The thing that striked me the most about this week’s reading was the explanation of the Las Madres movement. In a situation where violence is coming from all sides, you can’t trust the guerrilas or even the government and police to protect you, this group of mothers got together and did the most effective thing they could do. They appealed to the international public. There is something do raw and heartbreaking about their speech, that has the ability to touch everyone who has even a bit of empaty, they used their pain and honesty and it worked on their favor. International pressure started building on the government and they had to give explanations to all of the disappearances. In a world that is so interconnected and globalized as ours, the internation politics and opinions are more important than ever, and no government wants to be seen as the bad guys and possibly lose economic alliances or support because of it.

It is incredible how far governments really took this censoring and kidnapping of opposers in Latin america. It hasn’t been until very recently that a lot of countries, especially brazil, have really published the numbers and all the atrocious crimes commited during the dictatorship, and even then there’s speculation. Jair Bolsonaro, current president of Brazil is famously known for his liking of the military regime and recently said on an interview that “there was no real in ditatorship brazil” because people were, supposedly, able to come and go as they pleased and were able to vote. It is really astounishing, and honestly quite scary, to see someone with so much power say something like this.

On the other end of the violence were the guerillas, who were also extrely violent and a danger to society. Many of them got their power and resources from the narcotic business, like said in the chapter, many of them exporting drugs to the united states, where they sold for a lot more. They then had a very organized system, with well armed soldiers ready to do anything they commanded. Then came the forceful censoring of the newspapers. Journalists had to be careful of what thye said about the government and politicians, and now they also had to be careful when reporting anything about the drug business. They were being cornered by all sides and many reporters lost their lives while reporting on those subjects.