SWD 12

The Martyrdom of Rodrigo Rojas, 19, of Chile, 1986 /
El martirio de Rodrigo Rojas, de 19 años, de Chile, 1986

The drawing in the center was done in 2010 / El dibujo en el centro fue creado en 2010.
The mosaic was created in 2019/ El mosaico fue creado en 2019.

Media: Mosaic-drawing combo
44 inches H x 32 inches W / Tamaño: 44 pulgadas de alto x 32 de ancho
The drawing media: Ink, gouache on gesso and whitE painted wood. The drawing is plexiglass covered.
The mosaic was made from homemade tiles made from kitchenware and ceramic tiles

He was born in Valparaíso, Chile, March 7, 1967.  The coup led by General Pinochet in Chile was in 1973. Three years later, at age ten, he was sent to live with relatives near Toronto, Canada.
His mother, a leftist, was later exiled by the military and she and her son met up in the Washington, D.C. area when he was a teen. He attended Wilson High School. An aspiring photographer, age 19 in 1986, he decided he wanted to visit Chile for the first time since he had left years before.

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At an anti-government demonstration in a Santiago district soldiers and officers set him and a Univ. of Santiago engineering student, Carmen Gloria Quintana, on fire. Rojas had gone to the demonstration to photograph it; he had only been in Chile six weeks.
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The soldiers dumped them in a drainage ditch in a field outside of Santiago, where they were left to die. Local agricultural worker found them; they were taken to a nearby clinic.

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The news of their being found, badly burned, made international news and despite appeals from the U.S. Ambassador, among others, the military refused to move them to a larger hospital better equipped to handle serious burn injuries. Rodrigo died four days later on July 6, 1986.
Quintana survived, albeit badly burned.