Recalling the one who mixed politics, poetry

[struggle4progress]

Monday, Jan. 26, 2009
By CESAR CHELALA

... He joined the Republican movement, first in Spain and then in France. In 1939, he was appointed Chilean consul in Paris, and from there, he coordinated the emigration to Chile of as many as 2,000 Spanish Republicans who had first escaped to France.

In 1943 he returned to Chile, then joined the protest against President Gabriel Gonzalez Videla's repressive actions against striking miners. In 1945, he became a senator and joined the Communist Party. The government soon expelled him, and from 1947 to 1949 he lived in hiding ...

When Salvador Allende was elected president of Chile in 1970, he appointed Neruda as Chile's ambassador to France, where he lived from 1970 to 1972. In 1973, he returned to Chile, but in September of that year, Augusto Pinochet, with help from the CIA, overthrew Allende's government.

Neruda's life, I firmly believe, was shattered by Pinochet's coup and Allende's suicide. Neruda died only 12 days later. Shortly before his death, his house was ransacked by a military unit. When he saw the commander of the unit, weapon in hand in his bedroom, Neruda, who could hardly speak, told him, "There is only one dangerous thing for you in this house — poetry" ...

http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/eo20090126cc.html

[Judi Lynn]

1. Thank you for posting this thoughtful article. n/t

[EFerrari]

2. I never knew they cost us Neruda, too. n/t

[Judi Lynn]

3. Painful to learn that now. I didn't know, either. n/t