Madrid (EFE) but they should be.”
Boric expressed himself like this during the celebration of an act in the Casa de América for the 50th anniversary of the coup d’état in Chile in 1973 by General Augusto Pinochet, in which the former socialist president José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, the Nicaraguan poet Gioconda Belli and the Spanish singer Joan Manuel Serrat.
The president received a warm welcome upon his arrival at a Gabriela Mistral amphitheater packed with attendees, who attended the Chilean invitation to commemorate the figure of former president Salvador Allende, who died during the coup.
“The vicissitudes of politics have hurt me so that due to some internal mechanism I have not been able to cry for nearly three years and you are about to break it because listening to each one of you, the presence of those who are and those who are not, it is very strong and it removes us,” Boric said.
Those who “are not”
The president, a former student leader, referred to the figure of one of the victims of the dictatorship, Lumi Videla, “one of the people who is not here, but should be.”
It is estimated that the Chilean dictatorship caused more than 40,000 victims, including more than 3,000 murdered and disappeared.
Videla “was brutally murdered, thrown, like a rag, into the Italian Embassy in Chile, a militant from a different world, and in her I want to represent those who are not here today and should have been, but one also listens to the words of Gioconda, by Zapatero, and they stir the depths and make us say very forcefully that we do not forget and that it makes sense to continue fighting”.
Regarding Allende, he stressed that he was a “democrat who fought for the deepening of democracy” and “insisted on the Chilean conviction of the revolution with the flavor of empanada and red wine, on the peaceful road.”
“For freedom, we bleed, we fight, we survive -said the president, quoting the Spanish poet Miguel Hernández- that of the dictatorship is a very strong wound because we continue looking for our disappeared”.
The figure of Allende
Former President José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero praised the figure of Allende, and assured that “the convictions of dignity and courage” are owed to him.
“Chile gave the world the figure of Allende, the ideals of dignity, to Chile we owe that recognition and to Allende in these 50 years infinite gratitude,” the former president assumed before thanking Boric for his “sincerity, humanism, courage and dignity of remembering Allende with all the honors as the world expects and applauds you for it”.
Several personalities from the Spanish left were present at the event, such as the Minister of Equality, Irene Montero; the former mayor of Barcelona, Ada Colau, and Judge Baltarsar Garzón.