If readers of this blog wonder why I’m so passionately against even the hint of fascism in the US and worldwide, here I provide some of my personal background to explain that. You see, I lived in Colombia for more than a decade. As a professor, scientist, and wannabe writer—now mostly unsuccessful in the latter by the ITW, Big Five, and Authors Guild’s measures—I’ve been an observer of human nature, its triumphs and failings. Fascism is a failure, and I first solidified that opinion with Nixon followed by my long sojourn abroad.
Colombia has dabbled in fascism, of course. Most Latin American countries have (caudillismo is part of their DNA). Even before I resided in Bogota, I learned about their dictator Rojas Pinilla. His trajectory isn’t that unusual: He came to power as a populist vowing to end the chaos of civil war (he did, by brute force), and he did a few good things (ending that war, called “La Violencia,” and building the Bogota airport and a major military hospital that still might be the best one in the country). He became a complete tyrant, and his daughter was even worse.
Facismo has plagued Latin America. “The Dirty War” in Argentina is perhaps best known to Americans (even the current Pope was suspected of being involved—the Argentine clergy certainly was), but Pinochet’s brutal regime in Chile also existed with help from the CIA’s destabilizing efforts in the Southern Cone.
I became more familiar with the atrocities committed by Pinohet and his thugs in Chile for one simple reason: In Bogota we lived in the same apartment bulding as a Chilean functionary, a refugee from Allende’s government who had fled his homeland with his wife. They were long-time guests of my internist and his wife who lived in the same building. (My doctor was a Marxist socialist—they’re not evil monsters, by the way, and we even have some in the US Congress now.) That Chilean ex-VIP Miguel told me tragic tales of what went on and was going on in Chile as Pinochet tried to silence anyone protesting his autocratic regime. (Parallels with Kim, Netanyahu, MBS, Putin, Xi, Trump, and several current members of the US Congress are obvious.)
One tale affected me more than the others because of my love for music, the tale of singer, songwriter, and guitarist Victor Jara. He was rounded up in Santiago with many other university students and put into a soccer stadium under guard. (Rojas Pinilla’s daughter did something similar, by the way.) There Pincohet’s thugs smashed all Victor’s fingers, telling him he’d never play the guitar again, and then they tried to make him sing for everyone. He sang his famous song “Venceremos” (“We Shall Overcome”) that was the theme song of Allende’s party (the leftist Popular Unity). Soon after, he and many others were shot and killed, their bodies never found.
Victor had written other songs that pissed off Pinochet and this thugs (and the CIA too, I suppose), among them “El Derecho de Vivir en Paz” (“The Right to Live in Peace,” 1971) and “La Poblacion” (“The People,” 1972). He was very popular among the Chilean people, especially with Allende’s supporters. Did that give the Chilean fascists the right to kill him? No, but fascism in the extreme tolerates no protests. Just ask Putin or any other despot.
Just recently the man who killed Victor Jara with two shots to the head, Pedro Barrientos, was arrested in Florida for lying about his participation in the violence in Chile to seek asylum in eh US. (Witnesses said he bragged about shooting Victor.) If the US CIA doesn’t step in to halt it (who knows what Barrientos can tell the world about the CIA’s involvement in Chile?), Barrientos will be extradited to Chile to receive his punishment. Will that revenge Victor Jara? No. True revenge will only come to the victims of facism when all fascists in the US and the world disappear forever, hopefully receiving a worse fate than any of their innocent victims! This includes Donald Trump and all his political cronies and followers. Facism is evil. Period.
Allende’s government ended fifty years ago; it lasted only three years (1970-1973), but I was amazed when we visited there in 1972 with the progress that was being made. The country has always possessed a European-style spirit of progressivism, something Pinochet and the other Chilean army’s fascists couldn’t tolerate. Victor Lido Jara Martinez was also slaughtered in 1973 (9/16/1973) not long after Salvador Allende. Chilean and CIA fascists got what they wanted, but in the decades that have followed, they’ve been losing. Let’s keep up the good work and defeat fascism wherever it rears its ugly head!