Peter Wilkens was the only civilian present at the massacre; however, he did not live to face justice. In 1985, he met his death at the hands of a 19-year-old who entered his estate in Laja and shot him with a shotgun as a "settling of scores," burying his body and that of his foreman very close to where the executed men had been buried 12 years earlier.

Common elements in the massacres of Santa Bárbara, Mulchén, Laja-San Rosendo, Lonquén, and Chihuio. Sites of Memory. Common elements in the selective massacres of peasants in various parts of the country during the time of the dictatorship.

A threat, a warning that announced the paths to be followed by Pinochet, uniformed officers, representatives of Patria y Libertad, and owners of factories or large estates united to systematically eliminate hundreds of workers and peasants in the first days after the Civil-Military Coup d'État.

Chronology of horror: Executions in the first days of the coup, September and October 1973. Laja and San Rosendo . 19 people who presented themselves at the Laja Carabineros Station were taken to the outskirts of the city and executed, buried clandestinely in the middle of a field at the “Fundo San Juan”; it was September 1973.

Workers from the paper mill (La Papelera) and the State Railways, students, and two teachers were riddled with bullets, tied with wire, defenseless and innocent, executed and buried after receiving instructions, food, and alcohol provided by executives of the paper company.

The Visiting Minister of the Concepción Court of Appeals has issued a sentence against 14 retired Carabineros and three former civilian employees of CMPC. According to the unanimous ruling of March 15, 2018, the Concepción Court of Appeals prosecuted three managers and one driver from the paper company belonging to the Matte Group as accomplices to homicide.

The company informed on them and provided vehicles and drivers under the charge of a civilian, the farmer Peter Wilkens. Civilians and Carabineros united in a brutal extermination. The former Carabineros accused as co-authors of aggravated homicide: Alberto Juan Fernández Michell, Lisandro Alberto Martínez García, Luis Antonio León Godoy, Gerson Nilo Saavedra Reinike, Pedro del Carmen Parra Utrera, Gabriel Washington González Salazar, Samuel Francisco Vidal Riquelme, Víctor Manuel Campos Dávila, Nelson Casanova Salgado, and the officer (R) René Urrutia, identified as the author of the crime of illegal inhumation of the 19 people. Civilians: Pedro Jarpa, former head of security at CMPC, accomplice to homicide, and Alejandro Aguilera, former executive of CMPC. Santa Bárbara. The disappearance and subsequent execution of 28 peasants from the towns of Santa Bárbara and Quilaco in the Biobío Region in 1973 follows the same patterns of executions in the area; denunciations by bosses and support from Carabineros ended the lives of locals. The proceedings carried out by Minister Raquel Lermanda until May 2013 resulted in sentences for 17 former uniformed officers and 11 civilians who appear as responsible for the detentions and disappearances. Among the victims are: José Rafael Zúñiga Aceldini, José Secundino Zúñiga Aceldini, José Gilberto Araneda, Juan de Dios Rubio Llancao, Julio Rubio Llancao, José María Tranamil Pereira, José Guillermo Purrán Treca, José Domingo Godoy Acuña, Julio César Godoy Godoy, Desiderio Aguilera Solís, José Nazario Godoy Acuña, Manuel Salamanca Mella, José Mariano Godoy Acuña, Miguel Cuevas Pincheira, Juan de Dios Fuentes Lizama, Juan Francisco Fuentes Lizama, Elba Burgos Sáez, Sebastián Hernaldo Campos Díaz, Aliro Oporto Durán, Sergio D’Apollonio Petermann. Mulchén Disappearance of 18 peasants from the commune, an event that occurred in the first days of October 1973, during the reprisal and punishment actions carried out by uniformed officers and civilians in the area. The murders were committed in operations carried out during that month. The peasants were taken prisoner and executed in three different places in the mountainous area of Mulchén. The executions were recorded at the El Morro estate, located 50 kilometers inland from Mulchén; at the El Carmen-Maitenes estate, located 80 kilometers away; and at the Pemehue estate, situated in the high mountains, more than 100 kilometers from the city. The 18 murdered peasants were: the brothers Alejandro Albornoz González (48 years old), Alberto Albornoz González (41), Felidor Exequiel Albornoz González (33), Guillermo José Albornoz González (32), Daniel Alfonso Albornoz González (28), and a son of Alejandro named Miguel del Carmen Albornoz Acuña (20); Luis Alberto Godoy Sandoval (23); José Fernando Gutiérrez Asencio (25); Juan de Dios Laubra Brevis (26); Juan de Dios Roa Riquelme (35); the brothers José Lorenzo Rubilar Gutiérrez (33), José Liborio Rubilar Gutiérrez (28), Florencio Rubilar Gutiérrez (24); Gerónimo Humberto Sandoval Medina (22); Domingo Sepúlveda Castillo (29); Edmundo José Vidal Aedo (20); Celsio Nicasio Vivanco Carrasco (26) and José Florencio Yáñez Durán (34). Minister Carlos Aldana of the Concepción Court of Appeals has notified nine former military personnel prosecuted for the crimes of homicide and concealment of the 18 peasants executed in 1973. The accused are Julio Reyes Garrido, José Puga Pascual, José Iturriaga Valenzuela, Jaime Müller Aviles, Julio Fuentes Chavarriga, Luis Palacios Torres, Juan Cares Molina, Juan Carlos Balboa Ortega, and Jaime García Zamorano. Chihuio On October 9, 1973, army groups from the Cazadores and Maturana regiments of Valdivia executed 18 peasants in the “Baños de Chihuio” sector, in the southern area of the Panguipulli forestry complex. In the days following the Coup d'État, the administration house of the “Chihuio” estate (Valdivia), owned by Américo González, became an extermination center. The estate is located in the foothills, almost 300 km from Valdivia. Peasants from Futrono, Llifén, Curriño, Arquilhue, and Chabranco were taken from their homes or workplaces to this location after being detained by soldiers belonging to the Fourth Army Division, under the command of General Héctor Bravo Muñoz, and supported by local civilians. The soldiers had arrived at the different locations with lists in hand. The 18 peasants remained forcibly disappeared for more than 17 years. It is known that their bodies were illegally exhumed in 1979 (probably by members of the army or the CNI). Subsequently, in 1990 and after long work by Human Rights groups, only part of their remains were found.

Victims

Carlos Acuña Inostroza; Orlando Barriga Soto; José Cortez Díaz; Rubén Durán Zúñiga; Luis Ferrada Sandoval; Eliecer Freire Caamaño; Narciso García Cancino; Juan González Delgado; Daniel Méndez Méndez; Fernando Mora Gutiérrez; Sebastián Mora Osses; Segundo Pedreros Ferreira; Rosendo Rebolledo Méndez; Ricardo Ruiz Rodríguez; Carlos Salinas Flores; Manuel Sepúlveda Rebolledo; Rubén Vargas Quezada; Andrés Silva Silva.

Lonquén A shocking discovery was made in 1978 in the Lonquén kilns: the remains of 15 peasants from Isla de Maipo had been found, locals who had disappeared on October 7, 1973. It is the case with the greatest media impact, where the Vicaría de la Solidaridad played an important role in making the case known, under the direction of Cardinal Raúl Silva Henríquez.

Proceedings: In 2018, the Supreme Court issued a sentence against 6 Carabineros for aggravated kidnapping and simple kidnapping in the case known as the “Lonquén Kilns.” Tour of the memorials Activity organized by the PRAIS Users Council and the Human Rights Department, Municipality of Concepción.

The memorials of Mulchén, Santa Bárbara, Laja, and San Rosendo emerge silently in the middle of the cities to remember and commemorate the Forcibly Disappeared during the Dictatorship.

Source: laventanaciudadana.cl, November 26, 2018

"A few days after the detention of these people, we were notified that we had to be at the barracks at night; once the aforementioned arrived, which corresponded to almost all the personnel, and taking advantage of the curfew hours, we were ordered to drink pisco in large quantities.

I remember that we were in uniform inside the Station; no one understood the reason for the summons until, after a while of having drunk, Lieutenant ALBERTO FERNANDEZ MICHELL ordered us to take out the detainees, put them on a CMPC bus—I don't remember the driver.

Personally, I had to guard the inside of the bus, for which I carried a Sig rifle. I highlight that the detainees had their hands tied with hemp ropes. Immediately after, we took the road; the caravan was led by Lieutenant FERNANDEZ, I believe accompanied by a farm owner named PETER WILKENS, who was a German from the area.

All my colleagues I mentioned earlier also went, except for MUÑOZ and OVIEDO, who stayed on guard, although they knew at least that the detainees had been taken out of the cells. We continued the journey, for which we took the road in the direction of the Parales bridge, taking the path toward Route 5 through the Yumbel sector.

We stopped after a curve, and at this place, we passed the firebreak path and arrived at a forest. The vehicles stopped, they made us drink again, and they handed us shovels and we began to dig. I say we began because we were all there: FERNANDEZ, LEON, GARCES, RODRIGUEZ, SAN MARTIN, OTAROLA, OLIVARES, CASANOVA, CAMPOS, GONZALEZ, SAAVEDRA, and some I don't remember, but from the Station, we were all there except those who were on guard.

I remember that we all made the hole, except for the officer and the most senior ones, RODRIGUEZ and GARCES; the rest of us helped in this task. Since it was sand, it was not difficult to dig. Finally, we made a trench about 2 to 3 meters long by 1.5 meters deep approximately.

Then we brought down the detainees, we put them on their knees near the trench, and then we proceeded to shoot. We all shot; when I say all, I include Lieutenant FERNANDEZ. Furthermore, I remember very well when GONZALEZ argued strongly with CASANOVA, since the latter did not want to shoot.

It was so much that I intervened and told GONZALEZ that if he did anything to CASANOVA, I was going to shoot him. The tension was so high that we were all very agitated; nevertheless, we still put the detainees to death, who were shot in the back.

Some fell directly into the pit; others, after they had died, had to be pushed so they would fall, or we would take them and throw them into the pit. They remained one on top of the other. Then we covered them with the same sand and headed toward Laja.

We arrived at the Station and once there, we continued drinking, including the Lieutenant, and it was in this place that the guard personnel became aware of what had happened, at which time the Officer said that we should all keep quiet.

Immediately after, everything was carried out normally, although when the relatives went, they were told that the detainees had been transferred to the Los Ángeles regiment."

Source: Judiciary, April 14, 2011

Unpublished confessions link CMPC to the massacre of 19 workers in Laja

It was a hunt. In September 1973, the Carabineros of the Laja Station apprehended 14 workers from the Paper Mill and the Railways, two high school students, and two teachers, whom they took to the Fundo San Juan, where they executed and clandestinely buried them.

All the police officers had been drinking copious amounts of pisco sent to them by the CMPC, which also provided vehicles for the death caravan led by the farmer Peter Wilkens. Despite the desperate search by their families, the pact of silence regarding what happened that night was maintained until August of last year.

“Since it was sand, it wasn’t difficult to dig. We made a trench 2 to 3 meters long by 1.5 meters deep. Then we took the 19 detainees out of the vehicles. We made some kneel in front of the trench; we left the others standing.

They were in front of us, with their backs to us. I remember very well when the Carabinero Gabriel González argued heatedly with Nelson Casanova, because the latter did not want to shoot. It was so intense that I stepped in and told González that if he did anything to Casanova, I would shoot him with the Sig rifle I had in my hand.

The tension was so high. We were all very agitated, but still, when the officer gave the order, we proceeded to shoot. We all shot, and when I say all, I include Lieutenant Alberto Fernández Michell. We shot them in the back.

Some fell directly into the pit. Others, already dead, we had to push so they would fall, or we grabbed them and threw them into the pit. They ended up one on top of the other. Then we covered them with the same sand and some branches and headed toward Laja.

When we arrived at the Station, we continued drinking the pisco and the beverages the lieutenant had brought from the CMPC paper mill’s canteen. Only then did those who had remained on guard duty know what had happened. Fernández gave the order to remain silent. After that, everything continued as if nothing had happened.”

1st Corporal (ret.) Samuel Vidal Riquelme was the first to break the pact. For 38 years, he kept the secret of what happened in the early hours of September 18, 1973, to the 19 workers whom he and his colleagues from the Laja Station had apprehended in that town and San Rosendo during the previous five days, only to put them in a small dungeon, torture them, and later, that night, execute them clandestinely in a forest near the Perales Bridge, at the Fundo San Juan.

The first time Vidal spoke about what happened that night was in 1979, when the Archbishopric of Concepción filed a complaint against the Carabineros of the Station, and the then-visiting minister of the Concepción Court of Appeals, José Martínez Gaensly, interviewed him.

But that time, he said the same thing as his 15 colleagues from the Laja Station: that the prisoners had been taken to the Los Ángeles Regiment. Martínez asked the military personnel of that regiment about the 19 workers, but they insisted they had never entered there.

He then spoke with the Carabineros again. Although they changed their version, they all said the same thing: that they had put them on a bus provided by the Compañía Manufacturera de Papeles y Cartones (CMPC) and that on the way to Los Ángeles, they had handed them over to a “ghost patrol” of military personnel. That they had lost track of them since then.

Martínez’s inquiries served a purpose: it was discovered that the bodies were in a mass grave at the Yumbel Parish Cemetery. They had been taken there in October 1973, without anyone knowing, after they were removed from the hole where they had been buried following a report by a farmer to the Yumbel Carabineros that his dogs were gnawing on human remains.

The report reached the local Court of Greater Quantities, but Judge Corina Mera ordered it to be kept in the safe. It was never investigated.

Without knowing how the bodies had reached the cemetery or who had executed them, the remains were identified and handed over to their families, who had searched for them relentlessly for six years. In March 1980, Martínez declared himself incompetent and referred the records to the Ad Hoc Military Prosecutor’s Office of Concepción.

Within three months, the case was dismissed, and at the end of 1981, the Supreme Court ratified the dismissal. That was the extent of the justice served.

27 years later, the Association of Families of Political Executions (AFEP) and the Law 19.123 Continuation Program of the Ministry of the Interior requested the reopening of the case from the Concepción Court of Appeals.

After reviewing the records, Minister Carlos Aldana annulled the resolution that had definitively dismissed the accused Carabineros and the ratification of that ruling by the Supreme Court. Thus, the summary and the investigation were reopened under case file 27-2010.

CIPER had access to the statements and documents of that investigation. Among them is the confession of Corporal Samuel Vidal on June 14, 2011, before the Investigative Police (PDI). From then on, details began to emerge one by one regarding the fate of the 19 workers whom he and his colleagues murdered in the back in the early hours of September 18, 1973.

Thus, the capture operations were revealed, as well as the execution in an open field and the support and financing provided for their extermination by an important local businessman and, especially, the local CMPC, a company presided over at that time by former President Jorge Alessandri and whose main shareholder was the businessman Eliodoro Matte Ossa.

The oath that the Carabineros of the Laja Station made in November 1973 at the Perales Bridge, when their officer in charge, Lieutenant Alberto Fernández Michell, was being reassigned to Antofagasta, had been broken: “That if anyone opened their mouth, they had to be taken out by the colleagues themselves.”

15/9/73: HUNT IN SAN ROSENDO

Railway machinist Luis Alberto Araneda went at noon to the San Rosendo Engine House to see if he was on the “schedule.” It was what he did every day when he was not scheduled to travel the previous day.

When he arrived, he saw through his thick black-rimmed glasses the paper indicating the itinerary of the trains that would depart that day. He looked for his name, but it did not appear among those scheduled to travel that Saturday, September 15, 1973. Then he began the walk back to his home in the Quinta Ferroviaria neighborhood.

-Go back to work, the Carabineros are looking for you, for you and Juan Acuña –his neighbor Eusebio Suárez told him, worried, when he saw him arrive.

But Luis Alberto did not listen to him. He replied that his machine was at the workshop, so he had nothing to do there that day. Besides, if they were looking for him, he had no reason to worry. The day before, he had returned from a trip to the south, and as soon as he learned that the Carabineros required militants and union leaders to present themselves, Luis Alberto went to the San Rosendo Station.

There, they asked for his information. On a piece of paper, they wrote his name, his RUT, that he was 43 years old, that he was a militant of the Socialist Party (PS), that he presided over the Supply and Price Board (JAP), and that he was a union leader of the Santiago Watt Federation of State Railways.

Afterward, they told him he could leave. Luis Alberto returned home and did not think about it anymore, not even when Eusebio told him the next day on the street that they were looking for him, that just a few minutes earlier a police patrol from Laja had asked him about him and that he had told them where he lived.

When he was about to reach his home, his wife saw him coming through the window in his striped gray jacket, brown pants, black shoes, and glasses of the same color. She also saw how six or seven Carabineros with helmets blocked his path, raised their rifles, and pointed them at him just as he was about to open the gate.

Luis Alberto froze. She did not think twice and ran out, screaming at the police to at least let her say goodbye. Luis Alberto, who already had his hands tied behind his back, told her to take the money and his watch out of his pocket. She did. Then she saw them take him away. It was shortly before 4:00 PM. The hunt in San Rosendo had just begun.

Since the patrol commanded by Lieutenant Fernández came from Laja and did not know who they were supposed to detain, Carabinero Sergio Castillo Basaul, from the San Rosendo station, served as their guide.

There was no formal list or arrest warrants: the order that came from the Los Ángeles Police Station was to detain all the leaders of the Popular Unity (UP). If Castillo, who knew them, said that any of the neighbors should be detained, they immediately pointed at him, tied him up, and took him away.

Juan Antonio Acuña, 33 years old, three children, also a machinist and leader of the Railway union, was the next on the list. They went to look for him at his house an hour later, when he was about to sit down to have tea with his family.

The same patrol that had arrived on foot from Laja broke in by force and took him out at gunpoint. Then it was the turn of the employee of the Compañía Manufacturera de Papeles y Cartones (CMPC), Dagoberto Garfias, 23 years old.

He was followed by Mario Jara (21), who was at home with his mother and grandmother; Raúl Urra (23), who was also at his residence; and the director of School 45 of San Rosendo, Óscar Sanhueza (23).

They were all taken to the San Rosendo Plaza, where another detainee was waiting for them: Jorge Zorrilla, a 25-year-old mining worker who worked in Argentina and was spending his vacation in Chile. He, like Luis Alberto Araneda, presented himself voluntarily to the Carabineros.

They immediately apprehended him, and when the others arrived, the patrol tied them up and took them on foot across the pedestrian bridge that connected San Rosendo with Laja. On the other side, a bus was waiting for them, one of the many courtesies of the CMPC to the patrol commanded by Lieutenant Fernández Michell, the officer in charge of the Laja Station. Once on the bus, they took them away.

11/9/73: THE FIRST ORDERS

Although he was the first to be detained, Lieutenant (ret.) Fernández Michell was the last of the members of the Laja Station to testify before the Court. On August 16 of last year, he was arrested in Iquique, where he worked as an instructor at a driving school. And when the next day he broke the pact of silence that he himself had proposed after the execution, he started from the beginning:

“I was at my home provided by the CMPC when I received the news of the Military Coup. I had arrived at the Laja Station in mid-1973 as a substitute second lieutenant, and since there was no officer, I remained as chief.

I was 22 years old. By September 11, I was the police authority, and as soon as I learned of the Coup, while waiting for orders, I called for the mobilization of all the Carabineros. That was coordinated by Sub-officer Major Evaristo Garcés Rubilar and Sergeant Pedro Rodríguez Ceballos, who were next in command under me.”

“That same morning, I received the order from the Los Ángeles Headquarters to detain all government authorities, sub-delegates, and the mayor. The action was carried out without problems, and after detaining them at our unit, they were transferred to the Los Ángeles Regiment in buses provided by the Paper Mill, because I already had many people in the barracks.

Days later, my superior in Los Ángeles, Commissioner Aroldo Solari Sanhueza, ordered me to start detaining all the activists in the commune. Since the CMPC had a chemical plant, the activists could take it over and act against us.

That was the information I received from military intelligence. One of those days, Army Colonel Alfredo Rehern Pulido arrived to reiterate the order. I ordered Sub-officers Garcés and Rodríguez to proceed with the personnel to carry out that task, because they knew those people better.”

Since Salvador Allende assumed the presidency in 1970, the CMPC was part of the list of companies that the government intended to expropriate. For that reason, on the same day of the Coup, a patrol commanded by Fernández Michell went to the plant that the Paper Mill had—and still has—in Laja.

It was 4:00 PM when the nearly 300 employees leaving their shift encountered Fernández, Garcés, Rodríguez, and other members of the Station. They made them form lines. The patrol had in their hands a list that the plant superintendent, Carlos Ferrer, and the personnel chief, Humberto Garrido, had prepared: those were the “activists.”

Those who appeared on the list were separated and taken away, beaten and pointed at by rifles, to the adjacent building, where the company’s clinic operated. There, they beat them again. Afterward, they put them into CMPC vehicles and took them to the barracks.

All of them were later transferred, in the same bus from the Matte Group company, to Los Ángeles. Among them was Eduardo Cuevas, a maintenance mechanic at the Paper Mill and a MIR militant who voluntarily joined the reconstruction of the scene carried out by Minister Aldana on August 18 of last year.

Before they took him away, Fernández grabbed him and showed him to his coworkers still formed in the line: “Look at him for the last time!” he shouted at them.

After a little more than a year and three months in detention and torture centers, and after passing through a War Council, Eduardo Cuevas was seen again. A “luck” that those who were hunted in the following days did not have.

13 and 14/9/73: THE FALL OF THE STUDENT AND THE WORKERS

The first thing the patrol, which was headed that day by Sergeant Pedro Rodríguez Ceballos, did was go to the Train Station. On the platform, Manuel Becerra was saying goodbye to his mother, his grandmother, his brother, and his cousin.

It was 8:00 AM, and in just a few minutes, the train that would take him back to Curacautín, where he was studying secondary education at the Industrial School, would depart. He was about to board when the Carabineros grabbed him.

Amidst the screams of his relatives, Manuel Becerra was taken out of the station by blows, put into the jeep that the CMPC had granted them for their mobilization, and taken to the Laja Station. It was September 13, 1973. Manuel was 18 years old.

In a matter of minutes, they notified his father, who worked at the Transportes Cóndor offices. As soon as he found out, he asked his boss to speak with the Carabineros and arrange for his release. He went to the Station and spoke with the guard on duty, but they told him they had already registered his detention in the corresponding books.

Later, they would tell his father that he had been detained because “he was a militant with the Miristas.” Manuel had already been detained before, during the campaign for the 1973 parliamentary elections, for painting MIR slogans in Laja along with other friends. The young man remained detained.

The next on the list was Luis Armando Ulloa, 41 years old, married, five children, a militant of the Communist Party (PC) and a lumber worker at the Barraca Burgos in Laja, where they went to look for him.

It was 8:30 AM. Since his eldest son worked with him, the first thing his colleagues did was notify him as soon as he arrived, because just when they took him away, he was not there. He ran to his house and notified his mother, who was still recovering from her last childbirth. They could not do anything to get him out either.

That afternoon, the Carabineros returned to the CMPC. As soon as he stepped outside the plant, Juan de Dios Villarroel was kidnapped by Rodríguez’s patrol. He was 34 years old, had four children, and had the misfortune of working at a company that drew up a blacklist with the names of its own employees.

On that same list were his coworkers Jack Gutiérrez, a MAPU militant; Heraldo Muñoz, from the PS; and Federico Riquelme. They were all taken to the Station, where the fruit and vegetable merchant and municipal councilor, Alfonso Macaya, who arrived voluntarily after hearing on a local radio station that they were looking for him, joined them.

They let him go the next day, but on September 15, they went to look for him again at his in-laws’ house. He never returned.

On September 14, Rodríguez went out to the streets again in the CMPC jeep. He did not have to go far, because the two men who joined the group of political detainees that day were found leaving their work at the paper mill. One was Wilson Muñoz. The other was Fernando Grandón, who at 34 years old already had eight children.

16 and 17/9/73: THE SMALL STATION

Most likely, the Laja Station never had as many visitors as it did during those days. By the night of September 15, 1973, in the dungeon of that structure at Las Viñas No. 104, which Fernández remembers as “two large temporary shelters to which some additions had been made,” there were 17 people detained: to the seven they brought from San Rosendo and the nine they kidnapped in Laja, the director of the CMPC Industrial Union, Jorge Lamana, who presented himself at the Station voluntarily, had been added that afternoon.

Since the detentions began, their parents, siblings, and children went to visit them with the authorization of the officer in charge of the facility. Fernando Grandón’s wife arrived the same day he was detained to see him for the first time.

When she saw him, she noticed he was scared, but without injuries. Luis Armando Ulloa’s eldest daughter also went to see him, and when she found him in the middle of the group, she realized they had cut his hair with scissors.

But the worst part was suffered by those from San Rosendo. All of them had bruises, scratches, and dog bites. Jorge Zorrilla, the miner detained during his vacation, told one of the detainees’ relatives that they had also been made to sit on the pica.

On September 16, the last two members of the group arrived at the cell. Juan Carlos Jara, 17 years old, was grabbed by Pedro Rodríguez’s patrol when he was fighting with other youths in the street. Rubén Campos, director of the Consolidated School of Laja, was taken from his house, and from there, he went straight to the dungeon.

Until September 17, visits to the prisoners continued. In the mornings, almost all the relatives arrived with the des freshly made breakfast and clean clothes. Later, they were brought lunch, and dinner at night.

They were also visited by the parish priest of Laja, Father Félix Eicher, who had naively accompanied some of those who voluntarily presented themselves to the police station so that they could “resolve their problems.” And every time they went, they tried to convince the carabineros to release them.

The prisoners told them to stay calm, that they would soon be out of there. On the night before the national holidays, Lieutenant Fernández Michell received an order.

“I was having dinner in the dining room when Sub-officer Garcés told me that Major Solari, the commissioner of Los Ángeles, was on the phone. He was very upset with me because I had sent many people to the regiment without asking him.

I had done it because of a space issue. I was scared that he was angry, because I had gotten married without my superiors' permission and was expecting my first daughter, so I had to do whatever he told me, otherwise I risked another sanction.

He asked me how many detainees I had in the unit. I told him there were 19 people. He gave me the order to “eliminate them.” He told me that if I didn't do it, I would have to face the consequences. Then he hung up. I immediately called Garcés and Rodríguez and told them to get the personnel ready.”

18/9/73: MASSACRE IN THE FOREST

The men who followed Fernández in the chain of command made a few calls and in just minutes obtained ropes, wires, shovels, vehicles, and even a remote place where they could carry out the massacre. They had carbines and rifles for all the officers of the police station. They also had the alcohol provided by the CMPC. The plan to kill the 19 was already underway.

“When they called us to the barracks, the curfew had already begun. Upon arriving, they gathered us in a room we used as a dining hall and ordered us to drink a large amount of pisco. Almost all the members of the Laja police station were there, from Lieutenant Fernández Michell on down.

Those who didn't arrive at the barracks would join us later. After drinking, Lieutenant Fernández told us to take the 19 detainees out of the police station cells. We tied their hands behind their backs with hemp and hay-bale wire, took them outside, and loaded them onto the CMPC bus.

I had to guard the inside of the bus. That is why I had my Sig rifle in my hands. We took the highway toward Los Ángeles. Leading the caravan in a jeep were Fernández, Garcés, and Peter Wilkens, a German farmer from the area.”

Until Corporal Samuel Vidal testified in June 2011, Wilkens' name never appeared in the investigation. After him, Fernández and several carabineros confirmed his participation in the massacre that night.

Before that, it was not known that Garcés had called him, that he had accompanied Fernández in the CMPC jeep leading the caravan, or that after the Perales Bridge, following a curve in the road between Laja and Los Ángeles, it was he who told him to turn right and stop 300 meters further on, in a clearing next to a pine forest.

Since only the carabineros who were there that night and swore silence knew that Wilkens had been there, no one linked the event when, in 1985, a 19-year-old youth named Arturo Arriagada, with no criminal record, entered his estate in Laja, killed his foreman, entered his room, and shot him with a shotgun.

He then loaded the bodies into his van and buried them on the side of the road, very close to where they had buried the detainees from Laja and San Rosendo that night.

According to a report published by Contacto when the death penalty was about to be abolished in Chile in 2001, Arriagada was sentenced to life imprisonment and by then, due to his good conduct, had been incorporated into the Center for Education and Work (CET) in Concepción.

For his criminal act, justice did work. Wilkens, on the other hand, died without anyone questioning him for having been an accomplice and for having guided and observed as a group of police officers executed 19 workers by firing squad in the early hours of September 18, 1973, at the Fundo San Juan. A night that 2nd Sergeant (ret.) Pedro Parra remembers very well:

“There were no soldiers or DINA agents; it was just us from the police station, except for the three who stayed on guard duty. When we stopped, the truck was very close to some bushes. The night was clear and there was a moon, but the vehicle lights were used anyway.

With the fight between Gabriel González and Nelson Casanova, I finally realized the weight of what was happening. Everything was already decided. Lieutenant Fernández Michell didn't say anything; he was just one more of the group.

The detainees were in front of us with their hands tied. I had a Mauser carbine. When Fernández gave the order, we all aimed at the detainees who had been assigned to us. None of them complained or said anything. Then they gave the order to fire. We all did it.”

18/9/73: AFTER THE MASSACRE

The bodies were left underground. The group of carabineros got into the vehicles and returned to the Laja barracks. Everyone remembers that it was a strange moment, that no one dared to say anything. When they arrived, they drank what was left of the pisco they had consumed before leaving.

And right there, they agreed that no one would say anything, that if anyone spoke, they would suffer the same fate as those they had just murdered.

On the morning of that day, Gloria Urra got up early, prepared breakfast, and like the previous days, went to the police station to see her brother Raúl. She hoped to meet all the detainees and their families, sit with them, and share the food.

But the cell was empty. Now that they were cleaning it, it looked much bigger. Hilda Bravo, the wife of fruit merchant Alfonso Macaya, had not been allowed to see him when he was locked up two days earlier, so that morning she hoped to meet her husband.

But they told her the same thing they told the mothers, wives, brothers, and children of the 19 workers who were there until the night before: that they had been transferred to the Los Ángeles Regiment.

The relatives grouped together and set off to look for them. They did not find them at the Los Ángeles Regiment. They went through the jail, the IANSA gymnasium; nothing. Later, some went to Concepción and asked at the Regional Stadium, on Isla Quiriquina, in Talcahuano; their names did not appear on the lists of prisoners.

Days passed and the desperate search was repeated over and over in Chillán, in Linares. It was like that for weeks, for years. Many spent their savings traveling to different cities in the country, searching and asking without answers. They went through Temuco until they reached Santiago. Everything was useless: the 19 had vanished.

Two days after the massacre, the priest Félix Eicher accompanied the CMPC worker, Luis Sáez, to Los Ángeles, according to his statement before Judge Carlos Aldana, “so that those in Laja wouldn't do anything to him.” In the previous days, they had raided his house twice looking for him, but they hadn't found him. “Just as Macaya turned himself in, tell your husband to do the same,” Sergeant Rodríguez had allegedly told his wife.

The priest convinced him to turn himself in on September 20, 1973. That same day he was detained. Six years later, when they found the other 19 in the Yumbel cemetery—where they had been taken clandestinely by Fernández and his men—the remains of Luis Sáez appeared at the Fundo San Juan.

THE TRIAL OF THE LAJA EXECUTIONERS

Although 38 years had passed, many of the carabineros who worked at the Laja police station in September 1973 tried in 2011 to maintain their oath of silence regarding what happened in the early hours of September 18 of that year. 1st Sergeant (ret.) Gabriel González, for example, assured the PDI that he knew nothing about the 19 forcibly disappeared and that he only participated in some arrests.

He said nothing about his fight with Nelson Casanova that early morning just before shooting them in the back. And Casanova himself, who according to testimonies resisted firing, declared: “At that time there was a very good relationship with the CMPC workers, so I had no knowledge that employees of that company had been detained.”

It was the testimonies of those who did decide to confess that allowed the visiting judge Carlos Aldana to issue an arrest warrant in August 2011 for the 14 officials still alive who participated in the arrests and the execution of the workers murdered at the Fundo San Juan.

After that, everyone began to talk. On the 18th of that month, Aldana carried out the reconstruction of the scene with all the detainees, detailing the chain of events that ended the lives of the 19 workers.

It was a key, dramatic day. After that, there were no more doubts: four days later, the judge indicted nine of the carabineros for homicide and one for concealment. Three others, those who stayed on guard duty that night, were dismissed. Despite the brutality of the crimes, today they are all free.

The following is the list of all the carabineros involved and what happened to them:

1.- Alberto Juan Fernández Michell: Lieutenant (ret.) of Carabineros. He was the officer in charge of the Laja police station and the person responsible for executing the orders that came from Los Ángeles.

He ordered and participated in the arrests and the execution at the Fundo San Juan. He was retired from the institution in 1979, citing “lack of vocation.” He was indicted as the perpetrator of homicide. When everyone else obtained provisional release, he remained detained for being the responsible officer. His defense appealed and he was released after paying a bail of $300,000.

2.- Evaristo Garcés Rubilar: He was a Carabineros sub-officer and second in command at the Laja police station, so he played a key role in organizing the arrests and the massacre of the 19 at the Fundo San Juan. He obtained the location for the clandestine execution and contacted the German farmer Peter Wilkens. He died on December 25, 1987, at age 60, from a vascular accident caused by diabetes.

3.- Pedro Rodríguez Ceballos: Carabineros Sergeant. He was in charge of several of the arrests and had a leading role in managing the execution. He was married and some time after what happened that night, he became part of the DINA. He died on December 22, 2002, at the Dipreca Hospital from metastatic gastric cancer that caused multi-organ failure. He was 64 years old.

4.- Lisandro Alberto Martínez García: 1st Sergeant (ret.) of Carabineros. Although he initially declared that he had not participated in the massacre because he was working in the barracks' records office at the time, he ended up accepting his participation: “We all carried rifles and we fired,” he said.

He was indicted as the perpetrator of homicide and was released on provisional bail of $300,000.

5.- Luis Antonio León Godoy: 2nd Sergeant (ret.) of Carabineros. At first, he said that it had been the military who passed by the police station and took the 19 detainees. Later he changed his version: “When my sub-officer Garcés gave the order, we all had to fire,” he noted. He was indicted as the perpetrator of homicide and was released on provisional bail after paying $300,000.

6.- José Jacinto Otárola Sanhueza: Sergeant (ret.) of Carabineros. In his statements, he claimed that he had not participated and that he was not there on the night of the massacre. But in the reconstruction of the scene, he acknowledged having been there.

His role was to be in the CMPC jeep the whole time, illuminating what was happening in front of him. He saw everything, but he did not pull the trigger. He was indicted for concealment of homicide and after paying a bail of $100,000, he obtained his provisional release.

7.- Gerson Nilo Saavedra Reinike: 1st Sergeant (ret.) of Carabineros. He was one of the first to provide a statement and acknowledge what happened in the early hours of September 18, 1973. That night he joined the caravan when they were about to arrive at the Fundo San Juan. He was indicted for homicide and obtained his provisional release after paying a bail of $300,000.

8.- Florencio Osvaldo Olivares Dade: 2nd Sergeant (ret.) of Carabineros. He also acknowledged his participation since September 11, 1973. “They were difficult days, we slept little,” he said. He is one of those indicted for homicide and after paying the $300,000 bail, he was released on provisional release.

9.- Pedro del Carmen Parra Utreras: 2nd Sergeant (ret.) of Carabineros. As soon as he was interrogated, he told in detail what happened that night. He was also indicted for homicide and has been on provisional release since he paid his $300,000 bail.

10.- Gabriel Washington González Salazar: 1st Sergeant (ret.) of Carabineros. He was the man who fought before firing, although when it was his turn to testify, he said it had been the military. Later he acknowledged his participation. He was indicted for homicide and is free today.

11.- Samuel Francisco Vidal Riquelme: 1st Corporal (ret.) of Carabineros. He was the first to break the pact of silence. His testimony was key to clarifying what happened to the 19 workers in Laja. He was indicted for homicide and also obtained his release after paying the $300,000 bail.

12.- Víctor Manuel Campos Dávila: He belonged to Carabineros for 30 years. In his first statement, he only said that after September 11, the Laja police station moved to CMPC facilities. Later he added that he was there that night and that he fired when ordered, but that he did not aim at the bodies. He is one of those indicted for homicide and today enjoys provisional release.

13.- Nelson Casanova Salgado: 1st Sergeant (ret.) of Carabineros. He had said that he had never participated in an operation to detain CMPC workers, but his participation was proven. Also indicted for homicide, he is free today after paying the bail.

14.- Luis Muñoz Cuevas: 1st Corporal (ret.) of Carabineros. Since he stayed on guard duty at the barracks that night, Judge Aldana dismissed him from the investigation.

15.- Anselmo del Carmen San Martín Navarrete: Sub-officer (ret.) of Carabineros. His mission that night was to stop traffic in the hospital area so the caravan could pass. Later he returned to the police station and stayed there all night. He is one of the three carabineros dismissed.

16.- Juan de Dios Oviedo Riquelme: Sub-officer (ret.) of Carabineros. He also stayed on guard duty at the Laja police station that night, so he was dismissed.

17.- Sergio Castillo Basaul: Carabineros Sub-officer. Although he did not participate in the execution, he had an active role in guiding the arrests in San Rosendo, since he worked in that town and knew its inhabitants. He died on September 16, 2005, from a massive gastrointestinal hemorrhage, esophageal varices, and Laennec's cirrhosis, which is caused by alcoholism.

LUIS SÁEZ: THE 20TH VICTIM OF THE FIRING SQUAD

The first time the carabineros from the Laja police station went to look for Luis Sáez Espinoza (37 years old) at his home in the Mario Medina neighborhood, it was September 11, 1973, at 10:00 AM. In addition to being an employee at the CMPC, Sáez was a union leader and a militant of the MAPU.

For that reason, as soon as he heard about the Coup, he went into hiding. Since he was not there when the carabineros arrived, they raided his house in front of his wife, Rosa Ibaca, and his children. Three hours later, the patrol commanded by Sergeant Pedro Rodríguez Ceballos returned in the jeep that the Matte Group company had provided them, with helmets and long weapons.

They raided his home again, but this time they took Rosa. Pointing their rifles at her, they took her to some neighbors, and since no one knew where Luis was, they left her there. The next day the scene was repeated.

On September 14, Sergeant Rodríguez arrived again to look for Luis and for the third time, he did not find him. That was the day he gave his wife the message: that he should turn himself in as Alfonso Macaya had done the day before.

Minutes later, social workers from the company arrived to see how the family was doing and promised to speak with Lieutenant Fernández Michell so they would not raid that house anymore. The children were traumatized.

Six days later, the parish priest of Laja, Félix Eicher, went to speak with the woman. He told her that he knew where Luis was and that he wanted to speak with her. The priest took her in his truck. When they met, she told him that he should turn himself in.

Luis was afraid; he knew his life was in danger, that just two days earlier the group of 19 detainees had disappeared without a trace. So that nothing would happen to him, the priest convinced him to go to Los Ángeles and not to the Laja police station.

He accepted. That same day, September 20, 1973, shortly before the curfew, they went in the priest's truck to the Los Ángeles Prefecture. Luis got out of the vehicle, presented himself, and was detained there. Father Eicher was a witness.

The next day, the same priest notified Sergeant Rodríguez that Luis had already turned himself in.

Rosa went to leave him clothes and food at the Red Cross office, but they returned everything because Luis was not in any detention center. His wife searched for him for years with the help of the priest and the Bishop of Los Ángeles, Orozimbo Fuenzalida, but nothing. Nothing more was ever heard of Luis.

The search extended until 1979, when the investigation led by visiting judge José Martínez led to the whereabouts of those executed in Laja and San Rosendo, but not their victimizers. While the others had been taken to the Yumbel Parish Cemetery, the remains of Luis appeared buried clandestinely in the same place where the massacre was carried out, at the Fundo San Juan, next to a CMPC pine forest.

He had a bullet hole and was tied with wire.

In the documents to which CIPER had access, Police Report No. 988 of March 15, 2011, is mentioned. According to that document, his direct relatives were asked, but they said that his remains were never handed over to them, so Luis Sáez Espinoza is still a forcibly disappeared person.

Source: ciper.cl, January 13, 2012