Headlines, Human Rights, Latin America & the Caribbean

CHILE: Images of Exile

Daniela Estrada

SANTIAGO, Apr 13 2009 (IPS) - Painful images of the exile suffered by thousands of Chileans during the dictatorship of General Augusto Pinochet and of the expressions of solidarity from the countries that took them in are presented in a new book with a prologue by internationally renowned writer Ariel Dorfman.

“It was very painful for us to write this book,” Estela Aguirre and Sonia Chamorro, authors of “L. Memoria gráfica del exilio chileno 1973-1989” (L; Graphic Memory of Chilean Exile 1973-1989), launched this month in Santiago, told IPS.

Aguirre and Chamorro lived in different countries in Europe in the 1970s, and in the 1980s they were active in the Committee for the Return of Exiles.

The sad memories start with the title. The letter “L” was stamped on the passports of Chileans who were not allowed back into the country during the 17-year dictatorship of the late Pinochet (1915-2006), which began with the Sept. 11, 1973 coup d’etat that overthrew the democratically elected leftwing government of Salvador Allende.

From that moment on, “thousands of Chileans sought asylum in embassies and consulates, others were forced into exile, and a significant number (of political prisoners) who had their sentences commuted for banishment were not allowed to return to the country at the end of their sentences,” says the book, published by the Ocho Libros publishing company.

Many Chileans who fled the country and others who were abroad at the time of the coup were not allowed back in either.

In the prologue to the 174-page book presented Apr. 7 in the National Library in Santiago, Dorfman describes the feelings he had while writing that section – a task he initially thought would be easy.

“I didn’t expect to feel myself once again overcome by the sense of loss brought on by the departure from Chile, the tragedy – not just mine but of an entire continent; the traumatic experience of not recognising syllables, colours, hills or the smells of the ‘marraqueta’ (typical Chilean bread); those nights when I knew what was happening in some cellar in my country at that very moment and there was nothing I could do, nothing, absolutely nothing to stop those heinous crimes,” said the writer.

Truth reports commissioned by the centre-left Coalition of Parties for Democracy, which has governed the country since the return to democracy in 1990, found that more than 3,000 dissidents were killed or forcibly disappeared during the de facto regime, and another 35,000 were tortured.

There are no official statistics on how many Chileans were forced into exile for political reasons. Estimates range from 200,000 to one million people, report the authors of “L. Memoria gráfica del exilio…”, which is dedicated to the memory of socialist President Allende.

“This is a book with a tremendous emotional impact, because it brings together a large number of photos, of moments of exile, documents from exile, signs painted in numerous countries in the world where international solidarity with the people of Chile was expressed with extraordinary force,” writer José Miguel Varas, 2006 national literature prize-winner, told IPS.

“For those of us who lived in exile, (Aguirre and Chamorro’s book) is a big jolt, but it is also a wealth of information for those who did not live through that experience,” said Varas, who lived in exile in Moscow and was among those who presented the book.

The experiences of exiled Chileans varied enormously. While some integrated well in the societies that took them in, studying and forming families, others never managed to get over the forced exile. Many returned to Chile when democracy was restored in 1990, but others stayed abroad, continuing with their lives.

The first chapter of the book, “The Chilean Exile”, touches on the decrees issued by Pinochet to arbitrarily legalise the expulsions, the lists published by the regime with the names of those who were or were not allowed to live in the country, and the identities of dissidents who were killed far from their hometowns.

It also mentions organisations that provided support to exiles and advocated their return, and the spontaneous shows of solidarity expressed around the world.

The second chapter, “A Glance at Cultural Expressions in Exile”, depicts musical, artistic, photographic, literary, filmmaking and theatre activities carried out by Chileans in the more than 50 countries that took them in.

All of this is accompanied by images and photos of protests, political posters, the covers of books, newspapers, magazines and albums, movie posters, and innumerable passports, letters and other documents.

“Murals and protest paintings characterised the work of Chilean artists in exile like José Balmes, Eduardo Martínez Bonati, Alberto Pérez and Gracia Barros,” the authors explain.

“Political posters also became one of the most powerful tools of protest and the call for solidarity,” says the book. Many of them form part of the collections of leading institutions like the Musée de la Publicité (Museum of Advertising) in Paris or the U.S. Library of Congress.

The book contains, for example, a poster for the “Chili Espoir” exhibition held at the Maison de la Culture André Malraux in Reims, France in 1977, with the participation of 60 Chilean artists dispersed around the world. It also shows colourful murals painted by teams of artists.

Other forms of art also flourished among Chilean exiles. Some had successful careers abroad, like filmmaker Raúl Ruiz, playwrights Óscar Castro and Jorge Díaz, writer Isabel Allende and the musical groups Los Jaivas, Quilapayún and Inti Illimani, to name just a few.

There were also numerous political, literary and academic magazines published by Chileans abroad, like Araucaria de Chile, published in France and Spain for 12 years, the Boletín del Exterior, which circulated for 15 years in several countries of Europe, and Literatura Chilena en el Exilio, founded in 1977 in the United States.

On the political front, 77-year-old Estela Aguirre pointed out that nearly 20 years after the end of the dictatorship, Chileans abroad still can’t vote in Chilean elections.

According to official figures from 2005, some 860,000 Chileans live abroad today, nearly 490,000 of whom were born in this South American country of 16 million people.

“L. Memoria gráfica del exilio…”, which received financial support from the state National Fund to Foment Books and Reading, ends with an image of the cover of the Sept. 1, 1988 edition of the conservative newspaper La Segunda, which carries a big headline in red letters: “Fin del exilio” (End of Exile).