Francisco Letelier, son of Orlando Atelier, Ambassador to US from Chile under Salvador Allende, on Cultural Memory, Understanding What People Have in Common, and His Father's Assassination
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Francisco Letelier lives in Southern California. He is a visual artist, poet and was part of 'Spoken Word' at the Oregon Country Fair, a huge event with visitors and participants from all over the world and which takes place outside of Eugene, Oregon every July for the past almost 40 years. The Fair of 2007 is Letelier'â¢s fourth Fair and he talks about his focus on 'cultural memory' and how a group of people come to understand what they have in common and manifest it.
His father, Orlando Letelier was assassinated in Washington, DC in 1976. He had been a member of the Salvador Allende government in Chile which had been democratically elected in 1970. It was the first Socialist Government in the Western Hemisphere and was overthrown in 1973 by the Chilean military backed by the CIA. Orlando Letelier spent time in a concentration camp and after his release was killed by a Chilean hit squad in collaboration with anti-Castro Cubans on Sept. 21, 1976 in Washington, DC on his way to work on Embassy Row. An American coworker was also killed. Two of the men investigated worked for the CIA, had been part of the invasion of the Bay of Pigs, Cuba, were part of the Watergate Scandal, showed up during Iran/Contra and were connected to Operation 40. Francisco Letelier brings to our attention these connections between the murder of his father, the CIA and the Mafia and their connection with GW Bush, Sr. and more recent connection with 9/11 too. Many people in Latin America have bits of this story and he thinks they need to share it. Thousands of people in Chile lost love-ones after the CIA-backed coup on the first 9/11. Many people still don'â¢t know what happened to their loved ones still. Francisco got to see his father'â¢s body.
Francisco Letelier talks about the importance of just listening to nature without certain ideas. Hope is good though it'â¢s also okay not to feel optimistic. More important than hope or good thoughts is pointing one'â¢s canoe toward listening to the earth, listening to each other and asking each other 'What makes you happy, what makes you sad, what do you need?' and declaring that I will be here with you as you explain that to me. When you do that most likely you will find a glimmer of hope or you will at least know what your next step is. He quotes, 'To the walker there is no path, The path appears as you move forward.'Â
Recorded in July 2007 at the Oregon Country Fair, Veneta, Oregon.
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