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GRANMA INTERNATIONAL 1997. ELECTRONIC EDITION. Havana, Cuba
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BY MARELYS VALENCIA ALMEIDA (Granma International staff writer)
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GLADYS Mar=EDn is a readily approachable woman, in spite of being one of
the 100 most wanted persons in Chile 20 years ago. Her eyes are
charismatic and generous, although with a strength that indicates
defensiveness.
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Perhaps it was that strength that helped her in the hardest moments,
after Allende was killed in the coup d'=E9tat in 1973, when she was the
Communist Youth leader. She had to live in hiding until she managed to
gain asylum in the Dutch embassy and subsequently leave the country.
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Her exile was a short one. She returned in 1978, fatter, or rather
disguised as an obese woman, with a Spanish accent and a Spanish
passport, and the history of a coup-transformed homeland fixed in her
mind, in case she was interrogated.
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This was how the clandestine history of the woman then called "Isa"
started. The dictatorship never found her. Luckily, now I can talk
with Gladys.
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What was it like, after having been so well-known in Chile, to return
without anyone being able to recognize you?
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Well, that happened to me as soon as I arrived at the house where I
was going to stay. I was given the address of a woman who lived in an
upper-class neighborhood, an area I'd never been in. She knew somebody
was coming to stay, but had no idea that it was me. She was shocked.
She gave me a drink of water and told me that I couldn't stay there.
She'd recognized me. Then she took me to the house of a friend who
lived with her six children in the same district. I don't have any
hard feelings toward her, I understand her perfectly. If they'd
discovered me, we'd both have been killed.
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Did you stay there throughout the dictatorship?
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No. I moved from place to place. I had to keep on the move in case
they discovered my trail. The other woman, although she wasn't
well-off and had the six children, was very welcoming. She's my great
friend to this day. My new name at that time was Isabel, like Isabel
Parra. But they called me Isa.
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Later I left the country again. I was in Cuba in 1980, and then in the
Soviet Union, where the leadership of the Communist Party of Chile was
in exile. In fact, I left Chile two or three times, undercover.
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And were they ever close to discovering you?
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I had a few scares, although what I was really frightened of was not
being in prison, but that another political commission of the Party
would be lost. Two had already disappeared.
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On one occasion, we met in the house of a friend. Not long afterwards,
some agents from the National Center of Intelligence (CNI) knocked on
the door. We did not know it, but they were conducting a raid in the
area. We immediately hid the papers under the furniture. Luckily, the
woman who owned the house was a corporate lawyer and she told the CNI
that we were in a law office work meeting. We were always very
careful. That's why we didn't get caught.
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Nonetheless, after the dictatorship, last year to be exact, weren't
you arrested for verbally attacking Pinochet in a speech?
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Yes. It was my September 11 speech in honor of all of those who fell
in Chile. Pinochet had stated that we were responsible for the
politics of popular rebellion. So, I took advantage of the speech to
inform him that we weren't afraid to show our faces and that he was
the one really responsible for everything that happened. I called him
a psychopath and a coward. He accused me of defamation. In fact, I was
held for about six days. They released me because of the pressure of
national and international public opinion. Moreover, that was the time
of the Ibero-American Summit of heads of state and I think my
situation was embarrassing for them. Pinochet decided to withdraw his
charge.
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In the new circumstances, has the Communist Party's discourse changed?
What's the current situation?
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Our discourse has been enriched. We've used the experience of what
happened in Eastern Europe, our periods of living in exile; we've also
incorporated an ecologist policy and all the cultural traditions of
our people. The essence of our Party continues to be the same.
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Now, I'm a candidate for senator for our group in the December
elections. And we have a chance. We're the second largest force in the
United Federation of Chilean Workers; the first in the country's most
powerful trade union, the Professors Association, and also in the
health union and in the Federation of Students of Chile.
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You were invited to the 14th World Festival of Youth and Students.
What did you think of that encounter?
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It's a great lesson for the entire world. It demonstrated that young
people want to change things, to participate. The story that youth
don't want to participate in anything is an invention of
neoliberalism, of the media transnationals to discourage hope. Youth
has always been a force for change.
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There was one central figure in this event: Che. And for me this was a
call on us to maintain our responsibility with the times, to make a
revolutionary transformation of society.
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The festival was also a blow to imperialism, the blockade and the
Helms-Burton Act.
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Silvio Rodr=EDguez came to see you. Are you very close friends?
Something very special happened to me with Silvio. We've been friends
for more than 20 years, although we hardly ever see each other. When
we met this time, it seemed like I'd seen him yesterday. And it's
worth going out of your way to see friends that you love a lot.
Shawgi Tell
Graduate School of Education
University at Buffalo
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
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