LONDRES 38
I did not enter
cuffed blindfolded
eyes taped
under sunglasses
I did not wear
the clothes
stripped from corpses
rank with electric sweat
I did not learn
to tell the time
of day and night
by what the DINA ate
I did not bleed
from gums
spitting teeth
like orange pips
I did not flinch
when tools
wrenched fingernails
hammered ears deaf
I did not clamp
my tongue
as they flicked the switch
razorsliced my breast
I did not gag
on choking bile
from holding down
the names
I did not watch
my mother writhe
tied to the metal frame
sprung with rats
I did not hang
from fleshtorn feet
hooded head
drowning in excrement
I did not disappear
Londres 38 is a building in Santiago, Chile. From September 1973 ill the end of 1975 it was used by the dictatorship era secret police, DINA, as a clandestine detention and torture centre.
An estimated 2000 people were illegally detained in the house. 98 were subsequently disappeared, including 14 women, two of whom were pregnant.
Of the 98 victims, 64 were members of the Revolutionary Left Movement (MIR.)
81 of the 98 were under 30 years old, and eight were under 20.
Of the four major clandestine torture centres in Santiago it is the only one that was not destroyed and has been reclaimed as an active memory site open to the public.
Annie McCrae was born in Dumfries and is now based in Edinburgh.
She was an EIS school representative and national organiser of her union.
A number of her poems were published in the 2008 pamphlet Magistri Pro Pace (Teachers for Peace) and she has read her work at anti-war, Palestine Solidarity and International Women's Day events.
This poem marks the emotional response I had to visiting the site of one of Pinochet’s detention and torture centres in Santiago last year.
So many of the people who were detained there were young students and student teachers like I was in the 70’s. If I had been Chilean I might well have ended up there. We spoke to a young man who volunteered as a guide to the building. We told him that we were from Scotland and had been Chilean solidarity supporters and of the actions of the Rolls Royce workers in East Kilbride and the film Nae Pasaran.
He became very emotional and kept thanking us for being there and for all our support and solidarity. I was in tears as I left.
