With the presence of his son Pablo, his brother Jorge, his partner Astrid, Inés and several other people related to his family, friends, comrades in struggle, militants of various forces of the left, people from the world of culture, humanism, etc… a ceremony in memory of Bauchi, Bautista Van Schouwen Vasey, took place in the entrance patio of the Church of the Capuchins, precisely where 50 years ago he was taken from to disappear him.
Bautista was a Chilean doctor and Marxist revolutionary, one of the founders of the Revolutionary Left Movement (MIR), and director of the newspaper El Rebelde. After the coup d’état of 11 September 1973, the military offered an enormous reward to anyone who could provide information on his whereabouts. On 13 December he was arrested in the parish of the Capuchin friars in Santiago. The operation was carried out by armed civilian agents, supported by carabineros in a bus, in which Van Schouwen was transported together with the law student Patricio Munita Castillo, who was later executed. With them, they arrested the priest Enrique White, who was released eight days later.
The words in his memory followed one after the other to leave a profound sentiment of affection, capable of looking ahead and seeking to defuse the different forms of violence experienced in one’s intimacy but also projected onto the world of human beings. A free look, capable of situating the horror of an era and will be capable of never stepping on those stones again, of moving towards new paradigms and being able to dream again.
The photo-report is by Rafael Edwards:
