Address : Fernando Lesseps No. 204, Cerro Los Placeres, Valparaíso Marital Status : Married Occupation : Graduate of the School of Architecture of the Universidad de Chile, Valparaíso branch; assistant professor at the same school Representative Role : Student representative to the Faculty Council and President of the Architecture Student Center; member of the Movimiento de Izquierda Revolucionario (MIR) and president of the Frente de Estudiantes Revolucionarios (FER) in Valparaíso.

Date of Detention : September 12, 1973

REPRESSIVE SITUATION

Yactong Orlando Juantock Guzmán, married, a graduate of Architecture from the Universidad de Chile, student leader, and member of the MIR, was detained by Navy personnel on September 12, 1973, around 11:00 a.m., at a house located on Cerro La Cruz in Valparaíso.

Two other people were detained alongside the victim, one of whom was Ms. Marcela López Uribe. The detainees were taken to the Escuela Fiscal Barros Luco, where they were separated. Subsequently, Yactong Orlando was transferred to the steamship "Maipo," which belonged to the Navy.

He was seen inside the ship until September 14, the date on which he was taken away to an unknown destination by three Navy personnel whose faces were painted black.

Ms. Marcela López Uribe states in her testimony that she was detained on September 12, 1973, along with Yactong Orlando Juantock, by a naval patrol while they were at a residence located on Cerro La Cruz.

Both were taken to the Escuela Fiscal Barros Luco and later separated. For his part, Mr. Guillermo Jesús Custodio Cavieses Romero states in his testimony that he was detained by Carabineros personnel in Valparaíso on September 13, 1973.

He was subsequently transferred to the merchant ship "Maipo," which was used by the Navy during those days as a detention center for political prisoners. There, upon being taken down to one of the ship's holds, he recognized Yactong Orlando Juantock Guzmán, then-President of the Architecture Student Center at the Universidad de Chile in Valparaíso, among other detainees.

On September 14, the witness was circumstantially on the ship's deck to be moved to another hold; it was 7:00 p.m. that day when he noticed a patrol of three members with their faces painted black approach the officer in charge, to whom they showed a photograph of a person who turned out to be Yactong Orlando Juantock Guzmán.

They mistreated him severely, and he was then dragged off the ship by the three sailors.

Furthermore, military authorities acknowledged his arrest. In the last week of September 1973, the affected individual appeared on the lists of detainees at the Intendencia of Valparaíso, and his relatives were informed that he was under arrest within the province.

Moreover, in the respective judicial process initiated regarding his disappearance, it is recorded in a report dated July 4, 1974, from the Military Prosecutor's Office of Valparaíso that the victim was at the disposal of the Intelligence Service of the First Naval Zone. However, this information was later denied by the same authority.

All efforts and procedures carried out by his family to determine his whereabouts were fruitless, and the fate he met at the hands of his captors remains unknown.

JUDICIAL AND/OR ADMINISTRATIVE ACTIONS

On June 26, 1974, a complaint for alleged disappearance was filed with the Third Criminal Court of Valparaíso, case file 91896. The complaint was accepted for processing on July 1, after the complainant appeared before the Court to ratify her statements, at which time she added precise details regarding the events that culminated in the victim's arrest, his transfer to the ship "Maipo," and his subsequent disappearance.

The court requested a report from the Military Prosecutor of Valparaíso, receiving a response on July 4, 1974, stating that Yactong Orlando Juantock Guzmán was at the disposal of the Intelligence Service of the First Naval Zone.

Based on this information, on July 12, 1974, Judge Sonia Araneda Briones definitively dismissed the case without confirming the information provided by the Military Prosecutor's Office with the respective naval authority.

On July 31, 1974, the complainant requested that the Court reopen the summary proceedings, as the certificate from the Military Prosecutor's Office did not align with reality, given that the First Naval Zone had stated to both the complainant and her lawyer that the victim was not at the disposal of that authority.

To rule on the motion, the Court summoned the petitioner to ratify the filing, at which time the Judge was informed that Yactong Juantock had been seen, in deplorable psychological condition, at the School of Supply and Submarines located in the old Naval School building in the Playa Ancha sector, according to witnesses who had been there and were subsequently released.

Despite this information, on August 8, the Court ruled negatively on the request to reopen the summary, ordering the case to be returned to the archives. The following day, August 9, 1974, an order to investigate was added to the case file, which yielded no results.

On August 20, the injured party requested a reconsideration, with an appeal in the alternative, of the denial resolution. Both motions were rejected by the Court.

In May 1976, the reopening of the summary was requested again, this time attaching a certificate issued by the Naval Prosecutor's Office of Valparaíso, which stated that Yactong Orlando Juantock Guzmán was declared a fugitive in case A-637, War Council, and that the processing of the case was suspended until his appearance or apprehension.

The Court added the document to the file and refused to reopen the summary.

It should be noted that in case A-637, other members of the MIR from Valparaíso who are forcibly disappeared after having been arrested by security agencies are also declared fugitives, just like the victim.

Additionally, the family carried out efforts before the Intendant of Valparaíso, which also yielded negative results.

Source: Corporation report

Announcement made in commemoration of disappeared professors Francisco Aedo, Carlos Gajardo, and Yactong Juantok.

A process aimed at identifying members of the university community who were detained by the dictatorship, executed, or remain forcibly disappeared, with the purpose of establishing memorial sites and paying tribute to them, was announced by Rector Osvaldo Corrales during the commemoration ceremony for Universidad de Valparaíso School of Architecture professors Francisco Aedo, Carlos Gajardo, and Yactong Juantok, who remain disappeared to this day.

The traditional ceremony held at the Faculty of Architecture memorial was attended by academic authorities, professors, family members, friends, representatives of the Comprehensive Health Care and Reparation Program (PRAIS), and the Regional Ministerial Secretary of Justice and Human Rights, Paula Gutiérrez.

During his presentation, Rector Corrales stated that “this tribute is dedicated to people who, from their own places, contributed to the construction of the University, especially our Faculty of Architecture, with whom many maintained bonds of affection that went beyond the academic or professional.

They were beloved people who were violently torn from us, leaving an open wound in our community that will only begin to heal when there is truth, justice, and reparation for them and their families.”

“One year away from the fiftieth anniversary of the Coup d'État, in my capacity as rector of the UV, I have decided to open this process with the hope that, by recognizing the mistakes of the past, we move toward the construction of a Chile where we can meet again in peace and harmony, at a time that seems especially necessary,” he added.

Eliana Ceriani, widow of Professor Carlos Gajardo, thanked the organizers, highlighting that “no university and no school in the country has had the persistence of the UV in remembering our loved ones who were victims of human rights violations; that is why these types of acts not only move us but fill us with pride regarding this institution.”

The Dean of the Faculty of Architecture, Juan Luis Moraga, explained that “this cenotaph was built by several professors and staff of our faculty, motivated by the desire of the School of Architecture Alumni Center to hold a tribute and testimony in our facilities to our disappeared architect professors.

The pain expressed by this memorial is the consequence of an act of the highest inhumanity and cowardice: the programmed and meticulous disappearance of people, which prevents survivors from grieving.”

Raúl Escobar Vera, a user of the PRAIS program, noted in a moving speech that “from this memorial, Francisco, Carlos, and Yactong speak to us from constant memory. From the perspective of the PRAIS Historical Memory Workshop, they speak to us from the harrowing condition of being forcibly disappeared during the civil-military dictatorship, with their laughter and hurried steps to reach the classroom, with a firm hand to trace a plan on a blank sheet of paper.

This university was a pioneer in graduating and honoring its distinguished academics. Commemorating our colleagues every September at this memorial is an act of life; we do not forget them, they are within us, in the work and dreams of these classrooms; we continue walking to seek truth, justice, and reparation.”

Inés Robles, lawyer and academic, directs the UV Legal and Human Rights Clinic, which processes cases for survivors of torture, led by PRAIS psychologist María José Jorquera. Regarding this, she stated that they decided to “carry out a multidisciplinary initiative that would serve for the training of our students.

The idea was not only to bridge this gap in access to justice but to train our students for the guarantee of non-repetition, for ‘never again.’ We are the only public university that does this, that has concerned itself with this sector violated by the State.

The workshop will soon become an elective course, within the teaching-learning process formally, as a minimum contribution from our university to people who have been affected by this situation, under the motto ‘Justice is health.’”

“In September, we reflect on the enormous damage that the dictatorship caused in our country, in human lives, in stories altered in a way that can never be recovered, in institutions that established an economic model that guarantees neither freedom nor equality.

We raise our voices to tell the denialists that for every one who denies what happened, who attempts a false equivalence, and who tries to distort historical truth, there will be one or more of us who will not forget, who will remember, and who will not be silent, because the voices of Francisco, Carlos, and Yactong will always be present,” asserted Professor Robles.

Source: uv.cl 12/9/2022 Date: 12-09-2022

Artists forcibly disappeared and executed by the civil-military dictatorship

During the civil-military dictatorship, at least a hundred people linked to culture, the arts, and heritage were executed and disappeared.

September 11 marked the beginning of the most painful stage we have ever lived, caused by State agents and complicit civilians. Today we commemorate 48 years of that tragedy that still mourns all of Chile.

More than three thousand people—men, women, children, and youth, such as primary, secondary, and university students; pregnant women, the elderly, the blind, and the disabled—were directly affected, and hundreds of thousands joined the category of relatives and victims of the dictatorship.

Those who survive fight tirelessly for justice, reparation, and the non-repetition of genocidal acts by the State.

Men and women whose contribution to society came from their social struggle, as militants, and also from their trades and occupations as shoemakers, laborers, textile workers, doctors, linotypists, dressmakers, secretaries, union and neighborhood leaders, municipal officials, public employees, railway workers, newspaper vendors, carpenters; peasant, mining, forestry, and construction workers; and engineers.

Also those who were just passing through, on a mission, studying, or had formed a family in Chile, coming from Vietnam, France, Spain, Bolivia, Argentina, Uruguay, England, Ecuador, among other countries.

Some of their murderers and accomplices, who are serving light sentences in luxury prisons, have deprived us of them, but they have also deprived us of nearly a hundred artists and creators whom we have identified, with the desire to offer a tribute to those who, from the realms of culture, the arts, and heritage, were victims of state terrorism.

We have recognized 82 people whose creativity was expressed in audiovisuals, crafts, theater, architecture, photography, Visual Arts, literature, and music.

In this note, you will find the names of people whose information allows them to be associated with an artistic language, according to available information; however, it is highly possible that many more remain to be identified.

You will also find a link to the information that, among all the people who make the site www.memoriaviva.com possible, is made available to us so that we can contribute to not forgetting until there is justice. For them… No forgiveness, no forgetting!!

[List of 82 individuals omitted for brevity, including:] 43. Francisco Eduardo Aedo Carrasco. Architect. Disappeared. 54. Carlos Alfredo Gajardo Wolff. Architecture student. Disappeared. 58. Yactong Orlando Juantock Guzmán. Graduate of the School of Architecture of the Universidad de Chile, Valparaíso branch. Disappeared.

Source: prensaopal.cl 8/09/2021 Date: 08-09-2021

U. de Chile to award posthumous degrees to 104 executed and disappeared individuals

Symbolic recognition will be directed at former students murdered during the military regime.

Through exempt decree number 0030766 of the Universidad de Chile, authorized by the Comptroller General of the Republic on September 4 of this year, said university was enabled, for the first time in its history, to award posthumous and symbolic degrees to students who were political executions victims and those who became forcibly disappeared during the military regime.

The official ceremony, which will be led by Rector Ennio Vivaldi, will take place next Monday the 11th, in the Domeyko courtyard of the central building, starting at 12:30 p.m. For Vivaldi, “this initiative has two very profound meanings.

On one hand, it is a gesture of reparation for the victims themselves and for their families, who also affectively associate their loved ones with this great institution that is the U. de Chile. On the other hand, the U. de Chile feels it is fulfilling its moral duty by not granting the dictatorship the terrible objective of, in addition to having cut their lives short, erasing their achievements as students and future professionals for Chile.”

The list includes 104 former students of the university who were murdered by State agents between 1973 and 1989.

Among the most remembered cases is that of history student Jécar Nehgme, who also appears as the last victim of the Augusto Pinochet regime. This former leader of the Movimiento de Izquierda Revolucionaria (MIR) was found dead on September 4, 1989, on General Bulnes street, a few days before the elections that would mark the return to democracy.

After a long judicial process, which was resolved in 2008, it was established that the authors of the murder were the metropolitan head of the CNI, Brigadier (r) Enrique Levy Araneda; Colonel (r) Pedro Guzmán Olivares; and Captain (r) Luis Sanhueza Ross.

Social organizations valued the gesture. The president of the Association of Political Executions Victims (AFEP), Alicia Lira, stated that “it is a great gesture, which we recognize enormously. With this, Rector Vivaldi fulfills a pending task that the Universidad de Chile had, since similar gestures had already been fulfilled by other universities such as the U. de Santiago and the Austral in Valdivia.

But it is an enormous signal for democracy and for a true ‘never again’ to be fulfilled in Chile.”

[List of 104 students omitted for brevity, including:] 46. Juantock Guzmán, Yactong Orlando. Architecture graduate. Forcibly disappeared.

Source: latercera.com 8/09/2017 Date: 08-09-2017

45 years after the coup d'état, a tribute to our forcibly disappeared colleagues and victims of human rights violations

45 years after the military coup in Chile, the Human Rights and Union Action Committee of the Colegio de Arquitectos de Chile AG pays tribute to our colleagues who were victims of human rights violations.

Fernando Kusnetzoff, who was dean of the Faculty of Architecture of the Universidad de Chile, in the prologue of the book Ocho Arquitectos en la Memoria (Eight Architects in Memory), noted: “When a new architecture book or magazine appears, the reader generally expects to find studies, illustrations, and comments on recent contributions and achievements produced by the practitioners of this ancient and unique discipline that conceives and shapes the space inhabited by mass society.

Even when the text focuses monographically on a specific architect, its content deals with their works and their contribution to the evolution of architecture. Therefore, it is strange and difficult for us to write a prologue for a book that, on the contrary, accounts for the abrupt end, in their practice, of eight Chilean architects, coldly tortured and murdered by the agents of the sinister dictatorship that was imposed upon us three decades ago by a conservatism opposed to social progress.

It is necessary to remember that starting from the military coup in Chile, a large number of architects were victims of prolonged detentions, torture, and confinement in various concentration camps set up throughout the country or on Navy ships in Valparaíso.

Some were released, subsequently having to travel to various countries or remaining—the few—in Chile, in adverse conditions. Many were expelled from the country, forced to emigrate or go into exile due to the harassment and persecution to which they were subjected, their family ties, professional offices, and labor or economic positions destroyed, having to rebuild their lives in unknown countries, with different languages and cultural habits.

Some have died in exile.”

This year, 2018, the Universidad de Chile has granted and will continue to grant posthumous and symbolic degrees to students of that university. Among them are two students who were simultaneously studying two degrees, one of which was architecture. For the Colegio de Arquitectos de Chile, adding two colleagues to this list is a task we wish would never be repeated.

Our commitment is to continue fighting for truth and justice. Memory is culture.

[List of individuals omitted for brevity, including:] YACTONG ORLANDO JUANTOK GUZMÁN, 26 years old. Forcibly disappeared since 12/9/1973. Architecture graduate of the U. de Chile, Valparaíso. Received his posthumous degree in 2017.

Source: colegioarquitectos.com 21/12/2016 Date: 21-12-2016

Faculty of Architecture of the U. de Chile paid tribute to victims of the dictatorship

Students, professors, and organizations linked to human rights remembered this September 10 the architects, designers, and geographers of the Faculty of Architecture of the Universidad de Chile (FAU) who were victims of the dictatorship.

On the occasion, the painting of the mural located at the Marcoleta street entrance was completed, where the faces of the nine members of the FAU who perished for fighting for their ideals are found: Mario Peña, Luis Guendelman, Ida Vera, Alejandro Rodríguez, Francisco Aedo, Leopoldo Benítez, Yactong Orlando Juantock Guzmán, Freddy Taberna, and Carlos Guajardo.

The idea of the initiative was to reclaim the memory of these people and deliver a message of solidarity to all those who have been violated or have a family member who is a victim of State terrorism.

One of the organizers of this event, the president of the Design Student Center, Daniela Carvajal, also took the opportunity to remember the recent altercations between Carabineros and FAU students, asserting that “37 years after the military dictatorship, the struggle continues”:

“There was a mural where the faces of the people we are commemorating today were not very clear; from there, the idea was born to redo this mural and give it a different meaning. And based on that, today as a key date, we wanted to reinaugurate it.

Regarding the recent events that occurred, we rescue the conviction of the struggle, the ideas, and pursuing our ideals. The better future that those we commemorate wanted, we want to remember in that way: learn from their struggle, their experience, and thus create memory and a better future,” explained the leader.

One of the guests at the event was Deputy Patricio Hales (PPD), who recalled his political history and congratulated the students for demonstrating that “the ideals with which we fought during the dictatorship are still alive.”

“This is the most important act of my professional life. I was expelled from this faculty, exonerated as a professor in September 1973, but I am one of the architects who suffered the least in relation to the forcibly disappeared architects.

I am glad that these young people understand that ideas do not belong to generations, but transcend in time to the extent that they are capable of remaining alive. In the same way that the responsibilities of the guilty are passed down through generations to those who are capable of adhering to the ideas,” he asserted.

Meanwhile, one of the students of the faculty pointed out that “we no longer live in a military dictatorship, but we must be clear: there are still deaths, and a reflection of that is what is currently happening with Mapuches on hunger strikes.”

According to the students, the new mural is located at Marcoleta 250, at the entrance to the FAU, is free, and will remain in view of all people passing by said faculty, so that the awareness that the Universidad de Chile and said faculty were stained with blood is not lost.

Source: diario.uchile.cl 13/9/2010 Date: 13-09-2010