On September 16, 1973, Chilean singer-songwriter and political activist Victor Jara was killed. According to one source, the killing took place in a stadium before a large crowd of prisoners being held by the military after a coup.
Before his brutal death, Jara had one final act of courage and heroism.
The 1973 Coup and Taking of Prisoners
Jara had supported Salvador Allende, who had been elected president of Chile in 1970. But the Chilean right wing used the military to stage a coup d’état against the popularly elected Marxist on September 11, 1973.
Allende allegedly killed himself rather than surrender (although some argue he was murdered). But many of Allende’s supporters were taken prisoner, including Jara. You may see Jara below performing a few months earlier in a July 1973 TV show.
Jara’s Defiant Death
After the arrest, Jara and about 6,000 others were taken to the Santiago boxing stadium, according to Chilean journalist Miguel Cabezas. Jara tried to help the other prisoners who were kept in the stands. But when the prison camp commander recognized the singer, he had Jara taken to a table in the center of the arena for everyone to see.
Officials had Jara place his hands on the table. Then, with an ax they cut off the fingers of both of Jara’s hands. The officer beat Jara, screaming, “Now sing, you motherf***er, now sing.”
Jara rose up from the blows and went to the edge of the bleachers. To the horrified crowd, Jara said, ‘All right comrades, let’s do the senor comandante the favor.’ He lifted his bleeding hands, leading the crowd in singing the anthem of Unidad Popular, the party of Allende.
Officials opened fire, and Jara’s body fell dead.
Other versions of the tale recounting Jara’s death tell a slightly different story. Reportedly, he was tortured in a basement for several days. From the torture, he had a swollen face. And his fingers that used to play guitar were fractured by the butt of a rifle. A low-ranking officer then spun the chamber of a revolver, pulled the trigger, and killed Jara in a round of Russian roulette.
No matter how Jara died, his life is worth remembering. And whether or not he actually led others in a rebellious song before his death, the story symbolizes where he stood on the side of history.
World Leaders and the Coup
Scholars still debate how much of a role the U.S. played in the Chile coup. President Richard Nixon feared the success of a socialist elected official in South America who was friends with Cuba’s Fidel Castro. Thus, the U.S. imposed economic sanctions on Chile that at a minimum contributed to the circumstances of the coup.
Nixon, however, would be out of office in less than a year in August 1974, resigning in disgrace. In Chile, General Augusto Pinochet would hold power much longer, remaining as president until 1990 and in other official offices for almost a decade after that.
Pinochet’s last years, though, were spent facing charges related to human rights violations. He died in 2006 without being convicted for any of his crimes. But legal action continued against others involved in Jara’s murder.
Update: Several former Chilean military officers have been charged in the murder of Jara. In June 2016, a Florida jury found a former Chilean army officer liable for the torture and murder Jara. The jury awarded $28 million in damages to Jara’s widow Joan Jara and their daughters. And in December 2023, that former lieutenant, Pedro Barrientos, was extradited from the U.S. to Chile. Victor Jara’s widow, though, did not get to see it as she passed away two weeks earlier in November 2023.
Jara’s Legacy Continues
As tyrants fall away, history remembers the heroes and the martyrs. The military burned many of Jara’s master recordings, but Jara’s wife Joan Jara took some recordings out of the country.
American folksinger Phil Ochs, who had met Jara in Chile, was devastated by the killing. He helped organize a memorial fundraiser called “An Evening With Salvador Allende” in New York in 1974. The same year, a Soviet astronomer named an asteroid after Jara.
Others paid tribute to Victor Jara, including Pete Seeger. Toronto band Apostle of Hustle recorded a song “Fast Pony For Victor Jara” for their 2007 CD U King. In 2008, Calexico released the song “Victor Jara’s Hands” on the album Carried to Dust
Arlo Guthrie also wrote and recorded a tribute to the singer-activist with the song, “Victor Jara,” from the 1976 album Amigo. Guthrie wrote the music and Adrian Mitchell provided the lyrics with each verse focusing on Jara’s hands that officials would break.
He sang about the copper miners,
And those who worked the land;
He sang about the factory workers,
And they knew he was their man;
His hands were gentle, his hands were strong.
Jara also appears in U2’s song “One Tree Hill” from the band’s 1988 album The Joshua Tree. Bono wrote the song in memory of his friend Greg Carroll but the song also refers to Victor Jara: “Jara sang, his song a weapon in the hands of love / You know his blood still cries from the ground.”
The Clash, not surprisingly, also memorialized Jara by mentioning him in a song. In “Washington Bullets,” which appeared on their 1980 album Sandinista!, they recount an abbreviated history of imperialism. One verse refers to the coup in Chile and Victor Jara:
As every cell in Chile will tell,
The cries of the tortured men;
Remember Allende and the days before,
Before the army came;
Please remember Víctor Jara in the Santiago stadium;
Es verdad, those Washington bullets again.
More recently, when Bruce Springsteen performed in Santiago, Chile in September 2013, he performed Jara’s song “Manifesto” in Spanish.
Springsteen introduced the song, saying “If you are a political musician, Victor Jara is still a great inspiration. It’s an honor to be here and I take it with humility. Victor Jara is alive.”
Here is a link to an interesting interactive timeline of the coup, but if you are reading this post on a mobile device, note that it uses a lot of data.
Special thanks to many folks who enlightened me about Victor Jara and the artists who have honored him. In particular, thanks to Bill Waldron for alerting me to Guthrie’s “Victor Jara” song; thanks to mark@wampus.bsky.social for the reference to Jara in the Clash’s “Washington Bullets”; thanks to Robert Lawson for telling me about Apostle of Hustle’s “Fast Pony For Victor Jara;” and thanks to Rich Wagner for pointing me to Calexico’s “Victor Jara’s Hands.”
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