Speak Out for the Disappeared

 Letter to the LNP Editor; text as submitted March 14, 2025

In the years when I was involved in Latin America solidarity work, we mourned the “disappeared.” They were the resisters, the justice and civil rights advocates, the teachers, doctors, and priests. They were grabbed from homes and offices, classrooms and shops. The fortunate ones turned up in prison somewhere, but most were found as corpses, or never found at all. In many countries the reign of terror lasted for years.

Now ICE is “disappearing” people. Every day we learn another name – Mahmoud Kahlil, Jasmine Mooney, Becky Burke. While each one of these has now been located, all three in brutal detention centers with no clear path for release, in each case it took days for concerned family to learn their whereabouts. These are the few whose names are now public knowledge. I have no doubt that there are and will be others. Cruelty is a hallmark of the Trump-Musk regime’s modus operandi.

German Lutheran Pastor Martin Niemöller’s famous quote, spoken after he was freed from eight years in a nazi prison camp, bears repeating now: “First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a socialist. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a trade unionist. Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—because I was not a Jew. Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.”

Now is the time for each of us to speak out loudly and clearly. The lawless, hateful destruction of our country must not prevail.