Javier Firpo
03/20/2021 17:04
Clarín.com
Society
Updated 03/20/2021 17:04
"What annoys us the most is that we don't know anything about Juniors, we have no idea where he is, how he is, what he is doing with his life, if he ever thought of us, if he is aware of what he did,
if he ever thought about how we were
. Fuck knowing we don't know anything. "
Pablo Saldías (32) and Rodrigo Torres (33) talk with
Clarín
about their
physiological
need to know the whereabouts of
Rafael Juniors Solich
, the person responsible for what became known as the Carmen de Patagones Massacre, which occurred on September 28, 2004, when three students died and five others were injured.
Juniors, which was the second name that his father gave him in honor of Boca Juniors, was declared unimpeachable by judge Alicia Ramallo and spent several years without going out on the street, since first he was interned in a juvenile institute and then in a psychiatric clinic.
Today his whereabouts are a mystery
.
On March 23 at the BAFICI the first screening of "Implosión" will be seen - it repeats 24 and 25, and on April 8 will be its commercial premiere -, the film by Javier Van De Couter, which describes Pablo and Rodrigo
going on the trail of the disappeared?
Juniors
, of whom nothing has been known for years.
It is even claimed that he changed his identity.
"It happens to me that it makes me noisy to have something pending for so many years,
I need to close the circle, see him,
talk to him is the last piece of an endless puzzle
that has been abandoned for a long time ", Rodrigo graphs, from Viedma, where he was born and lives.
"Implosión", the film that reunited and brought together Rodrigo and Pablo.
"It was not an easy decision to accept making the film, we knew that we were going to be very exposed again, but we made it so that he does not forget what happened."
"He is a gut that one has and although it is not that he does not let me live, or do my routine,
I need to get rid of it
, I have days when I am backwards and I think: 'What's up the chabón? What will he think? Will we be in his head from time to time? 'Anyway, I don't plan all the time, not even there ... I had to think of myself first, to get ahead, because if I didn't recover, I wouldn't be capable of anything, "he says Pablo, from Bahía Blanca, where he lives and works, although he was born in Carmen de Patagones.
Pablo and Rodrigo were 15 years old when they were in the classroom of the Malvinas Islands School that morning in September, in which Juniors, at 7.35, went to the blackboard, faced the class, looked at all his classmates, drew the Browning that he had taken his police dad out of him and
started shooting at close range
.
Thus, coldly, without saying a word.
Rodrigo Torres (33) lives in Viedma, works as an administrative employee, is a handball teacher.
"I did not lose organs, but they rebuilt my intestines, a kidney, a liver and a spleen. And I had a difficult postoperative period"
Sandra Núñez, Evangelina Miranda and Federico Ponce died.
Pablo spent four days in a coma, 15 in intensive care
and lost his spleen, part of his right lung, a kidney and had nine fractured ribs.
Rodrigo did not lose organs although they
had to rebuild his intestines, kidney, liver and spleen
, seriously affected.
"I think that in those moments one was not aware of what one had gone through, the extreme situation and the risks of life, because my life hung by a thread," stammers Pablo.
It is a backpack that both will carry the rest of their lives, they are clear.
"It was like going to Vietnam, my belly is a map with political division," one laughs, while the other notes that "yes, they are scars of
a war that a handful of kids had to live through
.
You will never forget what happened to us, but we are learning to live, after so many years we already know how to handle things ".
Pablo Saldías Kloster (32) lives in Bahía Blanca and runs a diet products store.
He was the most serious of the injured: he was in a coma for 4 days and in intensive care for 15 days.
"The doctors said my recovery was kind of miraculous."
Pablo runs a diet food store and lives with his girlfriend of nine years of relationship.
Rodrigo is an administrative employee and shares his apartment with his dog Lizy.
"I have to be careful, because
I have only one kidney, which could lead to collateral problems
. And that discomfort hurts in my body and in my soul, I will not deny it ... These symptoms give me anger and it is sometimes when Juniors appears ... 'And this kid, what's up?', I think. "
Pablo is more reticent when it comes to talking about the events that happened almost 17 years ago.
He says that he already suffered a lot, that it took years until the token fell.
"After I recovered I tried to have the best possible time within what I could ... I was of an age that thought about the party, friends, football, I did not fall into what I had experienced, is it understood? And Talking about these things again
stirs me up a lot of something that I don't want to say anymore
, I hardly
talk
about it with anyone anymore, that's it, crazy, I've been eating it since I was 15 ".
A stop in the filming of "Implosión", second film by Javier Van De Couter, director of Carmen de Patagones.
Rodrigo is silent and watches his friend seriously on the monitor screen.
"Only the one who lived it understands what Pablo says", reflects this administrative employee and handball coach who, at first glance, seems to walk through it with more inner peace?
It is just an impression from a distance.
Yes, he is more outgoing, as the film "Implosion" shows, where he
spits out what happened, expels it, probably because he needs it, partially heals him
.
"There is something of that, it was a very bitter drink that offered us life, I had a very bad hospitalization and not to mention the postoperative period, but
I feel that I can touch the subject without making me a perch
. Nor is it that I disclose it to four winds, but the film, which is a fiction, shows us similar in some aspects and not so much in others. In the story, I am the one who talks about the subject the most with the group with which our characters relate. "
Pablo and Rodrigo could have become a train at full throttle that could have derailed with just one blow,
"surely it would have been easier to have fallen into anyone"
-they agree-, but they fought it with integrity, "as one who blocks each ball as if it were the last ".
Family support, friends and therapies, gradually rebuilt these two young people who prowled the abyss to which, finally, they had a sleeve cut.
"Life is one and here we are,
living it with enthusiasm beyond the aftermath
."
In 2005, a year after the tragedy, the survivors met again: Rodrigo Torres and Pablo Saldías, in the middle.
On the left, Nicolás Lonardi, on the right, Natalia Salomón.
Photo Clarín Archive
In the video call, they look friendly but upset, perhaps more eager - logically - to talk about the film directed by Javier Van De Couter, a director of Carmen de Patagones.
"It
took a while to soften and convince us
, but I think because we were not sure where the film was going," says Rodrigo.
"Javier came to see me five or six times in Bahía Blanca to tell me his ideas, first he was going to make
a documentary but then it became fiction
and we gave it a go," adds Pablo.
Contained and embraced by the production team that provided them with tools to put on the costumes of interpreters, Pablo and Rodrigo knew that "accepting" to be part of the film
would place them in an exhibition space that they were never interested in having again.
"We are known in some places for something bad, not for merit, and we thought we would receive criticism ... and so it happened."
But after much brooding and talking to family and friends, they raised their thumbs and gave the director the OK for one main reason.
"We want
this not to be forgotten
, not only in this area, but in schools across the country."
They are satisfied with how the final cut of the film was, they understand that it was what they wanted to tell "but that search at times furious and insistent by Juniors, like that scene in which they take the road with the car and travel all night to La Plata, where it was rumored that he could be,
has nothing to do with us, we are not interested in doing that, "they
emphasize.
"We are not avengers or anything like it."
An image of Rafael Juniors Solich published by Gente magazine in 2014, 10 years after the massacre.
Half a dozen questions appear again.
Will it live?
Is he in his right mind?
What will you be doing with your life?
Will you think about what you did?
Will you know the damage it caused?
Be happy?
Pablo and Rodrigo met in 2004 and shared a classroom for just over six months, until that fateful September 28.
"We hit it off, we had a good relationship and then we saw each other again at different stages of life, because we went to different cities," they recall.
"But without a doubt, the film found us again,
made us re-process those experiences and brought us together
."
The name Juniors comes and goes in a conversation that sometimes gets stuck.
"I knew him since elementary school, we did not share the same grade, but I knew him and I saw him again in 2003 at the Islas Malvinas school in Patagones. We did that year and the next, but I never had any problems with him, at all. .
nor was he the
victim of bullying, or anything quite like it
. we were in different groups, that's all ,
"Paul slides.
Nicolás Lonardi, Natalia Salomón, and Rodrigo Torres and Pablo Saldías, those on the right, a year after the tragedy.
Photo Clarín Archive
"
It is easy to think and say that the kid was screwed, they drove him crazy, then he reacted as he reacted
... But nothing to see, it was not like that", complements Rodrigo.
"He was always with Dante, a friend, and did his and when he painted we exchanged some 'Hello, how are you?'. But he was never bothered," Pablo emphasizes, as does his character in the film when someone He lightly launches:
"They fucked the kid, they fucked him all the time, they did shit ... bang!"
.
Pablo's reaction in fiction is one of anger and anger.
"
A lot of nonsense was said, that's why we didn't talk to anyone about it
. When for some reason they see my scars, it depends who it is, I tell them that I had a traffic accident and that's it. It breaks my balls when they ask me 'what happened to you there? ', Skinny, don't ask, what does it matter to you, "says Pablo's voice.
The return to classes at the Colegio Islas Malvinas, in Carmen de Patagones, one week after the attack by Juniors, on October 4.
Photo Clarín Archive
Survivors?
Victims?
Unwitting witnesses to a massacre?
"
I am a literal survivor.
I do not like to fall into the role of victim, it does not fit me ... It was our turn in this roulette of life ... it was my turn to be a survivor of a massacre," says Rodrigo, and Pablo nods.
Juniors may find out about the imminent release of "Implosion", he may watch the movie.
What would they say to him?
"What would you say to him?" Pablo counters this chronicler.
"You have something to explain, I'm listening to you," he manages to answer.
Rodrigo takes the initiative: "
May he seek happiness in love, which is the basis of everything.
And I would tell him that I forgive him
. "
Pablo turns the answer around and accelerates: "First that he has been forgiven, but I would also tell him if he has realized what he did, if he has analyzed it ... I would ask him if he is sorry,
I would like to hear a 'I sent a shit, I'm sorry
. But maybe he's in a cloud of fart and doesn't realize anything. What do I know ... ".
A silence of several seconds that invites reflection and a most warm and cordial farewell.
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