Letter To My Torturer

During the dictatorship of General Pinochet in Chile thousand of victims were tortured. But once Pinochet was arrested, Tito Tricot, a victim of the regime, got the courage to confront a man who had carried out Pinochet’s orders and he wrote him this letter.

I have often wondered what has happened to you. Maybe you take your grandchildren to the town square on Sunday to listen to the local band. Have you ever wondered how many children never got to know their parents because you killed them? I do not think so, because you were a raging animal when you beat me and forced me to take off my blindfold. “Don’t you ever forget my face,” you said, “because I am the one who is going to kill you.”

I have never forgotten you, because torturers like you have names. They marry and have children. They go home after raping defenseless women. That’s why you must be worried now that your general has been arrested in London, because for the first time in 25 years you find yourself on the defensive.

How little we know about the School of the Americas where our officers are trained by the US army. They were taught that the prisoner should be dehumanized, treated as scum. That was the aim of the heat, the light, the blows, the noise, the submersion in filthy water, the shouting, the screaming all day and all night long. I never thought I could shiver in the middle of a hot night. But I did: it was electricity. The explosion of colors blinds you, then you only see shadows and silhouettes.

You wanted names and places, phone numbers and weapons. I could give you only long screams. There was a form of protection behind the dirty and smelly hood that covered my head. Some cried out of impotence, some out of pride, some out of fear. That’s why I will despise you forever. Not only because of my constant headaches, blackouts, aching bones and horrific memories, but for my sisters and brothers, those you beat so badly they could not walk, those you raped so violently they could hardly breathe. Where did the disappeared go? Do they smile? Do they dance? Do they plant trees? Where are they?

I do not expect the military to answer – they have not done it for 25 years. Gen. Pinochet once said that prisoners were buried two to a coffin in order to save space and money. His son has said that those who were killed were simply beasts. Yes, as beasts we were treated on Sept. 11, 1973, when we were forced on to the floor of state trucks with prisoners piled on top of each other. We were thrown into a ship, a floating concentration camp, the first of a series of camps and prisons I would be held in over a number of years.

You lived well on all the money and belongings you stole from your victims. You wore their clothes, hung their paintings on your walls. But you could never steal our dreams. There is a beautiful Nicaraguan song where the victim of repression tells his torturer: my revenge will be your children’s right to school and flowers. When you find it impossible to stare at people out of utter shame, my revenge will be to offer you these hands once mistreated. Me? I’m afraid I can’t sing.

Salamat sa Lladoc