00:01:48.520 --> 00:01:50.520
The united Left

00:01:50.680 --> 00:01:52.720
will never be defeated.

00:01:59.400 --> 00:02:03.200
1970-1973
THE UNIDAD POPULAR YEARS

00:02:03.760 --> 00:02:06.520
The candidate, Salvador Allende!

00:02:09.720 --> 00:02:12.440
With the poet, Pablo Neruda!

00:02:16.440 --> 00:02:20.560
Neruda, Neruda, the people salute you!

00:02:24.680 --> 00:02:27.480
The Unidad Popular years

00:02:27.640 --> 00:02:30.680
were like a waking dream.

00:02:30.840 --> 00:02:35.160
A whole country, a whole society
in a state of love.

00:02:35.640 --> 00:02:39.720
There was an intensity to life...

00:02:41.800 --> 00:02:43.240
that lives on now.

00:02:43.400 --> 00:02:46.280
It's that eternal instant

00:02:46.640 --> 00:02:50.920
of the moment when hope
is not for tomorrow,

00:02:51.080 --> 00:02:52.840
but for today, now.

00:02:53.000 --> 00:02:55.400
It was a great moment for us,

00:02:55.560 --> 00:03:00.560
the most important moment
experienced by my generation

00:03:00.720 --> 00:03:02.280
because we thought

00:03:02.440 --> 00:03:05.280
we would make this country happier,

00:03:05.440 --> 00:03:11.000
that illiteracy would be wiped out,
that the land would go to the peasants,

00:03:11.160 --> 00:03:15.520
that the workers
would have a better life...

00:03:16.040 --> 00:03:19.200
We did all we could
to change the country

00:03:19.360 --> 00:03:23.720
in what we saw
as a highly positive way.

00:03:24.240 --> 00:03:27.760
We worked with the peasants
and students.

00:03:28.760 --> 00:03:32.480
Those were unforgettable times for me.

00:03:32.640 --> 00:03:36.280
I learnt everything I know
during that time.

00:03:36.920 --> 00:03:39.280
It was a wonderful experience.

00:03:39.440 --> 00:03:45.200
The country was advancing
and, of course, anyone aged 18, 19 or 20

00:03:45.360 --> 00:03:47.120
advanced with it.

00:03:48.360 --> 00:03:51.240
It was a country in love

00:03:51.400 --> 00:03:53.880
with Allende
and with what was happening.

00:03:54.040 --> 00:03:56.320
Fantastic, fair, beautiful...

00:03:56.480 --> 00:03:57.440
And you?

00:03:57.760 --> 00:04:00.760
I was there, among the people.

00:04:00.920 --> 00:04:05.000
I recall I was shooting a film
called The First Year

00:04:05.160 --> 00:04:07.880
that related all the events,

00:04:08.040 --> 00:04:10.760
month by month, over a year,

00:04:10.920 --> 00:04:12.400
Allende's first year.

00:04:12.560 --> 00:04:15.440
It was amazing,
one long celebration.

00:04:16.120 --> 00:04:18.680
In the countryside, cities and homes,

00:04:19.320 --> 00:04:22.760
there was a joy
I had never seen in Chile.

00:04:44.320 --> 00:04:46.720
It was Che Guevara's idea
of a new man

00:04:46.880 --> 00:04:52.000
with the possibility
of emerging from underdevelopment,

00:04:52.160 --> 00:04:55.120
of resolving the injustices here

00:04:55.280 --> 00:04:58.080
that were simply terrifying.

00:04:58.240 --> 00:05:00.960
Terrible infant mortality...

00:05:01.680 --> 00:05:05.320
I worked at that time in schools,

00:05:06.240 --> 00:05:10.120
initially in primary schools.
I had just begun.

00:05:11.360 --> 00:05:16.240
Some children were too ashamed to come
as they had no shoes.

00:05:16.880 --> 00:05:20.560
Things no one can really imagine
these days.

00:05:20.720 --> 00:05:22.680
The other aspiration

00:05:22.840 --> 00:05:26.560
was to provide education
for all children.

00:05:27.360 --> 00:05:30.800
Education in Chile was free,
unlike now.

00:05:30.960 --> 00:05:33.320
It was free under Allende,

00:05:33.600 --> 00:05:35.000
at universities,

00:05:35.440 --> 00:05:37.600
middle schools, primary schools.

00:05:38.280 --> 00:05:39.600
It was a race

00:05:39.760 --> 00:05:42.840
to figure out
what was happening, how, etc.

00:05:43.000 --> 00:05:48.120
You wanted everything
but you also began to realize

00:05:48.360 --> 00:05:51.880
that, politically,
things take time, right?

00:05:55.680 --> 00:05:56.920
It led to a split.

00:05:57.080 --> 00:05:59.040
There were two views.

00:05:59.200 --> 00:06:03.560
One said
we had to "avanzar sin transar",

00:06:04.160 --> 00:06:09.320
strike while the iron was hot,
while the others were saying

00:06:09.480 --> 00:06:14.280
we had to go slowly
so as not to alarm the bourgeoisie.

00:06:14.440 --> 00:06:17.040
The bourgeoisie must be treated well.

00:06:17.200 --> 00:06:22.240
That is a very old view,
as old as the hills politically,

00:06:22.400 --> 00:06:24.800
for one side of the Left.

00:06:25.760 --> 00:06:29.320
We Socialists,
the majority of the Socialist Party,

00:06:29.480 --> 00:06:33.160
were for this policy
of "avanzar sin transar",

00:06:33.520 --> 00:06:35.120
without compromise.

00:06:35.920 --> 00:06:39.480
You have already partly felled the tree.

00:06:39.640 --> 00:06:42.320
Do you straighten it or chop it down?

00:06:42.480 --> 00:06:44.760
We felt we had to chop it down.

00:06:59.480 --> 00:07:01.840
Humanist, democratic Socialism

00:07:02.240 --> 00:07:03.680
was Allende's goal.

00:07:03.840 --> 00:07:07.600
It would distinguish
the Unidad Popular government

00:07:07.760 --> 00:07:11.480
from the other forms of Socialism
at that time,

00:07:12.200 --> 00:07:15.400
with their hierarchical regimes,

00:07:15.560 --> 00:07:18.000
highly authoritarian
and dictatorial.

00:07:18.160 --> 00:07:20.520
For the first time ever,

00:07:20.680 --> 00:07:24.560
a Socialist,
with his Marxist ideology,

00:07:24.720 --> 00:07:28.000
attained power
through a democratic vote.

00:07:28.160 --> 00:07:31.040
Before, it had been done by force.

00:07:31.200 --> 00:07:34.560
It struck the world
and terrified the Americans.

00:07:34.920 --> 00:07:36.960
Declassified CIA archives,

00:07:37.120 --> 00:07:39.760
the Church Report
to the US Senate,

00:07:39.920 --> 00:07:42.360
provide clear proof

00:07:42.520 --> 00:07:44.800
of the US efforts

00:07:44.960 --> 00:07:48.120
to prevent Salvador Allende's election

00:07:48.280 --> 00:07:50.760
by financing

00:07:51.440 --> 00:07:53.840
key newspapers like El Mercurio

00:07:54.000 --> 00:07:57.480
and other elements of the Chilean Right

00:07:57.640 --> 00:08:01.080
to prevent Salvador Allende
from being elected.

00:08:01.240 --> 00:08:02.840
Once he was elected,

00:08:04.280 --> 00:08:09.360
the Americans' very own documents prove

00:08:09.680 --> 00:08:13.400
that American funding was fundamental

00:08:13.560 --> 00:08:17.520
in the ensuing conspiracy
and sedition in Chile.

00:08:17.680 --> 00:08:20.200
In the declassified documents,

00:08:20.360 --> 00:08:21.400
Kissinger says,

00:08:21.560 --> 00:08:24.840
"Chile is a small Latin American land,

00:08:25.000 --> 00:08:27.640
even if it's a major copper producer,

00:08:27.800 --> 00:08:31.320
but the main problem
with Allende's experiment

00:08:31.480 --> 00:08:34.280
is the fact that this experiment,

00:08:34.440 --> 00:08:38.320
this example, can serve
in France and Italy

00:08:38.480 --> 00:08:42.360
where there are strong Communist parties

00:08:42.520 --> 00:08:47.480
that could propose
this political program

00:08:47.640 --> 00:08:51.440
with left-wing sectors
of the Christian Democrats

00:08:51.600 --> 00:08:53.880
or other forces in France."

00:08:54.040 --> 00:08:55.600
The conservatives

00:08:55.760 --> 00:08:58.760
could not admit there was a Socialist

00:08:58.920 --> 00:09:02.480
who immediately began by freezing prices

00:09:02.640 --> 00:09:07.000
and gave half a liter of milk a day
to every Chilean child.

00:09:07.160 --> 00:09:12.080
All these social measures
that no one had thought of before.

00:09:12.240 --> 00:09:13.920
Nationalizing copper...

00:09:14.080 --> 00:09:18.240
He nationalized it
without compensating the Americans

00:09:18.400 --> 00:09:22.240
because he said
they earned so much from our copper

00:09:22.400 --> 00:09:24.360
they deserved no compensation.

00:09:24.520 --> 00:09:28.920
That, of course, outraged the Americans

00:09:29.080 --> 00:09:31.240
and their government too.

00:09:32.880 --> 00:09:38.320
And so all this created
a situation of social conflict,

00:09:38.480 --> 00:09:40.560
social, not political,

00:09:40.720 --> 00:09:44.120
as the country
found itself split in two.

00:09:44.280 --> 00:09:49.240
There was no bread, sugar, oil,
electricity, etc.

00:09:49.400 --> 00:09:50.960
No gasoline.

00:09:51.440 --> 00:09:55.640
The Right had begun
to block everything.

00:09:56.160 --> 00:09:58.760
As they owned the factories,

00:09:58.920 --> 00:10:02.680
they did not distribute
what the people needed.

00:10:03.080 --> 00:10:07.240
The government imposed a freeze
on food prices.

00:10:07.400 --> 00:10:10.040
Meat could only cost so much,

00:10:10.200 --> 00:10:12.920
bread and cigarettes too.

00:10:13.080 --> 00:10:15.640
Basic items for the population.

00:10:15.800 --> 00:10:20.600
With prices frozen,
the sellers turned to the black market.

00:10:20.760 --> 00:10:22.600
You couldn't find anything.

00:10:22.760 --> 00:10:27.840
Consumer goods
were out of reach to everyone,

00:10:28.000 --> 00:10:32.040
except on the black market
for twenty times more.

00:10:32.400 --> 00:10:35.800
They controlled every media
and we had none.

00:10:35.960 --> 00:10:40.520
The right-wing press
launched an aggressive campaign

00:10:41.000 --> 00:10:43.840
to give an image of misgovernment,

00:10:44.000 --> 00:10:49.240
an image of the inability to govern,

00:10:49.840 --> 00:10:54.160
a continual denigration
displayed in all newspapers,

00:10:54.320 --> 00:10:59.280
with huge headlines on every newsstand.

00:10:59.440 --> 00:11:03.520
It was a message to the people
continually repeating,

00:11:03.680 --> 00:11:08.720
"This government isn't working
and will bankrupt the country."

00:11:08.880 --> 00:11:13.200
Those of us with the government
had no way to retort.

00:11:13.360 --> 00:11:16.600
We had no media on our side.

00:11:17.400 --> 00:11:20.040
I tell you, comrades,

00:11:20.440 --> 00:11:22.960
comrades of so many years,

00:11:23.120 --> 00:11:24.880
I tell you with calm,

00:11:25.280 --> 00:11:27.440
with absolute tranquility,

00:11:27.920 --> 00:11:30.480
I am no apostle,

00:11:30.920 --> 00:11:33.080
nor am I a messiah,

00:11:34.120 --> 00:11:37.680
I have no vocation to be a martyr.

00:11:38.080 --> 00:11:40.160
I am a social fighter

00:11:40.320 --> 00:11:42.120
with a task to complete,

00:11:42.280 --> 00:11:44.480
entrusted to me by the people.

00:11:44.640 --> 00:11:46.720
But let it be understood

00:11:46.880 --> 00:11:50.880
by those who would turn back History

00:11:51.120 --> 00:11:55.200
and betray the will of Chile's majority:

00:11:55.840 --> 00:11:58.840
even without the vocation of a martyr,

00:11:59.400 --> 00:12:01.560
I will not take a step back.

00:12:01.720 --> 00:12:03.360
Let them understand,

00:12:03.520 --> 00:12:05.120
I will leave La Moneda

00:12:05.280 --> 00:12:08.680
once I complete the mandate
the people gave me!

00:12:15.000 --> 00:12:17.600
I have no other alternative.

00:12:18.440 --> 00:12:21.680
Only by riddling me with bullets

00:12:21.840 --> 00:12:24.680
can they curb my determination

00:12:24.840 --> 00:12:27.800
to implement
the people's program!

00:12:27.960 --> 00:12:32.000
Trying to change the country
in those conditions,

00:12:32.160 --> 00:12:33.920
with so many enemies,

00:12:34.080 --> 00:12:37.080
the financial sector, the military,

00:12:37.240 --> 00:12:39.120
the Americans,

00:12:39.280 --> 00:12:42.160
television and everything,

00:12:42.320 --> 00:12:43.360
was tough.

00:12:43.520 --> 00:12:45.840
We knew that in the end

00:12:46.760 --> 00:12:49.760
they would intervene by force.

00:12:50.480 --> 00:12:55.400
I learned at that time that democracy
is a good thing

00:12:55.560 --> 00:12:58.000
as long as it serves the mighty.

00:12:58.360 --> 00:13:01.200
I must say,
even though I was very young,

00:13:01.520 --> 00:13:03.800
I had a slight tendency

00:13:06.720 --> 00:13:07.920
to minimize things.

00:13:08.080 --> 00:13:10.840
Three times already in Italy,

00:13:11.000 --> 00:13:13.560
I had been through coup alerts.

00:13:13.720 --> 00:13:18.040
Once, in a Turin pastry shop,
we ate no end of sweets

00:13:18.200 --> 00:13:20.520
because this secret group

00:13:20.680 --> 00:13:23.280
had convened in a pastry shop.

00:13:23.440 --> 00:13:26.440
And so I tended to say, "Fine,

00:13:26.840 --> 00:13:30.280
they say we have coups at home,
but nothing happens."

00:13:30.680 --> 00:13:36.080
Today, after so long,
how do you view your years of activism?

00:13:37.600 --> 00:13:39.000
What a question...

00:13:40.600 --> 00:13:44.440
I've never asked myself that,
and that's fine.

00:13:46.320 --> 00:13:49.040
How do I view my years of activism?

00:13:56.080 --> 00:13:57.240
Beautiful.

00:14:10.920 --> 00:14:13.120
If there's something

00:14:16.840 --> 00:14:20.240
good about this life, it's being able

00:14:20.960 --> 00:14:25.960
not only to earn it decently,
which is a lot, a huge thing,

00:14:27.400 --> 00:14:30.280
but also to do it for so many others.

00:14:34.040 --> 00:14:35.840
Mistakenly or not.

00:14:36.680 --> 00:14:40.480
SEPTEMBER 11, 1973

00:14:40.640 --> 00:14:45.520
I was at home that day
with the Chilean family hosting me.

00:14:45.680 --> 00:14:50.800
I got up early as usual to call
my paper, Lotta Continua, in Rome,

00:14:50.960 --> 00:14:54.760
taking into account the time difference.

00:14:54.920 --> 00:14:57.760
I had some great meetings lined up.

00:14:58.040 --> 00:15:01.920
So many meetings,
I felt like a great journalist.

00:15:02.080 --> 00:15:05.200
One was at the presidential palace,
La Moneda,

00:15:05.360 --> 00:15:09.960
where they would give me
an accredited journalist's card.

00:15:11.080 --> 00:15:13.280
However, from early morning,

00:15:13.440 --> 00:15:18.400
strange announcements
began to be heard on the radio.

00:15:18.560 --> 00:15:21.520
Communication with Valparaíso
was cut.

00:15:21.680 --> 00:15:26.040
The President arrived unusually early
at La Moneda.

00:15:26.200 --> 00:15:29.200
Special communiqués
were expected.

00:15:29.360 --> 00:15:32.960
And the coup actually began
on the radio.

00:15:33.400 --> 00:15:36.240
Declaration
of the Government Junta of Chile.

00:15:36.400 --> 00:15:40.600
Santiago, September 11, 1973.

00:15:41.120 --> 00:15:45.200
The Chilean armed forces and police
declare

00:15:45.680 --> 00:15:48.000
that the President of the Republic

00:15:48.560 --> 00:15:52.040
must forthwith transfer his mandate

00:15:52.200 --> 00:15:55.440
to the Chilean armed forces and police.

00:15:59.800 --> 00:16:01.320
This declaration

00:16:02.080 --> 00:16:05.280
demands the President's resignation.

00:16:05.440 --> 00:16:06.640
I refuse.

00:16:07.160 --> 00:16:09.200
I inform the nation

00:16:09.360 --> 00:16:12.560
of the unthinkable behavior of soldiers

00:16:12.840 --> 00:16:15.840
who flout their oath and their duty.

00:16:16.320 --> 00:16:19.160
I hereby state my determination

00:16:19.760 --> 00:16:22.280
to continue to defend Chile.

00:16:22.440 --> 00:16:24.760
We heard Allende's first message.

00:16:24.920 --> 00:16:26.080
We were surprised.

00:16:26.240 --> 00:16:29.080
We told ourselves,
"It's serious.

00:16:29.520 --> 00:16:32.480
The coup d'état will really happen."

00:16:32.920 --> 00:16:34.360
At our office,

00:16:34.520 --> 00:16:38.360
we heard Allende's other two messages.

00:16:38.960 --> 00:16:42.400
At first, we had a feeling...

00:16:44.800 --> 00:16:46.080
of astonishment.

00:16:46.800 --> 00:16:48.160
And then of fear.

00:16:48.320 --> 00:16:50.200
Both, little by little.

00:16:53.040 --> 00:16:54.080
What to do?

00:16:54.240 --> 00:16:58.440
There were five of us there,
in the office,

00:16:58.960 --> 00:17:00.840
and we couldn't decide.

00:17:01.000 --> 00:17:04.680
And so I told the cameraman,
Jorge Miller,

00:17:04.840 --> 00:17:06.720
"Let's go to La Moneda

00:17:06.880 --> 00:17:09.600
to see if we can film things."

00:17:10.200 --> 00:17:15.160
We went 200 meters or so
and there was shooting from all sides.

00:17:15.640 --> 00:17:18.160
The windows in the houses opened

00:17:18.320 --> 00:17:19.960
and people applauded

00:17:20.520 --> 00:17:21.640
the gunfire.

00:17:21.800 --> 00:17:24.240
Then the planes flew over

00:17:24.400 --> 00:17:27.960
and, each time,
it was like a goal had been scored.

00:17:28.120 --> 00:17:29.560
It was awful.

00:17:30.080 --> 00:17:32.640
The Palace of La Moneda

00:17:32.800 --> 00:17:34.600
must be evacuated

00:17:34.760 --> 00:17:36.360
before 11 AM.

00:17:37.920 --> 00:17:38.840
If not,

00:17:39.360 --> 00:17:43.400
it will be attacked
by the Chilean Air Force.

00:17:43.560 --> 00:17:46.840
How old were you in September '73?

00:17:47.000 --> 00:17:48.160
I was seven.

00:17:48.440 --> 00:17:50.400
Do you remember that day?

00:17:50.560 --> 00:17:53.240
Yes, I remember it perfectly.

00:17:54.720 --> 00:17:57.560
Both my mother and my father

00:17:58.040 --> 00:18:03.040
were teachers in state schools.

00:18:04.640 --> 00:18:06.520
They had just separated.

00:18:06.680 --> 00:18:10.280
They had to separate
right before the coup!

00:18:10.440 --> 00:18:13.080
So, along with my two brothers,

00:18:13.840 --> 00:18:18.000
I was living with my mother
in a house in Conchalí.

00:18:19.440 --> 00:18:22.720
The planes started flying over
really low

00:18:23.080 --> 00:18:28.080
and my brothers and I
climbed onto a low wall

00:18:28.240 --> 00:18:30.280
to wave to them...

00:18:30.440 --> 00:18:35.240
My mother grabbed hold of us
and shut us inside the house.

00:18:35.400 --> 00:18:37.320
She took all her books...

00:18:37.480 --> 00:18:38.840
It still upsets me.

00:18:39.360 --> 00:18:42.640
She took her books,
put them on the patio,

00:18:42.800 --> 00:18:46.080
poured gasoline over them
and burned them.

00:18:47.840 --> 00:18:50.800
A mass of people, walking,

00:18:51.440 --> 00:18:52.560
sad,

00:18:53.960 --> 00:18:55.440
all in silence,

00:18:55.600 --> 00:18:57.920
a mass of people walking

00:18:58.080 --> 00:18:59.680
from the city center

00:19:00.240 --> 00:19:02.960
towards the south.

00:19:04.560 --> 00:19:06.080
They didn't run.

00:19:06.240 --> 00:19:07.920
But that silence...

00:19:09.080 --> 00:19:11.000
Then the planes came...

00:19:11.160 --> 00:19:14.800
I saw the planes bomb La Moneda.

00:19:15.480 --> 00:19:17.560
That was something

00:19:18.440 --> 00:19:20.320
I'd never imagined.

00:19:20.480 --> 00:19:22.840
What citizen could imagine

00:19:23.000 --> 00:19:27.880
their own air force bombing
the seat of government?

00:19:54.920 --> 00:19:56.800
Workers of my country,

00:19:57.240 --> 00:20:01.040
at this ultimate moment,

00:20:01.840 --> 00:20:04.520
the last time I can address you,

00:20:05.160 --> 00:20:08.560
I have faith in Chile and its destiny.

00:20:09.080 --> 00:20:12.240
Other men will overcome

00:20:13.080 --> 00:20:15.400
this dark and bitter moment

00:20:15.560 --> 00:20:18.560
when treason seeks to prevail.

00:20:18.800 --> 00:20:21.120
Go forward knowing that,

00:20:22.000 --> 00:20:24.200
sooner rather than later,

00:20:24.520 --> 00:20:27.840
the great avenues will open again

00:20:28.160 --> 00:20:30.480
where free men will walk

00:20:30.640 --> 00:20:33.080
to build a better society.

00:20:33.560 --> 00:20:36.280
Long live Chile!
Long live the people!

00:20:36.440 --> 00:20:38.080
Long live the workers!

00:20:38.240 --> 00:20:40.440
These are my final words

00:20:40.720 --> 00:20:42.400
and I am certain

00:20:42.560 --> 00:20:45.880
that my sacrifice will not be in vain.

00:20:46.800 --> 00:20:49.000
Allende's speech

00:20:50.400 --> 00:20:54.720
was a powerful farewell.

00:20:58.360 --> 00:21:01.600
We experienced it politically.

00:21:02.840 --> 00:21:05.320
We knew from listening to him

00:21:05.480 --> 00:21:08.840
there would be no resistance,
be it military

00:21:10.680 --> 00:21:13.080
or political.

00:21:15.840 --> 00:21:19.760
We didn't know then
that Allende would die

00:21:20.160 --> 00:21:22.000
but listening to him,

00:21:22.680 --> 00:21:25.240
knowing him,

00:21:27.080 --> 00:21:31.800
we knew that a period
was coming to a close.

00:21:31.960 --> 00:21:33.560
He preferred,

00:21:33.720 --> 00:21:36.640
above all, to avoid civil war.

00:21:36.800 --> 00:21:39.840
We didn't understand it at the time.

00:21:40.000 --> 00:21:43.440
With our revolutionary passion,
we'd have fought.

00:21:43.600 --> 00:21:46.880
But he stepped aside to end the debate.

00:21:47.040 --> 00:21:51.560
Without a president,
there are no loyalists and so on.

00:21:51.720 --> 00:21:52.760
Only the future.

00:21:53.120 --> 00:21:54.880
The army took me prisoner

00:21:55.040 --> 00:21:58.920
and so I returned to Chile Film
as a prisoner.

00:21:59.080 --> 00:22:00.760
I had only just left.

00:22:00.920 --> 00:22:05.360
Then, over a tiny radio
belonging to the caretaker,

00:22:05.520 --> 00:22:09.960
we all learnt in dismay,

00:22:10.120 --> 00:22:13.080
the soldiers, the sergeants,

00:22:13.240 --> 00:22:15.160
the prisoners like me,

00:22:15.320 --> 00:22:16.640
the caretaker,

00:22:16.800 --> 00:22:18.640
everyone who was there,

00:22:18.800 --> 00:22:20.040
Allende was dead.

00:22:20.200 --> 00:22:22.200
I remember one thing.

00:22:22.360 --> 00:22:25.640
The commander of the unit
holding me prisoner

00:22:25.800 --> 00:22:28.200
took off his helmet and said,

00:22:28.360 --> 00:22:31.280
"Shit, what are we doing?"

00:22:34.640 --> 00:22:37.840
They are now putting the body

00:22:38.000 --> 00:22:40.640
of ex-President Salvador Allende

00:22:40.800 --> 00:22:43.320
in an army ambulance.

00:22:43.480 --> 00:22:45.480
We are outside La Moneda.

00:22:46.320 --> 00:22:51.240
We saw him and can confirm
that his face was blown away.

00:22:52.080 --> 00:22:55.400
I tend to believe the hypothesis

00:22:55.560 --> 00:22:59.760
that was also put forward
by his people, the GAP,

00:23:00.640 --> 00:23:02.520
that he killed himself.

00:23:03.240 --> 00:23:04.880
He had no choice.

00:23:05.040 --> 00:23:08.640
They were coming in,
they bombed the palace...

00:23:08.800 --> 00:23:13.080
I have always stated
the President was murdered.

00:23:13.240 --> 00:23:15.880
I have stated it publicly, always.

00:23:16.040 --> 00:23:20.320
I have stated it in a film,
Allende in His Maze,

00:23:20.480 --> 00:23:23.800
and in another,
Allende, the Time of History,

00:23:23.960 --> 00:23:27.520
in which I say,
"No, he was murdered."

00:23:27.680 --> 00:23:31.840
I think history will show
in 20, 40 or 50 years

00:23:32.000 --> 00:23:34.080
that it was a murder

00:23:34.240 --> 00:23:36.360
because the evidence is there.

00:23:36.520 --> 00:23:39.920
You first think
he wouldn't choose suicide.

00:23:40.080 --> 00:23:42.680
He'd die in combat, etc.

00:23:43.960 --> 00:23:46.480
Then again, suicide was normal.

00:23:46.640 --> 00:23:49.280
They bombed the palace,
killed...

00:23:49.440 --> 00:23:51.840
He wouldn't go to prison.

00:23:52.000 --> 00:23:55.280
He said on radio,
"I won't leave the palace alive."

00:23:55.720 --> 00:23:58.240
The armed forces and the police

00:23:59.040 --> 00:24:00.520
have acted today

00:24:01.360 --> 00:24:04.640
solely with the patriotic goal

00:24:04.880 --> 00:24:06.840
of taking the country

00:24:07.000 --> 00:24:09.480
out of the extreme chaos

00:24:10.040 --> 00:24:13.640
created by the Marxist government

00:24:13.800 --> 00:24:15.480
of Salvador Allende.

00:24:16.000 --> 00:24:17.680
The junta

00:24:17.840 --> 00:24:21.600
will maintain judiciary power

00:24:22.080 --> 00:24:25.640
and supervision
of the National Audit Office.

00:24:26.360 --> 00:24:27.960
The houses

00:24:28.760 --> 00:24:32.240
will be in recess until further notice.

00:24:32.720 --> 00:24:35.480
The situation marked a rupture

00:24:35.640 --> 00:24:38.280
with a whole democratic life

00:24:38.440 --> 00:24:41.400
that suddenly turned
into a dictatorship.

00:24:41.560 --> 00:24:43.240
That was impressive.

00:24:43.560 --> 00:24:46.720
We had no experience
of the military

00:24:46.880 --> 00:24:50.600
or of dictatorial or harsh regimes.

00:24:50.920 --> 00:24:54.200
This country that was so free

00:24:54.360 --> 00:24:58.120
was suddenly transformed
into a hellish land.

00:24:58.800 --> 00:25:00.640
Only soldiers on the street.

00:25:00.800 --> 00:25:05.560
All night, there were helicopters
with bright spotlights

00:25:05.720 --> 00:25:08.360
flying over Santiago's streets...

00:25:08.920 --> 00:25:10.520
to see who was out.

00:25:10.680 --> 00:25:16.040
From a certain hour at night
until a certain hour in the morning,

00:25:16.200 --> 00:25:20.120
no cars were allowed out,
only military vehicles.

00:25:20.680 --> 00:25:24.800
That, of course,
created a climate of fear.

00:25:25.600 --> 00:25:27.160
Everyone knew

00:25:27.320 --> 00:25:28.760
which vehicles

00:25:28.920 --> 00:25:31.960
were used by the DINA,
the secret police.

00:25:32.200 --> 00:25:33.920
People were afraid.

00:25:34.080 --> 00:25:38.080
If ever your doorbell rang at night

00:25:38.640 --> 00:25:41.600
that was a sign of the worst.

00:25:41.760 --> 00:25:43.920
You were afraid to go out.

00:25:44.080 --> 00:25:48.600
If you went out to shop,
you'd go straight home.

00:25:48.760 --> 00:25:52.560
You didn't walk around.
You stayed shut in.

00:25:52.720 --> 00:25:55.240
That was the new life, shut in.

00:25:55.680 --> 00:26:01.400
When they came for me
five days later, they took me

00:26:01.760 --> 00:26:05.400
to the police station
and then the National Stadium.

00:26:19.840 --> 00:26:21.720
In actual fact,

00:26:22.120 --> 00:26:25.000
there are two camps with detainees.

00:26:25.360 --> 00:26:27.280
The National Stadium one

00:26:27.720 --> 00:26:30.160
is particularly full,

00:26:31.560 --> 00:26:35.560
with a number
of just over 7,000 people.

00:26:38.800 --> 00:26:40.600
To meet the commander,

00:26:40.760 --> 00:26:42.480
I mistakenly entered,

00:26:42.640 --> 00:26:46.240
instead of his building,
the stadium itself.

00:26:46.400 --> 00:26:50.240
I entered the stairs
and saw, along a wall,

00:26:50.400 --> 00:26:53.680
a hundred people, hands like this,
facing the wall,

00:26:53.840 --> 00:26:56.480
all in silence, with two soldiers.

00:26:56.840 --> 00:26:59.880
I realized I was in the wrong place.

00:27:00.040 --> 00:27:02.960
I went to the right building
and said,

00:27:03.120 --> 00:27:07.800
"The Foreign Ministry has allowed me
to see the commander."

00:27:07.960 --> 00:27:11.040
Then a young lieutenant

00:27:11.200 --> 00:27:14.160
pulled out a P38 and said,

00:27:15.200 --> 00:27:18.520
"A man feels fulfilled with this."

00:27:18.840 --> 00:27:22.680
It was like being in some B-movie
with Nazis.

00:27:22.840 --> 00:27:25.400
Then two other soldiers shouted,

00:27:25.560 --> 00:27:27.600
"One hanged himself last night."

00:27:27.760 --> 00:27:30.160
"Great, less work for us."

00:27:30.400 --> 00:27:31.440
That bad.

00:27:31.600 --> 00:27:36.240
What did you know
about what was happening at the stadium?

00:27:36.400 --> 00:27:37.920
Torture, killings...

00:27:38.080 --> 00:27:39.800
While we were there,

00:27:40.880 --> 00:27:44.200
we hardly ever talked
about the killings.

00:27:45.640 --> 00:27:48.920
It was a way to defend ourselves
psychologically.

00:27:49.080 --> 00:27:51.560
The days of fear, of great fear,

00:27:51.720 --> 00:27:54.000
were the first three or four

00:27:54.160 --> 00:27:58.360
when they kept us in the locker rooms
all the time.

00:27:58.920 --> 00:28:02.320
We'd hear confused noises
in the hallway.

00:28:02.480 --> 00:28:07.040
We'd hear gunshots
but couldn't tell where from.

00:28:07.200 --> 00:28:11.280
One time,
they let us out in the hallway.

00:28:11.440 --> 00:28:15.200
A hooded man walked past us,
a spy, an informer

00:28:15.360 --> 00:28:18.960
who had to look at us
and pick someone.

00:28:19.120 --> 00:28:21.720
At first, they didn't feed us.

00:28:21.880 --> 00:28:25.400
On the third day,
they began to give us soup.

00:28:26.840 --> 00:28:30.320
At one point, a man arrived,

00:28:30.480 --> 00:28:32.640
made us lower our pants

00:28:32.800 --> 00:28:36.360
and put oil on our genitals

00:28:36.520 --> 00:28:39.520
to prevent the spread of lice
in the locker room.

00:28:39.680 --> 00:28:42.800
No one had lice,
but they thought we did.

00:28:43.400 --> 00:28:46.880
Some Red Cross ladies came
and threw us candy

00:28:47.040 --> 00:28:50.800
as if we were monkeys.
It all fell to the floor.

00:28:51.200 --> 00:28:53.840
At night, they turned on the light.

00:28:54.000 --> 00:28:55.760
Who knows why.

00:28:56.240 --> 00:28:59.200
A machine gun out in the corridor

00:28:59.360 --> 00:29:02.160
was loaded and kept ready to fire.

00:29:12.400 --> 00:29:14.160
Then, on the 15th day,

00:29:14.320 --> 00:29:17.520
an officer called out my name.

00:29:17.680 --> 00:29:19.920
I went out onto the field.

00:29:20.080 --> 00:29:23.440
There were
around twenty or thirty of us.

00:29:23.760 --> 00:29:27.320
They told us
that we were free to go.

00:29:27.720 --> 00:29:29.040
Before we left,

00:29:29.200 --> 00:29:32.480
an officer gave us a speech,

00:29:32.640 --> 00:29:34.840
telling us how to behave,

00:29:35.000 --> 00:29:37.680
to obey military orders,

00:29:37.840 --> 00:29:39.560
to go to bed early,

00:29:39.720 --> 00:29:43.800
to avoid all political activity, etc.

00:29:44.320 --> 00:29:46.000
Like we were children.

00:29:46.160 --> 00:29:48.240
We left the stadium...

00:29:48.880 --> 00:29:52.000
I remember
we were four or five friends

00:29:52.440 --> 00:29:55.480
and we sat down on the street,

00:29:55.960 --> 00:29:58.000
not knowing what to do.

00:29:58.160 --> 00:30:02.320
We had no money for the bus.
We didn't know what to do.

00:30:02.480 --> 00:30:05.520
After a while,
we realized we had to hurry

00:30:05.680 --> 00:30:07.440
because of the curfew.

00:30:07.960 --> 00:30:10.320
So we got on the bus
without paying.

00:30:10.480 --> 00:30:13.600
The driver knew
where we had been,

00:30:13.760 --> 00:30:15.840
just like his passengers.

00:30:16.000 --> 00:30:18.600
When we got on,
they fell silent

00:30:18.760 --> 00:30:21.000
and looked out of the window.

00:30:22.800 --> 00:30:25.240
All citizens are warned

00:30:25.600 --> 00:30:28.120
that any act of sabotage

00:30:28.400 --> 00:30:31.840
in any kind of national activity,

00:30:32.000 --> 00:30:34.960
such as companies, factories,

00:30:35.680 --> 00:30:36.960
media

00:30:37.800 --> 00:30:40.160
or transport, etc.

00:30:40.720 --> 00:30:44.680
will be severely punished.

00:30:45.400 --> 00:30:48.160
What is your opinion today

00:30:48.320 --> 00:30:50.880
of the September 11 coup

00:30:51.040 --> 00:30:55.920
against a president
democratically elected by the people?

00:30:56.320 --> 00:31:00.360
I think it was a good thing.
I always have.

00:31:00.520 --> 00:31:03.920
We, the Chilean military,

00:31:05.400 --> 00:31:09.120
generally kept well away from politics.

00:31:09.800 --> 00:31:14.320
It wasn't our role professionally.

00:31:14.480 --> 00:31:17.720
The military didn't go near politics.

00:31:17.880 --> 00:31:19.960
At least my generation

00:31:20.120 --> 00:31:22.200
and maybe the previous one.

00:31:23.760 --> 00:31:26.720
We disliked
getting involved in politics.

00:31:26.880 --> 00:31:29.640
But Chile was on the verge
of civil war.

00:31:30.160 --> 00:31:32.000
Let's try to remember

00:31:32.160 --> 00:31:34.400
how he came to power.

00:31:34.560 --> 00:31:37.640
First, a democratic election, true,

00:31:37.800 --> 00:31:42.400
but he won that election
with just 36% of the votes,

00:31:42.560 --> 00:31:45.960
meaning that more than 60%...

00:31:46.120 --> 00:31:48.800
But that's called democracy.

00:31:49.720 --> 00:31:50.880
Democracy.

00:31:51.040 --> 00:31:53.480
Yes, all right.

00:31:53.640 --> 00:31:57.000
We were the true defenders of democracy.

00:31:57.160 --> 00:32:00.640
Democracy was reinstated

00:32:01.360 --> 00:32:04.800
because the military government
rebuilt it.

00:32:04.960 --> 00:32:08.000
His program was totally unacceptable.

00:32:08.160 --> 00:32:12.720
Implementing it would have led
to a totalitarian system.

00:32:13.160 --> 00:32:15.400
There were so many parties.

00:32:16.560 --> 00:32:18.600
Why a totalitarian system?

00:32:18.760 --> 00:32:22.040
All those parties:
Socialist, Communist,

00:32:22.200 --> 00:32:25.080
the MAPU,
the Christian Democrats...

00:32:25.240 --> 00:32:27.520
That was at a point in time!

00:32:27.680 --> 00:32:31.880
But where it was heading
was perfectly clear, it was...

00:32:32.040 --> 00:32:35.520
Maybe it wasn't
a single party government,

00:32:35.680 --> 00:32:36.560
maybe not,

00:32:36.720 --> 00:32:39.200
but there was a single ideology,

00:32:39.360 --> 00:32:41.600
Marxist-Leninist ideology.

00:32:42.120 --> 00:32:46.560
Do you justify illegal detention centers

00:32:46.720 --> 00:32:49.400
such as Villa Grimaldi

00:32:49.560 --> 00:32:51.400
and also torture?

00:32:51.560 --> 00:32:54.240
I do not justify torture at all.

00:32:54.400 --> 00:32:56.800
But it was used all the same.

00:32:58.800 --> 00:33:02.360
Perhaps it was used,
but I never saw it.

00:33:02.520 --> 00:33:03.960
No one saw a thing!

00:33:04.120 --> 00:33:07.840
So the press, television, public opinion

00:33:08.000 --> 00:33:11.400
have all set out to frame the junta?

00:33:11.920 --> 00:33:15.320
I am speaking of my own experience.

00:33:15.480 --> 00:33:20.360
I was surprised to hear of such cases
when they were tried.

00:33:20.520 --> 00:33:25.320
Indeed, I saw the interviews
in which they admitted to it.

00:33:25.480 --> 00:33:27.160
It was their doing.

00:33:27.320 --> 00:33:30.880
Neither the junta nor the government
ordered it.

00:33:31.400 --> 00:33:33.760
The military version says,

00:33:34.120 --> 00:33:38.280
"It was civil war.
We were forced to step in."

00:33:38.440 --> 00:33:39.280
No.

00:33:41.000 --> 00:33:43.240
That's a lie.

00:33:43.560 --> 00:33:48.320
It was simply a matter
of students, workers and laborers

00:33:48.480 --> 00:33:52.040
getting organized to defend jobs,

00:33:52.200 --> 00:33:54.880
along with the elected government.

00:33:55.240 --> 00:33:57.320
Civil war was impossible.

00:33:57.480 --> 00:34:01.320
The other side had nothing,
no army or anything.

00:34:01.640 --> 00:34:05.840
That was the military's
most stupid mistake.

00:34:06.000 --> 00:34:11.040
There was no need to "disappear"
thousands of people or use torture.

00:34:11.200 --> 00:34:12.840
They had no adversary.

00:34:13.000 --> 00:34:16.600
We had nothing
to march on La Moneda with.

00:34:18.000 --> 00:34:19.800
The people didn't...

00:34:19.960 --> 00:34:24.720
No doubt there were a few air guns
in factories here and there.

00:34:24.880 --> 00:34:26.280
I don't deny that.

00:34:26.440 --> 00:34:30.280
There was also shooting
in four or five factories.

00:34:30.880 --> 00:34:32.920
Those were heroic acts.

00:34:33.360 --> 00:34:36.280
We consider them as heroic acts.

00:34:36.440 --> 00:34:40.240
Comrades who believed
with all their hearts.

00:34:40.400 --> 00:34:44.240
And they believed
that they could resist too.

00:35:00.800 --> 00:35:04.520
Unlike many other coups,

00:35:04.680 --> 00:35:07.800
when they seized power,
in the aftermath,

00:35:07.960 --> 00:35:10.720
they were determined to exterminate

00:35:10.960 --> 00:35:15.920
all those who had collaborated
with Allende.

00:35:16.080 --> 00:35:19.040
The methods used in that decade,

00:35:20.240 --> 00:35:22.640
virtually eliminated

00:35:23.520 --> 00:35:27.160
the Revolutionary Left
and its main cadres,

00:35:27.640 --> 00:35:30.080
then the Socialist Party

00:35:30.240 --> 00:35:33.360
and the leaders
of the Communist Party

00:35:33.720 --> 00:35:35.680
during 1976.

00:35:35.840 --> 00:35:39.600
The goal was total annihilation.

00:35:39.760 --> 00:35:41.600
The assassination

00:35:42.560 --> 00:35:45.720
of the opposition's political cadres,

00:35:46.360 --> 00:35:47.920
defenseless people.

00:35:48.080 --> 00:35:50.080
It's true, defenseless.

00:35:50.440 --> 00:35:53.840
We held several meetings.

00:35:54.200 --> 00:35:57.600
We did tiny things to protect people

00:35:57.760 --> 00:35:59.840
and to protect each other,

00:36:00.160 --> 00:36:03.800
to know what happened,
who was in the stadium,

00:36:04.400 --> 00:36:06.880
if there were any informers.

00:36:07.160 --> 00:36:11.400
I have my own view on that issue too.

00:36:11.560 --> 00:36:14.840
I don't believe
anyone can resist torture.

00:36:15.240 --> 00:36:20.680
So you can't really condemn someone
who ends up giving your name.

00:36:20.840 --> 00:36:24.000
My name was given under torture, I know.

00:36:24.280 --> 00:36:28.640
However, if it meant that comrade

00:36:28.800 --> 00:36:33.160
received half as much electricity
to his testicles,

00:36:34.800 --> 00:36:36.680
it is not condemnable.

00:36:36.840 --> 00:36:39.840
I cannot say he was wrong.

00:36:40.000 --> 00:36:42.760
When they came to get me,

00:36:42.920 --> 00:36:47.640
they already knew I could take them
where they wanted to go.

00:36:47.800 --> 00:36:50.360
That was the problem.

00:36:50.840 --> 00:36:55.240
Others could have said,
"I don't know" or "I know them."

00:36:56.920 --> 00:37:00.840
They wanted to get
to the MIR political committee.

00:37:01.680 --> 00:37:04.000
But I never talked.
Nothing happened.

00:37:04.520 --> 00:37:06.760
I was taken to Villa Grimaldi.

00:37:07.080 --> 00:37:08.960
How long were you there?

00:37:09.760 --> 00:37:13.560
That time, I spent 45 days
at Villa Grimaldi.

00:37:13.720 --> 00:37:15.240
That means

00:37:15.400 --> 00:37:19.760
for 45 days, you're not a prisoner,
you're just missing.

00:37:19.920 --> 00:37:23.680
It means your family looks for you
everywhere.

00:37:23.840 --> 00:37:27.320
The police haven't arrested you
so know nothing.

00:37:27.840 --> 00:37:30.600
If you can tell me,
how did they torture you?

00:37:30.760 --> 00:37:34.120
Well, torture is something...

00:37:35.400 --> 00:37:36.960
I can talk about it

00:37:37.120 --> 00:37:41.000
because we militants,
above all the women,

00:37:41.160 --> 00:37:43.480
talk about these things

00:37:43.640 --> 00:37:46.840
as a way to exorcize
fear and suffering.

00:37:47.000 --> 00:37:48.440
Well, then...

00:37:49.160 --> 00:37:50.840
in that situation,

00:37:51.000 --> 00:37:53.000
the first strange thing

00:37:53.160 --> 00:37:57.320
was that a woman undressed you, see?

00:37:57.480 --> 00:38:00.640
Then they took you to a room
full of men,

00:38:00.800 --> 00:38:02.240
three or four people,

00:38:02.400 --> 00:38:05.040
one who operated
and others who had fun.

00:38:05.200 --> 00:38:07.000
That's the tragic thing.

00:38:07.640 --> 00:38:10.040
There were also women shouting

00:38:10.200 --> 00:38:14.840
to make you lie down
on a bed base, a sort of cot...

00:38:16.200 --> 00:38:17.400
a bed...

00:38:19.040 --> 00:38:20.840
made up of steel bands.

00:38:21.000 --> 00:38:25.280
Very old ones that must have served
in other countries.

00:38:25.440 --> 00:38:28.240
They tied your arms and feet to it

00:38:28.400 --> 00:38:30.720
and gave you electric shocks,

00:38:30.880 --> 00:38:35.120
above all to the humid areas,
the vagina and breasts.

00:38:35.840 --> 00:38:38.240
They had questions for you.

00:38:38.400 --> 00:38:43.240
When you were ready to talk,
you raised your hand and said so,

00:38:43.400 --> 00:38:45.960
then they stopped to let you talk.

00:38:46.480 --> 00:38:48.440
They began to torture me.

00:38:48.800 --> 00:38:50.920
The thing is, in my case,

00:38:51.920 --> 00:38:53.640
I lost a lot of blood.

00:38:53.800 --> 00:38:55.840
At one point,

00:38:56.000 --> 00:38:59.440
while waiting to be questioned
and tortured,

00:38:59.600 --> 00:39:02.080
one guy tore off the tape,

00:39:02.800 --> 00:39:06.120
removed my blindfold
and, at that point,

00:39:06.520 --> 00:39:11.040
I said, "For pity's sake,
stop ripping off the tape!"

00:39:11.600 --> 00:39:14.520
The guy looked at me and said,
"What?"

00:39:14.680 --> 00:39:17.680
"You're tearing out my eyelashes!"

00:39:17.840 --> 00:39:20.680
And my friend there with me said,

00:39:20.840 --> 00:39:24.200
"What do eyelashes matter
if they kill us?"

00:39:24.360 --> 00:39:29.520
I said, “They'll kill us,
but I want to die with my lashes!”

00:39:30.040 --> 00:39:35.320
I was there, blindfolded,
and someone knocked on the door.

00:39:35.480 --> 00:39:39.680
I saw one of the torturers,
one of those who had fun,

00:39:39.840 --> 00:39:41.600
one who shouted,

00:39:41.760 --> 00:39:44.960
"Give her more.
She knows and won't talk."

00:39:45.680 --> 00:39:50.800
She said, "Señora Marcia,
step outside, I have a favor to ask."

00:39:50.960 --> 00:39:54.120
I stepped out, she removed my blindfold

00:39:54.280 --> 00:39:59.880
and I discovered she was
seven or eight months pregnant...

00:40:00.040 --> 00:40:02.600
She was expecting
and she was knitting.

00:40:02.760 --> 00:40:04.760
She wanted me to help.

00:40:04.920 --> 00:40:06.280
"You can knit."

00:40:06.440 --> 00:40:10.720
She wanted me
to help knit a cardigan for her baby.

00:40:10.880 --> 00:40:13.400
That's why I say it was madness.

00:40:13.560 --> 00:40:15.680
I remember sitting with her

00:40:15.840 --> 00:40:17.840
and teaching her to knit,

00:40:18.000 --> 00:40:21.360
thinking that just after
she might kill me.

00:40:21.880 --> 00:40:23.680
They tortured me a lot.

00:40:23.840 --> 00:40:26.040
When they arrested Carmen Yáñez,

00:40:26.200 --> 00:40:27.920
they sat her on the floor

00:40:28.080 --> 00:40:31.440
and showed her
how she would end up.

00:40:31.600 --> 00:40:33.400
They removed her blindfold

00:40:33.560 --> 00:40:36.960
to show her how a person
who resisted ended up.

00:40:37.120 --> 00:40:38.680
That person was me.

00:40:38.840 --> 00:40:42.680
I sat by her and told her,
"Carmen, don't talk

00:40:42.840 --> 00:40:47.120
or you'll live the rest of your life
with the remorse

00:40:47.280 --> 00:40:51.720
that someone you denounced
was killed or disappeared.

00:40:51.880 --> 00:40:53.400
That really hurts.

00:40:53.560 --> 00:40:57.360
It's a pain
you will never manage to overcome,

00:40:57.520 --> 00:40:59.600
so don't open your mouth

00:40:59.760 --> 00:41:03.360
and relax
because we're going to a better place."

00:41:03.520 --> 00:41:05.040
I don't know

00:41:05.200 --> 00:41:07.520
whom this government
is fighting.

00:41:07.680 --> 00:41:09.520
The Chilean people?

00:41:09.960 --> 00:41:11.720
It's a strange thing,

00:41:12.080 --> 00:41:16.840
an army fighting
the people of its homeland

00:41:18.440 --> 00:41:22.560
to impose a situation by force.

00:41:22.720 --> 00:41:24.080
The important ones,

00:41:24.240 --> 00:41:28.720
those who did the best work
during the dictatorship

00:41:28.880 --> 00:41:32.200
were the Catholic Church's clergy.

00:41:32.360 --> 00:41:35.520
We had a cardinal, a wonderful person,

00:41:35.680 --> 00:41:37.440
who was the only one

00:41:37.840 --> 00:41:40.440
who could halt the military's excesses,

00:41:40.600 --> 00:41:44.440
who cared
about the missing or tortured.

00:41:44.600 --> 00:41:46.880
Churches became a refuge

00:41:47.040 --> 00:41:50.840
for all those
who had no other possibility.

00:41:51.360 --> 00:41:54.160
That cardinal has been forgotten.

00:41:55.280 --> 00:41:59.680
John Paul II let him go
as soon as he turned 75.

00:41:59.840 --> 00:42:05.480
He was the most important personality
of the Chilean resistance for me.

00:42:06.000 --> 00:42:07.480
At that time,

00:42:07.640 --> 00:42:10.600
young people wanted to be priests

00:42:11.240 --> 00:42:13.560
because it was so...

00:42:17.800 --> 00:42:19.080
How can I put it?

00:42:19.560 --> 00:42:22.200
The stature was so great...

00:42:28.840 --> 00:42:31.000
This priest's moral stature.

00:42:38.240 --> 00:42:40.120
Why are you so moved?

00:42:46.840 --> 00:42:50.840
Why are you so moved,
thinking of that cardinal?

00:42:51.280 --> 00:42:52.920
Because he was...

00:43:07.080 --> 00:43:09.560
the way a cardinal should be.

00:43:10.520 --> 00:43:12.840
I'm not a Catholic, I'm an atheist.

00:43:13.000 --> 00:43:15.720
I have nothing to do with that.

00:43:17.640 --> 00:43:18.800
But when...

00:43:20.560 --> 00:43:21.960
a person...

00:43:24.720 --> 00:43:26.240
deserves respect...

00:43:27.120 --> 00:43:29.040
you must give it to him.

00:43:31.600 --> 00:43:35.760
PUNTA PEUCO PRISON

00:43:41.680 --> 00:43:44.720
They prosecute us for torture,

00:43:44.880 --> 00:43:48.360
because we're criminals,
because we're offenders,

00:43:48.520 --> 00:43:52.080
because we're kidnappers,
because we're killers.

00:43:52.720 --> 00:43:54.240
That is not so.

00:43:54.520 --> 00:43:55.840
The army,

00:43:56.000 --> 00:43:59.000
the officers,
the non-commissioned officers,

00:43:59.160 --> 00:44:02.640
are professional people
who followed orders.

00:44:02.800 --> 00:44:06.840
That said, there were some cases

00:44:07.000 --> 00:44:09.760
handled in an irregular manner.

00:44:09.920 --> 00:44:12.000
Yes, there were some.

00:44:12.240 --> 00:44:17.400
But, at the same time,
the people on the other side

00:44:17.960 --> 00:44:19.800
also killed people.

00:44:20.720 --> 00:44:25.760
We executed some
by firing squad.

00:44:26.080 --> 00:44:29.840
Those were executions
decided by court martial.

00:44:31.000 --> 00:44:33.520
There were deaths on both sides.

00:44:33.680 --> 00:44:36.480
They killed a lot of our people.

00:44:36.760 --> 00:44:39.560
They talk about numbers...

00:44:39.720 --> 00:44:42.840
One death is important.
Just one.

00:44:43.840 --> 00:44:46.400
Millions died in the USSR.

00:44:46.880 --> 00:44:51.800
If we consider military governments,
Argentina had 30,000 deaths.

00:44:52.160 --> 00:44:54.120
Know how many in Chile?

00:44:54.280 --> 00:44:55.480
Less than 3,000.

00:44:56.000 --> 00:44:58.800
What charge were you convicted on?

00:44:58.960 --> 00:45:02.760
I'm accused of homicide and kidnapping.

00:45:03.280 --> 00:45:07.400
My line of defense
has always been perfectly clear.

00:45:08.040 --> 00:45:12.720
I've been saying the same thing
for twenty years now.

00:45:12.880 --> 00:45:15.760
I've been a prisoner here ten years

00:45:15.920 --> 00:45:17.520
and I still say it.

00:45:17.960 --> 00:45:18.960
Firstly,

00:45:19.120 --> 00:45:23.440
I am innocent
of all the charges against me.

00:45:23.960 --> 00:45:27.520
Because we have been persecuted,

00:45:27.920 --> 00:45:30.640
judicially and politically.

00:45:30.800 --> 00:45:32.520
So you feel you're a victim?

00:45:32.680 --> 00:45:35.760
A victim. I am a victim.

00:45:37.120 --> 00:45:40.480
Why was Allende so dangerous?

00:45:41.480 --> 00:45:43.720
For me, he wasn't dangerous.

00:45:44.560 --> 00:45:45.560
He wasn't.

00:45:45.720 --> 00:45:48.360
Even so, bombing La Moneda...

00:45:49.440 --> 00:45:54.080
He had violated
Chilean justice and law

00:45:54.240 --> 00:45:55.640
and the constitution.

00:45:56.360 --> 00:46:00.000
Do you feel
you have done things in your life

00:46:00.160 --> 00:46:02.960
for which you must ask forgiveness?

00:46:03.480 --> 00:46:06.640
I, Eduardo Iturriaga,

00:46:06.800 --> 00:46:11.200
ask forgiveness for all the bad things
I may have done.

00:46:11.360 --> 00:46:15.480
I don't feel any hatred
for my opponents,

00:46:15.640 --> 00:46:18.840
even though those opponents hate me.

00:46:19.000 --> 00:46:24.120
Now, if they hear about this interview,

00:46:24.280 --> 00:46:27.120
they'll say,
"That criminal Iturriaga."

00:46:27.280 --> 00:46:28.680
I'm no criminal.

00:46:28.840 --> 00:46:30.720
"That torturer Iturriaga."

00:46:30.880 --> 00:46:32.120
I'm no torturer.

00:46:32.280 --> 00:46:34.400
"That kidnapper Iturriaga."

00:46:34.560 --> 00:46:35.680
I'm no kidnapper.

00:46:35.840 --> 00:46:40.120
"Neither forgive, nor forget,"
they say.

00:46:40.880 --> 00:46:43.680
I say,
"Yes, let's forgive each other.

00:46:43.840 --> 00:46:46.520
You forgive and we forgive."

00:46:47.040 --> 00:46:49.160
What do you ask forgiveness for?

00:46:50.360 --> 00:46:53.120
You are not my judge.

00:46:53.680 --> 00:46:56.360
You are not my confessor.

00:46:56.520 --> 00:46:59.480
You are neither a judge, nor a priest.

00:46:59.640 --> 00:47:04.240
I don't give interviews,
but I accepted because Señor Núñez

00:47:04.400 --> 00:47:08.960
told me this one
would be, let's say, impartial.

00:47:09.120 --> 00:47:12.760
Because it's not enough to give me...

00:47:12.920 --> 00:47:15.360
to get me to read my statement,

00:47:15.520 --> 00:47:20.880
but if you place it within a context
that prejudices us,

00:47:21.040 --> 00:47:25.560
that prejudices us with bad words,
for example...

00:47:25.720 --> 00:47:27.840
I'm not impartial.

00:47:28.400 --> 00:47:30.080
I'm not impartial.

00:47:31.240 --> 00:47:35.040
THE ITALIAN EMBASSY

00:47:35.200 --> 00:47:37.680
Just then, the doorbell rang.

00:47:40.880 --> 00:47:42.640
"Shit, they followed me."

00:47:42.800 --> 00:47:47.280
Instead, it was a nun who asked,
"Are you David Muñoz?"

00:47:47.440 --> 00:47:49.040
"Yes," I told her.

00:47:50.000 --> 00:47:52.960
She was in plain clothes,
with a cross here.

00:47:53.120 --> 00:47:57.760
"We're going to try to get you
into the Italian Embassy.

00:47:58.120 --> 00:48:02.680
My colleague is waiting outside
with a car.

00:48:02.840 --> 00:48:05.880
You have to leave everything.

00:48:06.040 --> 00:48:08.920
Don't bring anything and let's try."

00:48:10.160 --> 00:48:11.880
Let me digress...

00:48:12.040 --> 00:48:15.960
Before, thanks to my cousin
who had gone south

00:48:16.120 --> 00:48:18.680
with his bosses' permission,

00:48:18.840 --> 00:48:21.400
I knew
I was wanted dead or alive,

00:48:21.560 --> 00:48:25.560
along with eight others
from my province, Cautín.

00:48:25.720 --> 00:48:28.360
It was a difficult situation.

00:48:28.520 --> 00:48:31.000
And so, well...

00:48:31.160 --> 00:48:34.000
I followed this nun

00:48:34.760 --> 00:48:35.960
into their car.

00:48:36.120 --> 00:48:40.160
The other girl
was dressed as a nun too.

00:48:40.320 --> 00:48:42.920
We began a voyage
around Santiago,

00:48:43.080 --> 00:48:47.920
with me surrounded by baskets
of vegetables, fruit and bread,

00:48:48.080 --> 00:48:53.120
until we arrived in the streets
near the Italian Embassy.

00:48:53.280 --> 00:48:58.040
Then, the girl dressed as a nun
turned to me and said,

00:48:58.200 --> 00:48:59.440
"Get out now

00:48:59.600 --> 00:49:02.120
and act like a young couple.

00:49:02.280 --> 00:49:05.200
stroll calmly along the street

00:49:05.360 --> 00:49:08.360
and she'll help you over the wall."

00:49:08.880 --> 00:49:11.200
So we walked for a bit

00:49:11.360 --> 00:49:13.440
and then she said to me,

00:49:14.480 --> 00:49:16.960
"The wall seems lower here."

00:49:17.120 --> 00:49:19.640
She crossed her hands for my foot,

00:49:19.800 --> 00:49:22.920
lifted me up
and I grabbed the wall.

00:49:23.080 --> 00:49:27.000
As I was straddling the wall,

00:49:27.160 --> 00:49:28.680
she called out,

00:49:28.840 --> 00:49:33.440
"Bye. Say hi to the others
I've sent over the wall before.

00:49:33.600 --> 00:49:35.280
I'm Valeria."

00:49:35.440 --> 00:49:39.280
We walked along the street,
several times,

00:49:39.440 --> 00:49:42.000
always dressed differently.

00:49:42.400 --> 00:49:44.480
Two or three times a day.

00:49:44.760 --> 00:49:47.080
At either end of the street,

00:49:47.240 --> 00:49:51.320
there were armored vehicles,
police armored cars.

00:49:51.680 --> 00:49:56.200
Four men patrolled opposite
as they couldn't on this side.

00:49:56.720 --> 00:50:00.480
I'd always been bad at gymnastics
since I was little.

00:50:00.640 --> 00:50:04.320
I remember how a teacher told me once,

00:50:04.480 --> 00:50:07.360
"Gymnastics will be useful one day."

00:50:07.520 --> 00:50:09.600
And I remembered that.

00:50:10.520 --> 00:50:13.800
We went to train
in a neighborhood stadium

00:50:13.960 --> 00:50:15.560
with a wall like this.

00:50:16.080 --> 00:50:19.360
We said, "This is it."
And we went for it.

00:50:19.680 --> 00:50:23.680
We ran across the street
and climbed over the wall.

00:50:23.840 --> 00:50:27.920
Even now, I can't figure out
how I got over

00:50:28.160 --> 00:50:31.360
because I was left hanging
on one side,

00:50:31.680 --> 00:50:33.160
on a corner,

00:50:33.480 --> 00:50:35.120
hanging like this.

00:50:35.880 --> 00:50:40.280
And then I saw two people
lean over and pull me up.

00:50:40.920 --> 00:50:43.560
When I left the taxi
near the embassy,

00:50:43.720 --> 00:50:46.520
a military jeep with officers

00:50:46.680 --> 00:50:49.360
started coming towards me.

00:50:50.040 --> 00:50:54.760
Two soldiers were at the gate,
one on either side, blocking it.

00:50:54.920 --> 00:50:59.560
I immediately saw my brother-in-law
behind the gate

00:51:00.000 --> 00:51:01.160
and I ran.

00:51:01.720 --> 00:51:04.760
I ran a race for once in my life.

00:51:04.920 --> 00:51:06.720
When, above all,

00:51:06.880 --> 00:51:11.560
the Communist Party Central Committee
and Communist Youth

00:51:11.720 --> 00:51:14.920
were decimated,
after they killed them,

00:51:15.840 --> 00:51:17.800
the circle tightened

00:51:18.400 --> 00:51:24.120
and someone from the Youth Directorate
told me,

00:51:24.880 --> 00:51:26.840
"You have to leave....

00:51:27.200 --> 00:51:28.640
We can't..."

00:51:28.800 --> 00:51:33.480
I said,
"I don't want to leave my country."

00:51:34.000 --> 00:51:38.800
Then they told me
I had to get into the Italian Embassy

00:51:39.320 --> 00:51:40.600
in Santiago,

00:51:40.760 --> 00:51:43.360
the only embassy still open

00:51:43.520 --> 00:51:47.640
and receiving people of that kind.

00:51:47.800 --> 00:51:51.800
So my mother came with my daughter.

00:51:52.880 --> 00:51:55.880
I remember she had on a yellow dress

00:51:56.040 --> 00:51:58.000
that I had made for her.

00:51:59.800 --> 00:52:01.400
I hugged my mother

00:52:01.560 --> 00:52:02.920
and said, "Mom,

00:52:03.080 --> 00:52:06.760
you have to walk
around the embassy wall,

00:52:06.920 --> 00:52:09.440
holding the little one up

00:52:10.520 --> 00:52:12.520
because, at one point,

00:52:12.840 --> 00:52:14.880
someone will grab her

00:52:15.040 --> 00:52:16.800
and you have to...

00:52:16.960 --> 00:52:21.440
If you hear them say so,
throw her over the wall."

00:52:26.720 --> 00:52:27.800
Forgive me.

00:52:34.960 --> 00:52:38.560
At the corner of Elena Blanco

00:52:38.720 --> 00:52:42.240
and the street behind
whose name I forget,

00:52:42.880 --> 00:52:45.760
on that sharp corner,

00:52:46.320 --> 00:52:49.720
my daughter was thrown
by my mother

00:52:49.880 --> 00:52:51.760
and Freddy, her father,

00:52:51.920 --> 00:52:54.560
and other comrades caught her

00:52:54.720 --> 00:52:58.320
like a bundle tossed over the wall.

00:52:58.480 --> 00:53:02.640
When they told me
to jump over the wall,

00:53:02.960 --> 00:53:06.920
I, who have always been useless
at gymnastics,

00:53:07.080 --> 00:53:09.920
but with a strong survival instinct,

00:53:10.080 --> 00:53:13.160
I drew on all my powers of agility,

00:53:13.480 --> 00:53:18.080
peered over
and saw that there was a pool

00:53:18.520 --> 00:53:22.080
with people sunbathing around it.

00:53:22.360 --> 00:53:27.520
I thought, "Hey, I'm a political refugee,
not a burglar."

00:53:27.680 --> 00:53:30.360
I thought it was a private home.

00:53:30.520 --> 00:53:32.280
There were people...

00:53:32.440 --> 00:53:35.920
There was a gardener there

00:53:36.080 --> 00:53:40.480
and everyone joked afterwards
because I started to ask,

00:53:40.640 --> 00:53:43.800
"Excuse me..."
- I didn't know much Italian -

00:53:43.960 --> 00:53:48.000
"Excuse me, sir,
is this the Italian Embassy?"

00:53:48.160 --> 00:53:53.080
And the gardener, smarter than me,
signaled to me to jump.

00:53:53.240 --> 00:53:56.440
For, indeed, it was the embassy.

00:53:56.600 --> 00:53:59.760
I was very obedient and gullible.

00:53:59.920 --> 00:54:02.200
I believed everything.

00:54:02.360 --> 00:54:04.800
"Tomorrow, you enter
the Italian Embassy.

00:54:04.960 --> 00:54:07.960
There's a blind spot at the back.

00:54:08.200 --> 00:54:10.160
No one will see you

00:54:10.320 --> 00:54:12.360
and you'll be expected."

00:54:12.800 --> 00:54:17.200
The next day, a car picked me up

00:54:17.360 --> 00:54:20.040
drove me there and left me

00:54:20.200 --> 00:54:22.360
on Calle Clemente Fabres.

00:54:23.240 --> 00:54:24.880
I saw the blind spot.

00:54:25.040 --> 00:54:28.240
And there was a soldier there

00:54:28.400 --> 00:54:30.360
with his rifle.

00:54:30.520 --> 00:54:32.640
I went towards the soldier.

00:54:32.800 --> 00:54:35.360
I got to the blind spot and jumped.

00:54:35.520 --> 00:54:37.640
He said, "What are you doing?"

00:54:37.800 --> 00:54:39.080
"I'm jumping."

00:54:40.200 --> 00:54:45.320
"Halt!" He started to reach
for his rifle to shoot at me.

00:54:45.480 --> 00:54:46.840
Above me,

00:54:47.640 --> 00:54:49.640
over the corner, was a tree.

00:54:49.800 --> 00:54:52.440
An apple tree, is that right?

00:54:52.600 --> 00:54:54.720
And sitting up there

00:54:54.880 --> 00:54:59.080
was a MIR comrade called Vergara.

00:54:59.840 --> 00:55:01.880
He was sitting eating an apple.

00:55:02.040 --> 00:55:05.680
When I jumped
after throwing my bag over,

00:55:06.240 --> 00:55:09.920
he grabbed my arms
and we fell into the grounds

00:55:10.080 --> 00:55:11.600
with the soldier firing.

00:55:11.760 --> 00:55:14.240
It wasn't true I was expected.

00:55:15.280 --> 00:55:18.880
I should have been smarter.

00:55:19.040 --> 00:55:21.560
I couldn't do it alone.

00:55:21.720 --> 00:55:26.240
We fell inside
and the impact was terrific.

00:55:26.560 --> 00:55:28.880
I broke my leg,

00:55:29.040 --> 00:55:32.360
while he took a bullet in the...

00:55:33.200 --> 00:55:34.640
in the shoulder.

00:55:34.800 --> 00:55:36.680
At one point,

00:55:37.120 --> 00:55:41.440
there was such a race to the embassies
by these Chileans

00:55:41.600 --> 00:55:44.680
who were driven mad with fear

00:55:45.320 --> 00:55:48.000
and who would jump over the wall.

00:55:48.160 --> 00:55:52.080
They didn't even ask
or enter the normal way.

00:55:52.240 --> 00:55:54.680
The embassy wall was very low.

00:55:54.840 --> 00:55:58.120
They've raised it by a meter now.

00:55:58.280 --> 00:56:02.200
It's three meters high now,
but then it was low.

00:56:02.360 --> 00:56:03.560
Just two meters.

00:56:03.720 --> 00:56:08.840
Someone had removed bricks
here and there to make a ladder.

00:56:09.160 --> 00:56:12.280
People would arrive and jump in.

00:56:12.880 --> 00:56:17.840
And this created
a real moral dilemma for me.

00:56:18.000 --> 00:56:22.640
When I began to see
these uncontrolled arrivals,

00:56:22.800 --> 00:56:25.280
I asked myself, "What do I do?"

00:56:26.200 --> 00:56:31.720
I asked my ministry
for instructions on what to do.

00:56:31.880 --> 00:56:34.720
Of course,
they never gave me any.

00:56:35.920 --> 00:56:39.840
So I decided to keep them all.

00:56:40.120 --> 00:56:42.080
Not to send anyone away.

00:56:42.240 --> 00:56:46.400
With some embassies,
we worked very hard.

00:56:46.560 --> 00:56:47.520
The Swedes.

00:56:47.680 --> 00:56:49.200
The Swedes were...

00:56:50.320 --> 00:56:55.200
Many embassies took refugees,
but stopped much earlier.

00:56:55.960 --> 00:56:58.040
We continued longer.

00:56:58.680 --> 00:57:03.160
This reception room was a bedroom.

00:57:03.800 --> 00:57:06.880
Not for just one person, of course,

00:57:07.040 --> 00:57:08.400
but for fifty.

00:57:08.560 --> 00:57:11.040
There were fifty of us here...

00:57:12.040 --> 00:57:13.120
every night.

00:57:13.280 --> 00:57:17.760
There we so many of us.
It was a large place, a whole block.

00:57:17.920 --> 00:57:19.280
I felt good there.

00:57:19.440 --> 00:57:22.600
There were comrades,
many older than me,

00:57:22.760 --> 00:57:26.560
so it was an opportunity
to discuss and talk.

00:57:26.720 --> 00:57:28.080
To gain experience.

00:57:28.440 --> 00:57:30.480
There was a large room.

00:57:31.040 --> 00:57:32.840
We called it La Legua,

00:57:33.000 --> 00:57:34.760
after a working-class district.

00:57:34.920 --> 00:57:38.480
We had mattresses on the floor
that we shared.

00:57:39.160 --> 00:57:43.200
The comrade and I who shared
were close neighbors.

00:57:43.360 --> 00:57:45.560
We slept back to back.

00:57:45.720 --> 00:57:48.080
I was lucky to be 20.

00:57:48.240 --> 00:57:51.520
At that age, such things are...

00:57:52.320 --> 00:57:53.840
well, not amusing,

00:57:54.000 --> 00:57:56.520
as there were dark thoughts,

00:57:56.680 --> 00:57:58.600
but they don't weigh on you.

00:57:58.760 --> 00:58:01.760
I'd have gladly slept on the floor.

00:58:01.920 --> 00:58:05.000
Many people in a very small space.

00:58:05.160 --> 00:58:09.280
It was amusing
as there were three floors

00:58:09.440 --> 00:58:12.080
and also a basement.

00:58:12.480 --> 00:58:16.640
In the basement,
there were couples with children.

00:58:17.000 --> 00:58:20.800
Then, on the side facing the pool,

00:58:21.360 --> 00:58:23.720
there were only men...

00:58:25.880 --> 00:58:28.120
unmarried men.
What's the word?

00:58:29.080 --> 00:58:30.520
Single men.

00:58:30.680 --> 00:58:32.640
Only single men.

00:58:32.960 --> 00:58:33.960
And then,

00:58:34.600 --> 00:58:37.480
there were couples on the other floor

00:58:37.640 --> 00:58:39.680
and, on the top floor,

00:58:39.840 --> 00:58:41.760
the single girls.

00:58:42.600 --> 00:58:44.960
The comings and goings...

00:58:45.600 --> 00:58:48.320
People up and down all night!

00:58:48.720 --> 00:58:51.200
I had no place to sleep

00:58:51.360 --> 00:58:54.600
and I found
the ambassador's wife's bathtub.

00:58:54.960 --> 00:58:57.520
Imagine, sleeping in a bathtub.

00:58:57.680 --> 00:59:00.200
It was fantastic because...

00:59:00.760 --> 00:59:03.960
as well as a place to sleep,
it protected me.

00:59:04.120 --> 00:59:07.160
Sleeping with its sides around me...

00:59:07.680 --> 00:59:10.360
I felt so perfect there.

00:59:10.880 --> 00:59:13.520
My back never hurt or anything.

00:59:13.680 --> 00:59:16.880
The embassy provided a cook.

00:59:18.920 --> 00:59:22.840
We organized ourselves to help the cook.

00:59:23.000 --> 00:59:26.800
We'd take turns to wash dishes,
peel potatoes,

00:59:26.960 --> 00:59:28.560
the usual chores.

00:59:28.720 --> 00:59:32.520
We also kept the garden clean
as it's very big.

00:59:32.680 --> 00:59:34.960
I think you've been there.

00:59:35.120 --> 00:59:36.280
It's very big.

00:59:36.440 --> 00:59:41.640
We were trying to make our lives
as normal as possible.

00:59:41.800 --> 00:59:46.240
Fortunately, there were also
two psychologists there

00:59:46.400 --> 00:59:50.720
who gave the most stressed of us
a little extra valium

00:59:51.520 --> 00:59:53.480
to calm them.

00:59:54.360 --> 00:59:59.040
We lived a life that had nothing to do
with life outside.

00:59:59.200 --> 01:00:02.320
But we were pure Stalinists.

01:00:02.760 --> 01:00:07.640
I remember an old Socialist gentleman

01:00:07.800 --> 01:00:10.840
who was expelled from his party

01:00:11.000 --> 01:00:15.040
within the embassy for indiscipline

01:00:15.200 --> 01:00:18.640
because he refused to peel potatoes.

01:00:18.800 --> 01:00:22.400
He had never peeled potatoes in his life

01:00:22.560 --> 01:00:24.760
and refused to start now.

01:00:24.920 --> 01:00:28.840
Everyone had to do the same work.

01:00:29.000 --> 01:00:30.960
Some spent months there.

01:00:31.120 --> 01:00:33.800
Couples,
young people with babies.

01:00:33.960 --> 01:00:37.760
Many people didn't get along.
There was a lot of tension.

01:00:38.520 --> 01:00:40.360
I sought refuge in the pool

01:00:40.520 --> 01:00:42.440
to learn to swim.

01:00:42.600 --> 01:00:43.480
Sometimes,

01:00:43.640 --> 01:00:46.560
I'd take a baby
to see its father

01:00:46.720 --> 01:00:48.680
as the parents didn't speak.

01:00:48.840 --> 01:00:52.120
They were both there,
but didn't speak?

01:00:52.280 --> 01:00:54.440
I'd take the kid to one...

01:00:54.680 --> 01:00:57.840
I was like a supervisor.

01:00:58.720 --> 01:01:03.000
I don't know, I guess
we were thirty or forty children.

01:01:03.600 --> 01:01:06.320
We had a lot of freedom.
We'd run everywhere.

01:01:06.800 --> 01:01:11.840
As children,
we adapted the street games

01:01:12.000 --> 01:01:13.880
to our situation.

01:01:14.400 --> 01:01:18.480
There was a game we played
called police and thieves.

01:01:18.640 --> 01:01:20.400
We adapted the game

01:01:20.560 --> 01:01:23.960
and called it
"refugee and cops".

01:01:24.360 --> 01:01:28.840
We would set up an obstacle
and a goal.

01:01:29.000 --> 01:01:31.960
The refugee had to run
and jump to the goal.

01:01:32.120 --> 01:01:35.840
The police had to catch him
and if they did, he was dead.

01:01:36.000 --> 01:01:39.200
The flow of refugees

01:01:39.360 --> 01:01:41.960
gradually shifted to people

01:01:42.760 --> 01:01:46.480
who were fleeing
like people flee Africa now.

01:01:46.880 --> 01:01:47.840
From hunger.

01:01:48.000 --> 01:01:53.120
They would come to see
if there was a way to get to Europe

01:01:53.280 --> 01:01:54.920
and away from there.

01:01:55.080 --> 01:01:57.920
The Foreign Ministry

01:01:58.440 --> 01:02:02.920
was worried
and didn't want to grant visas

01:02:04.440 --> 01:02:07.120
because it was afraid

01:02:07.280 --> 01:02:10.640
of what we would now call
a "pull factor".

01:02:11.120 --> 01:02:16.120
Some say we mustn't save the people
who die in the Mediterranean

01:02:16.280 --> 01:02:18.720
because only more will come.

01:02:18.880 --> 01:02:21.880
That's rather cynical, isn't it?

01:02:28.400 --> 01:02:30.560
They called me and said,

01:02:31.080 --> 01:02:33.880
"They threw a dead girl

01:02:34.040 --> 01:02:36.520
over the wall into the embassy."

01:02:37.160 --> 01:02:40.360
After the curfew, at 6 or 7 AM,

01:02:40.520 --> 01:02:43.360
I went and I found this girl, dead.

01:02:43.520 --> 01:02:45.520
What could we do?

01:02:45.880 --> 01:02:49.880
They told us someone had been thrown
over the wall.

01:02:50.680 --> 01:02:52.000
We went to see.

01:02:52.160 --> 01:02:54.680
He approached, I didn't,

01:02:55.040 --> 01:02:57.240
and he said it was Lumi.

01:02:59.840 --> 01:03:01.200
And then...

01:03:02.560 --> 01:03:05.480
This part was really...

01:03:06.320 --> 01:03:08.480
really painful, so terrible.

01:03:10.720 --> 01:03:13.200
After that, they came

01:03:13.600 --> 01:03:15.960
and they took her away.

01:03:16.480 --> 01:03:20.360
A week later,
CNI officers, the secret police,

01:03:20.640 --> 01:03:22.440
came to question us all

01:03:22.840 --> 01:03:26.960
because, according to their version,
there had been an orgy

01:03:27.120 --> 01:03:29.800
during which we killed her.

01:03:29.960 --> 01:03:33.480
Lumi was an exceptional,
truly remarkable woman.

01:03:34.000 --> 01:03:38.160
I would say
she was one of the few women

01:03:38.320 --> 01:03:41.200
who were emblematic MIR fighters.

01:03:41.640 --> 01:03:42.800
She was killed

01:03:42.960 --> 01:03:46.720
and thrown
into the Italian Embassy garden

01:03:46.880 --> 01:03:49.280
in a macabre act

01:03:50.480 --> 01:03:54.400
with the connivance and complicity

01:03:54.560 --> 01:03:57.240
of the main media in Chile

01:03:57.400 --> 01:04:01.240
to make it look as if her death

01:04:01.400 --> 01:04:05.080
had occurred inside the embassy.

01:04:05.240 --> 01:04:07.160
They were scare tactics,

01:04:07.320 --> 01:04:10.440
an attempt to terrorize the refugees

01:04:10.960 --> 01:04:13.760
who, if I'm not mistaken, were 250,

01:04:14.520 --> 01:04:17.960
many of whom were children,
women and old people.

01:04:19.000 --> 01:04:23.440
It was to say,
"Look, we're breathing down your necks.

01:04:23.600 --> 01:04:26.760
The wall is low.
We can do what we want."

01:04:27.200 --> 01:04:30.560
THE JOURNEY TO ITALY

01:04:30.920 --> 01:04:34.560
Do you remember the trip
from the embassy to the airport?

01:04:34.720 --> 01:04:37.120
Unforgettable. I certainly do.

01:04:37.280 --> 01:04:40.200
On the day my safe-conduct arrived,

01:04:40.360 --> 01:04:42.320
I had to pack

01:04:42.720 --> 01:04:47.720
and go out through the gates.

01:04:48.200 --> 01:04:50.480
There were a few people there

01:04:50.640 --> 01:04:53.000
along with a bus

01:04:53.400 --> 01:04:54.840
waiting for us.

01:04:55.000 --> 01:04:58.800
And, in the group out there,
I saw my brother

01:04:58.960 --> 01:05:02.600
who ran to pass me $100
that I put here.

01:05:02.760 --> 01:05:06.760
We boarded a bus

01:05:08.000 --> 01:05:10.680
and, in front of us, there was

01:05:11.320 --> 01:05:13.440
a jeep with soldiers,

01:05:13.600 --> 01:05:15.440
and another behind.

01:05:15.600 --> 01:05:17.240
This caravan

01:05:17.400 --> 01:05:20.760
passed through Santiago de Chile

01:05:20.920 --> 01:05:25.040
with these 15 desperate castaways

01:05:25.200 --> 01:05:28.120
and the two military trucks

01:05:28.280 --> 01:05:30.560
that acted as...

01:05:31.040 --> 01:05:34.760
They were afraid
someone would come to free us.

01:05:34.920 --> 01:05:37.480
We couldn't even see the city.

01:05:38.120 --> 01:05:39.640
Only straight ahead

01:05:40.120 --> 01:05:43.200
because they put...

01:05:43.360 --> 01:05:48.360
They made the embassy vehicles put up...

01:05:50.080 --> 01:05:52.240
What's the damn word?
Curtains.

01:05:52.400 --> 01:05:55.240
Curtains at the windows so...

01:05:56.040 --> 01:05:58.280
We couldn't even see Santiago.

01:05:58.640 --> 01:06:03.400
When they told us
they had given us the pass to leave,

01:06:04.800 --> 01:06:06.840
I got a suit

01:06:07.000 --> 01:06:08.160
and a tie,

01:06:08.480 --> 01:06:12.600
to be worthy
of that very important moment.

01:06:12.760 --> 01:06:17.400
I had made myself a sort of backpack,
with a fist on it,

01:06:17.560 --> 01:06:19.960
and carried it with me anyway.

01:06:20.120 --> 01:06:24.400
I had it on the bus
when we were going to the airport

01:06:24.560 --> 01:06:26.200
and the cars saw it.

01:06:26.360 --> 01:06:29.160
It was a way of hailing

01:06:30.600 --> 01:06:33.640
and joining the political struggle.

01:06:33.800 --> 01:06:36.400
What did you feel at that moment?

01:06:38.440 --> 01:06:41.920
I was definitely very excited about it.

01:06:43.840 --> 01:06:46.760
The five minutes with the family
were very intense.

01:06:46.920 --> 01:06:47.760
Where?

01:06:47.920 --> 01:06:49.400
Santiago Airport.

01:06:49.560 --> 01:06:51.320
My mother was a Catholic.

01:06:51.480 --> 01:06:55.200
She thought the Communists
were stealing her son.

01:06:55.360 --> 01:06:57.000
She believed it for ages.

01:07:07.160 --> 01:07:08.000
They took us

01:07:08.160 --> 01:07:09.720
to a hotel on Via Aurelia.

01:07:09.880 --> 01:07:12.200
They treated us admirably.

01:07:12.360 --> 01:07:14.160
They gave us money.

01:07:14.680 --> 01:07:18.360
At the hotel,
we were in Rome for the first time.

01:07:18.520 --> 01:07:22.040
I had never left Chile for any reason.

01:07:22.200 --> 01:07:23.960
We did a tour of Rome.

01:07:24.480 --> 01:07:28.280
After a few days,
they came to offer us work

01:07:28.440 --> 01:07:31.320
and I immediately signed up.

01:07:32.160 --> 01:07:35.920
They said,
"Red Emilia has work for Chileans."

01:07:36.080 --> 01:07:39.000
Emilia Romagna was Red Emilia then.

01:07:39.320 --> 01:07:43.000
I ended up in a small town
called Soliera,

01:07:43.160 --> 01:07:44.320
10,000 people,

01:07:44.480 --> 01:07:48.360
where 70% voted Communist.

01:07:48.520 --> 01:07:51.120
So they treated me well.

01:07:51.480 --> 01:07:55.160
My first job was as a worker
on a pig farm.

01:07:55.320 --> 01:07:59.160
As an agriculture student,
I asked to work in the country

01:07:59.320 --> 01:08:01.800
and they took me at my word.

01:08:02.760 --> 01:08:07.520
Italy at the end of '73
was a wonderful country.

01:08:07.920 --> 01:08:13.720
I was lucky to find a job right away
because Red Emilia had offered one.

01:08:13.880 --> 01:08:15.840
They hired me legally.

01:08:16.000 --> 01:08:20.680
At first, they wanted me
to be an employee at the farm,

01:08:21.000 --> 01:08:23.040
but the workers made more.

01:08:23.200 --> 01:08:26.960
So I asked to be a worker
because I needed...

01:08:27.320 --> 01:08:31.200
I couldn't bring my wife and daughter
to Italy for a year.

01:08:31.360 --> 01:08:34.280
I needed money
and I needed a job.

01:08:34.800 --> 01:08:37.080
After the farm, I worked in bars,

01:08:37.240 --> 01:08:41.000
I washed dishes, I drove a truck.
So many jobs.

01:08:41.520 --> 01:08:45.240
There was no undeclared work,
no dirty tricks.

01:08:45.400 --> 01:08:46.560
I was a refugee

01:08:46.720 --> 01:08:51.320
just like any person who comes here
without anything.

01:08:51.480 --> 01:08:53.360
That was my condition.

01:08:53.520 --> 01:08:55.400
I came without money.

01:08:55.560 --> 01:08:56.840
I was welcomed.

01:08:57.000 --> 01:08:59.000
They let me fit in.

01:08:59.360 --> 01:09:04.600
I spoke to the Italian Communist Party
and I was hired in a foundry.

01:09:04.760 --> 01:09:08.160
I had always been a bureaucrat
in an office...

01:09:09.000 --> 01:09:13.200
I was hired in a foundry
called Mamoli

01:09:13.360 --> 01:09:15.280
that made faucets,

01:09:16.080 --> 01:09:20.960
in Lacchiarella,
a small town near Milan.

01:09:21.520 --> 01:09:24.360
It's a very big company.

01:09:26.160 --> 01:09:29.480
A man can learn anything.
I learnt to melt metal.

01:09:29.640 --> 01:09:31.360
I was a worker.

01:09:31.640 --> 01:09:32.720
Where?

01:09:32.880 --> 01:09:34.080
In Milan.

01:09:34.480 --> 01:09:36.560
I was a worker.

01:09:36.880 --> 01:09:41.640
I was a driver too
for a gentleman who had broken his leg.

01:09:41.800 --> 01:09:43.840
I drove his car for a while.

01:09:44.360 --> 01:09:50.000
In every job, I have always been
a union rep for my Italian colleagues.

01:09:50.760 --> 01:09:55.480
I was in a center training people
to work with disabled children.

01:09:55.640 --> 01:09:57.880
I was their coordinator.

01:09:58.120 --> 01:10:02.600
I think the most important work
I did as a teacher

01:10:03.040 --> 01:10:05.040
was in Italy, not in Chile.

01:10:05.200 --> 01:10:07.360
Right there in Rozzano.

01:10:09.360 --> 01:10:13.720
The collaboration with my colleagues
was very important.

01:10:15.120 --> 01:10:20.960
I was in charge of managing the network

01:10:21.280 --> 01:10:26.480
with teachers, pedagogues
and psychologists.

01:10:26.720 --> 01:10:32.160
Never once did an Italian say,
"Why her? She's a foreigner unlike us."

01:10:32.320 --> 01:10:36.720
Everyone recognized
that I was capable of doing that job

01:10:36.880 --> 01:10:39.840
and they supported me in my work.

01:10:40.000 --> 01:10:45.400
In 1978, I began reading things
other than Communist Party texts.

01:10:45.560 --> 01:10:49.400
I moved away
from the more militant ranks.

01:10:49.720 --> 01:10:52.560
I realized this situation would last

01:10:52.720 --> 01:10:55.440
and I read as much as I could.

01:10:55.600 --> 01:10:57.400
I talked in quotations.

01:10:58.040 --> 01:11:00.160
I drew support from them.

01:11:01.440 --> 01:11:04.600
I got interested
in Bataille, Pasolini...

01:11:05.880 --> 01:11:06.920
A revolution.

01:11:07.080 --> 01:11:09.360
Yes, the world opened up to me.

01:11:10.440 --> 01:11:16.360
I started to get involved
in things in Italy, in the city.

01:11:16.520 --> 01:11:18.880
Renato Nicolini, the Roman Summer,

01:11:19.040 --> 01:11:22.200
the theater, Beat '72, etc.

01:11:23.400 --> 01:11:25.880
A wonderful new world for me.

01:11:26.040 --> 01:11:27.400
They sent me...

01:11:27.880 --> 01:11:31.400
I forget now...
To some town to make a speech.

01:11:31.920 --> 01:11:33.480
I went there

01:11:34.280 --> 01:11:37.560
and I found myself, at 20 or so,

01:11:37.920 --> 01:11:41.280
in a sports hall full of people.

01:11:41.440 --> 01:11:44.000
The solidarity of the Italian people...

01:11:44.160 --> 01:11:49.240
I didn't speak any Italian
and they didn't speak any Spanish.

01:11:49.480 --> 01:11:51.960
I'd say two things
and they would clap!

01:11:52.120 --> 01:11:55.000
We participated

01:11:55.160 --> 01:11:58.560
in a huge event
on Piazza Santi Apostoli

01:11:58.720 --> 01:12:02.320
and I was very impressed

01:12:02.480 --> 01:12:06.640
to see, in the front row,
Gian Maria Volonté, the actor.

01:12:06.800 --> 01:12:10.680
In Chile, at that time,
we had good cinemas

01:12:10.920 --> 01:12:13.080
and he was a popular actor.

01:12:13.240 --> 01:12:17.720
Shortly before, they had shown
Sacco e Vanzetti in Chile.

01:12:17.880 --> 01:12:19.400
I had seen it there.

01:12:21.880 --> 01:12:25.040
I was struck to see him
in the front row, crying.

01:12:26.360 --> 01:12:29.400
We're here to relate an episode

01:12:30.680 --> 01:12:32.280
that History

01:12:33.520 --> 01:12:35.480
doesn't want to remember.

01:12:37.640 --> 01:12:39.920
It happened in Chile.

01:12:41.000 --> 01:12:42.760
People would cry.

01:12:43.320 --> 01:12:44.480
They cried

01:12:44.640 --> 01:12:49.280
after you finished explaining
what had happened,

01:12:49.440 --> 01:12:51.080
be it 100 people,

01:12:51.240 --> 01:12:53.760
50 people or 1,000.

01:12:53.920 --> 01:12:57.480
It was always the same thing.

01:12:57.640 --> 01:13:01.280
You saw the people's warmth,
their solidarity.

01:13:01.440 --> 01:13:03.760
Italian solidarity with Chile

01:13:03.920 --> 01:13:09.000
was very important
at the political level

01:13:09.440 --> 01:13:11.880
of the Italian state and its parties,

01:13:12.040 --> 01:13:16.960
the Christian Democrats, Socialists,
Communists, Republicans...

01:13:17.200 --> 01:13:19.120
Very important, fundamental.

01:13:19.640 --> 01:13:23.840
On a personal level,
we received all that solidarity...

01:13:24.000 --> 01:13:27.880
Sometimes, it was as if the coup
had occurred in Italy,

01:13:28.040 --> 01:13:31.560
the Italians suffered so much
over events in Chile.

01:13:31.960 --> 01:13:34.920
It wasn't just the political parties.

01:13:35.080 --> 01:13:38.040
When I was working in Modena,

01:13:38.200 --> 01:13:40.080
I'd ride my bicycle

01:13:40.240 --> 01:13:41.880
and people would ask,

01:13:42.040 --> 01:13:45.720
"Hi, are you Chilean?
What's going on at home?

01:13:46.640 --> 01:13:48.840
Do you have any fresh news?"

01:13:49.000 --> 01:13:51.040
And the main question was,

01:13:51.200 --> 01:13:52.480
"What can we do?

01:13:52.880 --> 01:13:55.960
What can I do as a person to save

01:13:56.120 --> 01:13:59.240
those people
from Pinochet's barbarity

01:13:59.400 --> 01:14:00.720
and save Chile?"

01:14:01.200 --> 01:14:02.960
One day,

01:14:03.120 --> 01:14:05.640
a 50-year-old man

01:14:05.800 --> 01:14:07.920
stopped me and asked me...

01:14:08.320 --> 01:14:13.480
He was a man who had seen
the last years of the Resistance.

01:14:13.800 --> 01:14:18.160
He was a man who saw in us
those friends of his

01:14:18.320 --> 01:14:23.280
who had fought Nazism and Fascism.

01:14:23.440 --> 01:14:27.040
That was only 30 years before '73.

01:14:27.200 --> 01:14:31.600
A 50-year-old
could easily have been a partisan.

01:14:31.760 --> 01:14:34.040
Doing murals all over Italy,

01:14:34.200 --> 01:14:39.160
I always find someone
who did something for Chile back then.

01:14:39.680 --> 01:14:43.960
I always find someone
living in Naples or wherever...

01:14:44.120 --> 01:14:47.160
"We did such and such for Chile."

01:14:47.320 --> 01:14:51.640
And that is a great merit
of this people.

01:14:53.400 --> 01:14:55.000
Italy has been able

01:14:55.320 --> 01:14:58.600
to develop a movement so broad

01:14:59.280 --> 01:15:02.520
that all democrats,
all anti-fascists fight

01:15:02.680 --> 01:15:05.560
alongside the Chilean people.

01:15:05.720 --> 01:15:08.160
Only Italy in Western Europe

01:15:08.640 --> 01:15:12.640
has not recognized
and will not recognize the Junta.

01:15:17.400 --> 01:15:19.680
The united people

01:15:19.840 --> 01:15:22.360
will never be defeated!

01:15:32.440 --> 01:15:34.560
When you arrived in Italy,

01:15:34.720 --> 01:15:38.600
did you think
you would soon return to Chile?

01:15:38.760 --> 01:15:39.840
All of us...

01:15:40.720 --> 01:15:44.680
All of us lived for years
with our bags ready.

01:15:46.000 --> 01:15:48.080
From the very first moment.

01:15:48.240 --> 01:15:49.520
But it was a dream.

01:15:49.680 --> 01:15:53.560
The first two years,
we rented an apartment.

01:15:53.720 --> 01:15:56.080
We had our suitcases there.

01:15:57.600 --> 01:16:00.920
But we didn't put anything

01:16:01.080 --> 01:16:03.120
in the closets.

01:16:04.200 --> 01:16:06.440
We kept them there.

01:16:06.840 --> 01:16:09.680
We thought we could leave anytime.

01:16:09.840 --> 01:16:12.040
You didn't settle down.

01:16:13.480 --> 01:16:15.360
You didn't make a home.

01:16:15.520 --> 01:16:17.600
You were passing through.

01:16:18.960 --> 01:16:21.240
Things moved very slowly.

01:16:21.400 --> 01:16:24.400
Maybe next week,
next month, next year.

01:16:24.560 --> 01:16:26.960
The first New Year's Eve comes

01:16:27.440 --> 01:16:30.520
and will this be the year to go back?

01:16:31.800 --> 01:16:33.840
Then time begins to pass.

01:16:48.240 --> 01:16:52.040
For years, all the Chileans in Italy
have met up.

01:16:52.200 --> 01:16:54.240
We celebrate with a lunch,

01:16:54.400 --> 01:16:56.720
a dance, a party, singers...

01:16:57.040 --> 01:17:00.080
Are they all Chileans living in Italy?

01:17:00.240 --> 01:17:02.640
Yes, Chileans with roots here now.

01:17:02.800 --> 01:17:07.160
Many have married Italians,
have Italian children, etc.

01:17:07.320 --> 01:17:11.160
It's hard to tell if the people
who have lived here so long

01:17:11.320 --> 01:17:13.200
are Chilean or Italian.

01:17:13.360 --> 01:17:15.240
We're both now.

01:17:15.800 --> 01:17:19.520
We've always said we are rich
because we have

01:17:21.560 --> 01:17:25.680
two national identities.

01:17:26.280 --> 01:17:29.520
I am Chilean by birth,

01:17:29.960 --> 01:17:34.960
with a country that treated me
like a stepfather would.

01:17:35.520 --> 01:17:38.520
Chile was a wicked stepfather for me.

01:17:38.800 --> 01:17:41.120
And Italy has been a mother,

01:17:41.720 --> 01:17:43.880
generous and supportive.

01:17:44.040 --> 01:17:47.440
I arrived, as an exile, in a country

01:17:47.600 --> 01:17:52.240
that was new to me in many ways.

01:17:52.400 --> 01:17:54.920
The country of the partisan war,

01:17:55.080 --> 01:17:58.840
the country that had defended workers...

01:17:59.600 --> 01:18:02.960
It seemed to me that I had truly...

01:18:03.480 --> 01:18:08.960
arrived in a country that resembled
Allende's dream, at that time.

01:18:10.560 --> 01:18:11.600
Today,

01:18:12.040 --> 01:18:17.200
I travel in Italy and see that it
increasingly resembles Chile,

01:18:18.280 --> 01:18:20.480
the worst aspects of Chile.

01:18:20.640 --> 01:18:25.280
We are all caught up
in a society of frantic consumerism.

01:18:25.440 --> 01:18:28.240
You don't give a damn about others.

01:18:28.400 --> 01:18:31.000
If you can crush them, you do.

01:18:31.440 --> 01:18:33.400
It's a rat race.

01:18:33.560 --> 01:18:34.920
Self-interest.

01:20:10.360 --> 01:20:12.600
Subtitles by Ian Burley

01:20:12.960 --> 01:20:15.080
Subtitling: HIVENTY