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Through social networks I received the photograph that heads this chronicle, a record made by a colleague from the Quilpué Human Rights Commission, to denounce that, once again, a Site of Memory in our region suffered a violent attack. This time the dark hands of denialism destroyed the marble plaque of the Memorial installed in April of this year by the popular organization “Cordón Territorial Marga Marga”, in a neighborhood of Villa Alemana.
The way in which this plaque was destroyed shows the violent action carried out against it and, at the same time, shows the brutality of this action carried out by those who attack the small monuments that have been built with great effort in memory of the popular fighters.
On said plaque, located on a concrete monolith, the following was written: “In memory of the neighbors Ana Luisa Peñailillo Parra and Juan de Dios Tapia Delgado, popular combatants, MIR militants, exploded by State agents at 1150 Yungay Street on April 28, 1986. ‘Only those who are forgotten die.’ Villa Alemana April 28, 2023”
In conversation with colleague Marta, a member of the Cordón Marga Marga, she told me that “About two or three days ago, a colleague from the Quilpué Human Rights Commission called us to tell us that one of the colleagues who was going to lay flowers at the memorial told him that they had broken the plaque. Today another colleague from the Commission went to the place and took the photos that I spread on the networks. We worried about buying a thick marble plaque, anticipating this situation a little, but the violence that these sinister characters exerted against the plaque to destroy it demonstrates the annoyance and anger that it causes them to make visible the memory of our comrades who fell in the fight against the dictatorship. It is necessary to denounce and repudiate this act of vandalism and we know the risks that are run when installing these Memorials in public places, but that does not intimidate us or anything like that and, on the contrary, it reaffirms our commitment to the memory of our colleagues .”
William Belt Camiroaga, Valparaíso 07 November
