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Ongoing Campaigns | LAST UPDATE March 16, 2005 | |
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They dedicated their lives to their country in revolutionary and liberation movements of the 70s, 80s and 90s. Delia, Rosibel, Maria Candelaria, Vilma, Lin, Ana Francis, Angela, Elisabet, Norma. Now they are lawyers, journalist, NGO workers or university professors and they all share a passion for life. They continue their struggle hands in hands with others to make the world a better place. |
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“My father was one of the most famous anti-Somocista militants [opponents of Nicaragua’s then-ruler dictator General Somoza were known as anti-Somocistas]. As he was often in prison for that, my childhood was marked by visits to the prison. This is why I decided to study law and to dedicate my life to the defence of political prisoners. When my turn came to be detained and tortured because of my support to the Sandinista [Nicaragua’s revolutionary movement] front, most of the other prisoners in jail had been defended by me. “Women had played an important role in the revolution which we thought was going to bring an improvement of the condition of women. But the revolution did not liberate women. Machismo prevailed within the Sandinista front and our first clash with the elite of the front happened when they refused to have women in the National Committee. “One of the most difficult moments in my life was when Sol America, who was accusing her adopted father, Daniel Ortega, of rape, asked me to defend her. Daniel Ortega was the first president of the Sandinista government and my idol in the revolutionary movement. For me this situation meant that I had to choose between my commitment to the revolution and my commitment to women. I chose to defend Sol America.” |
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“When I was in secondary school I had to walk every day through the 18th street in Guatemala City, where girls and boy slept against each other covered by newspapers. Soon I joined the secondary students’ union and at the age of 13 I started to be politically active. “I was trained to be a clandestine member of the armed faction of the revolutionary movement. What I wanted to do was to be part of the urban commando but, because I had my three children, they ask me to be part of the communication division. I became the person in charge of the radio system for all the fronts of the FAR (Rebel Armed Forces). “I witnessed the death of several of my comrades and I learned to become strong, physically and psychologically. I had to learn not to talk and not to cry. And still now I never cry. My children thought I did not love them. “Presently, within the framework of my professional activity, I am coordinating what is called a “table for peace and reconciliation” where participants include both the military and police. I must admit that it is a very difficult process for me, but I guess it is part of the peace process of Guatemala.” |
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“I was born in a middle class family, and the way my family wanted me to be was not the way I wanted to be. When I realised that the cosy environment of my family was a privilege, more the exception than the rule, I escaped from home because I felt I was being cheated. I was 16, and, from that time on, it became important for me to be independent financially. “I always had a strong instinct to help other people, but when I was younger, it was more as an act of giving charity. Only once I entered university, in 1974, did I understand social injustices in their political dimension. It is at that time that I entered into the revolutionary movement through art and literature. I joined political educational activities. My approach at that time was not at all feminist, but more a class struggle interpretation of the reality of the world. “In those years, I suffered very much from the discrimination by other comrades, for being a so-called “little bourgeois”. I reached a point where I thought that all the poverty in the world was my fault.” “Between 1986-88, I started to feel myself not only as a revolutionary, but also as a revolutionary woman. I was not the only one and soon we funded the first women institution in El Salvador, The institute for the Development of Women (IMU), after the earthquake in 1986.” “I feel that, because of our rich experiences, we have the responsibility to show other women so that they can learn from our experiences. I love my work with women.” |
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“The first meeting of the FPL [Farabundo Marti, liberation forces], one of the four liberation groups that were to create the FMLN [Front Farabundo Marti for National Liberation], took place in my house. Since then we hosted many others and we always provided logistic support. It was the beginning of the 70s. “I taught in the university from 1974 to 1977 but I was fired because of political reasons and was exiled in Mexico for ten years. “Women can be defined as my life’s cause. I worked in the recovering the history of the role of women during the war. I also worked in the capacity building of women in the repatriation process in El Salvador after the peace agreements. I am very proud that many of the women that I trained are now leaders in their communities. “Through my experience, I believe it is very urgent to rethink feminism in the perspective of the third world.” |
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“Since I was a little girl I have been involved in community work. At the age of 13, I became involved with the student leftist movement, and became the secretary of the secondary students’ federation. I soon became certain that our development and our dignity would not to be achieved through giving assistance or charity but though the fight for rights. “Later on, I joined the ELN (National liberation army). What I really liked in them was the fact that they had developed a Latin socialism built on the experiences of other Latin countries’ revolutions and inspired by people such as Sandino, Camilo and Farabundo. “Soon I started to be inspired by feminist writing and we created an internal structure based on women. One of the things we did was to provide medical support to women having abortions. Abortion was forbidden and many women died in the attempt [to have illegal abortions]. But the leftist movement did not accept our relationship with the feminist movement. For them it meant a breach in the class struggle. “After a lot of clashes and internal differences, we decided to leave the organisation and started a process of dialogue with the government to be reincorporated into society. I was the spokeswoman for this group. It was very hard. Almost all our members were killed – either by the army, by the paramilitary or by the narco-traffickers. The few women left were discriminated against and isolated both by the rest of society and by our former comrades.” |
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“Since I was a child I was continuously seeking how I could help other people. I was sent to a Catholic school, and my social awareness grew during my stay there. The nuns belonged to the leftist movement, they were very active politically. “After entering university I joined one of the organisations of the FMLN [Front Farabundo Marti for National Liberation], and I became an active member of an urban commando. All my life was dedicated to the revolution and many times I was almost killed. But, what about putting my child’s live at risk? I did it, but I don’t want to feel guilty. It was the measure of the dedication to the revolutionary cause. “Only much later I understood that, what was happening to me while I was in part of the armed struggle was sexual harassment. I came to understand that, for men, the fact that we were comrades in the same fight for a fairer world did not automatically mean that they would recognise and respect our rights as women. Many women committed in the same way as me to the liberation movement were victims of harassment by our own comrades”. |
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“I had a quiet childhood. But when I entered university, I discovered the revolutionary movement. As I started to understand the reasons why poverty and misery existed in our world, I entered the Marxist-Leninist Communist party of Colombia. Through my work in the party I became related with the big social movements such as the workers’ and farmers’ movements. It was the 70s, the time of the massive occupation of land and of factories, and big social struggles. “In 1979 I got pregnant. It was a very difficult year both for me and for the country. When my daughter was born, I weighed only 39kg. A month later I was arrested together with my companion, tortured and released ten days later. He remained in jail. At that time I became clandestine and went through several of the existing organisations. Finally, at the end of the 80’s I enter the M19 [then a guerrilla movement] and remained there until it became a political party. “The end of the 80s was the beginning of my feminist consciousness. In the revolutionary movement there were very few women and, at that time, we had the very strong feeling of fighting for a common cause. But once I became aware of the gender issue I realised that the absence of women was structural and I oriented my fight towards increasing their presence. “In 1991, the M19 started a demobilisation process and became a political party. A new way of doing things opened to our eyes: we had to learn to do politics from a civilian point of view in full legality and legitimacy.” |
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“Although I came from a conservative middle class family, when I was a girl I decided that I wanted to be journalist because I wanted to become the voice of the poor. And that is what I did: I became a journalist and I became part of the Sandinista revolution. “I was the press officer to the White House and the United Nations for the Sandinista government in the United States, and I felt like a heroine fighting in the belly of the enemy. In front of our embassy there was permanently a bus with many antennas and we knew they were spying on us. We also knew, thanks to the journalist who supported us, that the Reagan government had financed the Contra with 19 million dollars. The White House denied it. “The revolution failed – also because of internal problems. The war left our country without a direction. And, at the moment, I am working in ways to increase the national self-esteem, this is my responsibility as a journalist.” |
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“In my family I grew up with the ideal that the world needed to be changed. This idea became like a print in my mind, and I told myself that, if I cannot change the big world I could change the little world around me. Very young, what I wanted to change was the injustices of being a girl. “It seems to me that I was born feminist, a rebel feminist. From a grassroots work with women I came to develop feminist theory, I have written many books and I have translated many others into a language that can be accessible for all women. “In 1991, the new government in Guatemala, with the help of the Socialist Party of Spain, proposed to open up the first office for women. I was offered the position of Director. This changed my life because, coming from a civil society background, this time I had the possibility to influence the state, using the strength of my grassroots background. “During my seven years as director of the office, we succeed in changing the Labour code by implementing maternity leave. We changed the civil code mainly in the rules concerning divorce. We also decentralised the office and opened 12 new offices in the regional departments. |
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| Women’s memories of the revolutionary movements in Latin America gathered during this meeting on board will be compiled in a publication. Read more about the Central American Women Onboard: >>read more |
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