On July 26, 1952, at the age of 33, Eva Perón passed into immortality, the woman who, in just 7 years of political activity, generated an unprecedented impact on the cultural life of our country, becoming a symbol of fight for the rights of women, children, the elderly and “the shirtless”.
In 1950 Evita visited the province of Jujuy. During her stay, together with Governor Alberto Iturbe, she inaugurated the Hogar Escuela and the Infantile Recovery Clinic (currently Hotel Termas de Reyes), and also delivered deeds for houses in the current neighborhood of 12 de Octubre. Seventy years after Evita’s death, when thinking about his figure, his work and the continuity of that legacy in Jujuy, the inescapable reference is another woman: miracle room.
A Peronist since she was 16 years old, leader and founder of the Tupac Amaru Organization, Milagro was arrested in 2016 for participating in a camp in front of the Jujuy Government House, a few days after the inauguration of Gerardo Moralesand since then he has been imprisoned.
The conversation with Milagro takes place in her home prison, while she is recovering from a health problem. In his hands he has an original printing proof of the book The reason of my life.
— “I know that you will pick up my name and carry it as a flag to victory.” Do you remember in what situation in your life did you hear the name of Evita and decide to carry it as a flag?
— Well, first I have to tell you part of my story. Me I belong to a middle class family. My father worked at the National University of Jujuy as a driver and bursar, and my mother worked as a supervisor at the Children’s Hospital. My dad’s name is Miguel Sala and my mom is Desideria Leitón. They took us to school by car; we were going on vacation. At the age of 16, I left home, very angry, when I found out that my biological parents were different. The first few days I went to sleep at Pablo Soria Hospital. There were those who had nowhere to live. I began to feel the cold, the hunger, and I realized that this was not only happening to me, but that there were many children and many elderly people who slept on the street, who covered themselves with cardboard. Finding that out blew my mind. One time, we were selling picolé in the old terminal (my dad always instilled in me that you have to earn a living by working) when we heard the Peronist march being sung. I asked myself: what is that? We approached and saw that there was an act. was the engineer Snopek talking about Evita and Perón, of the need to rebuild the homeland. At the end of the act we went to a Basic Unit. I liked it and I began to be a soldier in the Peronist Youth. There I met Tuchi Cáceres, Olegario Machaca, Tito Soria and other colleagues.
— More than once you said: “It bothers them that I’m black, coya and Peronist.” Evita also bothered them. She said: “The descamisados love me, and the others hate me and slander me.” She was considered unworthy of being part of the political class. Do you feel identified with Evita?
— More than feeling identified, for me Evita was an example of struggle, an example because the oligarchy was stopped, against the idea that whoever is born poor has to die poor. Evita’s message stayed with many of us who are leaders today and we take her example to try to turn things around and have a better world. Many have already realized that the hatred is not only towards us. What bothers them is that those who have less organize themselves. First it was to assassinate, torture the militants and make them disappear. Now it is the judicial table. We say that they set up a laboratory in Jujuy, which they later expanded and did the same with Cristina, with Lula, with Evo. Today the oligarchy has as accomplices the judicial table and a sector of journalism. I don’t curse what happens to me. In the 1990s, many comrades had lost their jobs with the privatization of public companies and the Banco de la Provincia, which is now Banco Macro. I was union secretary of ATE. That’s where the social organizations were born, thanks to the clumsiness of the political sectors, because they made the poor and the unemployed organize ourselves. This is how Tupac Amaru began, with the glass of milk, with the wardrobes and the community centers. We went to the villages to look for those who were really in need. You looked at what was happening and tears fell. And I said: “If Evita were alive, she would not have let all this happen.”
— “Where there is a need, a right is born”. If, as you just said, Evita were alive, what do you think she would do first to start generating the rights that are missing today?
— Evita would not have agreed with the International Monetary Fund and would be working hard, as Néstor did, for the redistribution of wealth, so that the children stop eating in the dining rooms and that their parents can take the food home with genuine work. She was always looking for a future for children and young people. Today in Jujuy there is no future for them. And it is unfortunate because Jujuy has many resources: sugar mills, tobacco, iron, ore, lithium, now also cannabis. If all this paid taxes accordingly, Jujuy would not be a poor province. For us, culture is the culture of work. We are not satisfied with having a plan and a bag of merchandise: whoever has a plan today must have a job tomorrow. At Tupac we always said that we don’t have a roof over our heads, we wanted to make what Evita wanted come true: that the poorest people can have a school, a swimming pool, a job and a place where the kids can play near their home. The good life (as Evo Morales says) for everyone.
— “I will return and I will be millions.” Apparently, this phrase was not only said by Evita, but had already been pronounced by the indigenous leader Tupac Amaru in 1871, before he was assassinated. Are Peronism and indigenism? Are you optimistic about the resurgence of popular governments in Latin America, with an Afro-descendant woman like Francia Márquez in Colombia or an Aymara leader like David Choquehuanca in Bolivia?
— The flag of our organization has Evita, Tupac and Che, and it is not by chance. In Latin America now we are more organized. In Chile, the struggle of university students and native peoples allowed them to recover their country. In Bolivia the right could not advance thanks to the social and indigenous movements. And I hope that Brazil will recover soon too. Today the native peoples are reuniting after a long time and are coming out to defend democracy. When the colonizers came, he was the Pachakuti of darkness. Those who had the audacity to ignore them were killed in front of everyone, to give a message. We say that in our Abya yala we are now living the Pachakuti of light. Little by little the native peoples begin to resurface. The one who came here to steal the land from us at some point will have to sit down with the real owners and talk to see how he begins to return it.
— Does this resurgence of the native peoples also imply another way of connecting with the planet?
— Covid is a sign from Mother Earth to put a stop to the advance of pollution. In many cities they were able to see the Sun, the stars because they had to stop the factories and stop polluting. The animals came out again. The boats stopped running and littering and the sea began to recover. So, Mother Earth is showing us that human beings have to stop with pollution, stop with land clearing. Many people do not understand that trees have life, that stones, rivers, fire and air also have life. They will say that I am crazy, but they must understand that nature, Mother Earth, is giving us a very strong message.
— You said that during the conquest they publicly punished those who resisted to teach a lesson to all the other people. Do you think the same thing happens with you and Tupac?
— They wanted to condition Tupac Amaru, to disappear. Today the Tupac Amaru is still reorganized, working in the territory; it mobilizes. This week there were two huge mobilizations, one in Libertador remembering the Night of the Blackout and another in Jujuy to ask that social organizations stop being prosecuted, in solidarity with the comrades who suffered raids. Despite the fact that they wanted to set an example for me and disarm Tupac Amaru, the people continue to fight. It was bad for them wanting to put my punishment as a lesson: they thought that the whole town was going to remain submissive and today it is going out again to the street.
— Evita also said: “Love lengthens the gaze of intelligence.” In the context you describe, can politics be done from love?
— Cristina said: “Love conquers hate”. Evita also worked to make the town happy. And we fought for the good life and we said that we had to recover the joy that the people had lost. And despite all the things that happen to us, we continue to transmit that it is useless to have hatred towards the other. Our ancestors taught us that you cannot live with hate, with resentment. When you put these feelings aside, your spirit calms down and you can have an open mind to do many things. Tupac Amaru and the brothers of the native peoples applied it. Evita, Néstor and Cristina said it: we have to continue working from love, affection and non-violence.
— What are you going to do the day your confinement ends and you regain your freedom?
— That day I want to take my children and my grandchildren to Yala. Hug the trees, be by the river and take that watera. I don’t want anything out of the ordinary: I want to touch the stoneswalk with my barefoot, do what our grandparents taught us and continue telling my grandchildren and my children that this is the greatest wealth we have. Because I am locked up and I also have my family locked up, my fellow militants, everyone who loves me. For a person who belongs to the native peoples, the worst punishment they can give you is to have you locked up, not being able to feel the smell of nature, the love that nature gives you by embracing you with the wind, with the Sun (which we call Tata Inti), with mommy Killa, who is the Moon, the water and the apus (as we call the hills). Believe it or not, all this is essential for us. That’s the first thing I’d like to do when I get out.