Former Chilean military charged in 1973 murder of singer Víctor Jara
July 26, 2015 12:45 PM   Subscribe

Jara – who was also a folk singer, theatre director and communist party member - was taken prisoner during the coup by General Augusto Pinochet in September 1973. Military officers tortured him, broke his wrists and hands, played Russian roulette with him and then on 16 September executed him with 44 bullets.

“These are cases that are burned into Chile’s historical memory,” said human rights lawyer Nelson Caucoto in an interview with the Guardian. “They are crimes committed during a dictatorship and supposedly to never be solved. Now, the accused will be planning their defense and this year we may have sentencing.”
posted by MrJM (21 comments total) 13 users marked this as a favorite
 
"This song is titled "I Remember You Amanda" and it is a song that tells of the love of two workers, two present day workers, the kind you see on the streets and sometimes you don't realise what lies inside of their souls, of two workers from any factory, any city, any time, from our continent"
Victor Jara - Te Recuerdo Amanda live on TV
posted by sukeban at 1:18 PM on July 26, 2015 [3 favorites]


Slightly tangential but I first heard about Victor Jara from a Clash song calledWashington Bullets and find myself grateful to Joe Strummer for wanting to teach people more about the world.
posted by stanf at 1:47 PM on July 26, 2015 [8 favorites]


Victor Jara: Zamba del Che.
posted by ryanshepard at 1:58 PM on July 26, 2015


wow. 44 years too late. small consolation - these people have lived free lives, while they left a trail of corpses and broken mutilated bodies in their wake

it's worth repeating, that these fascist scum (the millitary in latin america) were actively supported and lauded by reagan and thatcher in their murder and torture; they were singing its praises as necessary anti-communist work.

Nunca Más
posted by lalochezia at 2:02 PM on July 26, 2015 [22 favorites]


Truth and reconciliation be damned- it's never too late to indict a murderer.
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 2:04 PM on July 26, 2015 [2 favorites]


Good. Pity it's so late and Pinochet died without facing justice.
posted by Artw at 2:05 PM on July 26, 2015 [3 favorites]




Victor Jara - His last song - English translation - chilling.
Excerpts from The Trial of Henry Kissenger by Christopher Hitchins.
A short article by Michael Zezima.
posted by adamvasco at 2:23 PM on July 26, 2015 [1 favorite]


For those that are interested in the Golpe in Chile and what came afterwards (or astronomy or philosophy,) I cannot recommend enough the documentary Nostalgia de la Luz.

Nostalgia for the Light (Spanish: Nostalgia de la Luz) is a documentary released in 2010 by Patricio Guzmán to address the lasting impacts of Augusto Pinochet’s dictatorship.[1] Guzmán focuses on the similarities between astronomers researching humanity’s past, in an astronomical sense, and the struggle of many Chilean women who still search, after decades, for the remnants of their relatives executed during the dictatorship. Patricio Guzmán narrates the documentary himself and the documentary includes interviews and commentary from those affected and from astronomers and archeologists.

It's the best documentary I've ever seen.
posted by saul wright at 2:40 PM on July 26, 2015 [1 favorite]


Victor Jara's last song

Last Song in English (I think this is what adamvasco meant to link)
posted by CCBC at 2:46 PM on July 26, 2015 [1 favorite]


Thatcher and Reagan weren't really in power until five or six years after the coup, so it can't really be pinned on them. Boy were they enthusiastic for it after the fact, though.
posted by Artw at 3:02 PM on July 26, 2015 [1 favorite]


Thanks CCBC that is what I meant to link to.

On preview Artw beats me.
The government of Ronald Reagan was so worried that leftwing opposition to General Augusto Pinochet might erupt into open civil war that in 1986 the US government considered offering political asylum to the Chilean dictator.
Lady Thatcher thanked her old friend for being an ally during the 1982 Falklands War - and for "bringing democracy to Chile".
The real criminal outside of Chile was and always will be Henry Kissinger and the only person with power who had the cojones to try and indict him was Baltasar Garzon.
posted by adamvasco at 3:09 PM on July 26, 2015 [4 favorites]


Let's not forget Milton Friedman's and Friedrich Hayek's love affair with Pinochet, either.
posted by mondo dentro at 3:15 PM on July 26, 2015 [4 favorites]


The past isn't even past.
posted by rhizome at 3:21 PM on July 26, 2015 [2 favorites]


Salvador Allende was a good man. He wasn't far left and he was from the elite, but he was still a sincere and honest person - so much so that he didn't arm his supporters even when they begged him to do so because they could see the coup coming. He was a moderate leftist and a reformer, and even that could not be allowed by the elites or by D.C. Disgusting, shitty people. If you want to talk about Thatcher, one reason I hate her more than many other right wing politicians is that she took something decent that worked okay and did her absolute fucking level best to break it out of selfishness and class hatred. Similarly, the people who ran the coup against Allende did their level best to break something that was functional and decent and really, truly could have been a moderate left government that worked and was honest. It takes a special kind of person to actively work to destroy something good like that. It's like, let's take the chance we have for a stable, moderate, decent, fair government and smash it up.

There's no amount of punishment that could be half as much as these people deserve - never mind that god-damned genocidaire Kissinger, who should be rotting down in hell next to Stalin - but I'd be glad to see them convicted.
posted by Frowner at 3:30 PM on July 26, 2015 [18 favorites]


Of course no one acts alone and the civilian support for Pinochet and his murderous supporters are little documentated in English which Soldiers in a Narrow Land does to a certain extent.
A leading Chilean investagative journalsit is Javier Rebolledo who has published both La Danza de los Cuevos and previously “Los crímenes que estremecieron a Chile”.
We have a Chilean resident who is a Mefite so hopefully he will come along and add some more.
American journalists Charles Horman and Frank Terrugi were arrested, tortured and killed during the coup. A Chilean court in 2014 found that the United States played a key role in Teruggi's murder.
posted by adamvasco at 3:56 PM on July 26, 2015 [1 favorite]


Jara's killing was an amazingly public symbol of impunity. Everyone knew but here we are 44 years later and only now are some of the people responsible being charged.
posted by Dip Flash at 4:51 PM on July 26, 2015


it's worth repeating, that these fascist scum (the millitary in latin america) were actively supported and lauded by reagan and thatcher in their murder and torture

they're actively supported/defended by people right here on metafilter.
posted by poffin boffin at 5:32 PM on July 26, 2015 [3 favorites]


i haven't really being following the news, but something that doesn't seem to be clear in the report is that both cases (the case of the people who were burnt alive - one died, one survived - is mentioned further down the page in the main link, and seems to have got more press than jara, locally) are advancing because people (ex-conscripts, a different one in each case) have come forwards with new evidence, breaking the "vow of silence" that has hindered progress (i suppose there are political factors too, but it's new witnesses that are driving the cases forwards right now).
posted by andrewcooke at 6:08 PM on July 26, 2015


incidentally, the soldiers involved in burning people alive were publicly defended here by the secretary general of the largest single political party - the right wing UDI. the same party that has been at the centre of corruption scandals (although those have spread to cover people from across the spectrum).
posted by andrewcooke at 6:11 PM on July 26, 2015 [1 favorite]


andrewcooke: "incidentally, the soldiers involved in burning people alive were publicly defended here by the secretary general of the largest single political party - the right wing UDI. the same party that has been at the centre of corruption scandals (although those have spread to cover people from across the spectrum)."

His argument is literally "Well, it's not as bad as Hitler and the nazis". Fuck him.
posted by Joakim Ziegler at 1:18 AM on July 27, 2015 [1 favorite]


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