Justice claimed for Víctor Jara,
40 years after his assassination

Enrique Torres

SANTIAGO de Chile.—On September 16, 1973, Chilean singer-songwriter Víctor Jara died from bullets fired by members of the military police involved in the coup against President Salvador Allende. Justice is currently being sought by his family and many others in the country against a number of these troops.

Forty years after the crime, Daniel Manouchehri and Daniel Melo, vice presidents of the Socialist Party, have called on President Sebastián Piñera to initiate diplomatic proceedings for the extradition from the United States of former Lieutenant Pedro Barrientos, one of the officers involved in the assassination, currently resident in Florida.

"They tortured him, humiliated him and riddled him with bullets, but they did not know that his voice was immortal. The valiant song of Víctor Jara will be a new song. But we remember Víctor Jara not only to highlight his figure, but also to raise our voices because his assassins are still free," affirmed Manouchehri.

For his part, Melo stated, "The assassination of Víctor Jara represents one of the cruelest and most cowardly crimes of the civic-military dictatorship headed by (Augusto) Pinochet."

Joan Jara, widow of the musician, recalled the artistic and social legacy of her husband’s songs, noting that he is a symbol of many things, thus he is remembered with affection and strongly not only by a large number of his compatriots, but worldwide.

"I am very grateful. It cannot be in the name of Víctor, but I feel it as if it were. With Víctor in my heart, I thank you for this beautiful work, done with so much love; thank you very much," affirmed the British former ballerina and choreographer at the inauguration of a work of art honoring Jara, and consisting of various murals painted in the metropolitan Cemetery, where the body of her husband was found alongside those of three other persons.

Activities honoring the singer-songwriter continued until midnight on September 15, with a large concert featuring various musical groups.

After the coup d’état on September 11, 1973, led by Augusto Pinochet, what was then the State Technical University was besieged by military police, who occupied the building and detained students and professors, who were then taken to the Chile Football Stadium, converted into a torture and death center.

Among the professors taken prisoner was Víctor Jara who, recognized by his captors, was subjected to interrogations and beatings, including brutal attacks on his hands so they could never create music again, and was finally shot dead.

"Ay song, how badly you emerge from me/when I must sing in horror/horror as he who lives/as he who dies, horror/ to see myself among so many and so many/moment of the infinite/ where silence and cries/ are the pain of this song," was how the singer-songwriter described the odyssey in the Chile stadium, in part of a poem written in those days of confinement together with 5,000 people.

The 40 years which have passed since the death of Jara find his family immersed in a legal battle to bring to trial those responsible for the crime.

Recently, the family filed a claim against Barrientos in a federal court in Jacksonville, Florida, in order to proceed with the application for his extradition to face trial in a Chilean court for the murder of Jara, who would have been 81 years of age this September 28.

The final part of this battle began in December 2012, when Miguel Vázquez, magistrate at the Santiago Court of appeals, charged eight ex-officers with being authors or accomplices in the assassination of the artist, one of the former being Barrientos.

The judge summoned the rest of the group from the 1st Battalion of the Military Police and ordered the international arrest of Barrientos, which has not as yet been made effective.