“The task before us is beautiful and many: to restore a climate of respect and trust in the coexistence of Chileans, regardless of their beliefs, ideas, activities or social status, whether civil or military, yes gentlemen, yes countrymen. , civil or military: Chile is one!”
At that time unknown to most Chileans, in our dangerous and old backpacks, along with stale bread and dirty white clothes, there was only one mysterious, national service, a terrible and not reasonable sense of discipline and strict obedience to the orders of a superior. There is also a code of honor, one of those that is not written down but is passed down from generation to generation.
Inside that backpack, no one will find a disciplinary regulation or a copy of the Geneva Convention or the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. If someone can prove to me that, during my 4 years in the Military School or my first years as an officer, they taught me this, I promise never to write an article or a note in support of my unjust persecution. colleagues.and imprisoned.
What I know is that our Army, endorsed and authorized by the governments of the period from the 1950s to the 1970s, was influenced by the doctrine of the United States Army, especially through the School of the Americas in Panama. I also know that our Special Forces were formed with the advice of Ranger instructors from that world power, after the Korean War and in the middle of the Vietnam War. It must be the right thing to do, because even the Popular Unity government of Salvador Allende did not ban these professional exchanges.
Our promotion, in 1977, was not so lucky. Only one final campaign was won in the north of Chile. There is no money for trips and we are committed to rebuilding the country. So, in the 70s, before Allende’s government was declared – by the Comptroller’s Office and the Chamber of Deputies of the Chilean Congress – outside the Constitution and, while some Chilean soldiers went to the School of the Americas 77 in Panama, some thousands of representatives. in the extreme revolutionary left of America united in Chile.
Tupamaro elements came from Uruguay, members of guerrillas or extreme movements from Brazil, Bolivia, Venezuela, Mexico and North Korea. Not only that: there also arrived people known on the continent for their guerrilla activities who, with administrative positions, dedicated their time to paramilitary training and organized guerrilla schools in our own territory, where, moreover, Carabineros or Carabineros cannot enter. .the Armed Forces. I thought it would remind some of what is happening now in the IX Region of La AraucanÃa. I did not invent this. Former president Eduardo Frei Montalva himself stated this on November 8, 1973 in a letter sent to the president of the World Union of Christian Democracy.
That letter was very revealing. Former President Frei spoke about the tons of weapons found, which would serve to equip fifteen regiments, and this without considering that, two months after the declaration of the military, only forty percent of the communist arsenal was found. Next, Frei wrote:
“The Socialist Party and the Communist Party created armed organizations. The socialists called it 78 ‘Elmo Catalán’ (journalist, communist, socialist and guerrilla who was found dead in Bolivia in 1970) and the Communists established the non infamous brigade “Ramona Parra” (Communist unionist who, during a demonstration in 1946, died of gunshot wounds in Plaza Bulnes).
The so-called ‘industrial cordon’ was also established, strategically surrounding the cities; and as a result of the lack, rationing is organized based on political organizations that register the inhabitants to control the life of the population.
As a result of all this, close to a hundred people died and countless others were injured. This is how the former vice president of the Republic and one of the founders of the Christian Democratic Party, Mr. Edmundo Pérez Zujovic, died, brutally killed as he left his home by members of an extremist organization.
The three murderers were arrested at the end of the Christian Democratic government for committing armed robberies 79 and sentenced by the Courts of Justice to several years in prison. The first action of the government of Popular Unity is to release these prisoners because of illegal activities and among them the three that caused the death of the Christian Democrat leader. When they were pardoned, President Allende justified his actions by calling them ‘idealist youth’.
Many DC youth leaders also died as victims of this violence and hundreds were injured. When the striking copper workers took refuge in the central office of the Party, they were attacked and an aid station had to be set up which, according to official information from the Christian Democratic Party, treated more than 700 people who there were injuries of all kinds that day. among them 120 of a serious character. That day President Aylwin and other leaders, including myself, were at the Party headquarters and we witnessed what happened.
Near the end of his letter, the former president added: The Armed Forces – we are convinced – did not act because of ambition. Moreover, they have long resisted doing so. Its failure now is the failure of the country and will plunge us into a dead end. That is why the Chileans, in their majority, above all partisan considerations, want to help, because they believe that this is the condition for peace and freedom to be restored in Chile. The quicker the hatred goes away and the country recovers economically, the faster the exit.
