See also: September 11, 1973
Estadio de Chile:
The Final Work of Victor Jara
After the
CIA-sponsored
fascist coup d'état of
September 11, 1973, which brought
Augusto Pinochet to power, Victor Jara, along with other
intellectuals,
university students,
politicians,
lawyers,
educators, and anyone else that the coup
régime could not abide, were
imprisoned at the
Estadio de Chile, where they awaited
interrogation,
torture, and - ultimately -
execution. While he awaited his turn, beloved
Chilean
folksinger Victor Jara - savagely beaten, one eye swollen shut - scratched
Estadio de Chile, his final
poem, onto paper, a poem he would never finish.
Carlos Orellana, who worked in the
department of
information and
culture at the
Universidad Técnica (
Technical College) with Jara, described in an interview how the poem made it out of the
impromptu concentration camp set up in the stadium:
“Normally, in the stadium, they announced the surname of the prisoner on the PA system, ordering him to report to some location or other. But a soldier came for Jara. At that time, Victor was sitting between Boris Navia, a lawyer from the University, and me. The soldier silently approached, and, without saying a word, touched Victor's shoulder, signalling to him to follow them. I, as well as the other prisoners, had the impression that the soldiers didn't want to say out loud that Jara was being taken anywhere... When the singer stood up - he certainly didn't expect to return alive - he had enough time to take a crumpled piece of paper out of his pocket, and he passed it furtively to Boris Navia. It was the poem Estadio de Chile, written by Victor.
“Later, once we had already been brought to the Estadio Nacional during the first interrogations, they found the paper with the poem amongst Boris Navia's things. He'd hidden it in a sock. The poem denounced fascism and the dictatorship. The soldiers thought that it had been written by Boris, and they beat him mercilessly with their clubs. They took the poem from him. But, with the help of the comrades, Boris was able to make several copies of the poem by hand. One of the copies ended up in the hands of Ernesto Araneda, a distinguished communist and ex-senator, who was also incarcerated. I don't know how he managed to save the poem and send it out. After the singer's death, the party clandestinely edited the poem, which was rapidly distributed and became famous...
Below is the full text of Victor Jara's final, unfinished poem:
Estadio de Chile
Somos cinco mil aquí.
En esta pequeña parte de la ciudad.
Somos cinco mil.
¿Cuántos somos en total
en las ciudades y en todo el país?
Somos aquí diez mil manos
que siembran y hacen andar las fábricas.<
¡Cuánta humanidad
con hambre, frío, pánico, dolor,
presión moral, terror y locura!
Seis de los nuestros se perdieron
en el espacio de las estrellas.
Un muerto, un golpeado como jamás creí
se podría golpear a un ser humano.
Los otros cuatro quisieron quitarse todos los temores,
uno saltando al vacío,
otro golpeándose la cabeza contra el muro,
pero todos con la mirada fija de la muerte.
¡Qué espanto causa el rostro del fascismo!
Llevan a cabo sus planes con precisión artera sin mportarles nada.
La sangre para ellos son medallas.
La matanza es acto de heroísmo.
¿Es éste el mundo que creaste, Dios mío?
¿Para esto tus siete días de asombro y trabajo?
En estas cuatro murallas sólo existe un número que no progresa.
Que lentamente querrá la muerte.
Pero de pronto me golpea la consciencia
y veo esta marea sin latido
y veo el pulso de las máquinas
y los militares mostrando su rostro de matrona lleno de dulzura.
¿Y México, Cuba, y el mundo?
¡Qué griten esta ignominia!
Somos diez mil manos que no producen.
¿Cuántos somos en toda la patria?
La sangre del Compañero Presidente
golpea más fuerte que bombas y metrallas.
Así golpeará nuestro puño nuevamente.
Canto, que mal me sales
cuando tengo que cantar espanto.
Espanto como el que vivo, como el que muero, espanto.
De verme entre tantos y tantos momentos del infinito
en que el silencio y el grito son las metas de este canto.
Lo que nunca vi, lo que he sentido y lo que siento
hará brotar el momento....
Chile Stadium
There are five thousand of us here.
In this small part of the city.
Five thousand.
How many of us are there in all
In the cities and in all the country?
Here we are, ten thousand hands
Who plant the seeds and keep the factories running.<
So much humanity,
hungry, cold, panicked, in pain,
Under moral duress, terrified out of their minds!
Six of ours lost themselves
In the space of the stars.
One man dead, one man beaten worse than I ever thought
It was possible to beat a human being.
The other four wanted to free themselves of all their fear.
One jumped into the void.
Another beat his head against the wall.
But all had the fixed look of death in their eyes.
What fear is provoked by the face of fascism!
They carry out their plans with the utmost precision, not giving a damn about anything.
For them, blood is a medal.
Killing is an act of heroism.
My God, is this the world You created?
Is this the product of Your seven days of wonders and labour?
In these four walls, there is nothing but a number that does not move forward.
That, gradually, will grow to want death.
But my conscience suddenly awakens me
And I see this tide without a pulse
And I see the pulse of the machines
And the soldiers, showing their matronly faces, full of tenderness.
And Mexico, Cuba, and the world?
Let them cry out of this ignominy!
We are ten thousand fewer hands that do not produce.
How many of us are there throughout our homeland?
The blood of our comrade the President pulses with more strength than bombs and machine guns.
And so, too, will our fist again beat.
Song, how hard it is sing you when I have to sing in fear!
Fear like that in which I live, and from which I am dying, fear.
Of seeing myself amidst so much, and so many endless moments
In which silence and outcry are the targets of this song.
What have never seen before, what I have felt and what I feel now
Will make the moment break out...
If Jara ever completed that thought, he never had the chance to write it down.
As with all those who are considered martyrs and heroes, some mythology has sprung up around Víctor Jara's killing. It is often said that Víctor Jara's hands were cut off by the soldiers who tormented him during the last hours of his life. His wife, Joan Turner Jara, who able to recover his body with the help of the staff of the morgue who recognised him, writes in her book Víctor Jara: un canto inconcluso (Víctor Jara: An Unfinished Song):
Era Víctor, aunque le vi delgado y demacrado. ¿Qué te han hecho para consumirte así en una semana? Tenía los ojos abiertos y parecía mirar al frente con intensidad y desafiante, a pesar de una herida en la cabeza y terribles moratones en la mejilla. Tenía la ropa hecha jirones, los pantalones alrededor de los tobillos, el jersey arrollado bajo las axilas, los calzoncillos azules, harapos alrededor de las caderas, como si hubieran sido cortados por una navaja o una bayoneta... el pecho acribillado y una herida abierta en el abdomen... las manos parecían colgarle de los brazos en extraño ángulo, como si tuviera rotas las muñecas... pero era Víctor, mi marido, mi amor.
It was Víctor, though he looked thin and emaciated. What did they do to you to consume you like this in one week? His eyes were open, and he appeared to be lookinf forward with intensity and defiance, despite a wound on his head and terrible bruises on his cheek. His clothes were torn to shreds, with his pants around his ankles, his jersey rolled below his armpits, his blue underwear in tatters around his hips, as if they had been cut by a blade or a bayonet... his chest was riddled with bullets, and he had an open wound on his abdomen... his hands appeared to be hanging from his arms at a strange angle, as if his wrists had been broken... but it was Víctor, my husband, my love.
For more information, see:
http://www.patriagrande.net/chile/victor.jara/vjmuerte.html