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Rebirth of Chile’s culture
under fascist machine guns

By TOM MORRIS

TORONTO — ‘The liberation
of Chile will come through strug-
gle inside and outside my coun-
try,”’ said Volodia Teitelboim, a
Chilean Communist leader, poet
and writer, speaking to a packed
auditorium here July 3. The meet-
ing also heard greetings from the
Communist Party of Canada, the
NDP and a representative of the
Chilean left in Canada.

Ina moving speech, Teitelboim
spoke of the role of Chilean cul-
ture, its deep roots in the struggles
of his people, the junta’s desper-
ate efforts to crush the country’s
cultural heritage and its rebirth.

Ina moving speech, Tietelboim
spoke of the role of Chilean cul-
ture, its deep roots in the struggles
of his people, the junta’s desper-
ate efforts to crush the country’s
cultural heritage and its rebirth.

He is well qualified to talk -of
this: Teitelboim is one of the van-
guard of Chilean writers. His
work began early with an anthol-
ogy of Chilean poetry compiled in
1935. He worked closely with the
great poet Pablo Neruda in de-
fence of Chilean culture and was

forced to live underground from

1947 to 1951.

In 1956 he spent time in the
notorious Pisagua concentration
camp — a camp he had himself

written about earlier in his book,
The Sand and the Seed.
Tietelboim’s cultural and polit-
ical activities merged and he
joined the Communist Party in
1946. In 1951 he was elected to the

National Congress of Chile and in’

1965 elected a Senator from San-
tiago.

He was outside the country
when the fascist coup struck
Chile in 1973 and since then has
worked abroad. He is a member
of the Central Committee of the
Communist Party of Chile and
editor of Araucaria, the quarterly
Chilean-in-exile literary
magazine.

Tieltelboim spoke of Neruda
and his death 12 days after the
coup. ‘‘He saw the bombing of
Santiago, he. watched the destruc-
tion of the Moneda and heard of
the. death of Salvador Allende.
His dream of a humanitarian
Chile collapsed.

‘“‘Neruda dreamed of a
humanist, generous country and
it died under a hail of bullets on
September 11, 1973. He repeated
over and over at the end, ‘They
are murdering them .. .”

‘‘With Neruda’s death,’’
Tietelboim said, ‘it appeared cul-
ture, freedom and democracy in
Chile had died. But a smal! mira-

cle, which showed the people are
immortal, took place.

“His house had been ran-
sacked by soldiers and on the day
of his funeral a few friends were
there. But as Neruda’s coffin pas-
sed through the streets under the
machine guns of the military,
people came out from doorways
to be with their poet. Their num-
bers grew and someone cried:
‘Pablo Neruda! Present, now and
always!’

*‘And since the people had not
been able to say goodbye to their
president 12 days earlier, because
his body was secretly taken away
by soldiers, the people cried:
‘Salvador Allende! Present, now
and always!’ With these acts the
truth began to come out, the
songs. began again. And, as the
machine guns watched, the

people sang ‘The Internationale’.

It wasa clear warning to the junta;
it was an announcement to all the
people that the Chilean people
through these two martyrs would
fight.”

Tietelboim described the fury
of Pinochet’s attack on the cul-
tural heritage of Chile. Books
were burned, libraries and homes
looted and their contents de-
stroyed. ‘‘Fascism shakes hands
with ignorance’’, he said. The his-

Volodia Teitelboim (translator right), speaking at a Toronto meeti

tory and films of Chile were set
fire.

*‘Under the so-called ideals of
‘spirituality and idealism’ the fas-
cists murdered Victor Jara and
other artists because art, culture,
music and universities are
dangerous to them,”’ he charged.

He described the state of fear
immediately following the coup
when the DINA rounded people
up. ‘A cultural silence began, but
the people were determined to
end the blackout and turn on the
lights again.”’

Today there are cultural groups
among the working people and in
the universities. Teachers are
speaking out; so are clerics. New

young poets and artists emerge

under the very nose of the regime.

~Sandino — the spirit of Nicaragua

é

Tietelboim then paid high ?
bute to the struggle of the Nica
guan people. ‘‘Latin America!
not a broken continent,”’ he
“And this outstanding fact in 00!
temporary Latin American Hh
tory is called Nicaragua. :

“A. Chilean poet called th
Nicaraguan patriot Sandino ‘th!
General of Free Men’. Af
Neruda dedicated a special poer
to him and, of Bolivar said, “Be -
awakens with every struggle
the people of Latin America’
Sandino has awakened with hi
people . .. he is now at the head 0
a whole, armed people with thé
solidarity of an entire. continell!
behind them.”’ /

aR

should review

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background.

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—JULY 13, 1979— Page 6

MAY 1927-was a very significant
month in the history of the heroism of
peoples, in their struggles for free-
dom, in the confrontation between
handfuls of dignified and courageous
fighters and aggressive, unscrupulous
imperialist powers: in short, in the his-
tory of great decisions made by excep-
tional men who, with a gesture, an
attitude or a position, change the
course of events — men who are re-
sponsible for what has been called
“‘humanity’s shining moments.*’ San-
dino was the protagonist of one of
those moments in May of 1927, in
Nicaragua. To understand its impor-

It was during the fourth Yankee
invasion of Nicaragua that Sandino
came to the fore. What could
have been limited to a mere brawl be-
tween anachronistic Nicaraguan fac-
tions, liberals and conservatives, and
another Yankee attack while the rest
of the world looked on indifferently,
turned into a saga that shook peoples
and their best advocates everywhere
and became a moral force and banner

of the people of Nicaragua in their
present-day struggle.

When Sacasa and Moncada in-
itiated the constitutionalist rebellion,
Sandino went from Mexico to
Nicaragua where he worked as an as-
sistant to the paymaster at the San
Albino mine. This was a means of
obtaining weapons and organizing the
first contingent to join the liberals.
Why the liberals?

A revolutionary who was co-
founder of the Sandinista National
Liberation Front (FSLN) in 1962 and
was killed in action on July 15, 1978,
gave the following explanation in a
short sketch of Sandino in 1926: ‘‘The
progressive ideas he had come into
contact with in Mexico together with
the liberal views he encountered in
Nicaragua led him to join what at the
time was the most progressive move-
ment in Nicaragua.’’ (J. Benito Es-
cobar Pérez: Ideario sandinista) But
Sandino’s sharp eye was already set
on broader horizons than those of the
liberal leaders who were increasingly
shortsighted. The latter were provin-
cial, petty individuals who felt that the
Yankees were invincible.

Since the first clash, which took.

place in Jicaro, Nueva Segovia, on
November 2, 1926, until the capture of
Jinotega on March 28, 1927, Sandino
fought a series of battles in which he
demonstrated his genius as a military
Strategist. He defeated the conser-
vative forces every time. The Yan-
Kees had not yet gone into action, but
U.S. planes ‘“‘rented’’ by Diaz had
savagely bombed Chinandega, leav-
ing it in flames. More marines disem-
barked in Corinto while another 2,000
arrived, having been sent by General
Logan Felland. The Chinandega-
Leén-Managua railroad line was also

declared a ‘‘neutral zone’’ and the ad-
vance of liberal forces was halted in
the area between Muy Muy and
Boaco. At this point, the personal rep-
resentative of President Coolidge,
Henry L. Stimson, arrived in
Nicaragua to restore law and order —
Yankee law and order, of course.

Stimson did not have to exert him-
self too much. Moncada undertook to
represent the liberals and shamefully
sold out to Stimson on May 4, 1927.
With the pact of Espino Negro, signed
in Tipitapa, the national dignity and all
the sacrifices made by the Con-
Stitutionalist Army were com-
promised in return for the promise
that Moncada would become the next
president in 1928.

All the leaders of the liberal forces
agreed to the sell out, all except one:
Sandino. Seven days later, on that
ominous day of May 15, the liberals
handed over their arms to Stimson
and the army entered Managua, un-
armed. On the following day, the
marines took over the police force and
created the National Guard, which
later hatched Anastasio Somoza. The
story could have ended here, on this
sad note.

However, Sandino, from a remote
corner of the country, challenged the
unequaled insolence of the im-
perialists in what was a magnificent
gesture to save the dignity of
Nicaragua. He categorically refused
to surrender or to accept Moncada’s
arguments according to which the*
Nicaraguans, confronted by a
“powerful nation of 120 million
inhabitants,” could do nothing. ‘‘We
would be like the prey trapped under
the claws of a tiger. The more he
moves, the deeper the claws sink in,”’
argued Moncada. Sandino countered

this cowardly reasoning with the
willingness to die for freedom, if need
be. He hoisted the red and black flag,
the symbol of liberty or death.

This was the crucial moment, the
shining instant. Sandino himself de-
scribed it with moving simplicity: *:
spent three days on El Comin Hill,
beaten, sad; without knowing what
position to take, whether to hand over
the weapons or defend the country,
which was desperately crying out to
its children. I didn’t want my soldiers
to see my crying and so I sought to be
alone.

I finally made up my mind and de-

_ cided to fight.’ On May 12, he addres-

sed a circular to the authorities of

Jinotega in which he emphatically de- —

clared: ‘‘I am not willing to hand over
my arms even if everyone else does
so. I will have to die with the few
soldiers that stay with me, because it
is better to die as rebels than to live as
slaves.”’

On May 19 he repeated his decision
to all the authorities of Las Segovias
and, on May 23, he gave a categorical
reply to Moncada, who was by then
the straw man of the marines. From
Jinotega, occupied by the marines,

- Moncada demanded that Sandino sur-

render. Sandino replied that he would
never give in his arms as long as the
marines remain in Nicaragua.

On January 1, 1933, the Yankees
retreated, defeated by Sandino. This
clear proof that imperialism was not
omnipotent was hailed the world
over. Likewise, today, the whole

world recognizes the profound truth —

of Sandino’s message: ‘‘We will go
towards the light of liberty or towards
death, and, if we die, our cause will
live on. Others will follow us.”’
(Manuel Galich in Granma)