Motives to Organize

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Obdulio explains the reasons that led people to organize.

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There were several factors, of course. First, we saw how the people were repressed. Among our families, in the community, there were some who had just enough to survive. There were others who had a place to plant, who had land. There were some who had nothing, and others who rented land to work. So, thank God my father had a place to work and all, but we didn’t have what we truly desired. Which was respect for our human dignity. So I became angrier when they killed my brother. Knowing that he was a teacher. He was in training to be a teacher, because they killed him in December 1979. He would have graduated in February 1980. My father and my mother struggled so hard so that we could have a professional in the family. Before, here in this area, in the poor municipalities, in the villages, we didn’t have the privilege of becoming professionals, never. Only the sons of the richest people in town were professionals, in the villages we never had the chance. But my father and my mother sacrificed a thousand times so that their boy could prepare himself. And just as he was about to receive his degree as a teacher, the National Guard killed him. So, this made you angry, this made you think, how is it possible to take the life of a person who at that time could have become a great man, someone useful for society? He never had that opportunity.