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Leftist Lunge in the 1980s
 There was a period in the history of Latin America that almost squashed its beauty, its sense, its faith, and its reason. Somehow the right wing was in the hands of the political right wing - trying to dictate who could do what, and certainly anyone with a leftish bent or creative person, especially young men, and women. He knew with a bent toward freedom that did not agree with the systems of politics, in the time when anyone with the least length to fall to the left and ignore the right wing - was pulled from their homes, their workplaces, their thoughts, their tendency to speak to the left rather than the strict right. It was a tortuous time, and so many of the youth in Chile, Uruguay, Argentina and somewhat in Brazil were having their lives cut off so there would be no abuse or weird belief about torture and trying to twist and destroy.
It was at this time in 1983 when I stepped into Uruguay, knowing nothing about it, but those who ran the place would only tell you how wonderful Uruguay was, while locking their doors day and night so no one might miss-interpret what they were saying. On looking back at that time, I really did not know what was going on, and I was being protected in a subtle way, riding around in an old white Mercedes Benz with a few bodyguards, most of whom loved soccer and racehorses and that was about it. Not knowing the political fierceness at that time, a large group of friends, that hung out like Mafia guys, would go to the horse races, and take my son who was at that time about 13 years old. They were teaching him how to be a man - in every way you can think of. I didn’t know what it all meant - not knowing the language specifically but it seemed innocent, and my son was having a blast hanging out with real men who did real men things like soccer, betting on racehorses, getting sunshine, being driven by a Mafia type (but not really) chauffeur as they all crammed into an old white Mercedes Benz. I believe the men made sure my son learned a lot about life in those two weeks we were visiting.
It was the time when Sergio - we had gotten married in Santa Barbara after the Olympics, which Sergio had come to see since he was a respected and interesting boxer in those days. He knew how to roll them, or to know them, I must say it was a creative time - I didn’t even know what the interest in Uruguay was and why. But the gang packed together every day visiting their places and dragging my 13 old sons with them so he would learn about life. Imagine. an old white Mercedes, three in the back and two in the front and people seemed to move to the side when they drove through the streets.
To get down to the frightening part of things, there has been charges in Santiago, Chile which was one of the most horrific slaughters in the time of Pinochet, as the current government sees to find the slaughter and abuse that spread throughout that beautiful country in the day.
I know the Argentines suffered so many losses, the mothers not knowing where their children had been taken and abused and killed - why nor what was the reason and why were they tortured. Really if I had been living in these parts in the 1980s, I’d probably have been slaughtered because I was an honest journalist for about 20 years. And I bore no problem to say what I felt and exposed what was going on where ever I went, even in the continents of Africa which were opening their eyes to reality after so many decades of abuse under the rule of the British, the French, the Dutch, and Germans who wanted to dominate those most beautiful lands of Africa which one might say not being built into extraordinary places, but coming out of the woods and the hills and the miles and miles of life among the wild animals.
Chile is not the only country still digging everywhere in Argentina, and even I remember driving down the Rambla and hearing screams of torture when I first visited Uruguay in the 1980s but no one said a word about why the weird noises. We bought a three-story high skinny house right on that Rambla entering Carrasco - but a few months later we invested in the most impressive house in all the Rambla from Punta to downtown, one thinks. though it was so simple then.
Pascale Bonnafon pulls up the tales of the disappeared of those in Chile. Pinochet’s delight was slaughtering anyone who said the wrong thing, leaned to the left a bit, and criticized the government, which would be normal in another country. Apparently 36 years later families which had suffered the disappearances of their children and wise members are being discovered in a box, their bone fragments there to be proof of some sort that they were there, and they were tortured, and they did not survive. They were considered communist leaders but were they. Maybe they were trying to twist away the nightmares happening on the streets all the time smart men and women who would say what they believed and needed to say were suddenly called communist and hence they were tortured - three decades worth. No one survived from the black site on Simon Bolivar Street. The regimes intelligence agent DINA did the stripping and ripping and abusing, leaving no one to see what was going nor allow survivors to survive. And no one knew what had happened to whom nor where.
Even now, still 200 Uruguayans are missing. There were 1469 people who disappeared under Chile’s military rule - and that ripped apart the noises of normal cities and left a deafening silence. Only 307 out of 1469 disappeared under Chile’s military rule that ran from 1973-1990. Of course, now no one is left to pay the dues. No one left alive who can remember the screams, the torture, the abuse, that was constantly part of their daily life. Dictatorship was to give the power through imprisonment, the tortured and those killed thousands of its opponents. Chile even enacted a national search plan to track down the remaining disappeared.
Finding the answers has been a duty to society, much like what happened in the deep South as the tortured and abused Africans were made into machines curved by abuse. We are doing some of this, a spit of this, in America. Finally seeing the spectacular talents and skills and beauties that the African Americans own, maintain, and have thrown into the exciting life, especially movies and songs - to make us all understand a whole lot of things about their skills. For so long women have marched and insisted the Chilean government needed to find their families. Women are sharp at protesting and never fail to suffer through hunger strikes and took cases to court. Of course, the state took them away and the state that had the rights sustaining, said Luis Cordero, Chile’s minister. The state took them away and must now carry on them the responsible for reparation justice and sustaining the search. Can we do this in the United States? between Indian and African?
There is pain in all things. But when lives are abused and twisted and suffered and killed due to political disobedience or having other kinds of thoughts and ways of survival, they need to be heard and treasured until they distort things so horrifically that fear takes over the action and power squeezes out from that action to please the dominant leaders who look for power, funds, and fame. It was such a tragic time. I wonder what God thought, for this war went on for such a long time because no one liked the left wing, so to speak. It would be more like the struggle African Americans and Indians have even now in our so call land of the free. How free does that mean? I wouldn’t trust anyone who try to look good, and gain power, but refuse to refresh and redress and make wonderful the beautiful African Americans and Ancient Indians who owned our land long before anyone else. They have been devastated and robbed of their beautiful lifestyles long before the Europeans crawled across the waters looking for gold and silver and even hit the wrong place in the long run, not knowing, I guess, when to turn left or right in their week books.
~ Rev
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audrey@audreytaylorgonzalez.com
www.audreytaylorgonzalez.com
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