Meritxell Freixas
Santiago, Dec 21 (EFE).- There was no Christmas for the Christie Bossy and Palma Moraga families in 1973, and the ones that followed were never the same.
On the afternoon of Dec. 24, the little boys of both houses, Jimmy and Rodrigo, seven and eight years old, disappeared while playing near an area guarded by the Chilean army during the height of the dictatorship.
“The night of the 24th was not lived. We didn’t know what sleep was anymore,” Eugenia Moraga told EFE. Rodrigo’s mother and the only living direct relative of the two children, she is now 87 years -old and is commemorating 50 years without her son, the same years since Augusto Pinochet’s coup.
“When I went to look for him to take a bath, I couldn’t find him in the front yard. I ran to the corner of the street and Rodrigo was gone. I went to Jimmy’s house and they weren’t there either. No one had seen the children,” Eugenia recalls from her home, where she treasures her photos and memories.
“The news spread through the neighborhood that night and panic set in,” she says. The last time they were seen alive, they were playing on a road near their homes in the city of Coquimbo (north), near an oil company’s ponds, which were guarded by the military as critical infrastructure.
Their bodies were found almost four years later with signs of violence by a girl playing in the same area that had been searched during the initial investigation period.
Allegations of torture
In addition to the tragedy of losing a son, the relatives denounced the interrogations and torture they suffered at the hands of the army in charge of the investigation: “They wanted to prove that we were the ones who killed them,” says Eugenia. There is an open case against the military for these allegations.
The families have always believed that the soldiers who were guarding the area were behind the disappearance of the two little boys, beyond the other versions that circulated, such as kidnapping or a fall into the pit where they were found.
Eugenia its that she never gave up, and always had the hope of finding Rodrigo: “I always looked in every house, in case I saw his clothes hanging, I looked and looked, always with my eyes wide open.”
When the bodies were found, “I was devastated,” she recalls.
50 years in the justice system
The disappearance and deaths of Jimmy and Rodrigo have been in the judicial system for 50 years. The time that has ed since that Christmas Eve has made it difficult to clarify the cause of death and those responsible.
After having exhumated the children’s bodies three times, the judicial system has provided different hypotheses, but none conclusive until today.
After the first unsuccessful denunciations in the late 1970s, during the dictatorship, the case was closed and reopened in 2000 at Eugenia’s insistence. “I have been fighting for both of them for a long time,” she says.
“We are confident that justice and truth can be established,” Eugenia Moraga’s lawyer, Hernán Fernández, told EFE. According to him, there is progress in the investigation regarding “the biological traces in the bodies of the two children” and “the crimes of torture committed by state agents.”
“A mother who doesn’t give up”
Every Christmas, the case of Jimmy and Rodrigo is revived. This year, on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the disappearance, the documentary filmmakers Aukaleb Ankaro and Cristian Lagos released the short film “Los ángeles de Guayacán” (The angels of Guayacán), which tells the story and its impact on the family and the Guayacán neighborhood.
“We wanted to show this mother’s case, who at 87 years old has never given up and has never lost hope for justice, even though she knows that there may never be justice because of all the missing information and the complexity of the case,” Lagos told EFE.
Figures recently released by the Children’s Ombudsman show that 150 children and adolescents were executed during the Pinochet dictatorship (1973-1990), and another 40 were victims of forced disappearance. More than 950 suffered political imprisonment and torture, and a hundred minors were imprisoned with an adult.
“I have asked God to let me finish this case and that it will be won”, says Eugenia, waiting to see how the case progresses. Then she concludes, “I am not afraid to leave, because I will go to see my son and my husband, that is what I dream.” EFE
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