Blazco_

Written on september 11 of 2008. Enjoy.

-Yes, another eleven is coming to town. Tonight is the 35th “anniversary” of the military movement to break into the Salvador Allende’s government. Riots all everywhere now. People usually do this on this day. They burn tyres, they face the police… lots of injured arrive to the hospitals… it’s a quite common situation.

-But let me tell you why this happens.

-It all started back in 1973. Allende was a left-wing politician, and he was the first communist to be elected in a democratic way, back in 1970. He had already lost two times in the elections, but his third attempt was the lucky one. As every left-wing politician, he gave everything to the people. And when I say everything, it’s EVERYTHING. Before him, we had a very good president –Frey Montalva-, but with him as “headmaster” things changed.

-The certainly thing was that we were in a deep crisis. An economical crisis. People were starving, BUT they had a lot of money. What’s wrong with that? There was nothing to spend the money in. To buy a kilo of bread, you had to pay like 150.000 pesos (about 250 current EUROS). Ridiculous, isn’t it? Well, the right-wing economical leaders were against his government, so they started to hide all their production, they wanted him out of the country. We were millionaires, but we could not buy anything. Until September 11 of 1973.

-Augusto Pinochet was the chief commander of the army, and he decided to take by force the government. He bombed all over Santiago, including “La Moneda”, our government palace, located in the heart of Santiago. Tanks were all around the city, and the planes crushed the city for one whole day. Allende had no choice, and killed himself. La Moneda broke down, and we had to accept this new “president”. I would not call him president. Everybody knows it: He was a dictator.

-People were afraid. Our glorious army, which had won EVERY war that it was involved in (Independence wars, Peru-Bolivian Confederation war, War against Spain, War of the Pacific, and 1891 civil war) was suddenly AGAINST the Chilean people. The terror smashed families. And families HAD to split up. During the first 5 years, 3000 people died due to this situation. Most of them died in the north of Chile, in a terrible operation called “Caravana de la muerte”, Spanish for “Death’s Caravan”. Maybe there, far away in Finland you may know that in Sweden there are almost 30000 Chileans living there. Most of them were kicked off the country during this time. There are lots of us in Australia. Same situation.

-There’s a theory that says that this famous Chilean poet called Pablo Neruda (who was another left-wing man, linked to Allende, 1971 Nobel Prize winner) died just because of his sadness. The sadness of seeing his people dying for no good reason. And I believe in this. (Although he had cancer, and died on September 26 of 1973 :P)

-And the years passed. 18 long years passed. In those 18 years, Chile lost its freedom. During that time, we played two football world cups. Germany 1974 and Spain 1982. We had a terrible winter in 1982, just after the world cup. Lots of people lost their homes. In 1985, we were crushed by a terrible earthquake. 8. Something in the ritcher scale. In 1986, a group called “Frente Patriótico Manuel Rodríguez” (Spanish for Manuel Rodriguez Patriotic Front) performed an assassination attempt on Pinochet. They failed. In 1988, there was the famous “yes or no plebiscite”. Yes for Pinochet staying as headmaster. No for leaving the government. The “no” got like 60% of the votes. Pinochet’s era was over .

-Many years later, mom told me this:

-“When you were born, democracy came back to this country”
-“What?” –I asked.
-“Yes. You were born on December 14 of 1989. That day was the elections. As soon as I voted, I went to the hospital. 16:30 PM. That day you were born”.

-What a coincidence. I checked it on books and on the internet later, and she’s right. I researched more about that. I found some propaganda of those election days. There was one which said this:

-“¡Chile, la alegría ya viene! (Chile, happiness is coming back!).

-And you know what? I still can’t see that happiness.

-Now it’s 23:14 PM here in Santiago. And I can hear gunshots, I can smell tear gas, I can hear the police marching on the streets, and a lot of rebels swearing… Nothing can be happy this day.


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