Today is International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women. Ironically, it is also the day to give thanks in the United States.
Thank you?
Thank you for the still hidden truth of massacres, diseases, and the imposition of an imperialist system that bends indigenous people, blacks and women to this day?
Every November 25, as this year it falls on Thanksgiving Day and most families eat turkey, I can't help but remember the Mirabal sisters.
They were three women known as "Las Mariposas", who after standing up to the bloody dictatorship -supported by the United States government- of Rafael Leonidas Trujillo in the Dominican Republic, were brutally murdered.
Washington in those years supported the despotism and cruelty of the dictator Trujillo, with the inexcusable argument that whatever he did, Trujillo was opposed to communism.
The long arm of imperialism is well known in Latin America. Native American tribes in the United States know it well. The women of the world know it by heart.
One in three women has suffered violence, often sexual, in her lifetime. I am not making this up, it is endorsed by the UN and, during the COVID-19 pandemic crisis, it was even worse. A new 2020 report from UN Women shows that 2 out of every 3 women have suffered some form of violence.
It's worse for Native American and Indigenous women. In 2019, more than 5,590 Native American women were reported missing. Murder is the third leading cause of death for them.
This day my gratitude goes to those who fought with everything they had, even the life that was taken from them. To those who still resist in the face of empire, in the face of imposition.
Thanks to those who unveil the hidden truths.
