My Years Under a Dictatorship
I was born in a Latin American country. I grew up under military dictatorships that were economically and militarily supported by U.S. imperialism.
In my early youth, civil war broke out to overthrow the military dictatorship and U.S. intervention in my country. As a Catholic woman, I joined the revolutionary struggle alongside the working class of my country. I lived the persecution. I had to live underground. In war, one faces death every second. Many people close to me, including several members of my family, had to seek political asylum in other countries. Others migrated to escape the war. Others were killed, disappeared, imprisoned, or tortured by the military dictatorship. I survived.
The years under the military dictatorship and the war left me with feelings of urgency, terror, mistrust, hopelessness, being defeated, and isolation. And women experienced not only the oppression of the dictatorship but also the oppression of sexism within our revolutionary movements. We had to be silent. To speak out about the sexism was to betray the revolution. This left us angry and confused when the civil war ended.
New generations of women have brought hope to our women’s liberation movement in Latin America. Discharging for several years has been key to my understanding that men are not our enemies. Rather, they are our natural allies in the struggle against all oppressions. Only together can we build a society with justice and without sexism.
In solidarity,
(Present Time 203, April 2021)