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My friend Miguel Enríquez, at the University years in Concepción                                                                                  »»»              Miguel Enríquez and I, looking at the Pacific Ocean. Photography taken by Inés Enríquez, Miguel's syster Desembocadura del Bío-Bío, Concepción - Chile 1968

With Javierita Enríquez, Miguel's daughter Photography taken by Don Edgardo Enríquez in Oxford - England 1978

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I Introduction  However Miguel Enríquez genuine fighting and ultimate sacrifice for the Chilean people, for the poor and the oppressed, Miguel Enríquez grew up in his youth also as an intellectual elitist. I do not mean this as a negative feature, only in descriptive terms. As he did not choose this, since he inherited it in his familiar enviroment. The core group of private friends he had since early youth - around the mid fifties- were bounded by similar values, social traditions, intellectual preferences, and even aesthetic judgements. This group of friends had this basic common denominator: all were sons of professionals or scholars linked to the University of Concepcion as university teachers, and at the same time, some of the friends - including Miguel, Luciano, Bauchi, and myself- had direct family links to officers within the armed forces.  There were also others, mainly classmates, which stayed  in different peripheral and/or episodical relation with the above mentioned group. I refer to them later, as well as to Miguel's late political friends and associates. And of course, the ladies in Miguel's youth.   Nevertheless, it was a very close group, with names never so far mentioned in any "biography", such as Darío Ulloa or Rodrigo Rojas. Darío, the son of a notable surgeon, and sister of a professor in anatomy at Concepción University. Rodrigo, the son of a university literature professor and one of Chile's most famous writers. Eduardo Trucco, son of the at that time Vice Rector of the University of Concepción. My mother, professor at the same university, and my father an officer at the Carabineros, nowadays a branch of the Chilean Armed Forces. As regarding Miguel, his father was both university Professor of Anatomy and officer at the Chilean Navy's medical corps (Capitán de Navío). When Bautista Van Schowen came to the same secondary school (Liceo De Hombres Enrique Molina) later in 1959 he was incorporated in the group of friends. Air Force General Van Schowen was brother of Bautista's father. Thinking in the original group of friends - sharing rather similar intellectual preferences- I have sometimes wondered how come that only us who had this "armed forces genetical connection" (Miguel, Bautista and I) decided to embrace so early the thesis of the armed struggle. As to Luciano Cruz, he was the son of an officer of the Chilean Army, and the brother of an officer of the Chilean Army, as my own brother Mauricio was, and also two of my uncles. Although Luciano came to joint our group at a much later stage (jun-july 1965) his insertion in the core of political and strategical thinking was provided in much because that background. That's it.  Coming back to the early sixties: Politically, Miguel, Bautista, and my self, evolved clearly to the new left (the so called non-communist revolutionary left). Rodrigo did not follow us directly after high school, but reunited with us "politically" in the later sixties, although remaining close friends all the times through.   From the group of friends mentioned above, with the years Miguel, Bautista and I will participate in the foundation of MIR in 1965, after shortly participated first in the Chilean Socialist Party from 1962-1964 and 1964-1965 in the Vanguardia Revolucionaria (VRM, a less known organization with Trotskoist spirit). Rodrigo Rojas stayed in a political university group in alliance with MIR/MUI called GRAMA. Eduardo Trucco became - as far as I now- a member of the social democratic party, at that time in a right-center coalition at the national political spectra. As to Darío Ulloa, he apparently followed abroad the more orthodox and more established pro Moscow communist line. Both Eduardo Trucco and Darío Ulloa desegregated 1961 and for the times to come. Luciano Cruz was never part of the VRM and he had a background instead in positions more close to the traditional Chilean Comunist Party. Besides Luciano was a bid younger and of a later school promotion. Luciano's contact with Miguel and the rest of us dated then from the university years.  Of the original group of six young men, four went to study medicine (Miguel, Bautista, Rodrigo and Darío), and two went to study law (Eduardo Trucco and myself).  I also enrolled simultaneously at Philosophy and a year later at Anthropology as well. Darío naturally separated from the group when he moved abroad to pursue his medical training. All the rest of us remained at the University of Concepcion. After my second year as Anthropology student (corresponding to my third year at the Law School) I came to the Medical Faculty to pursue the Anatomy courses (my teacher was Miguel's father, Prof. Edgardo Enríquez) at the Medical Anthropology course. It went all fine. Miguel came anew with the idea, this time supported by Don Edgardo Enríquez, that I should move to Medicine in a full time basis. I was at that time also living at Miguel's parents house in Roosevelt 1654, very close to the medical faulty. It was difficult to oppose to Miguel's vehement rationale, but I did not change my mind until years later (when I became doctor in medicine I also dedicated my examination thesis to my friend Miguel, as I have done in the very first book I ever published - Cantos de Rebelde Esperanza, in 1962). With Don Edgardo Enríquez, Miguel's father (See my dedicatory to Don Edgardo in "El Sepulcro de Don Quijote", 1970)   II  Another thing, all listened in the base to Verdi, Chopin and Schubert [ulterior preferences went to Beethoven symphonic music (Miguel and Bautista), to Paganini's (Rodrigo, if I remember well), and my self to George Philip Teleman's]. All of us read and discussed at the age of 12-18 about the same fiction and non-fiction books. By the starting of the university years the preferences gradually changed. For example, Miguel evolved from history and the classics to international politics, the same did Bautista Van Schowen. My self to political philosophy, aesthetics and anthropology.  Among the last books we discussed of the "history" period were - in the international perspective- Brué & Temin "La Revolución y La Guerra Civil en España", and also "Historia político-social de Alemania" by Ramos Oliveira. I have to make clear that in all those discussions we were accompanied, if not plainly introduced, by Miguel's eldest brother Marco Antonio. Marco Antonio was an historian erudite who did not compromise with nothing other but the classics in its sources. An illustration, when we were reading Brue & Temine, Marco Antonio was reading also Huge Thomas. Marco Antonio's ideological trotskoist influence upon us (Miguel, Bauchi and I) was much more gravitating than public known or acknowledged in the biographical texts on Miguel and MIR. On the national historical events, we were absorbed by the historical clarification of General José-Miguel Carrera. When Miguel and Bauchi, already at the university, got more and more involved with the theoretical analyses of Lenin and Trotsky's original writings, I still was embellished by the historical issues around Carrera, and later the liberal Bilbao and the emergency of the Chilean liberalism. Trotsky was indeed fascinating, but yet "too close to Lenin" as I put it.  Trotsky's "History of the Russian Revolution" is another book Bauchi presented me with, and asking me for comments. The reason was that I have several times expressed not being so comfortable with Trotsky's apparent participation in the suppression of the anarchist uprising in Kronstad (event told to me first by Marco Antonio and which I developed later in further readings). Just how deep I remained absorbed in the historical disputes around José-Miguel Carrera could be seen in the articles I actually published on the subject in Punto Final, such as "José Miguel Carrera, General del Pueblo".  My portrait of Bautista Vanchowen Stockholm 1977 From that time of the "clásicos marxistas" comes the the article of Miguel y Bauchi on the chino-soviet dispute in our  own university publication (I do not actually remember in this moment if it was "Revolución" or "Polémica Universitaria"). I remember that in the same publication I wrote an article on the Polish student's rebellion against the soviet occupation. The same publication harboured a presentation written by Miguel on my new published book of poems "Cantos de Rebelde Esperanza". We were - the three of us- nineteen years old. I should remember the name of the publication we have at the university for about 40 years ago since I was the "Director" of it (editor), being Miguel "Director responsable" for all juridical purposes. But as I said, either was "Revolución" or "Polémica Universitaria". At that time we had other participants in our nucleon such as Patula Saavedra and "Jarita" o "el negro" Jara (Patula would become with the years the major of San Miguel in Santiago, and Jara a prominent psychiatrist). One thing is clear, those were the years of our involvement in the Vanguardia Revolucionaria. The other aspect which has been also obscured about our emergent organization was the influence of anarchist theory. We did absolutely read in common at least the full compilation of anarchist writings made by Irwing Horowitz. That was in 1965. I am positive about this fact because I still have the notes with those dates in that book's margins. In the ideological grounds, MIR was built not only on new left thinking, but also in reanalysed anarchist theory as well as with certain influence of Trotskyism. Two members included in the very first MIR leadership of 1965 had strong attachments to the chilean anarchist movement, such as Clotario Blest and Ernesto Miranda, leader of the Shoe Workers Union. As a matter of fact, it was at the locals of the anarchist Shoe Workers Union were MIR allocated it first conference. One of the groups that merged in the foundation conference of August 1965 was the anarchist oriented Movimiento de Fuerza Revolucionario (MFR), a group nucleated around the Christian trade union leader Clotario Blest since 1961. I myself sought the alliance of this fractions when in the foundation conference presented for the vote the name MIR and the red and black flag with MIR letters in white. The proposal won not unanimous, but in clear majority. I give here (se illustrations below) examples of the books we presented to each other at that time. One book I received from Miguel Enríquez (Erich Fromm, El Lenguaje Olvidado / The Forgotten Language), another from Bautista Van Schowen (Wright Mills, The Marxists). Miguel Enriquez hand-written dedication  in presenting me "El Lenguaje Olvidado"  It must be stressed that  the direct politically literature we read at our pre university youth were only a part of our  preferences. At that time we read the classical (as far as Herodoto, partly influenced by Miguel elder brother Marco Antonio's preferences, and Julio Caesar "Comentarios sobre la Guerra de las Galias"!), for some reason we read all the complete fables of Esopo, Samaniego, and La Fontaine (which actually repeated each other),  and the pre and post war European and American literature. This is also the period of Hemmingway, Pearl. S. Buck,  K. Malaparte, W. Georghiu,  S. Maugham, J-P Sartre and A. Camu.   At the last year of high school and first year at the University, we had a renascence taste for Shakespeare, Oscar Wilde and the Russian Classics Tolstoi and Dovtojewsky. Miguel himself devoted a preferential reading "cult" to Leonidas Andreyev, Bautista to Dovstojewsjy and myself to the Greek Nikos Kazanzakis. Bautista Van Schowen hand-written dedication presenting me "Los Marxistas"   III As I said, my own interest broaden from political readings to themes within anthropology, political philosophy and psychology, even being at the university originally a law student. This development was not unnoticed by my friend Miguel which was not too happy with my - what he called-  "compromising" with "pseudo-intellectuals" (read: non-Marxists) such as "that Fromm" and he used to friendly and jokingly "harassed" me for that. Herbert Marcuse was somehow more accepted by Miguel, and certainly Wright Mills (one of Bautistas favourite reading).  In a very revealing dedication on yet another book by Erich Fromm Miguel gave  to me some year later he illustrated the "perils" of this "intellectual compromising". For Miguel was the Revolution what it  counted. According to him, we young intellectuals should primarely read therefore revolution-relevant literature, from Von Clausewitz  "El Arte de La Guerra" to Engels "Ludwich Feuerbach y el Fin de la Filosofía Clasica Alemana" (books I presented to him, matching his own wishes). "Soft" books a la Marcuse or Erich Fromm were things to be enjoyed at our very senior years, according  to Miguel, long after we had succeed with the revolution. Miguel wrote the following in his dedication of a later book by Fromm he presented to me: "Como primer paso en tu conciliación ideológica, acorde con tu senilidad prematrura", "A la cárcel, o a empleado público". Either we choose to be revolucionarios and thus our foreseeable destiny will be victory or  imprisonment, or we choose to be nothing and our destiny is behind the desk of an obscure public servant. That used Miguel to said to us in privacy.  Well, Miguel died in Santiago, heroically, in the trying. So did several other dear friends, such as Bautista Van Schowen and Miguel's brother Edgardo. As to myself, I got the imprisonment in Concepción and in the concentration camp of Quiriquina Island. It would be the seventh time I was arrested. Miguel's words below were indeed prophetic.  IV Contrary as suggested in the new published biography "El Rebelde de la Burguesía" written by Daniel Avendaño & Mauricio Palma, the documents above show that my friendship with Miguel lasted all those years. Besides, Bautista became affiance of Miguel's sister Inés. A very significant fact that show the closeness of these core group of friends, Miguel, Bautista, and myself, is that we decided to have marriage ceremonies almost simultaneously in the summer of 1968. Miguel married Alejandra Pizarro (best man Bautista Vanshowen), Bautista married Miguel's sister Inés Enríquez (best man Marcello Ferrada-Noli), and I married Lía Schulz (best man Miguel Enríquez). Lía is the mother of my dear son Marcello Vittorio. I would say that the friendship Miguel Enríquez entrusted me, the joy and enrichment that such friendship honoured me with, had for me a price at times hard to endure. The fact of my close friendship with Miguel raised at occasions an envious attitude from the part of those who never could become that close. Yet, some old comrades from MIR remember things and personal relations as they were, and me as the person I was.  This is the case of Miguel sister Inés and Miguel's brother Marco Antonio. Or among many others, former MIR national leaders Andrés Pascal and Nelson Gutiérrez, or common friend Juan Saavedra Gorriategy, currently a Major at Santiago de Chile. Some other would remember me more as they were themselves. In sum, my actual participation in the history/foundation of MIR has been in certain cases accounted truthfully. In "El Rebelde de la Burguesía" it is accurately given that I was co-author (together with Miguel Enríquez and his brother and Marco Antonio) of the Mir’s first Tesis político-militar  presented and approved at MIR’s foundation congress in 1965. In other accounts have my participations in such events been directly omitted or obscured (like the case of Miguel Enríquez biography by Pedro Naranjo, in which not even my full name is given). This is somehow incomprehensible since the information has allways been known by the author Pedro Naranjo, himself and old comrade from MIR in Concepción. Some other former miristas, or persons in the periphery of MIR, or simply plain outsiders,  have anonymously given to young and apparently not so experienced journalist’s false account of events (in the above cited biography written by D. Avendaño & M. Palma are some chracterizations of me attributed to those anonimous sources). In this fashion,  even well minded young journalists, as the authors of "El Rebelde de la Burguesía", did become subjects of deception from the part of “witness testimonies” - and wich remain anonimous “witnesses”-  referring to some existential aspects of Miguel Enriquez life and that ones of his friends, me included. I have to acknowledge though, that one of the authors of ”El Rebelde de la Burguesía" contacted me per mail - for an interview - in 1999 while I was in living Norway. At that time it was impossible for me to participate or even to reply, partly due to private reasons, partly because I was then totally focused in the judicial suite I had opened against Pinochet at Scandinavian courts. This resulted in that not a single reference among the several the authors wrote on me (including as a person) in Miguel Enríquez biography was ever corroborated or commented by me. Unfortunately the consequence was that not all the information in their book resulted accurate, relevant, or according to the truth. CONCLUSION The price of Miguel's close friendship It is not for me to speculate or evaluate my participation in the now historical events of the foundation of MIR and the political and military struggles ahead. When things happened then, it was not history. For us it was just actual commitment to what we then regarded as the meaning of our lives. But facts are facts. As told by Daniel Avendaño & Mauricio Palma's book "EL Rebelde de la Burguesía" I was co-author with Miguel Enríquez and Marco Antonio Enríquez of the first Tesis Político-Militar, the base document approved at the MIR foundation congress. The authors could very well have added the following: I am as well the author of the proposal  denominating our organization as Movimiento de Izquierda Revolucionaria, MIR, and the designer of MIR's flag with the anarchist colours that prevailed in the foundation conference, becoming official and in use till now days (See details in A.L. Jarva "THE RED THE BLACK AND THE WHITE. Biographical documents on Marcello Ferrada-Noli", Part One, "The red & black anarchist colours and the origins in Chile of the name MIR" in the main page). That was 1965. In 1969 I was imprisoned during the anti terrorist law passed by the Christian democratic government against MIR. My name was in the national list of 13 "prófugos de la justicia" - a sort of dead or live warrant-  published in the national papers among in El Mercurio. In 1973, in the aftermath of the Military Coup which ended with Allemande's government, I was held prisoner at the Stadium in Concepcion after the struggles in Concepcion and thereafter at the Concentration Camp at the Navy base in Quiriquina Island. From 1975 I was forced to leave in exile in Europe after an ostracizing decree of the Military Government in Concepcion. With all above regarding my personal and for me dear friendship with Miguel Enríquez, I want to make very clear that I have no intention whatsoever of claiming a site in the history of MIR beyond my very modest participation. I never was a national MIR leader or never assumed responsibilities other than at the fighting in Concepción and at the University, "la cuna del MIR". I have nevertheless endured several times fire fighting, seven times arresting or imprisonment, torture, and twice exile. I have never succumbed, nor ever given away a single bit of the integrity belonging to the organization or my dear combatant peers, friends or anonymous. All that for an altruistic cause I believed in as much as many others. At the same time I never was a "professional" militant, never lived on the Party. Yet, as facts tells, I was humbled devoted to the activities Miguel and the CP asked me eventually then to accomplish. I have paid my own full prize for it, such as being obliged to live in exile the most years of my life. In my so called academic career - the survival in exile-  I have consequently and always favour solely the scientific research that would enlighten the situation of the poor and the oppressed. I have always understood those academic achievements as just one more tool in the struggle for the same altruistic interest we had as the young ideological anarchists we were, the friends of Miguel Enríquez. For all that, one thing is that I do not expect a medal, but a completely a different thing that I am ready to accept offensive and intentional equivocal in the referring of my name within certain "biographies" which very little have to do with historical facts.  One of my sons said, referring to the close friendship Miguel distinguished me with:  From those who truly knew Miguel Enríquez you can always expect the share of their sympathy but you can not expect the same from those who never could have come closer. My PhD thesis at The Karolinska Institute - Sweden Also dedicated to my friend Miguel Enríquez 1996 Link to Marcello Ferrada-Noli's homepage To follow:     Miguel peripheral peers Comment on Pedro Naranjo's biography on Miguel Enríquez Comment on Daniel Avendaño & Mauricio Palma's biography on Miguel Enríquez ("EL Rebelde de la Burguesía")