From the associated Press
November 26, 2009
Chile murder mystery: Who killed Victor Jara?
By MICHAEL WARREN
Associated Press Writer
Who killed Victor Jara?
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 — he was beaten badly before his body was pumped with 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.
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