The disappeared

In Chile, having slept off some of the tiredness we had from the flight and a last night that deprived us of much sleep, we walked along “Londres”, the name of the road we are staying on and the Pension we are staying in, and immediately had a reminder that history lives.

Thirty five years ago this month, Gerardo and Ernesto Morales were brought to number 38 of this street, to a “Casa de tortura” of Pinochet’s. They were never seen again. Outside the building, people gave speeches, played music and remembered the half-brothers and the other victims of the murdering tyrant who escaped appropriate justice in this life (friendship with Maggie Thatcher doesn’t count).

Pinochet of course took power in a coup on 11^th September 1973, deposing the democratically elected Socialist Salvador Allende, who died in the process. His reign of terror was such as to alter the English language: the verb “disappear” changed from being solely an intransitive verb (eg The brothers disappeared) into a transitive one too (eg Pinochet’s henchmen disappeared thousands of innocent people). It has since been used in the latter manner in other Latin American countries we will visit in the coming months.