Inti-Illimani headlines at Albuquerque Peace Marc
Albuquerque activists joined many others in Washington, D.C. and other cities around the country in a local peace march on March 17, 2007. According to Allen Cooper's head-by-head count, there were 1200 participating in the actual march, which started at the Civic Plaza and stopped along the way at the offices of Senator Pete Domenici (recently in the news about the U.S. Attorneys being fired) and Senator Jeff Bingaman before ending up at a Peace Festival at Robinson Park. Speakers and poets and musicians, organized by the Southwest Organizing Project, performed at the park. I didn't actually march with the group, instead staffing the Stop the War Machine table at the park the whole time, selling T-shirts and distributing buttons and flyers.
Inti-Illimani, the Chilean musical group performed several songs. They were in town for an evening concert at the National Hispanic Cultural Center, which I attended as well. This is the 40th year of the groups existence, but only one of the original members is still in the group. The program notes say that the group met in the '60's at Santiago Technical University, where they were studying to become engineers. They formed a musical group
to explore the indigenous cultures of Chile, Peru, Bolivia, Ecuador, and Argentina. In some of the poorest, purest, and most ancient cultures they discovered Andean music, and, in a sense, their roots…
In 1973, Chilean President Salvador Allende was deposed while Inti-Illimani was on tour in Europe. The young musicians found themselves without patria or passport, and Italy became their home for the next 14 years. In 1988, they were warmly welcomed back to Chile, moving home permanently in 1990…
Jorge Coulon, the group's remaining founding member, stated in an interview: "We have never been so political that it was propaganda. We are not a political group in that sense, but we have always been politically engaged. We have a concept of society and about the relationships between human beings, and we try to translate our ideas into our sound, not to be part of one political party or another but in the sense to bring about a better world."
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