That morning, Chile was occupied by its own army, beginning the cruelty of what was to become mass murders against citizens who dared to think differently from the filthy and miserable oligarchy.
The Chilean political class was unaware of its own history and, innocently, believed that the military would never dare to bomb La Moneda and, to everyone’s astonishment, they became jackals, taking prisoners indiscriminately, a fact that established terror on the part of the State , and began to commit horrendous crimes in the name of the military government.
In my family there were only politicians, priests and nuns, and we had never received a visit from a military man. Carlos Ibáñez del Campo had banished the Minister of the Interior, Manuel Rivas Vicuña, (my maternal grandfather), whose nickname was “Portalito”, due to his resemblance to the Minister, Diego Portales, (shot by rebel soldiers, on Cerro Barón de Valparaiso). The president of the Chamber of Deputies, Rafael Luis Gumucio Vergara, my paternal grandfather, (he had become famous by turning his back on the powerful Minister of War, Carlos Ibáñez del Campo, when this General enjoyed making fun of parliamentarians), was also expelled by said soldier. My grandmother died in Leuven while in exile.
My son Rafael, in his book Los Platos Rotos, Personal History of Chile, referring to my mother, Marta Rivas, describes her as follows: “What happened in Chile that out of pure fear of the broken, the knights became broken? All those who have foundation are also broken. This attachment to the land is filthy. My father had a farm, next to Santiago, in the Pila del Ganso. He lost it for doing experiments in modern agriculture. Thank God I moved among the cows and the huasos.
I don’t know why all my life I have been surrounded by blessed. My dad was the least pious there is. He even wanted to be a freemason, but my mom wouldn’t let him. Chilean women are very stupid. Then it was my husband who did not believe in God, but he believed in priests. Devout people are bad, they always drop some gossip. All the blessed are fools. I know the mass in Latin by heart, to me that naked Lord suffering so much on the Cross seems to me like a robbery and, besides, the blessed have so many children, plus three children is indecency. Imagine my father-in-law, this sanctimonious old man of shit, who is surely in hell for later, killed his poor wife, making her give birth 11 times, until he fell on a silly girl.
Besides, I have pituitos in heaven. You must know that all the Chilean saints are my relatives. Father Hurtado was my husband’s spiritual director. The poor man tried to confess his sins and the only thing the priest did was talk to him about politics. Santa Teresita de los Andes was my husband’s cousin; she had a brother who was very nice, with whom we once met at the Puerto Varas Casino. And your grandfather asked her if she was so holy the holy. What is she going to be a saint, she was a turkey, he said. The other one they want to canonize is Laurita Vicuña, also a relative of mine. She was a fool, she didn’t like that her mother fucked with a decent Argentinian. She gave her life to God so that they would not continue fucking. They should put her as patron saint of contraceptives “
There is no Chilean family that does not have its own story of that fateful Tuesday, September 11. Each one of my family members is forced to follow the path of hiding and, later, exile. My father tried to get to La Moneda and, later, obeying the order of the party, he went to Cienfuegos Street, where the headquarters of the Christian Left were located, and he did not want, for any reason, to go into exile. He told the young militants of the Party that he, as the oldest, would stay in charge of the headquarters, but the leadership forced him into exile in the Mexican embassy, where he endured only a few days and decided to go out into the streets, arguing that he could not go into exile seeing the poor being brutally persecuted, confined and tortured.
He went back to his house, in Torres de Tajamar, and the military soon arrived. My mother, a Spanish teacher, had written in the elevator, with perfect spelling, “”momios culeados”, which denounced her. My mother said that she was not afraid, and she refused to go into exile with my father, in the Venezuelan embassy. Keeping an old leader in hiding was not only expensive, but also endangered the young members of the resistance. In the end, the party leadership forced him into exile in the house of the Venezuelan ambassador.
When the soldiers arrived at the apartment, my mother challenged the soldier who was occupying the chair, built by her father, according to her. Another soldier began to read the phone book that began with Rodrigo Ambrosio, (who died before the coup d’etat), and the list continued with the Alessandri, phones that he used to consult fortune tellers and witches. My mother scolded the military for being abusive and ignorant, because I wish the military would kill those girls because they were incapable of having foreseen the coup d’etat.”
My mother, in the demonstrations, carried a banner attached to her back that read: “I have been serving the people for 50 years, but a friend made her see the contradiction of the content of the banner, (Marta Rivas belonged to the Chilean aristocracy).
The Christian Left Party had a handful of militants in Valparaíso, and at each demonstration we had to repeat the route several times so that people could see the large number of militants.
That Tuesday of sad memory I got up very early to go to the Catholic University, where I was responsible for directing a classroom, intended for seminars, whose theme was the V Congress of the Communist International, in a comparative study with the three Popular Fronts, (French , Spanish and Chilean), but I did not manage to walk three blocks when I came across a picket of sailors, without measuring the scope of the coup d’état, which had begun in Valparaíso, with the city taken over by the Navy. The truth is that he had very little illusion in the security groups of the Party, and we knew that we had to follow in the footsteps of General Augusto Pinochet who, in our naivety, we had described as a constitutionalist and loyal to the President of the Republic, Salvador Allende.
The Christian Left, which, in general, had few militants and the young people had not done military service, could only dedicate themselves to nursing work in a hypothetical confrontation.
My brother Juan told me that he had visited Don Bernardo Leighton, at his home, and found him so indignant that he had posted the photos in which the Freísta leaders appeared, from the sector of his Party, La Democracia Cristiana, whose faces were covered with bandages. chiffon. (“Brother” Bernardo, from the beginning, had rejected the coup adventures of former President Eduardo Frei Montalva and leader Patricio Aylwin. According to Deputy Leighton, the DC leadership had misled him by denying that the famous Agreement, drafted by Aylwin, was not intended to justify a coup, however, it was enough to read the text, signed by the right and the Christian Democrats, to understand that its purpose was to overthrow President Allende Without the support of the Democracy Cristiana, the military would never have dared to lead a coup d’état, much less bomb the Government Palace, La Moneda.
My sister Manuela, with a month-old son in her arms, Marco Antonio, was hiding from house to house, not understanding that Miguel Enríquez was on the list of the most wanted politicians.
The detectives took Manuela and her son to the Venezuelan embassy, accompanied by Father Esteban Gumucio, her uncle. The DINA chiefs tried to kidnap the boy as bait to capture Miguel, but fortunately, due to the despair of my parents, they were able to take refuge in the embassy.
Rafael Luis Gumucio Rivas (The Old Man)
06/09/2023
Bibliography
Rafael, Gumucio, Broken Plates. Personal history of Chile, Edit. South American, Santiago, 2004
Faride, Zerán, Or the asylum against oppression. 23 stories to remember, Paradox Publishers L¿tda., Santiago, 1991
