"You say the government has been monitoring our telephone calls? The I.R.S. has been targeting certain conservative and Christian groups? People who are considered 'enemies' of the current administration are being unjustly persecuted? You are obviously one of those wacko conspiracy theorists or paranoid or racist or probably all three!"
Personally, it is not hard for me to believe any of the above. It is not at all hard for me to imagine a day when our government will attack us for things we have posted on facebook or said to a friend during a 'private' lunch conversation. It is quite easy for me to believe this is possible because I have seen it happen before. Not here in the United States of America, of course, but in Argentina.
As 1983 drew to an end, Argentina held their first democratic election in a number of years. As a missionary, I followed the Mission President's counsel to stay in my pension that day and not be out among the people, in case there were rioting or anything of that nature. To my knowledge, there were no riots that day, but there were certainly many revelations that followed that election. That day, a man named Raul Alfonsin was elected president of Argentina. One of his main promises as he was campaigning was that he would put the people responsible for the "disaparecidos" (disappeared) on trial and prosecute them for their crimes against the citizens of Argentina.
Once Alfonsin was elected, people felt safe for the first time in years. They began to speak publicly and seek help for things that had happened to themselves, their families, and their friends. My companion and I were walking in downtown San Nicolas, (which is really an oxymoron because San Nicolas was such a small place that nothing about it could really be called 'downtown', but I digress..), when a woman came up to us and asked if we were North Americans. We said that we were and she asked if we would be willing to go to her house and speak with her. It was clear to us that this woman was not interested in hearing our message about the restored Gospel, but we said that we would be happy to visit her at her home and took down her information. A couple of days later, there we were, sitting in her living room, listening to things that we never could have imagined.
This woman told us that, previous to the election, she never would have been seen speaking to us. However, now that Alfonsin was in office, she felt safe in talking. She was telling us because we were North Americans and, she hoped, could spread the word in the United States about what was going on in Argentina. She began to tell us of her neighbors. Someone in their family, I am not sure who, had said something negative about the Faulkland Island war that Argentina had fought against Britain several years before. Within days, the family member was abducted by the Argentine military, along with their entire family, and taken to Buenos Aires. They took this family, including women, children, and infants, up in an airplane. As they flew over the Rio de la Plata, military personnel walked down the aisle of the plane and numbered off the passengers by twos. Half of the passengers (either the ones or the twos, I am not sure which) were then pushed out of the plane into the river below. Again, this group included women, children, and even infants. The other half of the group were taken back to Buenos Aires. They were interrogated and tortured. Some were killed. The rest were finally released to go back to their home and act as a 'warning' to anyone in their area who might be tempted to speak against the government or the military of Argentina.
As this woman told this story to my companion and I, I remember glancing at my companion more than once and wondering if I was actually hearing what I thought I was hearing. Was I not understanding her correctly? Could she actually be saying what I thought she was saying? Each glance at my companion revealed that she was as shocked as I was. She must be hearing the same things I was hearing. We were two girls in our early 20's, who both just happened to be from California, and who had no previous knowledge of anything comparable to what this woman was describing. As she finished her story, she begged us to please tell people in the United States what Argentina was suffering. We said that we would and we left.
My companion and I spoke just a little about what we had heard. We did not write her words in our letters home or tell our mission president. (At least, I didn't.) After awhile, as we became busy in our work, I thought very little of what we had been told. However, a few months later, things happened to remind me of that woman and her story.
When I was in Santa Fe, the last city I would serve in, I was using the bathroom in the house of our duena (landlord) when I saw some newspaper pages that shocked me. (The duena kept newspaper pages in the bathroom for us to use in place of toilet paper. My companion and I did not use them. We purchased our own toilet paper and brought it in with us each time we needed to use the bathroom.) I usually did not give the newspapers much attention, but the headlines on these caught my eye. Apparently, due to the fact that so many people had come forth and complained about military abuses, the government had done some checking and found torture chambers in the basements of pretty much every official building in Buenos Aires, including the Banco Nacional de la Argentina. These basements were full of little cubicles with cattle prods, tables, bloody instruments, and even bones. There were all kinds of photos. It was shocking. I saw these and remembered the woman in San Nicolas. It was like another piece of the puzzle was falling into place in my brain.
Not long after I'd seen the newspapers, something else happened. Because of all the people coming forward with stories to tell and people they were looking for, the major television networks in Buenos Aires said that they were going to suspend all of their regular programming. They said that anybody who had a story to tell or who wanted help locating a loved one who had disappeared could go on the air and ask for help. All they had to do was get to Buenos Aires. For days and days, the televisions were filled with people telling horror stories, holding up photos of people they'd lost, crying, begging for help. It was amazingly sad and scary. As missionaries, we did not watch television of course. But every home we went into had it on. It was like a horrible accident -- people could not look away. The enormity of what had happened began to sink in, for the entire country. In all, it is estimated that about 9 thousand Argentines were abducted and killed by their own military. There were women who were taken and raped and gave birth while they were in captivity. Some of the women lived, others were tortured to death, but in all cases their babies were given away.
As Americans, we are used to having certain "inalienable" rights: the right to free speech, the right to worship as we please, the right to a certain amount of privacy and freedom from unlawful search. We have these rights because of our Constitution and because of the people throughout the years who have fought to help us maintain our freedoms. For the most part, we have taken these rights for granted. Living in Argentina taught me many things, not the least of which was a deep gratitude for the rights and protections I enjoy as a citizen of the United States. For many, it is unthinkable that we would ever loose these rights, and certainly not at the hands of our own government. For me, it is not difficult to imagine at all. I know, firsthand, what it is like when the government and military of a country turns on it's own citizenry. I had hoped to never see it happen here, but I fear that it is already beginning to occur. Little by little, President Obama and his cronies are chipping away at our rights. They claim that they are trying to protect us. They are lying. President Obama is an evil man, out to destroy this nation and all that it stands for. Too many people worship him and support him and help him to do his wicked deeds. Those who try to stop him are subject to all kinds of persecution, from having their phones tapped and their computers hacked to having the I.R.S. audit them. This kind of abuse will undoubtedly escalate. In the same way that Eva and Juan Peron went after those they perceived to be their enemies, the Obamas are going after theirs.
The Argentine military abducted men, women, and children in their green Ford Falcons (often called "Dinosaurios" by the people of that country) during the period now known as the "Dirty War." Our country may soon have their own "Dinosaurs" in the form of drones, the so-called black helicopters, or whatever. Even when many, many Argentines knew what the Perons were doing, there were still many, many more people in that country who still loved them and considered "Evita" to be equal to a Saint. Even when the "Dinosaurios" would crawl down neighborhood streets, watching and spying and taking, there were people who refused to believe what was happening right in front of their eyes. There will always be people who support the Obamas and their ilk. There will always be people who mock those who see the truth and understand what it means for the future. Satan always has people on his team, but that does not mean he is right.
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