Famous singer Victor ZaraA central figure of the New Chile song and a reference to the cultural movement built around the process of Salvador Allende’s Popular Unity government, He was assassinated at the Chile Stadium – today renamed after him – on September 16, 1973. By soldiers who took part in the military coup of Augusto Pinochet’s dictatorship that overthrew the democratic government.
Mime, Actor, Theater Director, Music Composer and Singer, Jara was killed by 44 bullet wounds in one of the basements of Chile Stadium, an indoor sports center where more than 5,000 people were kidnapped by military forces. A “peaceful way” to socialism” after his arrest on Wednesday, September 12, at the State Technical University (UTE), where he worked and was a professor, a day after the assassination of Allende and the overthrow of his government appeared in November 1970.
On Tuesday the 11th, in a morning with thick weather foreshadowing the possibility of a fascist military coup, Zara finally left her house and drove to UTE in her white Renault 4 for two main reasons: one, to follow the slogan and face the risk of a military coup, the workers went to their workplaces; To be there; The other was going to be one of the artistic numbers of the planned political event with Salvador Allende scheduled for that day.
Victor Zara “I Remember You Amanda”
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“On the 11th we had a very important event, we were going to speak to the country from Allende University, and we launched the exhibition ‘For Life Forever’ to reject the coup and fascism, so Victor came with him to the university. Guitar and meet me in my office”Said about this day Cecilia ColeLater head of UTE’s Art Extension Department.
“We had absolute confidence -added goal- That we should be at our workplace.
Professors and students say they saw planes bomb the Palacio de la Moneda (President Allende’s presidential headquarters) from UTE headquarters that same day, heard bombs and wreckage, and found them from there. A military coup.
Augusto SamanicoThen a teacher at UTE says that an army patrol arrives just before 6pm and says that curfew will start soon and no one can leave the university, promising that buses hired by the army will pick them up the next morning. Places where they can return to their homes.
There is a shooting at the university that night, and the next morning a military infantry arrives and arrests 600 students, teachers and university staff in the UTE courtyard, loading them into school buses and taking them to Chile Stadium. Hundreds of others arrested elsewhere in Santiago arrive at the same time.
In 1973, Boris Navia, head of the UTE personnel department, as they enter through one of the stadium doors, finds an officer Victor Jara in line and orders one of the soldiers guarding the entrance of the detainee. : “They’re bringing that son of a bitch here,” separating him from the others and ordering the soldier to beat Zara, which he does with the butt of his gun, leaving him bleeding.
Victor Zara “Untie the Wire”
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When all the prisoners are taken to the basketball court together, Zara is isolated in a hallway, from where she occasionally interacts with her other university classmates, which happens on Friday the 14th when she has a moment of solitude. He could be taken to them, where they would clean his wounds, give him water and raw eggs, and eat for the first time on the morning of the 12th.
He is then moved to an underground dressing room in the stadium They torture him (breaking his ribs and wrists), they mock him, and finally an officer shoots him in the head and then finishes him off with 43 shots all over his body..
A few days later, his body appears in an empty lot next to the Metropolitan Cemetery, where he is recognized by neighbors who give a public notice and take him to the Forensic Medical Service and then bury him in an unnamed location.
“I think he knew for a long time what was going to happen to him and he left home to face his fate.”His widow, an English dancer, once featured. Joan Turner ZaraWith whom he then lived, he had a daughter: Amanda.
“Victor –Joan pointed out. “He was a communicator, but a communicator who received messages from those he communicated with and wanted to express the aspirations of the simplest people in his country.”
Born into a farming family in Ñuble in 1932, Victor Jara was one of the main animators of the New Chile Song, a movement that combined the country’s folkloric roots, the new urban manifestations of mass society, and political commitment. Deep Vibrations in Latin American Popular Songs of the 70s.
Victor Zara “The Game”
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In 1957 he joined the folk group saffronHe then became a director, with whom he toured the country, and in 1961 he toured Eastern Europe, where he reaffirmed his political convictions, which maintained him until his death as a member of the Chilean Communist Party.
At the same time, he studied mime, and then began directing plays. His first job in charge “like happiness”, By Alejandro Sieveking, it was a huge success in Chile and they traveled to Latin America, then to Germany, France and Eastern Europe.
At the same time as he pursued his career as a theater director, he began his career as a composer and composer and was the artistic director of the Quilabayan Troupe between 1966 and 1969.
Speaking about his country’s new song, he declares: “At the beginning of 1967, an album by Violeta Barra (“Ultimas Mixtures”) came out with songs in which she spoke about the truth, what is real about Chile, which caused a deep confusion and the group of composers realized that this is the way the song should go in our country”.
On another occasion, in Lima, Peru, he declared: “The love and romantic relationship between a man and a woman, a man with a woman, or a man with a man with his peers, his children, his home, his country, his instrument of work is the essence of reason. of man, that is why it cannot be without the theme of a famous singer”.
Some of the theatrical works he directed between 1961 were “Like Joy”, “Animas de tia Clear”, “La Mandragora”, “La Remolienda”, “Anticona”. and 1969; Last year he won the main prize at the first festival of New Chile song with his song “Plegaria de un labrador”.
Among his solo albums, he wrote songs such as “I Remember You Amanda”, “El Cigarito”, “Luchin”, “Elmanifesto”. (1967), “I Put It in Your Open Hands” (1969), “Singing Free” (1970), “The Right to Live in Peace” (1971), “Population” (1972), “Singing for the Freaks” (1973).
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