Below please find the latest letter from a friend in Chile. You may remember him from other posts of his I have forwarded, andhis comments on the impossibility of Pinochet being tried in Chile. (Jim H: I forwarded him your article; he said he would send you comments.)
It is not light reading; read it when you are in a safe place, with a spare moment.
I have copies of Tito's writing on file; if any of you would like copies in English or Spanish, please drop me a line off-list.
I'm checking out for a spell. Many thanks to all for much stimulus, challenge, solidarity.
¡Un abrazo!
Tom
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Letter To My Torturer
I don't long for you, I never have and I never will, but I have often wondered what has happened to you. Maybe you are old by know, perhaps a proud grandfather playing with your grandchildren, maybe you take them to the town's square on a Sunday to listen to the local band. Have you ever wondered how many children never got to know their parents because you killed them? I do not think so, because you were a raging animal when you savagely beat me up and forced me to take my blindfold off. Look at my face, look at it! -- you said angrily -- don't you ever forget my face, for I'm the one who is going to kill you!
And I did, I looked you straight into the eyes, black, dark, piercing eyes full of hatred. I have never forgotten you, because torturers like you have names; assassins like you have names; rapists like you have names. They lead normal lives; they marry and have children. They go home after raping defenceless men and women. You impose your will; you impose your sick sperm, for you are a coward, the son of a thousand bitches. That's why you must be dead worried now that your General has been arrested in London, because for the first time in 25 years you find yourself on the defensive. You may burn British flags and beat up Spanish citizens, threaten with killing people and planting bombs if the General is not released before Christmas, but everything is to no avail. Or are you going to invade England? No, it is not the same to fight against another army as to fight against an unarmed people. You've proven your bravery against defenceless people; you've been awarded medals for crushing bones and testicles, for burning arms and chests, for terrorising children.
I never imagined a human being could be capable of such cruelty. It never crossed my mind that a Chilean could inflict such pain on another Chilean. How little did we know about our own army, how little did we know about the School of the Americas where our officers received training from the United States army. They were taught that the prisoner should be dehumanised, treated as scum. And we were: that was the aim of the heat, the lights, the blows, the noise, the submersion in filthy water, the shouting, the screaming all day and all nightlong. I never thought people could scream so loud, I never thought I could shiver in the middle of a hot night. But I did: it was the dreaded electricity. The explosion of colours blinds you, then you only see shadows and silhouettes. Will there be anybody when I return from this long and shiny tunnel. Will there be anybody when I finally reunite with my body amidst the dark hole of a thousand death rattles?
You asked questions I could not answer; you wanted names and places, phone numbers and weapons. I could only give you long screams in return. They weren't mine; they were a form of protection behind the dirty and smelly hood that covered my head. Some cried out of impotence, some cried out of pride, some out of fear. Some because they knew they were going to be executed. That's why I hate you, I despise you, and will despise you forever. Not only for me, not only for my constant headaches, blackouts, aching bones and horror memories, but for my sisters and brothers, for those you beat up so badly they could not walk, those you raped so violently they could hardly breath.
How many people did you kidnap and kill, how many did you throw into the ocean, their abdomen ripped open so that they would never resurface? Where do the disappeared go, do they smile, do they cry, do they dance, do they plant trees so that they can enjoy their shadow in the summer. Where are they?
I don't really expect any answers from you, I do not expect the military to answer, they haven't done it for 25 years, so those who believe that they are about to have a change of heart are profoundly mistaken. General Pinochet, the same apparently fragile elderly man who demands to be released on humanitarian grounds, once said that prisoners were buried two to a coffin in order to save space and money.
His son has just expressed with utter contempt that those killed were simply beasts. Yes, as beasts we were treated on September 11th 1973, when forced to get on state trucks and fill the vehicle's floor with row after row of prisoners. At the very bottom of the truck's floor, with my arms behind my neck and dozens of people piled on top of me, I could hardly breath. You, of course, were on top of us, crushing our desperate bodies and hearts with your shiny boots. Taken to the city's pier, we thought we were going to be thrown into the oily water. Instead, amidst an array of blows and kicks we found ourselves thrown into the huge hauls of a ship anchored on the bay. A floating concentration camp, the first of a series of camps and prisons I would be held in over a number of years. Barbed wire, watchtowers, minefields, exile and more torture, because you were everywhere, because the dictatorship couldn't live without you and you couldn't live without the dictatorship.
And you lived well indeed with all the money and belongings stolen from your victims. It wasn't enough for you to hurt their flesh, you had to steal what little they had, offend their memory by wearing their clothes or hanging their paintings on your walls. You stole their colours, their flowers and their lives, but you could never, ever steal their dreams. Our dreams belong only to us; they are our most precious possession, our almighty sword to wage the war against ignorance and fear. Specially now when we live in a surrealist country with socialist ministers defending dictators, with the Right and the Armed Forces defending socialist ministers and the Socialist party attacking their own socialist minister. Lost? Well, not if you live in Chile, where for a significant part of the political class, the dictator's human rights are more important than millions of humans without rights. Or, as Pinochet himself once said: What's 2000 missing people in a country of 14 million?
As for the victims of the repression, well, they should be content with some sort of archaeological justice: the finding of a few skulls and bones is all the justice they should aspire to. Former president Patricio Aylwin called it "Justice as far as possible", we simply call it impunity.
We do not want to identify the remains of the disappeared, we know who they are, we want to identify the culprits. We want to know who you are, my despicable torturer, we want to know your name and bring you to justice, because the problem does not end with Pinochet, he gave the orders but hundreds of others carried them out. They too must pay for their crimes. You must pay for what you did.
There is a beautiful Nicaraguan song where a victim of the repression tells his torturer:
My personal revenge will be
your children's right to school and flowers.
When you find it impossible
to stare at people out of utter shame,
My personal revenge will be to offer you
these hands that you once ill-treated.
Me? I'm afraid I can't sing.
Tito Tricot December 1998 Chile
Tom Kruse Casilla 5812 / Cochabamba, Bolivia Tel/Fax: (591-4) 248242 Email: tkruse at albatros.cnb.net