Chile to Bury Remains Of Pinochet Lonquén Victims

[Judi Lynn]

Chile to Bury Remains Of Pinochet Lonquén Victims
Written by Mira Galanova
Friday, 26 March 2010 06:56
‘Photographer of the dead’ recalls documenting the abuse and his subsequent torture

Thirty-seven years after they were murdered by Pinochet´s police and almost 32 years after their bodies were discovered, the remains of 15 residents from small farming communities around Isla de Maipo and Paine will finally find their resting place this Sunday.

In November 1978, human bones were discovered in the oven of an abandoned mine in Santiago´s southern borough of Lonquén. These were what remained of 15 men, aged 17 to 51, detained under different circumstances in October 1973.

The discovery was a horrible blow to families of those who had been detained and disappeared during the 1973 – 1990 military dictatorship of Gen. Augusto Pinochet, confirming the horrible suspicion that their dearest were dead.

“Pinochet´s regime claimed that there were no disappeared prisoners in Chile,” photographer Luis Navarro, who was contracted by a local court to document the site in 1978, told the Santiago Times. “Lonquén was the first proof that this was not true.”

Navarro, known as “the photographer of the dead,” was followed and threatened by the Pinochet´s intelligence agents for his work on the Lonquén case as well as other human rights abuse issues.

More:
http://www.santiagotimes.cl/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=18475%3Achile-to-bury-remains-of-pinochet-lonquen-victims&catid=43%3Ahuman-rights&Itemid=39

LBN:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x4321326

[Wilms]

1. k&r n/t