Remembering Victor Jara
When I lived in Chile in the pre-Pinochet days it was always a treat to go see folksinger Victor Jara … to call him the Bob Dylan of Chile is an understatement.
I can’t say that I knew him but my wife went to the university where he was a beloved teacher, singer, poet and activist.
Captured by the Pinochet junta in the first days of military rule, he was brutally murdered and his mutilated body was soon found dumped on a roadside. Now, we finally know the details of his final hours and learn exactly who was responsible for his murder. Jara was shot 44 times by a Chilean army crew who was last seen, quite recently and without sanction, blithely playing a round of golf.
Thanks to Tomas Dinges for summarizing a translation of the new report from the Santiago-based investigative site, CIPER.
Let’s hope that as a result of this groundbreaking piece of journalism some more of these torturers and murderers that still walk free and smugly mug from the links will be playing their next round behind iron bars.
May 26th, 2009 at 9:13 pm
Golf.
It’s so bad.
desgraciados.
May 27th, 2009 at 8:11 am
That first comment is an astonishingly insipid reaction to Marc’s post…
“The serial killer was arrested at the roulette table in Reno.”
“Roulette is a game for idiots…”
May 27th, 2009 at 8:28 am
Don’t the accused get a trial before declaring them guilty, or is Marc proposing to do to them what he claims that they did to others?
May 27th, 2009 at 2:51 pm
“reg” the trite troll, clueless and inconsequential .
Die soon, bitter old creep.
May 27th, 2009 at 3:45 pm
I grew up listening to The Clash and in university days, found their music inspiring and enlightening — edification you could dance to. (I attended a university where most students and virtually all faculty were right-wing and where, absurdly, dancing was banned.)
I still love The Clash’s music, but sometimes wince at lines from songs that now seem maudlin, if not jejune.
But Marc’s post is a welcome antidote. Reading it, I immediately recalled the lyric from “Washington Bullets:”
Please remember Victor Jara
In the Santiago stadium
Es verdad
Those Washington bullets again…
Joe Strummer, R.I.P.
Without that song, there’s a good chance, alas, that I would never have made certain to find out who Victor Jara was..
May 27th, 2009 at 7:03 pm
You gotta love this:
Probably with Dick Cheney
May 27th, 2009 at 7:12 pm
As Sergio – you actually bested your peculiarly trivial, if venomous bitchiness. Congrats, dipshit.
May 28th, 2009 at 7:27 am
There are some really nice arrangements of Victor Jara’s music on En Este Momento, the latest album by Claudia Acuna, the Chilean-born, New York-based jazz vocalist.
May 29th, 2009 at 10:04 am
Woody says, “Don’t the accused get a trial before declaring them guilty, or is Marc proposing to do to them what he claims that they did to others?”
Marc said, “Let’s hope that as a result of this groundbreaking piece of journalism some more of these torturers and murderers that still walk free and smugly mug from the links will be playing their next round behind iron bars.”
That reads like Marc wants them tried and put in prison. Where does Woody get that Marc is proposing they be murdered?
June 1st, 2009 at 5:42 am
Patrick, you really are desperate to try to look smart, but you’re not. Perhaps someone who isn’t so pathetic could read it as being entitled to a fair trial. It’s funny that the Lef over uses the word “alleged” with left-wing extremists and Democrats, but not with others.
June 1st, 2009 at 1:57 pm
Every time I think that Woody has reached the out bounds of the limits of hypocrisy, he manages to go further.
June 2nd, 2009 at 12:55 pm
I get a free drop.