After the 1973 coup d'état, more than seventy peasants were murdered or forcibly disappeared in the Paine commune, 42 kilometers from Santiago. The victims were linked to the agrarian reform process that began under Eduardo Frei Montalva and was deepened during the government of Salvador Allende.

Civilians collaborated in these crimes against humanity: they placed vehicles and supplies at the disposal of the Army and Carabineros, and also acted using firearms. One of these episodes is that of Collipeumo, which featured the involvement of truckers who acted throughout the country to overthrow President Allende.

Juan Francisco Luzoro Montenegro, now 77 years old, a trucker and agricultural businessman who at the time was president of the Paine Truck Owners' Union, was one of those who led defenseless peasants to a remote place and murdered them on the banks of a canal.

Luzoro Montenegro was sentenced to 20 years in prison by the minister of the San Miguel Court of Appeals, Marianela Cifuentes, as responsible for the qualified homicide of Carlos Chávez Reyes, Raúl del Carmen Lazo Quinteros, Orlando Enrique Pereira Cancino, and Pedro Luis Ramírez Torres, and for the frustrated qualified homicide of Alejandro del Carmen Bustos González, the sole survivor.

In addition to Luzoro, Rodolfo Rodrigo Gárate Gárate, a trucker and member of the Partido Nacional; Ricardo Jorge Tagle Román, a trucker; and the Carabinero Juan Aníbal Fernando Olguín Maturana were prosecuted, though they died during the course of the proceedings.

The magistrate did not apply the "half-prescription" figure that exists in the Penal Code, which extinguishes punishment due to the passage of time, as she considered that the imprescriptibility of crimes against humanity, in both their criminal and civil dimensions, has "the category of an imperative norm of general international law that does not admit any derogation except by other norms of the same character, and cannot be disregarded by States under any circumstances."

A BIRD OF A FEATHER

The victims were part of the Paula Jaraquemada settlement, the former San Francisco de Paine estate that was expropriated during the Frei Montalva government. The events took place on September 18, 1973. That day, the Carabineros and truckers commemorated the national holidays with a banquet of blood at the Panamá canal, inside the Santa Filomena estate, in front of the Collipeumo hill.

The events originated at the Paine sub-precinct, under the command of Captain Nelson Iván Bravo Espinoza. Everything suggests that it was he who ordered the massacre. However, he has an alibi: he was not there.

His participation could not be proven, and in criminal law, there is the maxim that it is preferable for a guilty person to go free than for an innocent person to be imprisoned. In the Collipeumo episode, Bravo shifted the responsibility onto a dead man: Carabinero Sergeant Manuel Reyes.

Bravo is not exactly a clean character. He was prosecuted in 2015, also by Minister Cifuentes, for the forced disappearance of Mario Enrique Muñoz Peñaloza, vice president of the 24 de Abril settlement and a PS militant.

PREPARATIONS FOR THE COUP IN PAINE

Bravo asserted that "on September 10, 1973, in the evening hours, he ordered the personnel of the aforementioned detachments to move to the Paine sub-precinct. The following day, after verifying that his orders had been carried out, he went to the Buin Precinct to inform the commissioner about the measures adopted." Later, by telephone, he was ordered to take charge of the Buin Precinct.

He remained as head of both units. For that reason, he entrusted the Paine sub-precinct to Sergeant Manuel Reyes Alvarez, he indicated to the justice system.

The prosecuted Ricardo Jorge Tagle Román, son of the owner of the San Francisco de Paine estate, lived on land corresponding to the reserve, which at the time of the Agrarian Reform were the lands adjacent to the houses of the expropriated estates that their former owners could keep and use.

Tagle was identified as one of the perpetrators of the four crimes. He pointed out to Minister Cifuentes that "on September 10, 1973, he witnessed soldiers from the San Bernardo Infantry School arrive at El Peñón, in San Bernardo, a place where truckers and farmers from Paine were gathered, and they requested Francisco Luzoro, president of the Paine truckers, ten trucks in good condition to use in an armed uprising." The person who made that request was General Luis Cortés Villa.

Regarding the arrests, Bravo added that "the majority of the detentions carried out in Paine after September 11, 1973, were ordered by the San Bernardo Infantry School." Few of those who were forcibly disappeared or executed had political militancy. They were eliminated for their support of President Allende's government.

THE DENUNCIATION

Businessmen drew up lists of peasant leaders they knew, sometimes with the help of informants. This was the case of the president of the Paula Jaraquemada settlement, Carlos del Carmen Pacheco Cornejo, who denounced his companions.

Pacheco informed the victims that they had to report to the Paine sub-precinct. However, he did not tell them that he had denounced them, as stated in his declarations in the process, in which he acknowledged that on September 17, 1973, he went to the Paine sub-precinct "with the purpose of informing that clandestine political meetings were being held at the Paula Jaraquemada settlement and that the settlers Chávez, Lazo, Pereira, and Ramírez were participating in them." That same day, in the afternoon, Pacheco cynically informed the victims that they had to report to the Paine sub-precinct.

Alejandro Bustos, the sole survivor, reported confidently. He had nothing to fear. He did not imagine the hell he would experience. He was carrying money from the sale of several animals. At the police station, they stole it, confiscated his personal belongings, and sent him to a dungeon in his underwear; furthermore, along with the other peasants, his head was shaved.

Bustos declared to Minister Cifuentes that "he was interrogated about an alleged possession of weapons."

In the place were the others denounced by Pacheco: Carlos Chávez, Raúl Lazo Quinteros, Orlando Pereira Cancino, and Luis Ramírez. All had been tortured.

THE CARAVAN OF ARMED CIVILIANS AND CARABINEROS

On September 18, around one in the morning, Bustos was taken out of the dungeon along with his companions and brought to a courtyard. They were given their clothes. "In the place were police officers and civilians. Francisco Luzoro, president of the Paine truckers' union, was there," he declared.

The prosecuted Tagle Román, who died of a heart attack before the sentence was handed down, recounted to the court that on "September 11, 1973, he learned that a military pronouncement had occurred. That, subsequently, at the request of Sergeant Manuel Reyes, he helped the Carabinero unit with food for ten days.

On September 18, 1973, in the early morning hours—he continued in his judicial account—while he was outside the Paine sub-precinct, together with other truckers and farmers from Paine who were moving in their respective vehicles, among them Luzoro, he saw five people being taken out of the police unit, who were loaded by the Carabineros into a van and transported to the Collipeumo sector (...) The van began its march, escorted by several private vehicles," among them Luzoro's red Peugeot automobile, Tagle specified.

He also stated "that he saw some civilians with firearms, among them Francisco Luzoro." Furthermore, the Carabinero Rogelio Lelan Villarroel Venegas of the Chada outpost declared to Minister Cifuentes that he saw him wearing the green wool jacket used by the uniformed officers.

"Once at the place, the police officers asked them to turn on the lights—Tagle continued in his account—and, immediately after, a group of around forty people, made up of Carabinero officers and civilians, in compliance with what was ordered by Sergeant Reyes, fired at the detainees with revolvers and submachine guns, leaving the bodies in the river."

The survivor Bustos provided chilling details about his detention to the electronic portal Las Historias que Podemos Contar. "I shouted to them that I didn't know anything about anything and that I didn't have any weapons either, but one larger one entered and lifted me by the hair, 'since when are you a red?' he asked me in my ear, and I answered that I had always had red hair. 'Don't play the stupid one,' he shouted indignantly, 'the reds are the communists, you idiot.' From there, another string of beatings began.

They kept hitting me on the back and head; I managed to recognize among those who were hitting me the Carabineros Olguín, Reyes, and Leiva." He lost consciousness. "They woke me up with a bucket of water," he pointed out.

"THIS ONE IS ALREADY DEAD"

When Bustos opened his eyes, he expressed that he was thirsty. The civilians and Carabineros had liquor inside the barracks. They brought a pitcher of wine and forced him to drink. "I shouted at them no, but they kept pouring it even through my nose." They tied his hands with wire behind his neck. "When it started to get dark, they took out some jugs of wine and started to light a fire for a barbecue.

There were Carabineros and civilians, almost all of them truckers."

At one in the morning, they made them leave. A green van was waiting for them. The vehicles started; the owners themselves were driving them. The van was at the end of the line. "We wondered if they were taking us to the Estadio Nacional or the Estadio Chile, or to the Chena regiment; we only imagined those types of places, but despite the tremendous suspicion, it didn't occur to any of us to mention that they were taking us to kill us," he noted.

When they took them down, they saw the cars with their headlights on. "They started to grip their submachine guns, all of them, civilians and Carabineros," Bustos recorded.

In a chilling account, he added that "Sergeant Reyes led us by pushing us to the edge of the river, and mocking us, he made us raise our arms. 'We are going to kill you for not agreeing on your lies.' It all happened in a second, tongues of fire came out of the barrels and the bursts began to roar.

The night seemed to light up with demons and a burning sensation in my arm threw me to the ground; I fell, writhing. Orlando Pereira fell on top of me; his blood ran over my body. I was left on my ribs next to Sergeant Reyes, and Pancho Luzoro shouted: 'This one is already dead.' Then, with Daniel Carrasco, they grabbed me by the legs to throw me into the water.

But I didn't manage to fall; some blackberry bushes stopped me."

Next, "they started pushing them into the water like me. They threw Orlando Pereira and he fell on top of me, and that's when I went under; the blackberry bushes came loose, the current was strong. I started to drown and in my desperation, I grabbed a willow root and a whirlpool started spinning me around.

A person next to me was also drowning; he would sink and come up at times." It was Orlando Pereira. 'It's me, Colorín,' he told me. He asked me to try to get him out of the water, but I couldn't because I had a wounded arm," he expressed.

The water dragged both bodies. "I tried to breathe the times we came to the surface (...) I was barely holding him by his sweater, but little by little I pulled him until he also washed up next to me. At that moment, the moon cleared and I could see him clearly, then he told me 'that's as far as it goes, Rucio, I'm going to die,' and he threw himself onto my legs, shivering and shivering until he didn't move anymore.

I had to get him off me. He died by my side without me being able to do anything, nothing," Bustos assured. At the moments when Pereira was dying by his side, he heard the engines of the vehicles returning to the barracks.

Bustos managed to get out of the place and asked for help at two houses, but their terrified residents refused to help him. That night he slept next to the warmth of some oxen among bales of straw. The animals licked his wound. Later, he moved to the home of Cristián Acevedo, who with two boys of around 14 years old asked him what was happening to him. He didn't dare tell them, but they guessed.

Bustos asked them to notify one of his uncles. "'In the meantime, we are going to leave you here, friend,' they said, and before leaving they tried to hide me as best they could among some bushes. A group of people realized that I was hidden there. 'Don't be scared, they said, we saw the execution, we were watching from behind the cops,' they said." Terrified, he believed they would denounce him and crossed the river, moving away to leave no traces.

Later, he continued, "the Acevedos appeared with my uncle; they were also coming with another man, and among the four of them, they helped me." They carried him on their shoulders for about four kilometers. "They bandaged my arm as best they could and put disinfectant on it. They forced me to eat bread and drink coffee with aguardiente. Afterward, they let me sleep."

Subsequently, his brother Juan Bautista Bustos González arrived. "He had the idea of asking for help from his commander (Carlos Sergio) Ottone (Mestre). My brother was a cook for the FACh. 'The commander is a very good guy and he likes what I cook a lot,' he said...

The commander ordered Lieutenant Rosas to take charge of me, who arrived to look for me with four soldiers, all from aviation. They took me first to my house so I could see my mom because they thought I might die, and from there we continued to the Aviation School."

Ottone, a retired Air Force Brigadier General, corroborated the facts before the justice system and detailed that he ordered Bustos to be transferred to the School of Specialties to give him medical help and, from there, to the Barros Luco hospital.

Bustos swore to his dead companions to testify about what happened. 43 years after the events, justice is approaching. Meanwhile, Luzoro, until a final sentence is handed down, will be able to continue dedicating himself to the rodeo and equestrian competitions, his current hobby.

Source: puntofinal.cl, April 29, 2016