We walked with our luggage, wicker basket, doll or school bag accompanied by other mothers and young children towards the flight from Buenos Aires to join our refugee parents and from there to Quebec, Hotel Queen, Place Bonaventure.
Confident and smiling, I head towards the plane. But this smile gives way to tears when New Year’s Eve arrives. I locked up my room, I couldn’t go kiss Grandma or light the little candles that made the stars sparkle.
I understand that exile could be joy or punishment, opportunity or prison. Too many bereavements, family, friends, home, school for children.
We were welcomed by the Sisters of Providence and the Quebec-Chili Committee. Invited to a summer camp to forget the noise of the helicopters, the irruption of the military, the machine guns lifting the sheets and venturing viciously between the legs of a cousin sleeping with my innocent witness sister. The horror stories intertwine with those of refugee children from Haiti, Iran, Rwanda, Vietnam. Universal stories.
At summer camp, I ask a friend why her mother never leaves her room. His little voice tells me that the soldiers had put live rats in his poop. Our eyes misted and our gazes of fear met.
The soldiers, after their lessons learned from the Pentagon at the School of the Americas, tortured a child with electricity in front of his parents to make them talk, women were raped in front of their spouses or with dogs. What had these psychopaths done to this friend?
1998, Pinochet case, Father Quirion can no longer testify, Alzheimer’s. Time passes and statements from Quebec victims present in Chile in 1973 become rare. Despite this, a Quebecer with courage chose to do it thanks to Michel Boyer and Michel Marchand who put together the file. The RCMP considers his story to be credible, but there is no official response from Canada. In the meantime, Pinochet returns to Chile, he dies detained at home. Others are imprisoned over the years, justice delays, but little by little does its homework.
Richard Desjardins told me in Mexico that he had participated in a youth meeting in Santiago in 1970. Serge Mongeau, in The crushed dream, shares his experience. A judge explains to me that he occupied the United States consulate with university students to protest. Pierre Chagnon, Marc Messier and Véronique Salmon make exile lighter by showing their solidarity.
I return to Chile, become again the little girl with unlimited chocolates from the El Pajarito store, nickname of the soccer legend grandfather and at the other yaya to find the smell of good meals and whole watermelons for dessert to dig tunnels with my cousins. In Chile, I am the richest child in the world.
In Quebec, our children, sometimes abused, trapped by street gangs, survive petty trafficking. Others have more success thanks to studies which sometimes help to integrate.
Fukuyama justifies Chilean-style functional dictatorships in The end of the storybut everything can’t stop there.
A Chile which seems trapped, refusing the bet of a new Constitution, risking remaining with that inherited from Pinochet including a quasi-legal coup d’état enclaved within it, even if its power has since been limited, that of the National Council of security with six unelected members including the commanders-in-chief of the Armed Forces and Carabineros.
This council called on November 7, 2019 by ex-president Pinera after declaring a state of exception in Santiago from October 19 to 28, 2019 seen in L’Estadillo Social, one day after the end of the 88e Interpol General Assembly. Some 900 representatives from 162 countries, including 70 police directors and ministers gathered in Santiago, from October 15 to 18, 2019. The day the Assembly ended, at 11:37 p.m., the fire began in several Santiago metro cars. Protesters are detained and charged. Of the 27 files opened, only one conviction.
One of the prosecutors, Mr.e Barros, explains the difficulties of access to the places. It remains nebulous. But for experts who are committed to combating the current and future threats of organized crime and terrorism in their countries, a live laboratory is available to them on the very day their meeting ends. I don’t know if they were able to change their return tickets to stay there?
The young leaders of the 2011 student strikes, Vallejo, Jackson and Boric, our young president, govern today. Thumbing their noses at history, they appoint Maya Allende, the president’s granddaughter, as Minister of Defense.
The doll gives way to songs and poems dedicated by Gabino Palomares, met in September 2001, we choose peace while others prepare for war. To the dream of a united Quebec by Nima Machouf and Amir Khadir. To the friendship of Talhou Gouin, and his wedding video of a cousin in Chile or the song by Roxanne Lamond for my 40th birthday. Memories of a trip to Chile with a Biffi and her sublime photos, the McNeils, My Duongs and Thibodeaus, memories of my family. A triumphant defeat by Jean Morisset sung by the tender Chloé Sainte-Marie with the help of Carmen Pavez from Acalanto. Paellas and bursts of laughter from friends. Our parents inherited this crazy dream of Chile’s road to socialism in the 1970s.
Like Gretel I had left pebbles so as not to get lost in the side roads. Place Bonaventure. Everyone disembarks. The essential always goes into a wicker basket.