The Chief of Staff walks into the presidential palace, alone but soon flanked by suspicious members of the Presidential Guard who eye him nervously with their fingers near their triggers.
"Chief of Staff, General Guerrero here to see el Presidente."
The secretary blanches, sweating profusely as his pen breaks from the sudden pressure of his nervous grip. "Apologies, General, but the President cannot see you at the moment. Perhaps you can schedule an appointment, I would be happy to-"
CLANG. With a shockingly loud thud, the Chief of Staff drops his sheathed saber onto the table. "Never mind. Tell the Presidente that I tender my resignation as Chief of Staff of the Chilean Army, give up my commission, and am retiring permanently from the national armed forces." Turning, the general eyes one of the guards.
"As a matter of honor, one military man to another, keep a watch on my sword for me until the President is able to receive it."
With that, the former Chief of Staff stormed out of the presidential building.
A lifelong democrat, General Guerrero could not conceive that - without the proof of a Congressional vote to show him otherwise - it had been the Congreso that had so betrayed his trust. Instead he blamed the President and the dictatorial actions of the ministries, furious that his recommendations as Chief of Staff were accepted only for the very armies the President had agreed to appoint two of the most loyal and proven pro-government Communista officers to then be stripped away by presidential orders. What hypocrisy, what treachery, he thought to himself. Never again shall I serve the state of bourgeois. Parliamentary democracy has its place, but the reactionaries in executive office are rats waiting to gnaw on the bones of all free men. These were the man's thoughts, as evident by the speech he delivered to a crowd of recently discharged soldiers, workers, and the unemployed outside of Santiago; prior to the delivery of the following manifesto to the Rivera regime:
A Declaration of Rights and Independence
Even the Radicales of the past recognized the existence of the nation as it relates to democracy - that it would be in fact against the principles of liberty, equality, and brotherhood to allow just any segment of people in a nation to declare their sovereignty and separation, as it means claiming a land, a territory, that was collectively defended by generations of citizens before them and contributed to, invested in, by their fellow citizens. Socialism recognizes nationhood in this context, that a collective body of people can have invested their labor into a land and have rights to establish a democratic authority over it that is not to be lightly separated.
But what is to be done when a people who own a land or even just part of land, are completely alienated from its administration? It would be unethical and undemocratic to establish themselves as dictators by heroic and justified rebellion against the current tyrants, a regrettable perpetuation of the cycle of one minority after another ruling over the collective will of the individual. But even the lowest, meanest creature are entitled by blood and by right to the land of the bones of their forefathers, the land they have put their blood and sweat into for generations. And when, a body in a nation has been deprived of their rightful partial ownership in that nation as a whole, they have no choice but to 'cash in the chips' and exchange their partial ownership of the entire nation for full ownership and possession of a smaller piece of it.
In that spirit I, as part of a lifetime of loyalty to Chilean democracy, declare my loyalty to the Chilean Commune - which exists in the hearts of the proletariat and revolutionary masses wherever they are the majority. It is not my place to define the borders or government of this state, that is for the people themselves to proclaim. I can only offer to the people my undying loyalty, just as I served the government of the Republic with loyalty until the very day that it betrayed me and all other members of my class.
Rulers of the Republic of Chile beware, though we desire peaceful cooxistence, if you attempt to steal from us our sacred land, that we claim through our labors and the blood of our ancestors who died by the thousands so that you may grow fat, we will defend ourselves to the death. We claim nothing that is not already ours - the factories and the fields that we work upon, the communities in which we are the majority. We will never give up the struggle for freedom, and if necessary, we will die with honor.
Signed,
- Dio Guerrero
