Víctor Jara
Víctor Lidio Jara Martínez was a Chilean teacher, theater director, poet, singer-songwriter and Communist political activist. He developed Chilean theater by directing a broad array of works, ranging from locally produced plays to world classics, as well as the experimental work of playwrights such as Ann Jellicoe. He also played a pivotal role among neo-folkloric musicians who established the Nueva canción chilena movement. This led to an uprising of new sounds in popular music during the administration of President Salvador Allende.
Jara was arrested by the Chilean military shortly after the 11 September 1973 coup led by Augusto Pinochet, which overthrew Allende. He was tortured during interrogations and ultimately shot dead, and his body was thrown out on the street of a shantytown in Santiago. The contrast between the themes of his songs, which focused on love, peace, and social justice, and his murder, transformed Jara into a "potent symbol of struggle for human rights and justice" for those killed during the Pinochet regime. His prominent role as an admirer and propagandist for Che Guevara and Allende's government, in which he served as a cultural ambassador through the late 1960s and until 1973, made him a target.
In June 2016, a Florida jury found former Chilean Army officer Pedro Barrientos liable for Jara's murder. In July 2018, eight retired Chilean military officers were sentenced to 15 years and a day in prison for Jara's murder. Barrientos, who had his U.S. citizenship revoked in July 2023, was arrested in Deltona, Florida, in October 2023. Barrientos would be successfully deported back to Chile on 1 December 2023, and was immediately taken into PDI custody.
Early life
Víctor Lidio Jara Martinez was born on 28 September 1932. His parents were tenant farmers who lived near the town of La Quiriquina, located twelve kilometers from Chillán Viejo; he had five brothers. His exact place of birth is uncertain, but he was born in the Ñuble Region. At the age of five, his family moved to Lonquén, a town near Santiago de Chile, where his father, Manuel Jara, had rented a small parcel of land. His father was illiterate and did not want his children going to school, so that they could help him in the fields instead. His mother, on the other hand, knew how to read a little and from the beginning she insisted that they at least learn the alphabet.Jara's mother was a mestiza with Mapuche ancestry from southern Chile, who had taught herself to play the guitar and piano. She also performed as a singer, with a repertory of traditional folk songs that she used for local events like weddings and funerals. The relationship between his parents became more tense with each passing day, his father began to drink and disappeared from the house several days in a row, leaving all the work in the hands of Amanda. Later, his mother moved to Santiago and took a job as a cook in a restaurant in Vega Poniente. Because she was so skilled she did well there and so she was able to educate three of her children, including Victor.
She died when Jara was 15. Jara began to study accounting, but soon moved into a seminary, where he studied for the priesthood. After a couple of years, however, he became disillusioned with the Catholic Church and left. Subsequently, he spent several years in the Chilean Army before returning to his hometown to pursue interests in folk music and theatre.
Musical career
After joining the choir at the University of Chile in Santiago, Jara was convinced by a fellow chorus member to pursue a career in theater. He subsequently joined the university's theater program and, through his talent, earned a scholarship. He appeared in several of the university's plays, gravitating toward those with social themes, such as Russian playwright Maxim Gorky's The Lower Depths.In 1957, he met Violeta Parra, a singer who had steered folk music in Chile toward modern song composition rooted in traditional forms, and who had established musical community centers called peñas to incorporate folk music into everyday life. Jara absorbed these lessons and began singing with a group called Cuncumén, with whom he continued his explorations of Chile's traditional music. He worked as a guitarist and vocalist from 1957 to 1963. He was deeply influenced by the folk music of Chile and other Latin American countries, and by artists such as Parra, Atahualpa Yupanqui, and the poet Pablo Neruda. In the 1960s, Jara started specializing in folk music and sang at Santiago's La Peña de Los Parra, owned by Ángel Parra. Through these activities, he became involved in the Nueva canción movement of Latin American folk music.
In 1966, Víctor released his self-titled first album; it was the only album released by the Demon label and was Víctor Jara's first solo work. The album would later be re-released under the titles Canto a lo humano and Sus mejores canciones, and in 2001 an reissue on CD by Warner Music Chile was released with the original title. This version on CD also included five bonus tracks, four of which are songs by Víctor Jara along with Cuncumén.
The album includes Jara's versions of some Latin American folk songs, such as "La flor que anda de mano en mano", and "Ojitos verdes"; as well as two Chilean folk songs, "La cocinerita", an Argentinian folk song, or "Ja jai", a Bolivian traditional. The authorship of this album, as well as its singles, was in the hands of Camilo Fernández, owner of the Demon label from its launch in 1966 until 2001, when he transferred the rights to the widow of Víctor Jara.
In 1967, released their second album homonymous, this album apart from the controversial song "The appeared" includes Jara's covers of folk songs from Latin America and Spain. The album was later released under the name of Desde Lonquén hasta siempre. In 1968, Jara released his first collaborative album entitled, "Canciones folklóricas de América", with Quilapayún. In 1970, Jara left theater to devote himself to music.
Political activism
Early in his recording career, Jara showed a knack for antagonizing conservative Chileans, releasing a traditional comic song called "La beata" that depicted a religious woman with a crush on the priest to whom she goes for confession. The song was banned on radio stations and removed from record shops, but the controversy only added to Jara's reputation among young and progressive Chileans. More serious in the eyes of the Chilean right wing was Jara's growing identification with the socialist movement led by Salvador Allende. After visits to Cuba and the Soviet Union in the early 1960s, Jara joined the Communist Party. The personal met the political in his songs about the poverty he had experienced firsthand.File:Victor-Jara-in-Helsinki-1969.jpg|thumb|right|In 1969, Jara appeared in Helsinki protests against the Vietnam War.
Jara's songs spread outside Chile and were performed by American folk artists. His popularity was due not only to his songwriting skills but also to his exceptional power as a performer. He took a turn toward political confrontation with his 1969 song "Preguntas por Puerto Montt", whose subject was Edmundo Pérez Zujovic, a government official who had ordered police to attack squatters in the town of Puerto Montt. The Chilean political situation deteriorated after the official was assassinated, and right-wing thugs beat up Jara on one occasion.
In 1970, Jara supported Allende, the Popular Unity coalition candidate for president, volunteering for political work and playing free concerts. He composed "Venceremos", the theme song of Allende's Popular Unity movement, and welcomed Allende's election to the Chilean presidency in 1970. After the election, Jara continued to speak in support of Allende and played an important role in the new administration's efforts to reorient Chilean culture.
He and his wife, Joan Jara, were key participants in organizing cultural events that supported the Chile's new socialist government. He set poems by Pablo Neruda to music and performed at a ceremony honoring him after Neruda received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1972. During this time, Jara continued to teach at Chile's Technical University. His popular success during this time, as both a musician and a Communist, earned him a concert in Moscow. He was so successful that the Soviet Union claimed in their media that his vocal prowess was the result of surgery he had undergone while in Moscow.
On 11 September 1973, the Chilean military, with the support of the United States, overthrew the Allende government, resulting in Allende's suicide and the installation of Augusto Pinochet as dictator. On the day of the coup, Jara was on his way to work at the Technical University. He slept that night at the university along with other teachers and students and sang to raise their morale.
Torture and murder
After the coup, Pinochet's soldiers rounded up Chileans who were believed to be involved with leftist groups, including Allende's Popular Unity party. On the morning of 12 September 1973, Jara was taken prisoner, along with thousands of others, and imprisoned inside Estadio Chile. Soon after, he was killed with a gunshot to the head, and his body was riddled with more than 40 bullets. According to the BBC:There are many conflicting accounts of Jara's last days but the 2019 Netflix documentary Massacre at the Stadium pieces together a convincing narrative. As a famous musician and prominent supporter of Allende, Jara was swiftly recognised on his way into the stadium. An army officer threw a lit cigarette on the ground, made Jara crawl for it, then stamped on his wrists. Jara was first separated from the other detainees, then beaten and tortured in the bowels of the stadium. At one point, he defiantly sang "Venceremos ", Allende's 1970 election anthem, through split lips. On the morning of the 16th, according to a fellow detainee, Jara asked for a pen and notebook and scribbled the lyrics to "Estadio Chile", which were later smuggled out of the stadium: "How hard it is to sing when I must sing of horror. / Horror which I am living, horror which I am dying." Two hours later, he was shot dead, then his body was riddled with machine-gun bullets and dumped in the street. He was 40.
After his murder, Jara's body was displayed at the entrance of Chile Stadium for other prisoners to see. It was later discarded outside the stadium along with the bodies of other prisoners who had been killed by the Chilean Army. His body was found by civil servants and brought to a morgue, where one of them was able to identify him and contact his wife, Joan. She took his body and gave him a quick and clandestine burial in the general cemetery before she fled the country into exile.
In July 2015, 42 years later, former Chilean military officers were charged with his murder. In August 2023, a Chilean court confirmed a ruling convicting seven former soldiers, who were aged between 73 and 85 at the time of their sentencing, and sentencing them to jail terms from 8 up to 25 years.