"We won!"

Dear friends,

thanks to all of you - the President of the Amnesty Comission has received more than 1.500 emails from all over the world! -, after NINE years my process was finally analised by the Comission, which accepted:

1º) to declare officially that I have been banned from the country, in 1971, by the military dictatorship, so I have the status of someone entitled to have the benefits of the Amnesty, which means that all those years that I have worked abroad must count as though I were working here in my country;

2º) to declare that I am entitled to have a pension just like everybody else; the ammount proposed is not as much as we think it should be but, considering the Brazilian situation of international economic slavery, it is not so bad either.

To all of you, my friends, I have to declare very emphatically that I have no intention whatsoever to retire at all, never!!! I still have lots of work to do and I know that many people still need me.

All I was fighting for was my legal right to have a pension, which had been denied by the reactionary dictators who banned me. I was fighting for justice, not only for a certain ammount of money. Now, I am happy: we won. We did, together, what I could not have done alone.

Happy also because my health is slowly coming back. My doctors swear that on my next birthday the 16th of March I will be again 57 and not 75. I am not Molière: I believe in doctors...

Now, my thoughts go to all those people around the world who have not 1.500 friends and have their rights disrespected by their governments. I will never hesitate to give them my support.

Once again, thank you very much. And... please, inform our friends.


AUGUSTO BOAL