For Sacha Macfarlane

Sacha Catherina Macfarlane died on the 29th November 1984, exactly one month before her twenty first birthday, when the car driven by Chilean diplomat Luis Felipe Lopez crossed the centre line and collided head on with the car in which Sacha was a passenger.  

Her sister Nina was in the car behind Sacha, and witnessed the crash  (all three cars were BMWs), which some reports referred to as "an accident".  That description of the event is an insult to Sacha and her family.

Luis Felipe Lopez was the driver of the car which collided with the one Sacha was in, the official diplomatic representative of the brutal and corrupt Pinochet regime in Chile, he was blind drunk, he stank of alcohol. He made a deliberate decision to drink and drive, and he killed a beautiful young woman with her whole life ahead of her, in front of her sister. 

Lopez then claimed diplomatic immunity and fled the country.  Prime Minister David Lange postulated, like he did about Alain Marfart and Dominique Prieur after the murder of the Greenpeace photographer Fernando Pereira on the Rainbow Warrior, but nothing ever happened to Luis Felipe Lopez, he got away without every facing justice for the culpable homicide of Sacha Macfarlane, and David Lange and all the politicians and lawyers and media and everyone just forgot about it and got on with their lives.

Sacha was 20 years old, and died a horrific and totally unnecessary death, Nina and the other witnesses carry the memories of it forever.  Day after day, year after year, all this time, I've been listening for the sound of someone saying "Sorry about Sacha.  It was wrong what happened." But all there ever was was silence.  

Yesterday, something special happened.  

A woman called Carol Cromie, the partner of Sacha and Nina's Dad, Kester Macfarlane.  wrote a poem about Sacha.  Carol sent her poem to Chile’s Foreign Affairs Ministry, and to the Chilean embassy in Wellington. 

All the words of the politicians, the lawyers, the coroner, all faded away and the words of Carol Cromie rang and echoed in the empty spaces in the hearts of people around the world.

On 13 April 2010, twenty five years after Sacha was killed, the Chilean embassy apologised on behalf of their government.  Chilean ambassador Luis Lillo said he felt it was necessary to acknowledge Sacha's death.  

 
Mr Macfarlane, 67, said yesterday that the apology meant a lot to him and his family. “The circumstances and the ensuing publicity surrounding her death caused us unbearable and unnecessary grief” he said.  It caused a lot of grief for everyone who knew Sacha, she was special. She was no ordinary young woman, she was like a shining light, like a beautiful tree about to burst into blossom.  She was full of fun, full of promise, full of life.  

Mr Macfarlane said “The letter of apology is beautiful. It is a genuine apology, which lays the whole thing to rest as far as I am concerned. It was a little thing I needed to happen after all these years.” Mr Macfarlane also took the opportunity to point out that Luis Felipe Lopez was in New Zealand at the time as a representative of the corrupt Pinochet regime, and as such, shouldn't have even been in the country.

Never underestimate the power of words, the power of a simple, honest poem.  This one healed a lot of pain, it made a lot of people think, and I hope it continues to make them think for a long time.  It's a beautiful, beautiful poem, thanks Carol. 

When it seemed like the whole world had forgotten the gross and outrageous injustice, after all these years have gone by, this poem is what changed everything, and healed the pain of injustice. Let it inspire us to write our own poems.  Naming and shaming people works, things change, people acknowledge the truth, there is redemption, everyone can move on a bit.  This is the poem that changed things:

  

A message for Mr Lopez.

I was in Santiago the other day, Mr Lopez, first time in my life, and I was intending to look you up.  

 
I’m not sure what I would have said if I’d knocked on your door and found you home. If a woman, your wife or even a daughter, had called over the balcony or the intercom ¿hola?

You see, Mr Lopez, I’m not sure what I want from you any more.

The phone directory has many Lopez as you of course would know - they’re rare where I come from – but just three listed as Luis Felipe.  

Perhaps you’re all related: elderly father, your eldest son and you, Mr Lopez, the diplomat.  Are you still an embassy man or did you switch your line of work after the immunity wore off?

I’d been rehearsing our meeting all these years but, somehow I got to Chile and my heart wasn’t in it.  What was I going to say to you:  Hi, Mr Lopez, I’d like a word about my daughter?

Would it hurt if I told you she was twenty, tall and beautiful, unsure as some striking people are, and gifted, an artist with a promising future. Paintings are all I have.

Hi, Mr Lopez, I could have said, I’m the father of the girl you killed when you drove dead-drunk in a new car in a new country on the wrong side of a road.

 
Would it hurt if I told you, last time I saw her, I promised her oil paints for Christmas and watched her small plane until it was just a speck in a summer sky.

 
You! You crossed the centre line a third time, saw the headlights and swerved – not to the left, your  side of the road, which might have saved her – but to the right, Luis Felipe Lopez, to the right.
Hi, Mr Lopez, I could have said in Santiago, please step outside, They missed you at the inquest.
 

The coroner’s man couldn’t get Sacha’s name right – he called her ‘Sacka’, as if she were a sack of nothing - but he had yours down pat.
 

I have one daughter left alive.  On birthdays and death days and in the early mornings, you are not far from our thoughts, Luis - can I call you that? I wonder if the ‘car accident’, fool phrase, wrecked your life as it did ours.  What price did you have to pay, loyal servant of General Pinochet, for slaughter in a foreign city?  When you hug your own daughter, do you sometimes think of Sacha.
 

I sat on the bed in my hotel room in your city ringed with mountains, three likely numbers in my hand, and I knew it was over. To tamp down my bitterness, concentrate my sadness, I tried to put myself in your shoes, to imagine what it must be like to be a killer. I tried but I cannot.

 
No, Luis Felipe Lopez, I do not want to see your face.

The power of this poem is immense, and inspiring, and a fitting tribute to Sacha Macfarlane.