Chilean singer Jara is exhumed

Source: BBC News

Chilean singer Jara is exhumed
Page last updated at 20:47 GMT, Thursday, 4 June 2009 21:47 UK

Officials in Chile have exhumed the body of the popular singer, Victor Jara, who was killed shortly after the military coup in 1973.

A judge ordered the move as part of efforts to shed more light onto the circumstances of Jara's death.

Victor Jara had been taken to a stadium and shot; last week a former army conscript, Jose Adolfo Paredes Marquez, was charged over the killing.

Mr Paredes, who is now 54, denies responsibility for the death.

Victor Jara was among thousands of people rounded up in the early days of General Augusto Pinochet's right-wing military coup, which ousted the elected leftist President, Salvador Allende.

New evidence

He was taken to the Chile stadium in the capital, Santiago, where he was tortured and killed.

Read more: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8084201.stm

And every time I watch it I get infuriated not only over the murders, but how our country put the murderer in power.

Henry f**king Kissinger. :puke:

Wikipedia:

Víctor Jara

Víctor Lidio Jara Martínez (Spanish pronunciation: <βˈikˈtor liðjo xara maɾˈtˈines>) (September 28, 1932 – September 15, 1973<1>) was a Chilean teacher, theatre director, poet, singer-songwriter, and political activist. A distinguished theatre director, he devoted himself to the development of Chilean theatre, directing a broad array of works from locally produced Chilean plays, to the classics of the world stage, to the experimental work of Ann Jellicoe. Simultaneously he developed in the field of music and played a pivotal role among neo-folkloric artists who established the Nueva Canción Chilena (New Chilean Song) movement which led to a revolution in the popular music of his country under the Salvador Allende government. Shortly after the U.S.-backed <2> September 11, 1973 Chilean coup he was arrested, tortured and ultimately shot to death by machine gun fire—his body was later thrown out into the street of a shanty town in Santiago.<3> The contrast between the themes of his songs, on love, peace and social justice and the brutal way in which he was murdered transformed Jara into a symbol of struggle for human rights and justice across Latin America.

More:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V%C3%ADctor_Jara

One of his songs, Te Recuerdo Amanda, named in honor of his daughter:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GRmre8ggkcY

El derecho de vivir en paz
(The right to live in peace)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xdBMY3R4C0Q&feature=related

Published on Tuesday, August 8, 2006 by CommonDreams.org
Who Killed Victor Jara? SOA Graduate Exposed in Chile
by Joao Da Silva

Among the thousands of political dissidents detained and executed in Chile during the days following the Military coup of 1973 which overthrew the democratically elected socialist government of Salvador Allende (also known as the Unidad Popular), Victor Jara’s brutal death is probably one of the most emblematic. The story of his detention, torture and assassination at the Estadio Chile (a sports arena which was converted into a detention and torture center to hold thousands of political dissidents) has been told and retold for decades, always with some variation, adding to the myth and further strengthening his mystique as a symbol of struggle against military oppression and injustice across Latin America.

Victor Jara was a popular Chilean folk singer/songwriter, educator, theatre director, poet, and political activist. He was involved in the development of the “Nueva Canción Chilena” (New Chilean Song Movement) which gained considerable popularity during the Unidad Popular government which he actively supported. On the morning of September 12 1973, Jara was detained, along with thousands of Chileans, and then held prisoner at the Estadio Chile (renamed “Estadio Víctor Jara” in September 2003) where he was repeatedly beaten and tortured, resulting in the breaking of bones in his hands and upper torso. Fellow political prisoners have testified that his captors, as he lay on the ground after the beating, mockingly suggested that he play guitar for them. Defiantly, he sang part of a hymn supporting the Unidad Popular.

He was murdered on September 15 after further beatings were followed by being machine-gunned (34 bullet wounds were found on his body) and left dead on a road on the outskirts of Santiago. His body was found the next day and was taken to a city morgue. Before his death, he wrote a poem about the conditions of the prisoners in the stadium, the poem was written on a paper that was hidden inside the shoe of a friend. The poem was never named, but is commonly known as “Estadio Chile”.

Jara's wife (a British citizen), Joan, was allowed to come and retrieve his body from the site (and was able to confirm the physical abuse he had endured). After holding a funeral for her husband, Joan Jara fled the country in secret.

Those responsible for the detention, torture and death of Victor Jara benefited from immunity during the remaining 17 years of dictatorship and from the Amnesty Law decreed by the Military Junta before Chile’s return to Democracy. In December 2004, Chilean judge Juan Carlos Urrutia prosecuted the then retired Lieutenant-Colonel, Mario Manriquez Bravo for the murder of Victor Jara. Lt. Bravo was the highest commanding officer in charge at the National Stadium during 1973, but the identity of the Jara's actual killer remained unknown.

More:
http://www.commondreams.org/views06/0808-30.htm

of the circumstances of his death.