Xenia Itté, the widow of Tupamaro leader Raúl “Bebe” Sendic who was also imprisoned during the dictatorship that extended in Uruguay between 1973 and 1985, He passed away this Monday in Montevideo at the age of 80.. “Itté was imprisoned in the Cabildo prison in 1971 and then from 1972 to 1985 in Punta de Rieles during state terrorism. To her, our sincere tribute and recognition. Until always, Xenia,” reported the association of former political prisoners Crysol it’s a statement.
Itté was Sendic’s last partner, who died in April 1989. She worked at a radio station in Bella Unión, the city where she was from, and there she met the founder of the MLN-Tupamaros. At that time she was not of a definite political orientation. In an interview with Montevideo Portal, Ella Itté recalled that at that time “It was nothing, but I had a feeling that Raúl was going to change my life”.
Itté was Sendic’s last partner, who died in April 1989. She worked at a radio station in Bella Unión, the city where she was from, and there she met the founder of the MLN-Tupamaros. At that time she was not of a definite political orientation. In an interview with Montevideo Portal, Ella Itté recalled that at that time “It was nothing, but I had a feeling that Raúl was going to change my life”.
After the installation of a camp of the Union of Sugar Workers of Artigas, under the leadership of Sendic, Itté began to support the mobilizations of the “cañeros” (or “peludos”, as they were also called). Since then he did not stop committing himself to social and political militancy until he became an active part of the MLN-T, as he recalled. The Daily.
Itté was arrested by the police on March 17, 1971 and imprisoned in the Cabildo prison, from where he ran away on July 30 of the same year along with 37 other political prisonersstarring in “Operation Star”a planned escape with actions from inside and outside the prison, through a tunnel that communicated with the sewage network.
She was arrested again on September 1, 1972. and remained in the Punta Carretas prison until 1985. She was one of the last political prisoners to be released and is the protagonist of an iconic photo that records her release from prison, in a police van with a van, from where two women greet yelling with raised fists at the crowd waiting outside.
“I remember perfectly that day, the soldiers said ‘don’t stick out your arms because they’re going to rip them off’. We left in the truck from the basement of Cárcel Central, down the ramp that leads to San José, and precisely, I quickly opened the window and took out my hand… They almost ripped my arm off, indeed, it was full of bruises. Oh well, It was very nice because it was the people who did that to me, it wasn’t the military“, reported a smiling Itté in 2014, while recalling that at that precise moment he was saying: “Thank you town”.