36 years after Chile's coup, progress in solving who killed folk singer Victor Jara

[Judi Lynn]

36 years after Chile's coup, progress in solving who killed folk singer Victor Jara

http://snsimages.tribune.com.nyud.net:8090/media/photo/2009-11/50725926.jpg

Victor Jara's widow Joan Jara looks on during an interview with The Associated Press in
Santiago, Thursday, Oct. 1, 2009. The murder of Jara, who was tortured and shot to
death underneath a stadium where 5,000 supporters of ousted President Salvador Allende
were detained during the first days of Chile's 1973 coup, has never been solved.
(AP Photo/Roberto Candia) (Roberto Candia, AP / October 1, 2009)

MICHAEL WARREN
Associated Press Writer
2:31 a.m. EST, November 26, 2009

The notorious murder of the popular folk singer — who became a symbol of resistance after he was tortured and shot to death in the chaotic first days of Chile's 1973 coup — has never been solved.

The soldiers involved were ordered long ago to carry their secrets to their graves or face a similar fate. Jara's brutal death — his hands were smashed, head beaten and body pumped with at least 44 bullets — was meant as a warning to anyone who challenged Gen. Augusto Pinochet's authority during the long, dark years of Chile's dictatorship.

The climate of fear remains, even with two decades of democracy and Pinochet dead and buried. But some facts are finally emerging after 36 years of silence, institutional resistance, blind turns and myth-making about Jara, who was detained in a stadium with 5,000 other supporters of ousted President Salvador Allende.

His struggle and death have been immortalized by everyone from American folk singer Pete Seeger to Argentina's Los Fabulosos Cadillacs and the Irish rockers U2.

Because of the tenacity of his widow, Joan Jara, whose personal appeal encouraged stadium survivors to provide testimony and evidence to the courts, his murder case has regained momentum in the last year. Court investigators have methodically tracked down and interrogated hundreds of aging former soldiers who were drafted into Pinochet's army. In June, Jara's body was exhumed for a proper autopsy. The family now has the resulting forensics report, the Victor Jara Foundation confirmed Wednesday, and has scheduled a news conference for Thursday. Ballistics and other evidence from the autopsy may help investigators identify who ordered the killing — and who fired a handgun into Jara's skull that night.

More:
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/nationworld/sns-ap-lt-chile-jaras-killer,0,2478201.story

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[Judi Lynn]

1. Thousands attend funeral of Chilean singer Victor Jara

Thousands attend funeral of Chilean singer Victor Jara
Dec 6, 2009, 11:59 GMT


Santiago - More than 36 years after he was tortured and gunned down in the days following the coup d'etat in Chile, singer Victor Jara was reburied Saturday in a ceremony attended by thousands.

Jara was shot dead by the military four days after the 1973 coup in which General Augusto Pinochet seized power. Jara, who was also a songwriter and playwright, was arrested on September 11, 1973, and taken to the Chile Stadium, where he was tortured and subsequently killed.

Jara's body was exhumed in June so that the exact circumstances of his death could be investigated.

His British-born widow Joan Turner Jara led the procession, which marked the end of a three-day tribute. A wake held Thursday was attended by Chilean President Michelle Bachelet.

Many supporters carried flowers, some sang Jara's popular songs and others - who also suffered under the Pinochet regime - mourned their loss and his.

More:
http://www.monstersandcritics.com/news/americas/news/article_1517350.php/Thousands-attend-funeral-of-Chilean-singer-Victor-Jara#ixzz0YwLJHwOt

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Chile's Victor Jara Beaten, Tortured Before Execution, Autopsy Says


SANTIAGO – Chilean singer-songwriter Victor Jara was beaten and tortured before soldiers of the Pinochet regime fired 44 shots into his body, court sources said Wednesday, citing the results of a fresh autopsy performed in connection with the current investigation of the Sept. 15, 1973, murder.

The report was delivered early Wednesday to the judge overseeing the probe, Juan Fuentes Belmar, the sources said.

Jara was among thousands of sympathizers of ousted Socialist President Salvador Allende rounded up and taken to Santiago’s Chile stadium in the days following Gen. Augusto Pinochet’s Sept. 11, 1973, coup.

So far, only one person has been indicted for the singer’s death: retired Col. Mario Manriquez Bravo, who commanded the makeshift prison camp at the stadium.

The autopsy determined that soldiers pummeled Jara’s hands with the butts of their rifles before shooting him 44 times in the head, chest, arms and legs.

The killing of Jara, a prominent Allende supporter, remains one of the most prominent of the atrocities committed by the 1973-1990 military regime, which is blamed for more than 3,000 deaths and some 25,000 documented instances of torture.

More:
http://www.laht.com/article.asp?ArticleId=348017&CategoryId=14094