NORTH AMERICAN CONGRESS ON LATIN AMERICA
Pedro Lemebel (1952 – 2015) was an openly gay Chilean novelist and essayist. PHOTO/La Tercera
(It is with sorrow that we share the news of the death of Pedro Lemebel (1952-2015), Chilean performance artist, writer, and radical homosexual activist. Pedro Lemebel was the consummate chronicler of the margins of Chilean society—an uncompromising fighter for human and sexual rights whose work will forever challenge the homophobic culture of the Chilean left. NACLA was fortunate to publish some of his writings and today, in his honor and memory, we share his chronicle of the death of the tyrant. Pedro Lemebel will, without doubt, enter his place of rest under a shower of red petals. May he rest in power.)
Farewell, meatbag: On the death of Pinochet
And so it happened, just like that. The swollen dictator croaked, and the generals, secret-service types, cadets and all the military pomp ran amok through Santiago’s upper-class neighborhoods, beating their chests with bricks as they mourned the noisy death of the Chilean ogre. It was a last burst of arrogance, a funerary flatus that finally freed the world from this putschist nightmare. And it was unbelievable—the old bastard looked like an armored war vessel resisting postmortem judgment. Like a slimy toad, he escaped myriad indictments for crimes and atrocities. Death got him before justice. But his mocking grimace from beneath the glass of his coffin was itself stamped by the saliva of the young man who waited hours and years to expectorate upon that macabre smirk. So many of us felt represented in that spit projectile, as we toasted, danced and clicked our high heels on the Alameda, Santiago’s main thoroughfare, amid water cannons and tear gas, celebrating the last breath of the beast. But there was also disappointment in the air, an abject emptiness left behind by impunity. That great debt of justice will remain a sinister stain on the history of the Chilean judiciary, which washed its hands with excuses—we couldn’t, we ran out of time—delays and red tape, obstructing the long-awaited conviction.
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