Pinochet Archives - Not Even Past

The Battle of Chile

“Where is that terrible beauty we planted so long ago?”

-Santiago del Nuevo Extremo

Rodolfo Müller is almost a hundred years old, now. He still lives in the same house as always, off Simón Bolivar, between Hamburgo and Coventry. That’s in Ñuñoa, a township on the near west side of Santiago. It’s a big house, and very nice but unpretentious. If he had wanted, he could have picked a more prestigious address further north, in Providencia, or up higher, in Las Condes. But he didn’t.

Rodolfo was born in Germany in about 1920. Before World War II, he came to Chile with his parents and his brother. They were just teenagers. I met him when he was almost sixty. He still looked very German after all those years: tall, blond, and blue-eyed. But he was a Jew. That’s what people said, anyway. Maybe, just on his mother’s side. They came to Chile to escape from Hitler. They left in time and made new lives in South America.

Rodolfo was a violinist and a pretty good one, apparently. Until he lost a segment of his little finger in an accident. If it had been his right hand, it wouldn’t have mattered as much, not for the violin. But it was the left. Violinists use that a lot. Rodolfo was a mechanic. It was a work-related accident. Machines are cold-hearted and unforgiving in that way.

He drove a ’64 Volvo. It was old, even then, but it ran like a Swiss watch. He did all the work on it personally. Rodolfo was not the mechanic at the shop on the corner. He was the ace; the mechanical surgeon. A horse-tamer for steel and steam. When big industrial contraptions at local factories broke down, they came and got Rodolfo. He understood machines.

When he gave up the violin, Rodolfo started playing the accordion. You can’t have music from Chiloé without an accordion. Besides, after Beethoven’s quartets, the melodies from Chiloé were simple, comrade. He played in a group was called Aydar. His wife, Irma Silva, was the director.

Jorge Müller shooting for the film The Battle of Chile — Jorge Müller shooting for the film *The Battle of Chile* (via Patricio Guzmán)

Chiloé is an island in the south. Potatoes, sheep, and seafood. Theirs was a picturesque culture and they had a music all their own. Aydar comes from the local vocabulary. It’s a contraction of ayudar, to help. Solidarity is fundamental for survival in a place like that. It was primitive island communism. It’s just how it was.

Irma and Rodolfo were members of the Association of the Relatives of the Detained-Disappeared, (Agrupación de Familiares de Detenidos-Desaparecidos). Aydar was not the official group of the Association. There was one. But this was Irma’s project, where Inelia sang and danced the cueca with Lucho from Lo Hermida. It’s where I met Pepe and Alfredo, Victor and Jaqueline, Sonia and the unforgettable Miguel Marín. I played guitar and sang backup vocals. I could do harmony. People liked that. Everyone there had been hurt by the Pinochet regime in one way or another. It was our protest group. They couldn’t kill the joy.

Irma was a professional folklorist. She even taught folklore at the University, before the coup. After the coup, folklore was considered suspicious. Too many leftists.

Irma and Rodolfo were the parents of Jorge Müller, the filmmaker. He disappeared on November 29, 1974, along with his girlfriend, the actress and producer, Carmen Bueno. Inelia’s boy, Tito, had been gone four months by then. Miguel Angel, Doris Meniconi’s boy, just ten days.

Jorge Müller and Carmen Bueno were clandestine members of the Movement of the Revolutionary Left, also known as MIR. Before the coup, they had worked for Chile Films. With director Patricio Guzmán, they made the documentary, La batalla de Chile –The Battle of Chile. It was about the historical process in Salvador Allende’s Popular Unity government. It was meant to be a memoir of the revolution, but it devolved into a denunciation of the coup. Jorge was the cameraman. The whole world can now see the coup unfolding through his eyes.

Jorge Müller and Patricio Guzmán (via Patricio Guzmán)

Now, if MIR wanted a documentary about the Popular Unity government, it wasn’t to come out in support of the idea that the ballot box was the right way to have a revolution, comrade. MIR wasn’t a part of the Popular Unity coalition. They believed in violent overthrow or nothing at all. The theory was that if you tried to take over the means of production nicely, there will be a coup. They were right about that. But Chile Films was more than just MIR, and documentaries are more than just propaganda. In the long run, The Battle of Chile got out of control. Now, it’s a classic.

The unedited footage was smuggled out after the coup. That cost Jorge his life. Irma was inconsolable. She was a high society lady, deep down. She liked things done properly, efficiently and on time. She joined the Association when Jorge disappeared. Later, she created Aydar.

Folklore from Chiloé was raucous, sentimental, and fun. Someone would speak briefly, at the beginning of our presentations, to say who we were and why we were there. Then, it was strictly repertoire from Chiloé. Some of the songs talked about lovers lost at sea, or travelers who never came home, but the listeners had to make the connection themselves. It was a challenge to the regime, but an indirect one. A clever one.

Among the mothers in the Association, Irma was one of the youngest. She died of cancer in ’94. Pinochet was no longer in power, but there was still no news of Jorge. Rodolfo was left alone. A grandson went to live with him. And there are many friends from the old days. He hasn’t been forgotten. His son was an artist. One of the best Chile has ever known. But there can be no poets in Plato’s Republic, comrade. As it turns out, the real battle of Chile was one that we would lose. The whole project of a world that is fair, just, and free has collapsed.

The Battle of Chile movie poster (via Patricio Guzmán)

They started filming in May of ’72. The tale had begun, but no one knew how it would end. Víctor Jara had a song about that, from before. After the coup, Santiago del Nuevo Extremo gave us the verse, where is that terrible beauty we planted, so long ago? Nostalgia, comrade.

The revolution failed, but the film is still a treasure. It has its rightful place today in the shantytowns of poor Chilean youth, the ones who never knew that once there had been a dream.

Irma and Rodolfo had a house on the coast, at El Quisco. That was a beautiful beach and, in its heyday, pretty elegant. Now, it has sort of come down in the world. People with money don’t go there anymore. They prefer Algarrobo, Papudo and Zapallar. Not because the beaches are any better, only because the crowd is more exclusive.

Irma and Rodolfo’s house was up on a cliff, right near the shore. It was a wooden house, red and white, with a huge pine tree in the front. The beach was about five hundred feet away, but to get there, you had to take the stairs. It was about two-hundred feet down. Which was why the view from the back porch was so spectacular. There was a well that never went dry. In a coastal town with a chronic water shortage, Irma and Rodolfo’s house was the oasis.

Deep down, Jorge liked the good life. Given a choice between a political demonstration downtown and a day at the beach with his friends, he preferred the day at the beach. El Quisco was his beach. I bought that house in 1987. Irma and Rodolfo sold it because they needed the money and because they weren’t going very often anymore. It was hard, because it was Jorge’s house, too. It was as if his footsteps could still be heard there. As if his heart were still beating there. Something about the smell. When I went, which was quite often, it was as if I dreamed his dreams and saw his visions. Irma and Rodolfo wanted the house to stay in the family. It was a simple place, but enchanting.

Aydar performed from ’76 until ’88, more or less. Those were glorious years, tragic and triumphant. Irma and Rodolfo had another child, a daughter, but Jorge was their pride and joy. And they were right to be proud. Repressive government doesn’t work out when people can see the truth.

The DINA took Jorge Müller and Carmen Bueno at 9:30 am on the corner of Bilbao and Los Leones. They had been to a party with the cast and crew of another film that had opened the night before at Cine Las Condes. They were on their way to work at Chile Films, but they never made it there. Agents appeared in civilian clothing, driving a grey Chevrolet pick-up. We have seen them before. They tried to rip out the people’s eyes and ears, comrade, but we still have the film. That’s not ever going away.

Perhaps, Jorge and Carmen died believing that victory was imminent. That’s what MIR had taught them. Song, poetry and cinema are more powerful than bombs and bullets. Maybe they are, but sometimes, they are not powerful enough.

For more on Chile’s disappeared ones, see www.memoriaviva.com.

La Batalla de Chile is available on Youtube, linked here is part one of four.

Also by Nathan Stone on Not Even Past:

Rodolfo Valentín González Pérez: An Unusual Disappearance

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Rodolfo Valentín González Pérez: An unusual disappearance

They weren’t all the same. We know of at least one soldier who had a conscience. There were several, actually. Most were weighty figures, captains and colonels who refused to follow orders. Some of them quit or went into exile. Others died. But I’m talking about conscripts, the powerless boys who were in military service when the decision was made to interrupt the institutional process of the Chilean state on September 11, 1973. When the elected socialist government of Salvador Allende was overthrown by the US-backed Chilean military. When those boys were commanded to arrest, torture, and kill their own brothers and sisters.

Rodolfo González was one such conscript. He was proud that he had been chosen for the Air Force. He was just eighteen. After the coup, he was commissioned to serve at the DINA, Dirección de Inteligencia Nacional. That was General Pinochet’s secret police.

Rodolfo wasn’t an agent, but he did participate. He had guard duty. He delivered messages. He got coffee for the boss when the boss got tired of torturing someone.

He lived with his aunt, María González. I knew her. She was a member of the Association of the Relatives of the Detained-Disappeared (Agrupación de Familiares de Detenidos-Desaparecidos) until the day she died. She marched alongside Doris, Inelia, and the mothers of so many others who had disappeared, carrying her placard with the picture of Rodolfo. María González was an anomaly. Rodolfo was unusual company for the other prisoners at Villa Grimaldi, too.

Demonstration by members of the Association of the Relatives of the Detained-Disappeared (Photographer: Kena Lorenzini, via Wikimedia Commons)

María González said that, when her nephew started out at the DINA, he stopped wearing a uniform. They gave him a dark suit and black shoes. They picked him up in a car every day, a black Chevrolet Impala with tinted windows. Once, Rodolfo showed his military ID to his aunt. It identified him as a member of the DINA. That was a violation of protocol. The first one.

During the dictatorship, showing military ID was understood as a threat. It was a way to cut in line and get preferential treatment. But the DINA was different. You weren’t supposed to show that one anywhere, except at the door. They had several doors, actually, all of them, secret.

Rodolfo Valentín didn’t do well at the DINA. His own humanity betrayed him. Some days, he was sent to guard prisoners with bullet wounds, internal injuries, and broken bones at the Military Hospital. He would use his privileged access to tell to the prisoners what their respective situations were. Later, he contacted some family members, letting them know where their loved ones were and in what condition.

Rodolfo Valentín González Pérez (via Memoria Viva)

Maybe he wasn’t so clever. Maybe Rodolfo really thought that was how it was done. That was, after all, the Chilean way. But not in the DINA. One would think he had been thoroughly briefed. My suspicion is that our Rodolfo Valentín was very clever. If so, he was in open rebellion.

I don’t know if he really thought he had a chance of not getting caught. Maybe, like many others, he believed the military government would be over soon. Or, maybe, he was just very brave. Rodolfo was already a witness to the wildness of the DINA. If he wasn’t on board, then he was dangerous. The day would come when he would speak out.

He had an older brother who was a leftist militant. He had been given temporary asylum at the Argentine embassy.

Rodolfo was the third of ten. He had lived with his aunt since he was small. His father had died in ’64, leaving his mother more mouths than she could feed. His aunt had raised him to lighten the load. But someone had taught him very young that there are things one would never do to another human being. Perhaps that was his father.

He fell in step with the DINA at the beginning. Afraid, perhaps, or just following orders, as they say. And, maybe, he missed his father. That would leave any boy vulnerable to the military style. And maybe he was the favorite recruit of someone important. Military hierarchy works that way, believe it or not. And it just might be true that Rodolfo was momentarily tempted by the unlimited power of the DINA. It was naked, corrupt, clandestine, total power.

One thing we know for certain. His parents loved the cinema. That’s how he got the name Rodolfo Valentín. Perhaps, they were romantics, fans of Gardel, the tango singer. The cosmopolitan night life of Santiago in the ‘50’s ended, for them, abruptly. A heart attack, or an accident; I’m not sure. Rodolfo was ten when he went to live with his aunt.

The DINA caught him, of course. Communicating with the incomunicados. The next day, he was one of them. They took him from aunt’s home on the night of July 23, 1974. He could have met Inelia’s boy, Héctor, first as a DINA man, with infinite power over him, and, a few days later, as a comrade in the anonymous darkness at Villa Grimaldi.

During the Popular Unity years, Luz Arce had belonged to the Socialist Party. She was taken in June 1974. Rodolfo was her guard at the Military Hospital. He became too friendly. He even asked for her advice about how to get his brother out of the country.

Then, Luz Arce defected to the enemy. First, she became an informant and, later, a full-blown DINA agent. Stockholm Syndrome, that’s what they called it. When someone who is abducted begins to collaborate with their abductors. It’s what happened to Patty Hearst.

In 1990, when military rule was over, Luz Arce recanted. She told everything she knew to the Rettig Commission. She said she saw Rodolfo at Villa Grimaldi. He had his leg in a cast. Out of desperation, he had thrown himself from the tower. Maybe he thought he could escape, but no one ever escaped from the DINA.

They might have thrown him from the tower. The DINA agents were especially cruel with Rodolfo. For them, he was a traitor. Because of his brother, they figured he was a leftist infiltrator.

That wasn’t true. The other prisoners even said he was different. He had no political background. Leftist parties had training. Militants knew the drill. They knew what to expect when they were tortured. Rodolfo, they said, was “like a virgin.” An inexperienced, innocent boy.

Luz Arce said that the last time she saw Rodolfo alive, he was stripped naked and hanging from a beam at Villa Grimaldi. We don’t know if he was hanging by his hands, by his feet, or in some unimaginably painful stress position, barely breathing and wishing he could stop.

In 1977, two Air Force officials showed up at his aunt’s apartment in Santiago to confiscate Rodolfo’s military insignia. It seems they made a special effort to make sure that he never reappeared. Or maybe they did it just to be cruel. Why they waited so long was a mystery.

If all children had someone to teach them right from wrong; someone who would say that sometimes the authorities are evil; that power and goodness are not the same thing; then there would be no DINA, no CIA black ops, no My Lai massacres. There would be no cruelty, no abduction and no torture. I am surprised that there were so few like Rodolfo. Sometimes, in this world, there seem to be more cowards than heroes, more darkness than light. It doesn’t have to be that way.

There were nearly 2,000 who disappeared in Chile between 1974 and 1976. Most of them were convinced of an ideology. They had chosen to sacrifice their lives for the dream of a better world. But Rodolfo’s option was more primitive. He decided that he could not become a torturer, even if it meant he would be tortured. He chose solidarity, and it cost him everything he had.

For more on Chile’s disappeared ones, see www.memoriaviva.com.

Nathan Stone is a new graduate student in Latin American History. He lived in Chile for many years, starting in 1979.

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Remembering Pinochet’s Chile: On the Eve of London 1998 by Steven Stern (2006)

by Monica Jimenez

Remembering Pinochet’s Chile: On the Eve of London 1998 is the first book in Steve J. Stern’s trilogy entitled The Memory Box of Pinochet’s Chile. Stern’s trilogy studies the ways that Chileans have struggled to understand the collective trauma of the 1973 military coup and the repressive regime that resulted from it. In his introduction to the trilogy Stern explains that he imagines this process as a ‘memory box’ that contains the community’s conflicting memories and lore, of various kinds, seeking to make sense of this crucial experience The memory box is not hidden away but is vividly present and foundational to the community; people are drawn to it and to engaging with it. This is a beautiful work that explores the difficult themes of collective versus individual memory of events that were both traumatic and terrifying.

Stern relates individual memory narratives and attempts to theorize memory in order to understand the specificity of Chilean struggles to understand their past. In this volume, Stern investigates Chile’s collective memory on the eve of Pinochet’s arrest in London for crimes against humanity. He establishes four types of emblematic memories that have competed in the peoples’ minds: memory as salvation, memory as rupture, memory as persecution and awakening, and memory as a closed box. He argues that on the eve of Pinochet’s arrest, the memory question overflowed ordinary boundaries, connecting the political, the moral, and the existential. It challenged political loyalties and alliances; it entangled the personal and the public. The various emblematic memories had come together in the memory box to form what Stern calls a “memory impasse,” in which no particular memory reigned supreme. Remembering Pinochet’s Chile: On the Eve of London 1998 provides a unique retelling of the critical events that lead to the 1973 coup and the military period that followed it while also raising deeply important questions about collective memory and trauma.

General Pinochet on parade in Buenos Aires, September 11, 1982. Image via Wikimedia Commons.

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