Diego's Pride

by Deborah Ellis

  ‘Well, it’s not working,’ Leon said, even though his hands were shaking as he untied and retied his bandana.

  At dawn the lights were turned off and the helicopter moved away. The captain’s voice came over a loudspeaker.

  ‘This is a message for everyone on the bridge. You have made your point. All of Bolivia is listening. With your bravery and your dedication you have shut down the country – you and other blockades like yours. You can claim victory, and I for one will happily concede that you are right.’

  At the word victory, a cheer went up from the cocaleros. Diego didn’t cheer, though. Victory meant getting their coca back and Diego getting money to go home. The captain wasn’t saying anything about that.

  ‘Now I have to tell you something that is bad news for many of you, and it is also bad news for me,’ the captain continued. ‘The other blockades in this area have been broken. Some protesters have been injured. It is only a matter of time before I am ordered to do the same thing here, and if I refuse, I will be replaced by someone who will do as they are told. You all know that what I am saying to you is true.’

  Jeers and boos rose from the crowd on the bridge. The captain waited until the noise had died down again before he went on. ‘Now is the time for us to act together for the good of Bolivia. We are a nation of many people. Bolivians are not only coca growers. They have many jobs, and they need to get to work. So I am asking you, as a gesture of good faith, to lift your blockade.’

  This was met with chants of ‘Justice! Justice! Justice!’

  The chants went on for a good long while. For Diego, screaming out ‘Justice!’ made him feel like he was at least doing something to fight against the tanks and guns that were pointed at them. He shouted and punched his fist in the air.

  When the chants had died down a bit, the voice of the captain came over the loudspeaker again.

  ‘You do not have to abandon your blockade altogether. I am asking you for a small gesture only. Lift your blockade for twelve hours. Allow the back-up of traffic to move through so goods can get to market and your fellow citizens can get to where they need to go.’

  The answer was a resounding ‘No!’

  ‘Six hours, then,’ the captain pleaded. ‘I am being pressured. Lift your blockade for just six hours. Or four hours!’

  The ‘No!’ rose up again, but not as loudly as before.

  ‘We should discuss it,’ someone shouted. ‘If we want concessions from them, we should be prepared to give something from us.’

  ‘They’ve already taken our coca,’ shouted a reply. ‘What more should we give them?’

  ‘We cannot show weakness now that we are winning!’ someone else yelled.

  ‘It does not show weakness to discuss something,’ Mrs Ricardo said, which made sense to Diego, even though he didn’t know how he felt about lifting the blockade. Keeping it or lifting it, neither seemed likely to result in money in his pocket.

  The protesters made a crude circle in the middle of the bridge, sitting so everyone could see everyone else. They left just a few people on watch at either end. Diego sat beside Emilio, who was feeling a little better after so much sleep the day before. Diego saw the two gringo backpackers heading off the bridge at the south end. He was sure their packs had been emptied of food by Bonita.

  Moments later, he saw Bonita giving away granola bars, biscuits and the other packaged American food the gringos had been hoarding.

  The helicopter moved completely away, and the tanks and military trucks shut off their motors. There was quiet in the clearing, and people could hear each other talk.

  ‘Why should we trust them?’ someone asked. ‘If we lift our blockade, they could prevent us from setting it up again.’

  ‘We could set up another blockade somewhere else on the highway,’ someone else pointed out. ‘It doesn’t have to be here. They can’t keep us off all the highways.’

  ‘If we do this for them, they might help us with something we need.’

  ‘We don’t need them to do anything except return our coca and leave us alone.’

  The discussion went on and on. Some people were used to speaking about such things in front of a large group, and they quickly got to the point. Others took longer to form their thoughts into words. Some just liked to hear themselves talk.

  ‘Are you feeling all right?’ Diego asked Emilio, who was leaning against him a little.

  ‘Just tired,’ Emilio said. ‘It’s nothing.’ He was breathing a little hard.

  ‘Why don’t you use your inhaler?’ Diego asked him.

  ‘Why don’t you mind your own business?’ Emilio said, pushing himself away.

  Diego went after him. ‘Don’t be mad. I told your father I’d watch out for you, that’s all.’

  Emilio started to shake him off again, then stopped.

  ‘I lost my inhaler,’ he said quietly, so no one else around them would hear. ‘When the helicopters came. All that wind they stirred up.’

  ‘Can’t you get another one?’

  ‘Sure, I’ll just go into the forest and pick one off a tree,’ Emilio said, then, ‘They’re really expensive.’

  Money again, thought Diego.

  ‘Don’t tell anyone,’ Emilio pleaded. ‘They’ll make me leave the blockade. Everyone watches out for Vargas’s little boy.’ He spoke the last words with scorn. ‘They all think I’m weak.’

  ‘No one thinks that,’ Diego said. ‘I’ll look for your inhaler. No one will know.’

  ‘No one will know what, Bug?’

  Dario and Leon bumped into the boys from behind.

  ‘No one will know that we hate all these meetings and speeches,’ Diego said.

  ‘I’m with you on that, little Bug,’ Dario said, putting his arms around Diego’s and Emilio’s shoulders.

  ‘But Wolf and I have a plan,’ Leon said, steering them all to a bit of the bridge away from the others.

  ‘All this talk is starting to bug us, Bug,’ Dario said, taking off his baseball cap to scratch a mosquito bite on his forehead. ‘We need to attack.’

  ‘We have a plan,’ Leon said again. ‘It’s a good plan. It will make them take us seriously.’

  ‘I’ve had it with this waiting around for justice. Why should we wait?’ Dario asked. ‘We’re going out and taking what is ours.’

  ‘We have work to do,’ Diego said, tugging Emilio by the arm.

  Emilio shrugged him off. ‘What’s your plan?’

  ‘We sneak up on them,’ Leon said. ‘Take them by surprise.’

  ‘We’re leaving.’ Diego pulled Emilio away. Emilio tried to free his arm, but Diego kept pulling.

  ‘Maybe we should listen to them,’ Emilio said.

  ‘They have nothing to say.’ Diego had known too many young men like that in his father’s prison, full of bold plans to escape, or to make big money, or to become king of the prison. Their plans always ended up with someone else getting hurt.

  ‘What do you know?’ Emilio said. ‘You’ve never been in a demonstration before. You don’t know anything.’

  ‘Your father told me to look after you, so – ’

  Diego was interrupted by the sounds of more cheers and chants. Protesters rushed by them and headed toward the south end of the bridge.

  The boys climbed up on to the railing to see what was happening.

  ‘It’s the folks from the other blockade!’ Emilio shouted. ‘My father is with them! I can see his hat!’

  Emilio dashed away from Diego, then dashed back to say, ‘Remember, you promised not to tell about my inhaler.’ Then he rushed off to greet his father.

  Diego couldn’t watch Emilio and his father hug each other. It made him miss his own family too much.

  The cocaleros who weren’t busy welcoming Vargas were busy welcoming the new protesters from the other blockade. The meetings broke up for awhile as the new people were shown around and information was shared.

  Diego heard bits of news as he moved from errand to errand. The army ha
d moved right through the other blockade, using bulldozers and big trucks to knock away logs and rocks. There were a few broken bones from falls and being hit with truncheons. The ones with the bad injuries had stayed behind for medical care, but the ones with the cuts and scrapes had come to this new blockade, wearing their crude bandages with pride.

  ‘We know that the road to justice is not a straight road,’ Vargas said through the megaphone. ‘It is a road with bumps and gaps, and it is not a restful road to travel. But we should have no doubt – and those who oppose us should have no doubt – we travel this road together, with joy in our hearts and a vision of a better future stretched out before us.’

  Diego was suddenly too tired to listen to the speech, and too tired to run any more errands. He sat with his back to the railing and was glad to be unnoticed and unwanted for a little while. He watched without interest as the new blockaders started to have little arguments with the old blockaders. Each group had their own way of doing things. Each group was sure it was right.

  ‘Are you sure you want to leave the cookfire there?’ a new protester was saying to the woman who had built and tended the fire for so many days. ‘The smoke would blow over the bridge less if the fire was on the other side of the road.’

  ‘Let me show you how we built up our blockade,’ one of the new men said to a man Diego knew from the security committee. ‘I can show you how to make it really strong.’

  ‘If you knew how to make it strong, the army wouldn’t have run it down,’ the security committee man said.

  Diego leaned his head against the railing and closed his eyes. Around him the noise of voices ebbed and flowed. I should look for that inhaler, he thought. He dozed off in the warm sun.

  A loud bang jolted him out of his sleep and on to his feet. He could tell from the stunned looks that the noise had startled the other protesters as well.

  For a long moment there was just the shrieking of the birds to show that there had been an actual noise, that Diego hadn’t dreamed it. Then it happened again – three bangs in a row, like gunshots.

  Clouds of smoke rose up from the bridge. All around him Diego heard people coughing and screaming.

  ‘Tear gas!’ he heard someone shout. ‘They’re shooting tear gas at us!’

  Diego breathed in something painful and poisonous, making him choke, then vomit on to the bridge. He couldn’t get any air. Someone dashed up close to him, picked up the gas-spewing canister and hurled it back over the north barricade.

  ‘Splash water in your eyes,’ Leon shouted as he ran by. ‘Don’t rub them, you’ll make it worse.’

  But Diego’s eyes were too full of tears for him to be able to find the water. When he got close just by accident, someone tossed the boiled drinking water on to the pavement.

  ‘There’s tear gas in the water,’ a voice said. ‘It’s all contaminated.’

  ‘We need more water.’ He saw a woman hurry past him with two empty pails to get water from the river. ‘We should have been better prepared for this!’

  The truce between the army and the blockade was over. Protesters threw rocks and sticks at the soldiers. Diego heaved a tear-gas canister back across the barricade.

  ‘Don’t throw them in the river,’ Mr Ricardo urged everyone. ‘It’s our river. Don’t poison it.’

  The air was full of smoke and gas. All the soldiers were wearing gas masks, so the tear gas didn’t bother them.

  ‘I need your help, Bug!’ Dario grabbed Diego’s wrist and ran with him to the south end of the bridge. He pulled two containers of gasoline out from the shade of a tree. ‘All over the tires,’ he ordered.

  Diego hesitated. He didn’t understand what he was being asked to do.

  ‘The smoke will give us cover,’ Dario shouted, as he splashed gasoline on to the stack of rubber.

  ‘They can’t see us, they can’t shoot us. Leon’s doing the north end. Pour!’

  Diego poured. When the tin was empty, Dario pushed him back, lit a match and tossed it on the pile.

  Flames rose up in a whoosh. Diego felt the heat on his face.

  ‘Pull your bandana up!’ Dario yelled at him. ‘Come over here!’ He picked up a jug of vinegar. ‘Close your eyes!’ He splashed Diego’s bandana with a handful of vinegar. ‘It will help with the gas.’ Then he splashed vinegar on his own bandana.

  The flames from the gasoline burned themselves out, and thick black smoke from the smoldering tires rose up and mixed with the tear gas.

  Diego stumbled around the bridge, his eyes stinging and full of tears. He had to stop every few minutes to cough and catch his breath. The vinegar-soaked bandana didn’t seem to be doing him any good – maybe he’d put it on too late. He pushed it down around his neck so he could throw up more freely.

  He had no idea how much time was passing. He heard gun shots, and helicopters, and lots of angry shouting. The noise was deafening. Children screamed from fear and from the gas.

  ‘We have to remove the babies,’ Mrs Ricardo said, running down the bridge with a wailing Santo in her arms. ‘We have to get them up high, away from the gas.’

  ‘I know a place,’ Diego yelled. He took Santo, who pulled Diego’s hair and screeched in terror. Mrs Ricardo spotted Martino trying to throw rocks, even though he was crying from the gas. She grabbed him, and Diego led them all to the bottom of the trail that led up to the ridge where he had sat with Bonita and Emilio after livestock duty.

  ‘Up there,’ he said, pointing.

  Mrs Ricardo took Santo. ‘Send the others up. And we’ll need clean water.’

  Diego ran back to the bridge. He tried to point old people and folks with little kids to the trail, but there was so much chaos that he couldn’t make himself understood.

  ‘Help me get the little ones ones on to the ridge,’ he yelled at Bonita when he bumped into her. His eyes were watering so badly that he was nearly blind. ‘Your mother’s already there.’

  ‘I’ll get Emilio to help,’ she said.

  Emilio! In all the chaos, Diego had forgotten about his responsibility. His own chest and throat were on fire. How could Emilio be all right? He didn’t have his inhaler! Diego had promised to look for it, but he’d fallen asleep instead.

  Arms outstretched in front of him, he collided with person after person.

  ‘Emilio?’ he yelled at each one. ‘Emilio?’

  In the end he found his friend by stepping on him. Emilio was on the pavement, his head half-buried under a tarp to try to escape the gas. Diego bent low over him. Emilio was gasping for breath, like a fish out of water. His skin was frighteningly pale.

  Diego tried to drag Emilio away, but he wasn’t strong enough. Instead he grabbed hold of something white – a shirt? a towel? – and ran to the north end of the bridge. He climbed the barrier and stood at the top, hopping on to the old rowboat that was propped up there.

  Furiously, he waved the white cloth over his head. He did it without discussion, or debate, or the consent of the other protesters.

  ‘Stop firing!’ Diego heard. The shooting stopped, and the clearing went quiet, except for the crying of children and the wounded, and the sounds of vomiting and choking.

  The captain took off his gas mask and stepped forward.

  ‘Help my friend,’ Diego said. ‘He’s on the bridge. He can’t breathe.’

  The captain called for medics. Young army men ran out with a stretcher and a medical kit. They ran to take care of Emilio.

  ‘People are hurt,’ Diego said to the captain. ‘You hurt them.’

  ‘What did you think was going to happen?’ the captain yelled. ‘With anyone else in charge, it would have been worse. I’m being pressured to clear this bridge!’

  Mr Ricardo was at Diego’s side, along with other protesters.

  ‘Vargas and the medics are with Emilio,’ he said, lifting Diego down from the barrier.

  Then he turned to the captain. ‘You are the only ones inflicting pain,’ he said. ‘You have gas and tanks and rubber bullets. We
have only our bodies and our willingness to die. You are the ones who must make a choice. You can continue to hurt us, even kill us. Or you can go and tell the government that we will not be scared away!’

  With that, and with a squeeze of Diego’s shoulder, Mr Ricardo turned and went back behind the barricade. The others followed him.

  Diego let the white cloth of surrender drop through his fingers to the ground, and went to be with his friend.

  FOURTEEN

  The bridge became very quiet. The captain ordered all the motors on the tanks and military trucks shut off, and the helicopters stayed away.

  ‘Who started firing tear gas without my orders?’ Diego heard him shout. ‘I wanted to get through this without casualties.’

  Diego looked back at the bridge from the north barrier. It looked as if a battle had been fought there. Bodies were stretched out on the pavement, hit by flying canisters or debris. He saw red blood through the gray smoke. Blinded with tears and smoke, folks bumped into each other and tripped over each other. There was moaning, and crying, and sounds of anger and pain.

  The medics gave Emilio oxygen and medicine. He began to breathe more easily, and the colour returned to his cheeks.

  ‘Keep your boy away from tear gas,’ one of the medics said to Vargas.

  ‘Keep your tear gas away from my boy,’ Vargas replied. He gathered Emilio into his arms to carry him up to the ridge. His eyes met Diego’s for one long moment. Then, with a shake of his head, Vargas took his son to higher ground.

  Diego felt very, very tired. Vargas’s disappointment was a heavy weight. He leaned against the railing and tried not to feel anything.

  ‘You’re the boy who came for the candles,’ a woman’s voice said.

  Diego looked up into the face of the nun who had been at the church. His eyes were too teary to see her properly.

  ‘I’m Sister Rosa,’ she said. ‘Tilt your head back. This is clean water.’ Fresh water flowed into Diego’s eyes, washing the sting away.

  ‘Actually, it’s holy water, from Lourdes,’ another woman’s voice said. ‘Father Javier brought back big bottles from his last visit to France.’