Three Chilean Ex-Army Officials Charged in the Murder Case of Legendary Folk Singer Victor Jara
The decades-long call for justice in the murder case of legendary Chilean folk singer Víctor Jara took another dramatic turn last week. Judge Miguel Vásquez Plaza indicted three retired ex-army officials for their roles in the brutal September 16, 1973, killing.
Hernán Chacón Soto and Patricio Vásquez Donoso face kidnapping and murder charges. Ramón Melo Silva, a former military prosecutor, stands accused of covering up the truth about what happened to Jara that day. The new charges are in addition to those brought against eight other ex-military officers in December 2012 and January 2013.
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When the army staged a US-backed coup overthrowing Allende's government on September 11, 1973, Jara, alongside thousands of others, was taken captive and imprisoned at Chile Stadium in the capital city of Santiago. His wife Joan Jara and their children would never see him alive again.
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After days of suffering hunger and torment, Jara met the murderous horror of fascism himself when riddled with 44 bullet wounds. As popular lore has it, the singer-poet's voice rose to sing "Venceremos," the popular hymn of Allende's campaign, before being gunned down. He might have been "disappeared" like the more than 3,000 others in the 17-year dictatorial reign of General Augusto Pinochet that followed, but Joan Jara identified his body among the piles at the morgue.
While the USA commemorates the attack of 9/11/2001, we should also remember the coup in Chile which took place on September 11, 1973.
Pete Seeger tells the story
His last poem
There are five thousand of us here
in this small part of the city.
We are five thousand.
I wonder how many we are in all
in the cities and in the whole country?
Here alone
are ten thousand hands which plant seeds
and make the factories run.
How much humanity
exposed to hunger, cold, panic, pain,
moral pressure, terror and insanity?
Six of us were lost
as if into starry space.
One dead, another beaten as I could never have believed
a human being could be beaten.
The other four wanted to end their terror
one jumping into nothingness,
another beating his head against a wall,
but all with the fixed stare of death.
What horror the face of fascism creates!
They carry out their plans with knife-like precision.
Nothing matters to them.
To them, blood equals medals,
slaughter is an act of heroism.
Oh God, is this the world that you created,
for this your seven days of wonder and work?
Within these four walls only a number exists
which does not progress,
which slowly will wish more and more for death.
But suddenly my conscience awakes
and I see that this tide has no heartbeat,
only the pulse of machines
and the military showing their midwives' faces
full of sweetness.
Let Mexico, Cuba and the world
cry out against this atrocity!
We are ten thousand hands
which can produce nothing.
How many of us in the whole country?
The blood of our President, our compañero,
will strike with more strength than bombs and machine guns!
So will our fist strike again!
How hard it is to sing
when I must sing of horror.
Horror which I am living,
horror which I am dying.
To see myself among so much
and so many moments of infinity
in which silence and screams
are the end of my song.
What I see, I have never seen
What I have felt and what I feel
Will give birth to the momentÂ…
Estadio Chile
September 1973
Live at The Pavilion Theatre, Brighton, 2nd October, 2011, performing a song written by Caitlin's grandfather (Adrian Mitchell) and Sara Lee's father (Arlo Guthrie). This gentle collision of musical ancestry was a happy coincidence, and Caitlin and Sara Lee had only one brief rehearsal together in the dressing room before this performance.
The last verse of the poem is left out of the song
Now the Generals they rule Chile
and the British have their thanks
For they rule with Hawker Hunters
And they rule with Chieftain tanks
His hands were gentle, his hands were strong