Sebastián Acevedo spent 3 days wandering around police stations, churches, government offices and press rooms.
The 50-year-old Chilean worker was looking for information about his two children, María Candelaria y Galowho had been detained by agents of the National Information Center (CNI), the intelligence office of the Augusto Pinochet regime.
But no one helped him.
Without answers and desperate, the November 11, 1983 was installed in front of the cathedral of Concepción, a city in south-central Chile, It was doused with gasoline and set on fire.
Tortures in Playa Blanca
Sebastián Acevedo was always a present father.
He worked as a coal miner in the industrial commune of Coronel, in south-central Chile, and sometimes as a fisherman, exchanging his seafood for chicken or meat to feed his family.
Passionate about classical music and reading, in his small and simple home he had a library of more than 2,000 books that addressed various topics, from the history of the Middle East to mathematics or algebra.
Although he was deeply Christian, he was active in the Communist Party and at some point he came to belong to the Group of Personal Friends of Salvador Allende (GAP).
Of his four children, two of them entered the Communist Youth in the midst of Augusto Pinochet’s regime.
Maria Candelaria – whom her father called “canary legs” – and Galo carried out resistance tasks and participated in barricades and the few clandestine protests that took place at that time.
In 1983, both entered the list of enemies of the regime.
Thus, on November 9 of that year, more than 30 armed men entered the house of Sebastián Acevedo to arrest Candelaria, who today, in conversation with BBC Mundo, remembers that he barely managed to put on some clothes before the They handcuffed her, blindfolded her and put her in a vehicle.
“My dad saw all that. They didn’t let him speak… That was the last time I saw him”, says.
The young woman, who was then 25 years old and had two children, was taken in complete secrecy to a detention center in front of Playa Blanca, located a few kilometers from her home, in the commune of Coronel.
There, he suffered torture of different types.
“They punched me, hit me in the ears. They made me take off my clothes and applied electricity to my genitals and other parts of the body,” he remembers.
At one point, Candelaria noticed that his brother Galo was also in this detention center. They had arrested him 1 hour and a half after her, at the construction company where he worked.
They put them face to face and asked them if they knew each other. Galo denied it and they also tortured him, says Candelaria.
During the three days they were in the detention center in front of Playa Blanca, the brothers lost track of time.
Hectic days
Meanwhile, the father of the young people carried out a desperate search.
The audiovisual director Josefina Morandé He spent years investigating this case for his documentary “The Absolute Gift: the life of Sebastián Acevedo”which was recently released.
In it, it appears Elena Saez, wife of Acevedo and mother of Candelaria and Galo, in an unreleased recording that was made in 1983, days after the events.
Sáez recounts part of the desperation they experienced searching for their children.
“We couldn’t find anywhere to go anymore. The second day we arrived around two in the morning, on the last bus. I told him: ‘Let’s wait, let’s wait, black…’ and he told me: ‘Look, what you want is for them to bring your dead children to you! We have to move forward’”says the woman.
Acevedo’s desperation is framed in a dark time in Chile.
10 years earlier, Pinochet had come to power after overthrowing the socialist president. Salvador Allende.
Pinochet imposed a regime that, according to several truth commissions, left more of 40,000 victimsincluding executed people, disappeared detainees and political prisoners.
“When he saw that his children were being detained, he became desperate because there was a high possibility that they would never appear again. “He was terrified of never seeing them again,” he explains to BBC Mundo. Marcela Morilla, general producer of the documentary directed by Josefina Morandé about Sebastián Acevedo.
Thus, the worker lived frenetic days.
He didn’t sleep or eat. He only had the head to look for his children.
After having tried everything – including requests for help from regional authorities and visits to police stations and churches – he turned to a local journalist, named Mario Aravena, to whom he told that he did not understand why they were keeping them “hidden.” their children.
Then, he warned Aravena that If they did not release them he would be “crucified or burned alive.”
Later the journalist would admit that he did not believe him.
The immolation
On Friday, November 11, Sebastián Acevedo bought two gasoline cans and a lighter.
At 3:30 p.m., after saying goodbye to his wife, he went to the cathedral of Concepción.
According to the local press at that time, the man left his jacket at the door of the archbishopric, his identity card and left saying that he was going to burn himself.
As he left, he tipped one of the drums over his body while demanding information from his children.
When a police officer tried to stop him, He turned on the lighter.
Completely engulfed in flames, he descended the steps of the Cathedral and crossed into the city’s main square, screaming for his children.
Some passersby looked on in surprise as others tried to help him.
But it was useless.
In the documentary by Josefina Morandé, the priest Enrique Morenowho was there, remembers that after the man collapsed, he approached him to give him last rites.
“He repeated to me: ‘May the CNI return my children, may the CNI return my children’”he says in the film.
With 95% of his body burned, Sebastián Acevedo was transferred to the regional hospital.
Almost at the same time, his daughter Candelaria was released and Galo was transferred to the public prison in the city of Concepción.
“Canary legs”
What follows is a story by María Candelaria for BBC Mundo about what happened after she was released.
“The day my father blew himself up, they went to look for me in the courtyard of the detention center and told me that there was a priest who was worried about our situation and that, therefore, they were going to take me out of there.
I got home, I knocked on the door and my sister said to me: ‘You don’t know what happened? Your father burned in the cathedral.’
So I left the house and went to the regional hospital, to find out if it was true.
A taxi took me to the emergency room. I asked for my dad and they told me yes, he was there.
They asked me to wait. The doctor, a priest, the nurse came out… they wanted to give me a painkiller. I told them: ‘I don’t need it, all I need is to know what condition my dad is in.’
Then they asked my dad if he wanted to welcome me. He told them no, that he didn’t want me to see him as he was, that he preferred that I always keep the image of him.
They gave me the option to talk to him through an intercom.
The first thing he asked me was to tell him what he called me when I was a child. She wanted to confirm that it was really me.
‘Canary legs’, I replied.
Then he asked me to take care of my brother, so that he would get out of jail. He also told me to raise my children upright, to be honest, upright, principled people. And he also asked me to take care of my mother.
In short, it made me take charge of the family.
After that I didn’t hear anything until midnight, when they told me that my father had passed away.”
Why is your case important?
Sebastián Acevedo’s action had a profound impact on Chile. Around 15,000 people attended his funeral.
And his figure aroused admiration in various Christian organizations and those who were against the Pinochet regime.
Some time later the “Sebastián Acevedo Movement against Torture” which denounced human rights violations and was led by the Chilean Catholic priest José Aldunate.
Irene Cambias He joined this movement at the age of 21.
In conversation with BBC Mundo she affirms that for her Sebastián Acevedo is an icon of the peaceful struggle against the dictatorship.
“When he blew himself up, he was aware that there were many who were going through the same situation… so he did it not only for his children, but for all of Chile.”
“At that time we had already done everything: hunger strikes, marches, talks… and in Chile there were still many who did not believe that they were being tortured. His immolation was a clear denunciation that torture was indeed practiced in Chile.”he indicates.
Documentary filmmaker Josefina Morandé has a similar opinion.
“This case exposed what was happening. She couldn’t hide anymore. Some tried, like the Minister of Justice (Mónica Madariaga) who called Sebastián Acevedo’s doctor to tell him that he had to change the cause of death. And the doctor defended him and said it was an immolation,” she says.
Morandé assures that, in addition, this case is important in the context of what was happening in Chile in 1983.
“That year was very important because the first protests began to appear. People began to take to the streets to rebel. And this immolation came to crown that year,” he says.
Although Candelaria was released the day her father burned himself, two weeks later she was arrested again.
This time, however, she was taken to the public prison and at least it was known where she was, which was a relief for her family.
He was there for 1 year and 2 months.
The same thing happened with his brother Galo, who was prosecuted for forming paramilitary groups and for violating the law on the control of weapons and explosives, remaining in the public prison of the city of Concepción for the next two years.
Today they are both convinced that their father’s action not only saved their lives but also many other Chileans.
His sacrifice, Candelaria says, was an “act of love and rebellion.”
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