquez (34 years old at the time of his detention) was arrested by unknown subjects who put him in a white jeep, and since then nothing more was known about him. The family went through the same search journey as so many other families of the time, asking for him at the National Stadium, the Chile Stadium, and in every police station and regiment they found.

When they were contacted by the PDI to check the descriptive portrait corresponding to "El Nortino," a small light of hope appeared, but it vanished quickly: "Upon showing me the photograph of the composite sketch on page 28, I do not recognize my brother Luis Justino, he does not look like him at all," stated Olga.

The Saldivia case

The last identity of a forcibly disappeared person that was considered as a possibility was that of José Sofanor Saldivia Saldivia, who was detained two weeks after the coup d'état. As indicated by Minister Mesa in the middle of last year, when he was constituted in the Valdivia Court of Appeals, carrying out investigations regarding this case, "the victim was a CONAF worker, who was detained by soldiers of the Tucapel Regiment on September 28, 1973, and transferred to that military unit.

Witnesses point out that he had participated in the assault on the Neltume police station of the Carabineros de Chile and that he had been executed on the Villarrica bridge, over the Toltén River."

However, his body has never been found, and his identity does not correspond to that of the John Doe murdered in the lake either, because when his sister Elizabeth was questioned about it in 2018, an occasion on which they showed her the composite sketch, she said that "regarding the photograph that is shown to me by officials of the PDI of Ancud, related to the disappearance of my brother José Sofanor Saldivia Saldivia, I do not recognize him as such, since his features are not his."

Today, as explained in the first article of this three-part series, the case is closed definitively, following the pronouncement of the Supreme Court, which acquitted the only person ever convicted in it, and the identity of "El Nortino" remains shrouded in a nebula.

That is why the only thing left is to try to identify that anonymous victim. Any information regarding this can be provided to the PDI, the Temuco Court of Appeals, the Human Rights Program, or even this newspaper.

By Carlos Basso Prieto

Source: elmostrador.cl, 7 de Abril 2025

Moving appeal from the mother of Silvio Bettancourt Bahamondes

Silvio Francisco Bettancourt Bahamonde. For Pancho, there was no contemplation. There was no international solidarity or global mobilization that changed the attitude of the military dictatorship, the winner of a war of extermination against other Chileans.

There was no possibility that his life would be prolonged in captivity for humanitarian reasons. The Chilean military, with many cadres trained physically, politically, and psychologically at the School of the Americas, despite international rejection, practiced state terrorism, expressed in practices such as the disappearance of people with opposing ideas.

Pancho was an ENAP engineer, 23 years old, single, a leader of the Movement of Unitary Popular Action (MAPU), residing in Punta Arenas, when the 1973 coup d'état occurred. He was sought by the military authorities of the area.

He disappeared the day he decided to leave Punta Arenas to head to Río Gallegos, Argentina. He was last seen on September 13, 1973, in Punta Arenas. His mother, Mrs. Cecilia Bahamonde, and his siblings held onto the hope of finding him alive for a long time.

Today, his mother and his sister Jenny Bettancourt, currently residing in Switzerland, continue to look for any clue about the place where his remains might rest. Via the Internet, they make the following appeal: For any information, please write to us at the following email: j.bettancourt@bluewin.ch. 35 years have passed, and Jenny comments that the military wanted to make people believe that Pancho had escaped from prison.

His sister tells us that with his disappearance, they could not destroy the ideas for which he lived and died: "They were wrong, roundly and ridiculously. Ideas do not die, they develop... they mature, they cross the oceans and converge with other currents and multiply, they are reborn with the young, and who knows if tomorrow, when the new idealists arrive... they will be understood." Pancho did not return from his captivity.

His ideas did; they remain present in a people that does not forget what happened to us. Pancho is alive among the militants of his Movement, who today pick up his banners. APPEALS FROM THE BETTANCOURT FAMILY TO CLARIFY THE TRUTH ABOUT THE DISAPPEARANCE OF SILVIO FRANCISCO http://www.radiopolar.com/noticia_23432.html (December 2008) Francisco Bettancourt.

INTENDANT CALLS ON THOSE WHO HAVE DATA ON THE YOUNG FORCIBLY DISAPPEARED PERSON TO PROVIDE INFORMATION. The regional intendant, Mario Maturana, made a call to those who have any background regarding what happened to Francisco Bettancourt to make it known.

It is the case of the engineer who disappeared at age 23 after the military coup of September 11, 1973. Judicially, the case is dismissed, but the family continues to look for data that sheds light on what happened to the young man.

A few days ago, the sister of this forcibly disappeared person, Jenny Betancourt—who currently resides in Switzerland—met with the intendant, Mario Maturana. The highest authority of Magallanes expressed solidarity with the cause of this family and stated that "the forced disappearance of people is a regrettable fact, events that happened in times after the military coup." He added that he met Francisco at the State Technical University and, subsequently, called on those who have any background regarding what happened to the young engineer to make it known, so that the family knows the truth about the fate of this Magallanic man. The intendant stated, finally, that one of the alternatives is to provide the information to the Church or to approach human rights groups. http://centroschilenos.blogia.com/2006/121019-conmovedor-llamado-de-la-madre-de-francisco-bettancourt.php (year 2006)

Moving appeal from the mother of Francisco Bettancourt "I ask you, please! Tell me where you threw him, so I can recover his little bones, even if that's all" - Cecilia Bahamonde made her first visit to the land where her son disappeared in 1973. - The young man from Mapu is listed as a forcibly disappeared person in the expansion of the Rettig Report. "A lady once told me: 'My dear, take good care of your son because this little boy is not of this world!'" recalls Cecilia Bahamonde with the emotion that betrays her and overflows uncontrollably from her eyes. "He was five days old and we were on a train from San Antonio to Santiago. I had made him a little cradle on a seat and, suddenly, I couldn't resist my instinct to give him a kiss. I was just a girl, I was only sixteen years old, and for me, he was like a little doll," she explains, as if asking for forgiveness for her maternal impulse. "I leaned in, and then one of those old, heavy suitcases fell on my head, one of those used by the Turkish fabric sellers. It could have killed him." For Francisco Bettancourt's mother, this first episode a few days after her son's birth was premonitory of the tragic end that awaited him. "And at five years old, they almost kidnapped him!" she adds, remembering that he, with blond curls and light eyes, was still like a little doll and begged her: "Mom, mom, let me go buy bread! I'm big now." She couldn't resist his childish desire and let him go. When suddenly, she hears his desperate call: "Moooom!" A man had him by the back and wanted to force him into a car. She ran desperately and the aggressor, seeing himself surprised, fled. She was able to save him so many times, that now she cries with impotence because one day she was not there to help him nor did she know anything more about him. "I want to bury his little bones!!!" Having a forcibly disappeared person is an endless mourning. It is as if the loved one died a thousand times. That is why, already tired and while she tries to dry her tears by lifting her heavy glasses, Cecilia Bahamonde begs: "Please, I want someone to tell me if they know something..." She cannot continue and takes a deep breath: "I want someone to say if they have any idea where they buried him, where they threw him, so I can recover his little bones, even if that's all!" she claims almost as if it were a whisper, with a softness that lacks hatred, that claims the privilege of laying his remains in the earth with "a mother's sweetness for the sleeping son," as Gabriela Mistral describes. Cecilia Bahamonde has just arrived in Punta Arenas. It is the first time she has managed to do so, despite the fact that she lived all these years wanting to travel the places her son walked; to meet and talk with his friends; and, perhaps, even go to where they last saw him alive. Cruel economic reasons had prevented her, and for that, she is grateful to a friend of "Pancho," who paid for her plane ticket. Equally grateful is her daughter and Francisco's sister, Jenny Bettancourt, who has lived in Switzerland since 1982 and who is also stepping on Punta Arenas for the first time. Francisco Bettancourt's case was incorporated into the expansion of the Rettig Report and today, at 11:00 AM, there will be an emotional act at the Memorial in the municipal cemetery. Without wanting to, one could say that it was this newspaper that renewed her hopes of finding new clues to determine what happened and where his remains are. While touring the so-called "House of Laughter," the main torture center, to do a journalistic report a day before it was opened to the community last year, former political prisoner Nelson Reyes found a military jacket thrown on the roof next to one of the cots used to apply electricity to the detainees. The family contacted the friend who had given such a jacket to Francisco Bettancourt. But, hope died, as it often does, before more progress could be made. It was not the same garment. "I always waited for his call" "It is the first visit after the coup, because I knew Punta Arenas when my son graduated from the UTE and from there we had not returned here. We couldn't," informs Cecilia Bahamonde. She cannot say anything else. Her heart is constricted. In truth, it has been constricted for 33 years, with that painful throbbing that comes to many mothers when they sense that something bad is happening to a child. She was in San Antonio when she never heard from "Panchito" again, when the lack of communication and the distance prevented her from asking or knocking on any door. She remained trapped and at the mercy, even, of false "informants," who assured her that he had escaped and was living in Argentina. She also remained a prisoner of terror because, the only time a childhood friend asked her about her life and she ventured to tell him about the drama she was living, he never wanted to speak to her again after later reproaching her that, no more than having turned the corner of his house, they had taken him prisoner and tortured him in Tejas Verdes. It was precisely this episode that led Cecilia Bahamonde to harbor the secret hope that her son was not communicating with her so as not to affect her, so that nothing bad would happen to her during the dictatorship. Therefore, she naively acknowledges that she spent 17 years believing that one day he would call her, that one day he would come to knock on the door of the house. And, although the years passed and passed and the hope became remote, this mother waited: "When Mr. Pinochet handed over command, I thought he was going to call me. And that illusion would last me six months. Only after that time did I understand that he was dead." The family's hope is that with this trip the trial will be expedited and there will be people who provide background information. This visit also opens the opportunity for his relatives and friends to urge that informant of the repressive apparatus who testified before the Rettig Commission to come out of the shadows today and provide the same statement before the judge who is investigating the case. "That former intelligence service official said what had happened to 'Pancho': that he had been detained in a certain place; that he had been murdered; and, he even gave information regarding where his body might be," recalls Nelson Reyes. A website was created where one can enter and provide background information: www.desaparecido.ch. You can also call or write to the Comitè Memoire et Justice, CP 468, 1211, Genève 4. Hopefully, this pilgrimage will serve Cecilia Bahamonde so that she can sprinkle "earth and rose dust" on her son's grave. "SILVIO FRANCISCO BETTANCURT BAHAMONDE" From Switzerland, his sister Jenny asks for help to find Silvio Bettancourt. La Prensa Austral, August 21, 2006. ONLY CASE OF A FORCIBLY DISAPPEARED PERSON IN MAGALLANES "There is not a day that I do not remember him." Thus, with these words, Jenny Bettancourt Bahamonde refers to her brother Silvio Francisco, the only forcibly disappeared person during the military regime that is remembered in Magallanes. After a silence of almost thirty-three years, a direct relative of the ENAP engineer communicates with Punta Arenas, from Geneva, Switzerland, where she lives, to inquire about the judicial case and also ask for the community's collaboration for the prompt clarification of her brother's whereabouts. The case of Silvio Francisco Bettancourt Bahamonde appears recorded in the report on the qualification of victims of human rights violations and political violence, published by the National Corporation for Reparation and Reconciliation, successor to the Rettig Commission. From France, we have received this letter from Nelson Collao, regarding the call that Jenny Bettancourt, sister of the disappeared Silvio Francisco Bettancourt, has made from Geneva, Switzerland.

Source: mapuenlalucha.blogspot.com