Radio Havana Cuba | The memory of Chile also comes alive at the Pan American Games in Santiago

Santiago de Chile, October 31 (Prensa Latina) Chile is unforgettable. The memory of the Pinochet dictatorship is present in every corner of the National Stadium, today the heart of the 2023 Pan American Games in Santiago.

50 years after the military coup that overthrew President Salvador Allende, the multi-sporting event also became an ideal venue to highlight what was undoubtedly the darkest period in Chilean history.

It is hard to believe that the huge stadium, where so many people pass by smiling today, was once the dungeons, torture and shooting of the dictatorship’s largest detention center. But precisely, so as not to forget it, there is a memory path.

Among the spaces you visit are the women’s locker room No. 1 and slot No. 8 in the grandstand, from which the prisoners were taken, and through which the Chilean flag bearer, Christel Cuprich, entered the stadium carrying the Pan American torch at the opening ceremony of the Games. .

A few meters away, in a solemn corner, photographs of the time and portraits of several prisoners are on display, while the old silo displays a mural painted by artist Alejandro “Mono” Gonzalez.

The 27-meter-high tower, which stands out among the sports facilities, reflects the gaze of a crying woman, evoking the events of 1973.

At those times, mothers, sisters and daughters would gather around the building, waiting for news from their detained relatives.

Recently, the road was reopened in the presence of the prominent Chilean poet Raul Zurita, who recited the poem La Greta, personally recalling what thousands of Chileans suffered fifty years ago after the coup.

“Among the heels and the blows we stagger and fall. Where are we going? Where am I going? The winding dirt road feels like a crack under my feet. ‘I feel the blows again,’ I read some fragments.

As Santiago 2023 leader Harold Mayne Nicholls said, all these expressions “are part of our history, which is painful, but it is our history.”

He stated that all Chileans and the world must know this “so that these atrocities will never happen again.”

With its lights and shadows, the National Stadium itself bears a phrase painted on its northern grandstand that sums up the importance of not surrendering to forgetfulness: “A city without memory is a city without a future.” (R L)