May 20, 2024, 10:00 AM
May 20, 2024, 10:00 AM
“I am Catalina Tolavi, mother of Juan Pablo Quiroga, who was grabbed on the street and sent to the barracks like a criminal. He had ear problems, they did not give him a medical check-up, so they just took him to the barracks, they grabbed him in July 1998, and in August they took him to D’Orbigny’s position,” the desperate parent said in a video with which she intends to be heard.
In the same audiovisual, she said that in January 1999 they contacted her to tell her that her son had drowned in the Pilcomayo River, but she reported that they never gave her his body and for that reason she admitted that she lives with the “hope that he will return.
He reported that at that time the person in charge of the D’Orbigny post was the military Roland Lladó Viscarra, and that there was another “major or colonel Angulo”, who was commander of the 3 Aroma Cavalry Regiment, where his son served in the military.
“Mr. President Arce, investigate my missing son until you find him. I want you to give me his remains so that I can give him a Christian burial. Dear senators and deputies, I want his disappearance to be investigated. To the public, I want you to help me find him. I have been crying for my son for 25 years, I want him back please,” the woman implored.
According to Tolavi, at that time they gave him different versions of what happened to his son. He reported that Lladó Viscarra’s family offered him food. “I don’t know how to read or write, but I know how to defend myself. I told them that they will cry the same as I have cried,” he lamented.
Likewise, he said that he has traveled to La Paz a couple of times to speak with Army personnel, and that he has not had an answer about one of his six children, who was also the twin of the only woman in his offspring.
With the help of a fellow regiment member of Juan Pablo, the desperate mother made a video that is already on social networks, with the hope that someone will tell what really happened to her son.
He recalled that his other son, Eufronio, was part of the same barracks as Juan Pablo, and that after his disappearance he was sent to another military post in Chapare, where he was almost drowned.
“Kullaka (brother in Aymara), please help this mother. My former comrade’s mother got tired of begging for justice. I found her crying and decided to record her to help her at least get her son’s body delivered to her,” Jacobo Copa joined the clamor.
According to Copa’s version, crimes were committed from the Ministry of Defense. “They knew about this, they never gave him the posthumous notebook, nor recognition for having served the country, nor was there compensation, either for death or disappearance, and they should have also given him the body,” he demanded.
Copa believes that there was and is a lot of injustice with this family, since police and military personnel who die in service are given posthumous promotions, and those who have an accident are also granted certain rights.”
He remembered that at the time he disappeared, there were two other brothers in the same barracks. “Among the weak and despised we helped each other. He was very humble because he didn’t listen or see well, nor did he fight. I missed him a lot when he disappeared,” he joined the request for justice.
