Why
we are here
------------
On September 11, 1973 torturers and murderers in uniform assailed the building in which
the daily Puro Chile had its offices, after it had been under intense attack by heavy
machine-gun fire. Once inside the offices, the robbers in uniform destroyed furniture, the
archives and the work of the journalists, to then throw all the debris onto one heap and
set it alight. In this way, the torturers and murderers in uniform attempted to physically
wipe-out the existence of Puro Chile from Chilean soil. They reduced our offices to
pieces, but not our dream of social justice and a better future for mankind.
Now, almost 30 years later, from the ashes left by the bandits in uniform Puro Chile is
reborn like a homage to those who fell, were tortured, to those who disappeared, were
killed, to those who were humiliated and offended by the monstrous claw of the murderers
in uniform.
Like a symbol of all this, I declare that Puro Chile is also reborn to keep alive the
memory of my other two companions who kept alive the flame of the dream Puro Chile was
defending: Eugenio Lira Massi, who died in Paris in exile, and José Gómez López, who
died in Santiago, years after he was killed psychologically by the torturers and killers
in uniform. "Paco“ and "Pepe“ are probably the best journalists that
sprang up from our country‘s soil in the 20th century. It is my task, as the only one
of the "three mosquetiers“, who is still alive, to carry on our dream, beyond
the reach of the crooks who took over Chile in 1973. And in this task I am not alone.
Why are we here? Because we want to impede that dishonesty, brutality and ignorance block
the minds of our people, of our history, a history that is one of a group of bandits with
the power of the big capital, helped by the bandits in the North, living from the work,
the sweat and the tears of our workers - men, women, children and the elder. And it is
also the history of our workers - children, old people, women and men - fighting to
dislodge the power of the big capital in order to form a just society, a society for all
Chileans.
Why are we here? Because we want to be the memory of our people, so that no one will
forget the crimes of the treacherous, dishonest and murderous generals. So that no one
shall forget that the bandits in Washington were the proprietors of the generals, and that
the bandits in uniform or in civilian clothes protect the interests of the big capital,
the same big capital that poisons our planet, sentencing it to death.
Why are we here? Because we want to help all our people to better understand everything
that surrounds them, and with this knowledge be able to gain public opinion, the strength
of the working people and to push aside the bandits and take away their power, so that our
people can create a new society, just and human, where our children will be the owners,
where, as someone had said, the landscape will have no owner. And when the landscape has
no owner, man will be free.
I would like to thank for the solidarity of many who dream the same dream that Pepe and
Paco were dreaming, and that I am dreaming, and that millions of human beings on this
planet dream, a solidarity contributing to the creation of a better world, more beautiful
and sweeter for our children, the children of all of us, in every corner of the world.
And, with that solidarity our dream will continue alive „regardless of everything and
for ever“.
Róbinson Rojas
September, 2000 |