Gladys Marin (Independent)
Hyfler/Rosner
March 8, 2005
GLADYS MARN
BYLINE: Hugh O'Shaughnessy
GLADYS MARIN helped the Chilean Communist Party become one
of the most effective political forces in Latin America.
Unfailingly loyal to the Soviets, she could not stop her
party's eclipse as the Soviet Union disappeared.
Marn stood out as brave and attractive in a party which was
often seriously short of such people. "I've met many
Communists in the world and they seldom laugh," remarked
Senator Gabriel Valdes, Chile's former Christian Democrat
foreign minister. "I found her very gay, friendly and very
feminine. I found her enchanting; she was very kind."
Gladys Marn Millie was born in 1941 near Curic, a town 200
kilometres south of the capital, the third of four daughters
of Adriana, a primary- school teacher, and her erratic
peasant husband Heraclio. The family moved northward and she
went to school at Talagante, not far from Santiago. "We had
hot baths on Saturdays," she recalled. There she joined the
Christian youth movement and became president of the town's
Catholic Action. She decided to follow her mother into
teaching and went to Teacher Training College No 2 in
Santiago, where she was prominent in the student teachers'
organisation in a fight to improve teaching methods. In 1998
she recalled,
I was a wild country kid, from Talagante, from the hills . .
. I was very Catholic Action. I had a social conscience and
wanted to do things . . . I was a rebel, after adventure . .
. I went to see the gypsies and gave them ball-point pens so
they'd tell my fortune.
After receiving her teacher's diploma in 1957 Marn joined
the staff of School No 130 for mentally retarded children
sited within the capital's main mental hospital. At 17 she
decided to join the Young Communists at a time when the
Party was recovering from a period in clandestinity and
before she was 20 she had been elected to their central
committee. In 1963 she married Jorge Munoz, a mining
engineer whom she met when doing voluntary work in a slum.
Two years later she joined the Party full-time and was
elected General Secretary of the Young Communists at a
period when they were vocal in support of Cuba and of an end
to the Vietnam War.
She worked on the electoral campaign of Salvador Allende, a
member of the staunchly Chilean-centred Socialist Party, who
became President in 1970. He led Unidad Popular or Popular
Unity, an often fractious six-party coalition, including the
Communists. At 23 she was elected to the Chamber of Deputies
for a poor Santiago constituency, was re-elected for a
second term and in 1973 for a third.
But Augusto Pinochet's military coup of 11 September
abolished party politics. She went into hiding amid a reign
of terror and was within days named one of the regime's 100
most wanted persons. She was in constant fear of capture,
torture and death. Shortly after the putsch the house where
she was hiding in disguise was searched by the army. Putting
on her wig Marn crouched behind a cot where a baby was
crying: a soldier entered the room but did not notice her.
In November 1973 she obtained asylum in the Dutch embassy,
from whose windows she saw her husband for the last time.
She had to wait there eight months till the military gave
her a safe-conduct to leave for the Netherlands, whence she
departed to the Soviet Union.
From there she travelled widely, notably to Buenos Aires in
September 1974, on a mission to General Carlos Prats,
Pinochet's predecessor as army commander-in-chief who was
living in exile, to warn him that Pinochet was planning his
assassination. Four days later, he and his wife were killed
when Pinochet had his car blown up in the Argentine capital.
In 1976 Marn learnt her husband had been detained in Chile -
betrayed with several more Party leaders at a secret
meeting. He is today presumed dead, though his corpse has
not been found, so under Chilean law Pinochet stands charged
with his kidnapping.
Two years later, in Moscow, Marn was groomed to return
secretly to Chile. She had her gall bladder removed, lest
she had to undergo an operation in Chile during which she
might be identified. "I'm lucky to have kept my teeth
because they wanted to change them for me," she added in her
2002 book La Vida es Hoy ("Life is Today"). Coached in
Spanish history, she passed herself off as Spanish, assuming
a Spanish accent, dressed in Spanish clothes and carrying a
suitcase bought in Spain. Her mouth was filled with pads to
alter her facial appearance and with more round her bust and
hips. With much trepidation she passed a police examination
on the bus across the Andes from Argentina.
Promoting the Party in secret, Marn was elected its
under-secretary in 1984. She continued to hew to a
pro-Soviet line, oblivious or uncaring about the changes in
the Soviet Union or about Eurocommunism. She fitted the
description put about by detractors, who jeered that rain in
Moscow meant the Chilean Communists reached for their
umbrellas in Santiago.
Four years later she was elected the Party's general
secretary. Manipulating the rules and to the disgust of many
members she obtained successive periods of office, and was
named Party President in 2002. With Pinochet gone and the
Party legalised, she stood unsuccessfully for the Senate in
1997. But support for the Party was ebbing away. In 1998 she
sought the presidency for the Communists, rejecting
electoral alliances. She polled a derisory 3.19 per cent,
much less than the Party had achieved in the 1993 polls.
That same year she had the satisfaction of suing Pinochet
for murder. This was the first of a flood of actions which
today see the former dictator indicted in many countries,
bereft of allies and with his corrupt practices and
tax-dodging exposed to public view.
Gladys Marn Millie, politician: born Curepto, Chile 16 July
1941; Under- Secretary, Chilean Communist Party 1984-94,
General Secretary 1994-2002, President 2002-05; married 1963
Jorge Munoz (presumed dead 1976; two sons); died Santiago 6
March 2005.