...In a cart, he sleeps on cardboard
Luchín, Luchín was born in the shantytown
Where there's cement and bricks, his childhood is sad
He lives with his mother and the pain of his birth
Luchín, Luchín won't see his father
He died in a march, torn apart by the guard of the beast
They say a scream was heard in the shantytown
Where Luchín wept for the death of his father
The scream of a child for his daddy
Of a child who doesn't understand the revolution
~Lyrics that got Chilean singer Victor Jara killed by the Pinochet military
On the morning of September 11, 1973, Chileans were woken up by the sound of military aircraft flying low overhead. There was an unusual military presence in the streets of Santiago. Tanks and armoured vehicles rolled down residential streets, and soldiers began to occupy key locations in the city.
So began the coup d'état that ended the presidency and life of Salvador Allende, Latin America's first democratically-elected openly Socialist president.
Radio stations across Chile began playing classical music stopping only to report on military actions and the unfolding events. People as far as Bolivia listened in for the details. Many cheering in the streets. It was the height of the Cold War and the overthrowing of a Marxist was a victory for the United States.
In parts of the capital, there were clashes between Allende supporters and the military. Political leaders, government officials and activists, were arrested en masse, many were then tortured and later killed.
This August, as Chile prepared to mark the 50th anniversary of the events, the Chilean Supreme Court delivered a long-awaited and definitive verdict. The verdict, announced after decades of legal battles, holds seven retired army members accountable for their involvement in the horrible crimes they committed, listed as aggravated kidnapping and aggravated homicide.
The verdicts were only for crimes perpetrated against the popular singer-songwriter and theatre director, Víctor Lidio Jara Martínez, and Littré Abraham Quiroga Carvajal, the former director of prisons during Salvador Allende's government. In a way, however, they were justice for everyone else as well.
On that mostly clear spring morning, on the ground in Santiago, residents could see that The Chilean Air Force was bombing the La Moneda Presidential Palace, where President Salvador Allende was located.
As the morning progressed, it became clear that Allende was under siege at La Moneda Palace. He managed to broadcast a speech in which he expressed his commitment to Chile and democracy. It would be the last time Chileans heard from him. As gunfire flew outside and troops closed in, Allende shot himself in the head.
Thus ended the idealist president’s reign, and began the brutal 17-year military dictatorship led by Gen. Augusto Pinochet.
In the days and months that followed, an estimated 3200 Chileans were killed and some 30,000 to 100,00 were tortured following the coup, hundreds of thousands were exiled.
For the next 48 years, no other socialist was elected president of Chile again until Gabriel Boric won the presidency in 2021. He did so with the greatest number of votes in Chilean history.
Victor Jara, the Chilean folk singer and activist, whose song "Luchín" quoted above, humanised those who were marginalised and was popular among the supporters of the Marxist Allende. He was arrested the day after the coup along with some 5,000 other suspected leftists and taken to Chile's Estadio National which was by then turned into a prison and torture center by the military.
Records later showed that at the stadium Jara was beaten, kicked, and repeatedly struck on the head and upper torso with rifle butts. The guitarist's hands were crushed, making sure he knew he would never play again. It is folklore now that despite the brutality he was subjected to, Jara continued to sing and inspire other prisoners who were also being tortured.
Then, on September 16, he was relentlessly tortured and then shot 44 times. His body, along with those of other victims of torture, was dumped on a Santiago street.
Jara’s death was emblematic of the violence and repression that characterised Pinochet's regime, highlighting the lengths to which the regime was willing to go to maintain control.
The Pinochet regime was one of severe repression and widespread human rights abuses. The authoritarian Pinochet dissolved Congress and suspended its constitution, establishing a military junta that ruled by decree, concentrating power in the hands of the armed forces.
The dictatorship targeted left-wing political parties, trade unions, and social movements. Many opposition figures and activists were killed, imprisoned, or driven into exile.
Beyond Chile, the Pinochet dictatorship was part of Operation Condor, a murderous covert campaign by South American military dictatorships to eliminate political opposition. Operation Condor involved the exchange of information and coordination among these regimes to track down and eliminate dissidents in Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay, Paraguay, Bolivia and Peru. In Argentina, some 30,000 people were killed during its military dictatorship.
In Chile last month, Raúl Jofré González, Edwin Dimter Bianchi, Nelson Haase Mazzei, Ernesto Bethke Wulf, Juan Jara Quintana, and Hernán Chacón Soto were all sentenced to 15 years and one day in prison as the perpetrators of the homicides of the artist and Quiroga. Additionally, they received 10 years and one day in prison for their roles in the qualified kidnappings.
The men are all in their late 70s and mid-80s. One of them, 86-year-old former Brigadier General Hernán Chacón Soto, who was condemned to 5 years and two days of prison, denied culpability and then killed himself when police were at his door to arrest him.
Fifty years ago, on the day of his death, Victor Jara was 40. Littré Quiroga was 33.
