Bautista van Schouwen

Bautista van Schouwen Vasey (San Lorenzo de Tarapacá, Chile, 3 April 1943 - Santiago de Chile, 13 December 1973) was a medical doctor and one of the founders of the Movement of the Revolutionary Left (MIR), the Chilean guerrilla organization which earliest resisted the Military Coup of Augusto Pinochet in 1973. Five among the "Ten most wanted" opposition figures wanted by the military government after the 11 September coup were militants of MIR. Bautista van Schouwen was at the time member of MIR's "Comisión Política" and the "Secretariado", the highest executive organ of the MIR. The military had set a reward of 500 000 Escudos to anyone who would lead them to the capture of Van Schouwen. He was abducted in Santiago December 13, 1973, in the church Parroquia Capuchinos (2345 Catedral Street), after having been caught when the priest who was sheltering them, unwittingly let slip to his military cousins, that they were at the church. Father Enrique White was also detained and tortured, later exiled to England. Van Schouwen and his lieutenant Patricio Munita had previously obtained clandestine refuge in the Capuchinos church-premises. They were soon after their capture killed under torture in the Army-managed detention and torture centre of Villa Grimaldi. The assassinations of Van Schouwen and Munita were however concealed by the Pinochet government and the Van Schouwen case during several years labelled as desaparecido (the "missing ones") by Human-rights organizations in Chile (see below Demise whereabouts).