The first time I saw a condor, it was at the zoo of Québec City. He looked sad in his prison. Rain had just stopped, and the bird, pitiful to look at and standing on a rock, had spread out wide its wings to dry them under the sun. His head had appeared to me as repulsive, but his wings impressed me: more than three meters all in all.

Dozens of years went by and I forgot the condors. They reappeared after my arrival in Argentina where I heard talks about a mysterious «Operation Condor». First I thought that that was about some kind of safari to chase the condor. That surprised me because that big vulture from the Andes was listed among the protected species. But the truth was quite different and much more ferocious. It was no more no less a criminal organization highly sophisticated which had been created by vultures that were much more dangerous that the condors. It was the work of the most powerful dictators of the continent. Pinochet was its brain. The objective of the organization was to track down the enemies of those dictatorial regimes as far as in the countries where they had taken refuge so as to eliminate them without any pity. Many awful crimes were committed in that way.

I was angry due to the fact that genocide perpetrators had chosen the condor as the symbol of their criminal organization. The condor is a sacred bird. According to the myth, he is the soul of the Inca who, beyond the centuries and beyond death, goes on protecting the people of the Andes against its predators. All the oppressed of those thousand-years-old cultures see in him a symbol of liberation and dedicate to him a genuine cult. But I fast became disenchanted when later on, finding myself in the mountains of Tilcara at about 4000 meters in altitude, I saw for the first time a majestic condor gliding in the blue skies. I was simply ecstatic like Christopher Columbus when he saw pointing at the horizon the first coconut trees of America. I could not get over it! To make sure, I asked Antolin, my brave mountain guide:

-Is it really a condor that we are seeing over there?

-Yes, my little padre.

-What a marvel!

-No, my little padre.

-What do you mean by no? The largest bird in the world, the soul of the Inca, messenger of the god Sun, sacred protector of the Andes peoples...

-Not at all, my little padre. If I had a gun, I would kill it.

-Come on, Antolin, are you serious ?

-As I am telling you, I would kill it. But those damn soldiers have taken our arms (he spat on the ground). We cannot defend ourselves anymore against those wretched birds.

In fact, the military dictatorship had disarmed the people, allegedly to fight criminality and protect the fauna, but in reality, it was to keep the people from arming themselves against it.

-As I can see, Antolin, you do not like very much the military...My congratulations.

Once again he spat on the ground and said to me:

-The military men are just like those damn condors. They are predators, robbers, bloodthirsty pigs!

-I agree totally with you, Antolin. The military is killing Argentina and the neighboring countries. But the condors?

-The condors are killing our cows, our sheep, our llamas. They are sly and shrewd rogues, dangerous hypocrites like Videla, Pinochet and the others...

Antolin's face was all red.

-Imagine, little padre, that those bastard birds that feed off carrion adore the newly-born calves. They have a diabolical scent. From high above in the sky, a condor can detect a cow that is on the point of giving birth. When time has come, it scares the cow by rushing briskly at it until it runs far away from the herd. When the cow is away from the herd, and has just started to give birth, the condor once again rushes at it. And then, in mid-flight, without stopping, the condor grabs the nascent creature between its feet and then lets it fall on a promontory where it will devour when it will be nicely putrefied.

Antolin spat once again on the ground and kept on saying with mischievous eyes:

-You know, little padre, my neighbors and I have revenged ourselves some time ago. Two condors had succeeded in having one of our cows fall in a deep ravine. The cow died on the spot. In no time the remains were rotten. Incapable of lifting the carcass to bring it on a promontory, the two birds decided to guzzle it right where it was. One of our men saw the whole thing. Without a sound, he raised the alarm among the neighbors. Everyboydy, men, women and children armed themselves with sticks and ran towards the crime scene. When they saw the two condors stuffing themselves at the bottom of the abyss, they said to themselves: « They are done for! » You must know, my little padre, that the condors cannot take flight from the ground like other birds do. Their wings are too heavy. They always have to plunge into the void from a very high spot so that they can take flight. That is why when we saw our two condors at the bottom of the ravine, we were sure that their last hour had come. We all when down there shouting. When they saw us arrived, the condors tried to flee, but they were not able to go very far. Their paunches were over their back and their large wings were blocking their feet. They were banging their heads on the side of the ravine and would fall back on their behind like drunk men. We jumped on both of them altogether and banging on them with our sticks, we smashed them like bugs.

Antolin was still savouring his victory. Napoleon himself, after Austerlitz, must not have known such perfect pleasure.

Many times I have related that story to explain that when we are too greedy and that we fill up our bellies and our pockets by sucking without any qualm the blood of the little ones, of the weakest and of the poorest, chances are that we may well finish like those two condors, at the bottom of a hole, prisoner of the decaying carcass that we ourselves have fabricated, and die with the nose in it. It is with this story that many times, « time in, time out », I have illustrated that word of Jesus that is all the same clear: « It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for one who is rich to enter the kingdom of God » (Matt. 19:24).

I think only of the incredible tribulations of the old Pinochet's last years...Or to the brutal end of the Mussolini, Hitler, Trujillo, Somoza, Ceaucescu, Saddam Hussein, Kadhafi et tutti quanti... I am thinking of the defeat of the powerful liberal party of Canada after the scandal of the financial sponsorships and of the fate that befell the CEOs of Enron, of Norbourg and of other glorious crooks who ended by falling into the clutches of justice. I am thinking about the fate that awaits those thousands of vultures who gangrene the very pillars of the Quebec democracy and that an important inquest Commission actually in progress is trying to unmask. I am thinking about those Mafiosi and abusers of all calibers who at times were thought of as heroes or saints and now are rotting inside a jail.

I see in them the two condors that are dying at the bottom of the ravine under the blows of Antolin and of his friends, and I console myself, thinking that there is still some justice on this earth, even if that justice, compared to what it should be, is not bigger than a mustard seed.

Eloy Roy

Translated from the French by Jacques Bourdages