The smile of Víctor Jara, indelible in my memory, was left behind. The single-file line of prisoners—hands on the napes of our necks—continued its march. We were advancing toward the refrigerated truck from the Pesquera Arauco that was waiting at the door of the Estadio Chile to transport us (we did not yet know it) to the Estadio Nacional.

It was the night of September 16, 1973. Forty-five years have passed since the crime, and finally, the ruling has appeared that convicts the nine army officers who participated in the murder of Víctor Jara Martínez and Littré Quiroga Carvajal—the former a singer-songwriter, the latter the director of Prisons, both communists.

Judge Miguel Vásquez Plaza has sentenced the “brave” Chilean soldiers who tortured and killed two defenseless prisoners to 18 years in prison for the crimes of homicide and kidnapping. Jara and Quiroga were executed by firing squad in the alleyway that leads to the stadium that today bears the name of the martyr Víctor Jara.

Before them, other prisoners met the same fate in that place. The murderous officers were authorized to shoot at their discretion. Víctor Jara received 44 bullets and Littré Quiroga, 23. All were 9.23-millimeter projectiles corresponding to the service weapons of the officers of the “glorious and never defeated” army of Chile.

The riddled bodies of Jara and Quiroga were dumped in a vacant lot in the south of Santiago. Judge Miguel Vásquez carried out exhaustive work that included medical examinations, police investigations, and statements from the accused and survivors of the Estadio Chile.

The case file has hundreds of pages and has not concluded: the accused may appeal to higher judicial instances. Nevertheless, it is an important step forward in unraveling the truth of the days of horror that were lived in the Estadio Chile.

That stadium is an indoor facility intended for basketball practice. It was enabled as a prisoner camp during the first days of the coup d'état. 5,400 detainees passed through there, according to the records of Lieutenant Colonel Mario Manríquez Bravo, the commander of the camp.

At the Estadio Nacional, we would be somewhat more, about fifteen thousand. With Commander Manríquez, who on that day, September 13, was taking a break alongside his staff of jailers, I had the occasion to hold a curious dialogue at the Estadio Chile.

When they removed my blindfold, I found myself in front of Manríquez and his officers, who were relaxed, chatting, smoking, and drinking coffee. Then Commander Manríquez (whose name I am learning only now) initiated a dialogue—respectful, I must admit—about socialism and the experience of the Unidad Popular.

According to that officer (and others I heard later at the Estadio Nacional), the military coup did not intend to destroy the process of social change initiated in Chile by President Allende. It sought to expel the Communist Party from the government and prevent Chile from becoming a second Cuba in Latin America.

He declared himself an admirer of the government of General Juan Velasco Alvarado in Peru. Very little, however, would those bursts of nationalism last, which apparently were shared by other officers I heard at the Estadio Nacional and at the Chacabuco prisoner camp.

The high command of the Armed Forces, committed from the origin of the coup to another ideology, had taken refuge in the arms of the Great Vulture of the North. The dialogue finished, the camp commander ordered one of his officers to lead me to a cell, a locker room of the Estadio Chile.

Today I know that that officer was Lieutenant Edwin Dimter Bianchi, whom they nicknamed “the prince.” A descendant of Germans, like other officers who were at the Estadio Chile, Dimter told me that on June 29, 1973, he had participated in the uprising of the Regimiento Blindados N° 2.

At the command of a tank, he tore down the doors of the Ministry of National Defense. The young Dimter was courteous and talkative. He told me he was a descendant of a German family settled in Valdivia.

Shortly before, he had traveled to the German Democratic Republic (GDR) to meet his relatives and declared himself an admirer of the agricultural techniques applied in that country. His entire discourse was delivered while we walked through the underground corridors of the Estadio Chile.

I kept, as befits a prisoner, a respectful and surprised silence. We saw dozens of people facing the wall with their hands raised. Cries of pain and shrieks of terror could be heard from prisoners tortured by army intelligence officers and Carabineros.

Lying on the floor, face down, we passed by Littré Quiroga, beaten with sadism by individuals in civilian clothes with colored armbands—I assume from the fascist group Patria y Libertad—who were reproaching him for the alleged mistreatment of General Roberto Viaux (*) by the Gendarmería.

I had never seen (nor have I seen since) a human being as brutally beaten as Littré Quiroga, who limited himself to moaning, already nearly dying. Lieutenant Dimter left me in the locker room occupied by Jorge Godoy, Allende’s Minister of Labor, a communist; he mistook me for a functionary of the new regime.

He was bleeding from a head wound and begged me: -“Sir, please, look at how they have me, don't let them beat me anymore…”. In the three following days, we shared with Godoy a piece of bread, a cup of coffee, and numerous messages for our families in case one of us made it out alive.

On September 16, they made us form a line of prisoners headed for an unknown destination. Then, on the way to the refrigerated truck, the smile of Víctor Jara greeted me. A light shone on his face. He looked whole and with that attitude of dignity that characterized the majority of the political prisoners of the dictatorship.

Why was he smiling? Perhaps he wanted to encourage us and share with us his exemplary courage. Perhaps he was defying those who would be his assassins. Who knows… but we will never forget that smile. (*) General Viaux led the coup attempt of October 21, 1969, against the government of President Eduardo Frei Montalva.

Likewise, he participated in the assassination of the commander-in-chief of the army, General René Schneider Chereau, on October 25, 1970, and was imprisoned for that crime.

Source: radiouchile.cl, July 6, 2018

Army Officer (ret.) was indicted as the perpetrator of the crime of Víctor Jara

Lieutenant Colonel (ret.) Mario Manríquez Bravo was subjected to prosecution by Judge Juan Carlos Urrutia, who deemed that there are “well-founded presumptions” of his guilt in the murder of the artist.

Retired Army Lieutenant Colonel Mario Manríquez Bravo was indicted as the perpetrator of the qualified homicide of Víctor Jara. The determination was adopted by Judge Juan Carlos Urrutia, who considered that there are “well-founded presumptions to estimate that he held the participation of a perpetrator in the aforementioned crime,” which carries the aggravating factors of cruelty and premeditation.

The head of the Fifth Criminal Court of Santiago adds that the testimony of the former officer allows for his incrimination, since “in his capacity as head of the prisoner camp into which the Estadio Chile was transformed at the time of the events, and holding the rank of lieutenant colonel, he was the officer of highest rank present at that moment. “For all of which he facilitated the means with which the homicide of Víctor Jara Martínez was committed, or at least witnessed it without taking immediate part in it,” the resolution emphasizes.

The plaintiff lawyer in the case, Nelson Caucoto, said that the ruling is relevant to determine the responsibilities of all those who participated in the murder of the singer-songwriter. Caucoto added that the judge with exclusive dedication points out that “Víctor Jara was brutally beaten and tortured inside the Estadio Chile, and especially—he says—his hands were beaten with rifle butts, being reduced to a single sore.” “Subsequently, the military personnel fired 34 bullets into him, in different parts of his body; they finished him off inside the Estadio Chile and threw him in the vicinity of the Metropolitan Cemetery of Santiago, along with five other bodies,” the jurist detailed. Urrutia determined that the musician died on September 15, 1973, at the Estadio Chile, the place where he had been detained since the coup d'état led by Augusto Pinochet Ugarte four days earlier. Jara, who worked at the then-State Technical University (UTE), was detained on the premises of the educational facility, the predecessor of the current University of Santiago de Chile (Usach). The indicted retired officer has already been notified of the resolution and entered the facilities of the Army Telecommunications Command, an institution that had never given his name as that of the person in charge of the prisoner camp installed at the Estadio Chile. “Today is a happy day for national culture... Víctor Jara continues to be an irreplaceable icon in the entire cultural and artistic firmament of our country. They killed him simply for dedicating his songs, his art, his dance, and folklore to the popular world, and he was taken almost like a trophy by the military,” Caucoto concluded.

Source: cooperativa.cl, December 9, 2004

Investigation into the murder of Chilean singer-songwriter Víctor Jara closed

He died in 1973 after being tortured in the Estadio Chile prisoner camp.

The Court of Appeals concludes that there is only one accused, retired army colonel Mario Manríquez Bravo. Jara’s wife, Joan Turner, has lamented the judge’s attitude. The Chilean justice system has concluded the summary investigation into the 1973 murder of Chilean singer Víctor Jara, according to judicial sources.

The magistrate in charge of the case, a member of the Court of Appeals, has closed the investigation with a single accused, retired army colonel Mario Manríquez Bravo. Manríquez Bravo was the officer in charge of the then-prisoner camp into which the Estadio Chile was transformed, the facility where Víctor Jara was murdered on September 15, 1973, and which now bears his name.

The lawyer for the prosecution, Nelson Caucoto, announced that he will appeal the ruling. The lawyer considers that there are still those responsible who must be prosecuted, linked to the high command of the Army.

He also recalled that the identity of an officer nicknamed the “Prince,” accused by witnesses as the material author of Jara’s murder, has still not been clarified. Detained on September 12, 1973 Fuentes Belmar, a judge of the Court of Appeals of Chile, took over the case of this crime in 2005, although previously the trial was in the hands of Judge Juan Carlos Urrutia, who had already prosecuted Mario Manríquez Bravo in December 2004 as the perpetrator of the homicide.

The investigation by Judge Urrutia recorded that Víctor Jara was detained on September 12, 1973, at the State Technical University, where he worked as a professor, along with 600 other people including teachers and students, who were transferred to the Estadio Chile. “He was put to death in the Estadio Chile itself” The document specified that the singer-songwriter “was put to death in the Estadio Chile itself, through multiple shots fired presumably with automatic weapons.” Before that, he was tortured, as his corpse also presented numerous fractures.

The body of the author of songs such as El Derecho de Vivir en Paz, Te Recuerdo Amanda, or Manifiesto was found by private individuals who transported it to the Legal Medical Institute, where it was found by his wife, the British dancer Joan Turner, who has lamented the closing of the summary.

Source: 20minutos.es, May 16, 2008

La Moneda assures that the murder of Víctor Jara will not go unpunished

“The first one has fallen, the one who was in charge of the facility. The one who killed him, or those who beat him to death and put 44 shots into him, will fall soon,” stated the spokesperson in statements to the foreign press accredited in the country.

On that occasion, he presented the Government’s position regarding the closing of the investigation into the crime of the author of songs such as “Te Recuerdo Amanda,” “El Derecho de Vivir en Paz,” “Manifiesto,” and “Plegaria de un Labrador” with only one culprit.

Confident that Justice will not leave the murder of singer-songwriter Víctor Jara unpunished, the Minister Secretary General of Government, Francisco Vidal, assured this Friday that the first one has already fallen and now it is the turn of the perpetrator of the crime. “The first one has fallen, the one who was in charge of the facility.

The one who killed him, or those who beat him to death and put 44 shots into him, will fall soon,” noted the spokesperson for La Moneda in a conversation with the foreign press accredited in the country.

Referring to the decision of Judge Juan Eduardo Fuentes to close the investigation with only one culprit, Vidal assured that “the important thing is that after more than 35 years, the murder of Víctor Jara, like so many others, is not going to go unpunished.” The resolution issued 35 years after the artist’s death was adopted by Judge Juan Eduardo Fuentes Belmar, who closed the summary with a single accused as the perpetrator of the homicide, retired army colonel Mario Manríquez Bravo.

Despite the closing of the judicial process, the Secretary of State said that it is “ongoing,” specifying that there has been “not a single turn in the Government” regarding cases of human rights violations, highlighting that “the policy is the same: Truth and justice deposited in the courts.” For the spokesperson minister, “Chile is the country in Latin America that has advanced the most and has done the most justice” regarding human rights violations.

Referring to Manuel Contreras, Vidal stated that “with 400 ongoing processes, it is the only country in the region that has the head of the Chilean ‘Gestapo’ imprisoned and sentenced for more than a century.” In the search for the “Prince” The summary was closed with a single accused as the perpetrator of the homicide, retired Army Colonel Mario Manríquez Bravo, who was the officer in charge of the then-prisoner camp into which the “Estadio Chile” was transformed, the facility where Víctor Jara was murdered on September 15, 1973, and which now bears his name.

The plaintiff lawyer, Nelson Caucoto, announced that he will appeal the ruling, because, as he told reporters, there are still those responsible who must be prosecuted, linked to the high command of the Army.

According to the professional, the identity of an officer nicknamed the “Prince,” indicated by witnesses as the material author of Jara’s murder, has not yet been clarified. However, until now, according to judicial sources, no witness was able to identify him or provide information about this repressor. “It has been a complicated investigation, numerous proceedings have been ordered, and finally I have estimated that the investigation is exhausted,” stated Judge Fuentes Belmar, who explained that “for the moment” the investigation was closed and noted that the plaintiffs are within their rights to ask the Court of Appeals for the reopening of the summary. The judge of the Court of Appeals of Santiago took over the case for the death of the singer-songwriter in 2005, a trial that was previously in the hands of magistrate Juan Carlos Urrutia, who prosecuted Mario Manríquez Bravo in December 2004 as the perpetrator of the qualified homicide of Jara, in his capacity as former head of the then-prisoner camp. The investigation by Judge Urrutia determined that Víctor Jara was detained on September 12, 1973, at the State Technical University, where he worked as a professor, along with 600 other people including teachers and students, who were transferred to the Estadio Chile. “He was recognized in the Estadio Chile by an Army officer, separated from the group, and immediately beaten with feet, fists, and rifle butts by military personnel,” the text of the indictment added. The document specified that the singer-songwriter “was put to death in the Estadio Chile itself, through multiple shots fired presumably with automatic weapons.” It added that his corpse was taken out of the facility and thrown with the bodies of five other people in the vicinity of the Metropolitan Cemetery near a railway line, in the southern sector of Santiago.

Source: elmostrador.cl, May 16, 2008

The Chilean justice system reopens the investigation into the murder of singer-songwriter Víctor Jara

The singer became known throughout Latin America for his songs with strong social content, such as “Te recuerdo Amanda” and “El derecho de vivir en paz.” The Chilean justice system reopened the investigation into the murder of singer-songwriter Víctor Jara, closed two weeks ago without finding the material authors of the act, which occurred days after Augusto Pinochet staged the coup d'état that gave him power in 1973.

Judge Luis Eduardo Fuentes decided to open the investigation again, after agreeing to a request from the plaintiff lawyer, Nelson Caucoto, who asked to order 40 new proceedings. “It seemed reasonable to grant several of the proceedings that were requested by lawyer Caucoto.

The purpose of the investigation is to clarify what really happened to Víctor Jara,” said Judge Fuentes. “There is a long road to travel to establish the facts that led to the homicide of Víctor Jara,” commented Caucoto for his part.

Judge Fuentes had closed the judicial investigation on May 15 without finding the material author of the crime and with only one person prosecuted, retired Army Lieutenant Colonel Mario Manríquez Bravo, who was in charge of the sports facility where Jara remained detained.

The singer-songwriter died on September 16, 1973, in an indoor stadium in the center of Santiago, a facility that today bears his name and where he remained detained along with 5,000 other political prisoners.

According to the judicial investigation, in this place Jara was “brutally beaten and tortured” and his hands “suffered blows from rifle butts, which left them reduced to a single sore.” The singer became known throughout Latin America for his songs with strong social content, such as “Te recuerdo Amanda” and “El derecho de vivir en paz.” Jara is one of the more than 3,000 victims, including the dead and forcibly disappeared, left by the Pinochet dictatorship (1973-1990).

Source: heraldo.es, June 4, 2008

Almost four months before the 36th anniversary of the death of the prominent Chilean folk singer, the tenacity of his widow, Joan Turner, and their daughters succeeded in bringing the judicial investigation to a point that was once thought impossible: identifying the group of officers and conscripts who perpetrated the murder.

The confessions of those involved, including a conscript who participated directly in the crime, allow us to know the harrowing final hours of Víctor Jara’s life and the manner in which he was killed in one of the dressing rooms in the basement of the Estadio Chile.

It also reveals the never-before-told story of how his body was recovered from the Morgue. Along with the artist, 15 other people were riddled with bullets, among them the former Director of Prisons, Litre Quiroga. The details of the homicide were gathered in this investigation by CIPER.

The chaos, uncertainty, and fear that reigned in the country during the first days following the 1973 military coup seemed, until now, to have combined perfectly to ensure that the murder of the prominent folk singer Víctor Jara remained a judicial enigma, even leading the judge overseeing the proceedings, Juan Eduardo Fuentes, to close the case in the middle of last year with only one person charged as responsible for the crime: retired commander César Manríquez Bravo, head of the makeshift prisoner camp that was installed at the Estadio Chile starting on September 12 of that year.

The magistrate’s decision was questioned by the plaintiffs in the case, who even obtained the support of the then-Undersecretary of the Interior, Felipe Harboe, to request the reopening of the investigation—a call joined by several parliamentarians from the Concertación.

The urgency to revoke Fuentes' decision was such that even the government authority joined the public appeal made by the artist's widow, Joan Turner, for any of the nearly 6,000 people who passed through the sports facility on that date (including detainees and uniformed personnel) who might have information about the murder to come forward, even under the strictest confidentiality.

Nelson Caucoto, lawyer for the Jara Turner family, relates that many contributions were received that could help clarify the homicide, which allowed him to present a written request for more than 90 new investigative steps to the judge. And Juan Eduardo Fuentes reopened the case.

However, none of this data provided concrete leads to reach those responsible for the crime, whose identities remained under the secrecy of a small group of officers and conscripts who were in charge of interrogating detainees in the dressing rooms located in the basements of the Estadio Chile.

It was the exhaustive search for the conscripts from different regiments who were at the Estadio Chile after the coup that finally provided the clues as to which uniformed personnel had finished off the nearly 15 detainees—including Víctor Jara—with rifle bursts after they were separated from the remaining prisoners during their transfer to the Estadio Nacional between September 16 and 17, 1973.

The first hours of the end

In the early hours of September 11, 1973, personnel from several military regiments located in the regions moved to Santiago under the excuse of making preparations for the Military Parade to commemorate the Day of the Glories of the Army.

Thus, units from La Serena and Maipo arrived in Santiago and were stationed at the Tacna Regiment. Other troops from Calama and the Tejas Verdes School of Engineers—commanded by Colonel Manuel Contreras Sepúlveda, who would begin organizing the National Intelligence Directorate (DINA) a few days later—did so at the Arsenales de Guerra facilities.

Around five in the morning that day, the troops stationed at the latter facility were informed of the coup d'état, following an address by Lieutenant Pedro Barrientos, who urged them to participate in taking the capital territory under the premise that there were no ranks in that mission, and that everyone was important in that crucial and patriotic event.

The episode has been recounted in the judicial statements of several conscripts from the Maipo and Tejas Verdes regiments who arrived from the Fifth Region.

After the bombing of La Moneda and the death of Salvador Allende, nearly 600 students and professors barricaded themselves in the Technical University of the State (UTE, current USACH) to resist the military occupation. Without any clashes occurring, as they had almost no weapons, the time they were able to oppose the entry of the uniformed personnel was very short.

After two in the afternoon on September 12, the eviction of the academics and students began. Amidst scenes of great violence and drama, they were detained and taken to the Estadio Chile. In that group was Víctor Jara Martínez, a professor at that university.

The procedure was directed by the then-captain Marcelo Moren Brito, who would later become one of the most feared operational agents of the DINA. Upon entering the Estadio Chile, which had been converted into a prisoner camp, the detainees were stripped of their valuables, and their names and political affiliations were recorded.

Prior to that, during the afternoon of September 11, after taking charge of Salvador Allende’s funeral, Commander César Manríquez was tasked by General Arturo Viveros—head of the Army’s Logistics and Administrative Support Command (CAE)—to create the first detention center to be installed at the Estadio Chile.

The following morning, Manríquez established himself at the facility. Shortly thereafter, the thousands of detainees began to arrive in public transport buses and Army trucks.

According to the statements of Manríquez himself, who until now was the only person charged in the case, what happened inside the sports facility—built only four years before the events—was a "dantesque" scene due to the large number of prisoners (5,600, according to his calculations).

The former officer asserts that he only had support personnel from the CAE to guard the facility, but that intelligence officers from the various Armed Forces were stationed in the building's basements, whose identities he did not know, as they were not under his command.

That is the reason he used to justify having set up a scene of terror to intimidate the detainees. He placed two .50 caliber machine guns—used in the Second World War—on the building's balconies, which were advertised over the loudspeakers as "Hitler’s saws, capable of cutting a person in two." Powerful floodlights were also installed on the second floor, which remained on day and night, causing everyone who remained inside the Stadium to lose their sense of time.

The first days of confinement were chaotic, as some sewers even burst, creating unsanitary conditions. They had no food for the soldiers, much less for the prisoners. The food shortage even led the soldiers themselves to loot businesses near the facility.

Only on the fourth day, September 16, were some rations received for the soldiers, according to Captain David González Toro, the officer in charge of supplies for the facility.

The time at which the members of the Armed Forces' Intelligence services arrived on that Wednesday, September 12, is unknown. What is known is that, after their arrival, they began to interrogate the detainees.

Everything was noted on a previously prepared form, which recorded the name, identity card number, address, political affiliation, details of the detention, and observations. At the bottom of the document, a statement from the interrogator was added in which they had to classify the prisoner under the following premises: arms control law, Marxist or Communist, and the necessity or not of subjecting them to a War Council.

According to various witnesses who have testified in the case, prior to the transfer to the Estadio Nacional, there were many acts of violence against the prisoners. It has been determined that at least three people lost their lives in the stands of the facility.

A person of small and thin build, whom many mistook for a child, lunged at a conscript in an act of desperation; the conscript reacted by discharging a burst into the person's abdomen. According to testimonies, Commander Manríquez congratulated the soldier for his "heroic work." Another prisoner threw himself from the second floor shouting "Long live Allende!", while a young man was killed by blows to his head with a rifle butt for having refused to obey the soldiers' orders.

To this figure are added 15 other people who were riddled with bullets alongside Víctor Jara in the Stadium's basements, according to the confession of the first man to be identified by the justice system as one of the authors of the murder of the prominent folk singer.

The men of Tejas Verdes

In their statements, all the conscripts who traveled from the Tejas Verdes School of Engineers (then directed by Colonel Manuel Contreras) to Arsenales de Guerra in Santiago agree that the troops were under the command of Captain Germán Montero Valenzuela, totaling a contingent of approximately one hundred soldiers and about twenty officers.

On September 12, upon arriving at the Estadio Chile, the contingent was placed under the command of Commander Mario Manríquez. Among the officers who participated in this mission, the conscripts mention Lieutenants Nelson Haase and Rodrigo Rodríguez Fuschloger, and a second lieutenant who would have a decisive role in the murder of Víctor Jara.

The first confession that Judge Fuentes obtained regarding the crime was that of former conscript José Alfonso Paredes Márquez (55 years old). The then-18-year-old arrived in Santiago during the early hours of September 11, 1973, from the Tejas Verdes School of Engineers, where he had been performing his military service since April of that year.

During the day when the lives of Chileans were split in two, his section was sent, under the command of Lieutenant Pedro Barrientos, to guard the Padre Hurtado road. Paredes claims to have been a sort of bodyguard for Lieutenant Barrientos.

At noon on September 12, the contingent moved first to Arsenales de Guerra and then to the Technical University (current USACH). There, after two in the afternoon, they proceeded to transfer the detainees to the Estadio Chile.

The aforementioned officer, along with Paredes, accompanied the caravan of public transport buses that carried the prisoners in a jeep. Once the mission was accomplished, they returned to Arsenales de Guerra.

On September 16, around 6:00 PM, the military squadron arrived at the Estadio Chile, where they presented themselves to a higher-ranking officer whose identity is unknown, who ordered them to guard the facility's transmission booths.

And inside the Stadium, the other conscripts were commenting that the Director of Prisons, Litre Quiroga; the singer-songwriter Víctor Jara; and the Director of Investigations, Eduardo “Coco” Paredes, were being held there.

Still according to Paredes’ confession, the following day he was sent to the basement sector. He remained as a sentry at the door of one of the dressing rooms intended for the detainees. In that dressing room, there were 5 or 6 officers from other regiments in combat gear, whose identities he does not know.

He saw them writing on papers the information provided by a detainee he observed sitting in front of a desk. In another corner of the dressing room, Paredes saw other prisoners facing the wall.

A few hours later, Lieutenant Barrientos and the second lieutenant who was in charge of the conscripts under the orders of Haase and Rodríguez arrived at the room. They brought a detainee. It was then that he says he was called, along with conscript Francisco Quiroz Quiroz (55 years old), and they were told that the detainee was Víctor Jara.

The group began to insult him for being a Communist. Paredes looked at him and recognized him. Víctor Jara remained there, in that dressing room, guarded by Quiroz.

Later, the main witness would recall, Lieutenant Barrientos sent him back to the basement, to the same dressing room. But this time Paredes found no one: neither interrogators nor detainees, and not even Víctor Jara.

Hours passed until Paredes saw the interrogating officers arrive again. The order was precise: bring the detainees who appeared on a list that one of the officers handed to a corporal. And again, the same procedure: interrogation and notes on each of the files.

And night fell. Paredes was on sentry duty in the same basement dressing room when he observed the entry of about fifteen detainees. And among them, he recognized Víctor Jara and also Litre Quiroga. Both were thrown against the wall.

Behind the prisoners, Paredes saw Lieutenant Nelson Haase and the second lieutenant who was also in charge of the conscripts arrive. And he was a witness to the precise minute in which the same second lieutenant began to play Russian roulette with his revolver pressed against the singer-songwriter’s temple. From there came the first mortal shot that impacted his skull.

Víctor Jara’s body fell to the floor on its side.

Paredes observed how he convulsed. And he heard the second lieutenant order him and the other conscripts to discharge rifle bursts into the artist’s body. The order was carried out. Everything that happened was witnessed by Nelson Haase, who was sitting behind the interrogation desk. According to the autopsy protocol, the singer-songwriter’s body had approximately 44 bullet impacts.

A few minutes later, the same second lieutenant who shot him in the head requested the removal of the body. Some nurses arrived with a stretcher, lifted him, put him inside a bag, and then loaded him into the back of a military vehicle parked in the facility’s courtyard, on the northeast side.

It was not easy for José Alfonso Paredes Márquez to confess to the judge what he saw and participated in. At first, he was reluctant to acknowledge his real participation in the events. And finally, he broke down, began his account, and did not stop.

This construction worker who builds houses in the central coastal area revealed that he had kept the secret for almost 36 years, without even having told his wife. He also made a clarification to the judge: during the days following the coup, and because they worked almost 24 hours a day, the officers gave them stimulants to avoid sleep and hunger, which is why his account might not be exact regarding the dates.

What Paredes and other conscripts did remember was what happened after Víctor Jara’s body disappeared from the dressing room. The other 14 detainees who came with the singer-songwriter and theater director were riddled with bullets fired by the conscripts and officers present themselves.

Among the victims, Litre Quiroga was killed. Their bodies were also loaded into the same vehicle. Shortly thereafter, and under the cover of night, they were all abandoned on public roads.

The final via crucis of Víctor Jara

During the reconstruction of the events, the witnesses were able to recreate the fear and chaos reigning in the Estadio Chile, a climate from which they did not escape either. Scenes that, when linked together, allow for a diffuse reconstruction of the final hours of Víctor Jara’s life, in which previously known characters appear again.

During his four days of captivity, Jara was recognized by an Army officer who called himself "The Prince." Other witnesses point out that this recognition was made by a soldier who does not match the characteristics of the mythical character of the Estadio Chile (see box), who was described as being over 1.80 meters tall, blond, fair-skinned, with a rounded face and an athletic build.

What the prisoners' testimonies do agree on is that Víctor Jara was interrogated at least twice in the facility’s dressing rooms, located in the northeast area of the basement. There, he was subjected to various tortures, including the breaking of his hands with rifle butts.

After the second of those sessions, Víctor Jara managed to approach people who had been detained at the UTE, who cleaned him and tried to change his appearance by covering him with a blue jacket and cutting his curly black hair with nail clippers.

The last detainees who saw him alive have said that he was very beaten, with a swollen face and fractured hands. Many agree that during the transfer to the Estadio Nacional, which lasted many hours, his lifeless body was seen in the hall of the facility, along with other corpses.

It is estimated that Víctor Jara’s body was found on September 17 on the outskirts of the Metropolitan Cemetery by officials from the First Carabineros Precinct of Renca, who transported him as a John Doe (N.N.) to the Legal Medical Institute.

A funeral without flowers and in silence

In the last months of the investigation, revealing unpublished testimonies have been recovered that help to understand why, unlike the other prisoners murdered at the Estadio Chile, Víctor Jara’s body was found by his family and could be buried clandestinely in the General Cemetery.

After remaining silent for 35 years, Héctor Herrera Olguín, a former Civil Registry official who currently resides in France, related before Minister Juan Eduardo Fuentes what he lived through in those days.

Herrera explained that on September 15, 1973, the officer designated as interim director of the Civil Registry sent him on a service commission to the Legal Medical Institute (IML), where he was ordered to measure, take the physical characteristics, and fingerprints of the bodies stationed in the facility’s parking lot.

Herrera calculates that there were about 300 dead stationed in that place, among whom he saw children and women. About twenty-five were shorn. All were young. He was told they were foreigners. Throughout the day, Herrera saw Army trucks arrive with more bodies.

And each time, the same movements: the conscripts threw them to the ground inside the parking lot, and then, with a little more delicacy, IML officials picked them up and stacked them in different parts of that sector.

The investigation will have to determine the exact date on which Víctor Jara was murdered. But the truth is that the former Civil Registry official recalled before the judge that on September 16, around 9:00 AM, a person he identifies as "Kiko," a native of Chiloé, pointed out to him that among the stacked bodies, it seemed to be that of Víctor Jara. And with stealth, he led him to the body.

At first, Héctor Herrera doubted that it was the famous singer-songwriter. He was very dirty, with dirt in his wounds, his hair matted with dirt and blood. At first glance, deep wounds were visible on both his hands and his face. And he had his eyes open, but with a calm gaze. On one of his wrists, he saw a wire with a piece of cardboard where "Eighth Precinct" was written.

To resolve his doubt, Héctor Herrera secretly noted his file number, his physical characteristics, and his fingerprints. To do this, he had to open his hands. It was not easy: they were clenched, very rigid. He did it with the help of "Kiko," both committing themselves not to tell anyone what had happened. Once the mission was finished, they left the body in the same place.

At the first hour of the following day, Herrera went straight to the dactyloscopic section of the Civil Registry, on General Mackenna Street. There, and in the most complete secrecy, he asked the official Gelda Leyton to look for Víctor Jara’s file.

Around noon, both confirmed that Víctor Jara had indeed been murdered. He went back to check the singer-songwriter’s records. And he realized he was married. He noted the details of his wife, Joan Turner Robert, and her address.

It was already dawn when, on September 18, at Víctor Jara’s house on Plazencia Street in Las Condes, Joan Turner heard someone knocking at her door. She went to look from a second-floor window. A man she did not know told her he needed to speak with Joan Turner.

She went down and approached the house’s gate. Herrera remembers seeing her very nervous. He identified himself as a Civil Registry official and related what he had lived through.

Shortly after, both left the house in Joan Turner’s Renault 4 in the direction of the IML. They entered together. But they did not find Víctor Jara’s body in the place where Herrera remembered very well having left it the previous afternoon.

The search began. And they arrived at the second floor of the building, the place where they had taken the corpses that were there for the so-called "economic autopsies." In place No. 20 was the folk singer. The body was embraced by his wife, who cried in silence, trying not to arouse suspicion. She was very aware that she had no authorization whatsoever to be there.

The death certificate process was carried out on the first floor. To be able to remove the body on a holiday, Herrera invoked his status as a Civil Registry official. When asked at the window about the cause of death and the date thereof, an essential requirement to fill out the death document, Herrera only managed to say that he died from a gunshot wound on September 14 at 5:00 AM.

It was the hurried calculation he managed to make in those few minutes upon remembering that Víctor Jara’s body had arrived at the IML before he discovered it. He took the time from a poem that came to his memory about those executed by firing squad.

Since the body had to be removed in a coffin and Víctor’s wife did not have the money to buy one, Héctor Herrera contacted his friend Héctor Ibaceta Espinoza, whom he asked for help. Together they went to Agustinas Street, in downtown Santiago, to look for the money. But Ibaceta decided to accompany them.

Around noon on that September 18, they arrived with the coffin at the IML. Only the two men entered to retrieve Víctor Jara’s body.

His naked corpse was transported on a metal stretcher with his clothes folded at his feet. They picked up the body and put it inside the coffin. The clothes were deposited at his feet. They covered him with a northern poncho they had brought, and on top, the shroud. They closed the coffin. They placed the coffin in a room that was used as a wake room.

-They turned on about four light bulbs for us, and we let Joan enter so she could be alone with him, so she could say goodbye to her husband. She was there for about an hour—recalled the former Civil Registry official.

Herrera added

“Subsequently, I went to the General Cemetery, located across the street, to request a cart to transport the body, since it was very expensive to do it in a hearse. A young lady indicated to me that it could not be done, but upon seeing the name of the deceased, she told me that for him, it could be done.

I returned to the IML in the company of a Cemetery official. Between the four of us, we placed the coffin on the cart and transported it to the holy ground, burying Víctor Jara in a modest niche at the end of the facility where he remains to this day. He was buried without flowers and with only the presence of the three of us.”

Héctor Herrera continued working at the Civil Registry until 1975. From 1969 until the day he left, he worked in the Identity Card department. He had to leave the country like thousands of other Chileans, carrying with him a secret that Joan Turner also kept to protect him, and which today belongs to all Chileans who will be able to sing with new hope: “Rise up and look at your hands.

To grow, reach out to your brother.”

The officer they called “Prince”

Almost like an urban myth, the figure of a ruthless Army officer, of athletic build, over 1.80 meters tall, with light eyes and blond hair, who allegedly shouted among the detainees that he did not need a microphone to speak because he had a “prince’s voice,” has been attributed to at least two former military men who were allegedly among the uniformed personnel who guarded the Estadio Chile.

Several of the detainees have declared that this was the uniformed man who was most cruel to Víctor Jara, being one of the first who separated him from the group of UTE detainees. Some of the testimonies pointed to the former DINA agent Miguel Krassnoff Martchenko as the one who acted against the singer-songwriter.

However, others deny it categorically, as they point out that he is shorter in stature (approximately 1.70 meters) and that his hair color is darker than the military man who has been sought to be identified.

As the years went by, another identity emerged that could correspond to “The Prince”: that of former Lieutenant Edwin Dimter Bianchi, who was one of the military men detained for the uprising of the Tacna Regiment in June 1973, a coup movement that was dismantled, giving rise to the so-called “Tanquetazo.” In that episode, Dimter entered the Ministry of Defense with a tank.

Indeed, Dimter matches the characteristics of the Prince, but several of the witnesses who were detained at the Estadio Chile have also ruled out that it is the same person.

The important thing is that it was Dimter himself, with his first judicial statement in 2006, who shed light on other officers who could also correspond to the identity of “The Prince”: the then-lieutenants Rodrigo Rodríguez Fuschloger and Nelson Edgardo Haase Mazzei, both from the Tejas Verdes School of Engineers.

This latter (retired) officer was mentioned in the statement of the first conscript to confess to participating in the crime.

Although Haase, when interrogated in the case, categorically denied having been at the Estadio Chile, statements from other officers present at the facility support Dimter’s version.

Haase was one of the trusted men of the former DINA chief, Manuel Contreras, and was the head of the clandestine detention center located on Bilbao Street, known as “Cuartel Bilbao.” Various testimonies and documents, including that provided by DINA agent Luz Arce, indicate that the property—in operation since 1976—had a luminous sign as a facade that read “Implacate.”

The lieutenant’s history also records him as a member of the Sociedad Pedro Diet Lobos, a commercial front for the DINA to cover up activities both in Chile and abroad. Over the years, those who survived have described him as arrogant, overbearing, and ruthless; in fact, it was said that he prided himself on permanently carrying a pickaxe in his car to use in raids.

The few times Haase emerged from his anonymity in recent years was when—along with other former uniformed personnel—he publicly expressed his total support for the uprising of retired General Raúl Iturriaga Newman, who attempted to evade the first effective prison sentence against him for the crime of MIR militant Dagoberto San Martín Vergara, as stated on the “September 10 Movement” website.

After retiring from the Army, the former officer formed a company in 1994 for wooden boxes for export wines, called Envases Haase or Envases Exportables. Since then, he has been a supplier for several companies in the sector, which has allowed him to rub shoulders with that environment.

In fact, in 2007, he participated in the Fifth “Copa Viñas de Chile” Golf Championship, at the Los Leones Golf Club, to benefit the Escúchame Foundation. On the latter’s website, a photo of the “Envases Exportables” team appears, in which Nelson Haase appears alongside the former Deputy Commander-in-Chief of the Army, retired General Guillermo Garin, retired Brigadier General Juan Lucar, and the former Chief of the Army General Staff, retired General Richard Quaas.

Haase’s wife, María Isabel Blaña Lüttecke, received $5,595,466 from the Ministry of Agriculture in February and April of this year, by virtue of a “System of Incentives for the Recovery of Degraded Soils Program,” as stated in the active transparency information of that ministry.

Source: ciper.cl, May 26, 2009

Two alleged authors of the murder of singer-songwriter Víctor Jara detained in Chile

The musician’s death became a symbol of human rights violations during the Pinochet dictatorship

Two people have been detained in Chile for their alleged connection to the death of singer-songwriter Víctor Jara, murdered in 1973, days after Augusto Pinochet’s coup d'état, the newspaper La Nación reported this Tuesday.

Until now, only one person remained charged as the author of the murder of Jara, whose death became a symbol of human rights violations during the dictatorship (1973-1990). The detainees, both 54 years old, remain incommunicado at the Santiago High Security Prison, where they were transferred after testifying before Judge Juan Fuentes Belmar at the Palace of Tribunals for their alleged participation in that event.

The magistrate must resolve whether to subject them to trial as authors, accomplices, or accessories, or whether to release them for lack of evidence incriminating them in that murder. According to the newspaper, one of the detainees confessed to his participation in the execution of the singer and collaborated in the description of the episode that ended Víctor Jara’s life at the Estadio Chile.

In May of last year, Judge Fuentes Belmar closed the summary with a single person charged as the author of the homicide, retired Army Colonel Mario Manríquez Bravo, who was the director of the prisoner camp into which that sports facility was transformed.

The investigation was reopened at the beginning of June, when the magistrate accepted a large part of the forty investigative steps requested days earlier by the plaintiff lawyer and representative of the family, Nelson Caucoto.

The author of El Derecho de Vivir en Paz (The Right to Live in Peace) and Te recuerdo Amanda (I Remember You, Amanda) died on September 15, 1973, and, as the judicial investigation details, he was brutally beaten and tortured, his hands suffered blows from rifle butts, and he was then murdered with 44 shots throughout his body.

Jara’s widow, Joan Turner, who for 35 years has been known as Joan Jara, made an appeal on that occasion to the 5,000 people who were at that center between September 11 and 15, 1973, to provide evidence. "Víctor’s murder is a global symbol of human rights violations; clarifying what happened would be a triumph, a demonstration that there can be no impunity for crimes against humanity," Joan Jara declared last June in an interview with Efe.

Source: elpais.com, May 26, 2009

The murderers of Víctor Jara: the last secret

On September 16 [1973], at 7:00, the body of Víctor Jara, along with five other corpses, was found next to the Cementerio Metropolitano, near the train tracks. Of the six bodies, local residents recognized two: Víctor and Litre Quiroga, who had also been seen by witnesses as a prisoner at the Estadio Chile.

I will provide the names of those witnesses to the court in due course. Some of those witnesses knew Víctor and Litre Quiroga personally; so much so that one of them knew that Litre had a scar on his chest, on the left side.

He verified this by opening his clothes. And regarding Víctor, they felt the calluses on his hands, typical of guitar players, which at that moment were bruised and swollen.” This was how the first judicial complaint filed by Joan Turner read, requesting that the death of her husband be clarified: Víctor Jara Martínez, born on September 28, 1932, son of Manuel and Amanda.

The trial to identify the material and intellectual authors of his death began on September 12, 1978, following the complaint by his wife, a British national and dance teacher, whom he married on January 27, 1965. At the time he was murdered, he was 41 years old and had two daughters: Manuela, 13, and Amanda, 9.

It would take 40 years for the bolt of secrecy surrounding the murder of Víctor Jara, Litre Quiroga, and dozens of other Chilean and foreign citizens who met their deaths at the Estadio Chile—whose identities and exact numbers remain unknown—to finally begin to slowly slide open.

The Estadio Chile and the Planning of the Coup

Until the final hours of the night of September 10, 1973, the central campus of the Universidad Técnica del Estado (UTE, today Universidad de Santiago) was the epicenter of great agitation. Everything was ready for the following morning at 11:00, when President Salvador Allende was to inaugurate the exhibition “Por la Vida Siempre,” with an anticipated performance by the singer-songwriter Víctor Jara.

Only a few knew what Allende would announce from the UTE: a plebiscite with which he intended to avoid the coup d'état. Two days earlier, the President had told General Carlos Prats, Commander-in-Chief of the Army until August 23, 1973: “It is the only democratic solution to avoid the coup or civil war.” Allende knew that he would not emerge victorious from that popular verdict.

What the professors and students of the UTE did not imagine, and neither did Allende, was that precisely that announcement of a plebiscite, which was quickly reported to those who wanted to overthrow him, had been the trigger that accelerated the coup.

And even less did they imagine that at that same hour, another agitation, but for very different ends, was enveloping several floors of the Ministry of Defense, located a few meters from the presidential palace.

Inside, a group of military officers under the command of Generals Herman Brady and Sergio Arellano Stark were finalizing the details for the attack on La Moneda and the occupation of Santiago that would be unleashed only hours later.

The command of the military operations in Santiago was configured that same morning. Under the leadership of General Brady, at the head of the Santiago Military Garrison, the following were aligned: General Sergio Arellano, in charge of the Santiago-Centro Group; General César Benavides, in the East Group; and Colonel Felipe Geiger, in the North Group.

The Reserve Group was given to General Javier Palacios, who would have a leading role on September 11.

Around a table in one of the ministry offices, a group of officers from the Army War Academy and Intelligence attached to the National Defense General Staff—the strategic core of the ongoing coup d'état (headed by Admiral Patricio Carvajal)—was reviewing for the umpteenth time the details of the “Cobre” and “Ariete” security plans, with the first orders on what to do with the Unidad Popular parties, their leaders, and the prisoner camps that would be set up.

“I must indicate that it fell to me to alphabetize a list of people who were to report to the country's regiments, which was read via a military communiqué. This list was passed to me by Admiral Carvajal,” declared Álvaro Puga later, who was one of the few civilians who participated in those preparations on the 10th itself (1).

Puga would also encounter Major Pedro Espinoza at the Ministry of Defense, who was dressed in civilian clothes and was in charge of the main Intelligence group of the National Defense General Staff, a unit that had supported the secret planning of the coup plotters during those months in 1973.

On the fourth floor of the building, another group, which included Pedro Ewin Hodar (Secretary of the National Defense General Staff) and War Academy student Colonel Roberto Guillard (2), and which also included civilians, was reviewing the drafts of the first military communiqués to be broadcast by a radio network led by Radio Agricultura (owned by the Sociedad Nacional de Agricultura, the main agricultural employers' association).

That officers from the War Academy, the so-called elite of the Army, were there was not surprising. Those officers were the first to join the preparation of the coup d'état in clandestine meetings with Air Force and Navy officers, who held the leadership.

By September 7, they were already informed of the imminence of the coup, for which reason the students of the academy's three courses were assigned to different units to ensure that the definitive day would be a success.

The importance of the War Academy in the coup was clearly reflected when Arellano entrusted the organization of the Santiago-Centro Group headquarters to Colonel Enrique Morel Donoso (3), director of the War Academy since August, when the incumbent, Herman Brady, assumed command of the Santiago Garrison.

That was also the moment when the academy became the armed wing of the coup plotters in the Army, with information transmitted by Colonel Sergio Arredondo González (4), a professor at the academy and one of the first conspirators. Arredondo would also have a predominant role in the coup's actions as Chief of Staff of the Santiago-Centro Group.

Thus, on the 10th, Arellano Stark, Morel, and Arredondo made their final, stealthy contacts with the heads of the forces that would act against La Moneda and Santiago: the Infantry School, the Non-Commissioned Officers School, the Tacna, Yungay (from San Felipe), Guardia Vieja (from Los Andes), Coraceros (from Viña del Mar), and Maipo (from Valparaíso) regiments, and the Engineers School (from Tejas Verdes).

That same day, the 10th, at the facilities of the Army Administrative Command (CAE), General Arturo Viveros (5), another of the early participants in the coup's preparation, summoned Commander Mario Manríquez Bravo to order him to set up the Estadio Chile (located at Pasaje Boxeador Arturo Godoy No. 2750, between Calle Unión Latinoamericana to the east and Bascuñan Guerrero to the west) as a prisoner camp.

Before dealing with the Estadio Chile, Manríquez had to fulfill a delicate mission on September 11 itself: taking charge of the burial of Salvador Allende and his autopsy, which would remain secret for 28 long years.

Major Hernán Chacón Soto, another of the War Academy officers, was also entrusted with the organization of the prisoner camps, under the orders of General Viveros. But he had received the order earlier: on September 8.

By then, the coup leaders had already decided that the Tacna Regiment would be the first and main detention center, as those on the lists prepared by the National Defense General Staff Intelligence group, headed by Major Pedro Espinoza, would be taken there. The commander of the Tacna, Colonel Luis Joaquín Ramírez Pineda, was already preparing.

The same was being done at the Tejas Verdes Engineers School by Major Manuel Contreras Sepúlveda. One of the conscripts from his school recounted the following in the trial seeking to establish who the material and intellectual perpetrators of the murder of Víctor Jara were:

“On September 10, 1973, around 19:00, a helicopter arrived at the Tejas Verdes Engineers School, carrying a Navy officer who went to speak with the school's director, Colonel Manuel Contreras, and he gave the order to form up in the courtyard.

In the formation, we were ordered to prepare our backpacks and war armament, which consisted of a SIG rifle with one hundred rounds each. Around 20:00, we went to sleep and at approximately 02:00 on the 11th, we were awakened by the duty corporal and ordered to form up in the courtyard.

The permanent staff was confined to barracks. Colonel Contreras told us that we were going into combat and that he did not want any casualties on our side. Together with my section, we boarded institutional trucks and headed to Santiago.

Those of us going to Santiago were: the Second Company, led by Captain Germán Montero Valenzuela, composed of the first, second, and third sections, led by Lieutenants Pedro Barrientos Núñez, Rodrigo Rodríguez Fuschloger, and [Jorge] Smith, respectively.

In addition to the Third Company, led by Captain Víctor Lizárraga Arias, and the first, second, and third sections of that company, led by Lieutenant Orlando Cartes Cuadra (6). In charge of this entire contingent was Major Alejandro Rodríguez Fainé” (7).

The conscript R.A. relates: “Once we arrived in Santiago, we headed to the Tacna Regiment, but it was occupied by the Maipo Regiment, which is why they took us to a basketball court at the War Arsenals.

The first thing they gave us was breakfast, and around 07:00 they formed us up and gave us a salmon-colored collar and a white armband with green turtles, and an officer, whose name and rank I do not know, indicated to us that we were going to overthrow the communist President Allende and that whoever did not want to go should take a step forward.

We looked at our companions: no one wanted to step out. Subsequently, the company, which was complete, headed to the side of the Ministry of Defense [Clarín newspaper], took a position in this building, and began to have crossfire with snipers from other rooftops.”

The account of conscript R.A. was complemented by that of conscript C.A.P.: “After breakfast, Lieutenant Colonel Julio Canessa, commander of the War Arsenals, indicated to us that an important event would take place in the country, and Lieutenant Pedro Barrientos Núñez gave us more details and indicated that whoever did not want to go should take a step forward: obviously, no one stepped out.

Subsequently, we headed toward La Moneda along Calle San Diego, raiding all the buildings surrounding the Ministry of Defense” (8).

Enrique Kirberg, rector of the Technical University, slept little and poorly that night. At 6:30, the ringing of the phone made him jump out of bed. “A group of armed civilians attacked the university radio facilities, disabling the antenna,” was the brief announcement he received. After making sure there were no injuries, Kirberg went straight to the university.

The attack was perpetrated by the Navy contingent stationed at the Quinta Normal Naval Station, from where Admiral Patricio Carvajal, Chief of the National Defense General Staff, was directing the development of the coup plans step by step.

On September 10, the Navy ordered a group of Marine infantry and Intelligence personnel to move to Santiago. Among them were Lieutenants Miguel Álvarez and Jorge Aníbal Osses Novoa, from the Navy Intelligence Service. Officer Pedro Castro Bustos, who reported directly to Frigate Captain Víctor Vergara, was already in Santiago (9).

In La Serena, another group of soldiers from Artillery Regiment No. 2, “Arica,” was preparing to march to Santiago. Major Marcelo Moren Brito (10), second-in-command of the regiment led by Colonel Ariosto Lapostol, who did not travel, was placed in command of the Serena Group.

Among those chosen was Captain Fernando Polanco, who was the regiment's Intelligence chief and commanded an infantry company of about 120 men.

Shortly after Rector Kirberg entered the UTE, the Calle Ecuador sector became an anthill. While the first troops deployed in the surroundings, students and professors roamed the courtyards and offices trying to obtain more information about what was happening.

From battery-powered radios that appeared everywhere, one could hear the sounds of the Unidad Popular anthem “Venceremos,” which Radio Magallanes broadcast over and over, accompanied by slogans to defend the government.

Around 10 in the morning, Víctor Jara said goodbye to his wife, Joan Turner, and his daughters Manuela and Amanda, and left his house at Calle Piacenza No. 1144. Knowing that a coup d'état was underway, he decided to be at his workplace: the UTE.

Joan will forever remember the image of Víctor in his black pants and black alpaca sweater, taking the keys to his Renault 4 to then leave quickly in the direction of the university. He carried with him one of his most prized objects: his guitar.

Shortly after, Víctor Jara entered the Vice-Rectorate of Communications of the UTE, located across from the central campus, where he worked as a folklore researcher and theater director. He went straight to the office of Cecilia Coll, head of the Artistic Extension department, his friend and companion of many days of culture brought to the shantytowns and factories.

And also of volunteer work, in which they unloaded flour and other basic necessities that were in short supply.

“‘What do I do?’ was the first thing he said to me. I saw him arrive clutching his guitar and with a worried look on his face. But he spoke to me with that conviction that impressed me, of being deeply convinced of what he was doing, whether in music, in theater, or in his militant attitude.

I heard him speak on the phone that morning with his wife, Joan, which reaffirmed to me that Víctor was clear about what his responsibility was that day,” recalls Cecilia in an interview with the author.

That call was confirmed by Víctor Jara's wife, Joan Turner, who said: “Víctor called me on the phone around 11:30 to tell me that he had arrived safely, despite the movement of troops. To stay calm and to take care of the girls.”

Cecilia Coll does not forget that it was she who told Víctor to go to the School of Arts and Crafts, the old building of solid construction that could better withstand a military attack, since many shots were being heard at that hour. By then, there were already hundreds of professors and students remaining at the UTE.

At that same hour, the officers who had staged the June 29, 1973, rebellion of Armored Regiment No. 2, known as the “Tanquetazo,” had already been released. The uprising, a draft of the coup d'état that would be executed three months later, left several dead and wounded, and was organized and carried out by a group of military officers in collusion with the extreme-right movement Patria y Libertad.

Its leaders were: Colonel Roberto Souper Onfray (11), who was the commander of Armored No. 2; Captain Sergio Rocha Aros (12), commander of the regiment's Tank Company; Captain Carlos Lemus; and Lieutenants Raúl Jofré González, Antonio Bustamante Aguilar, Mario Garay Martínez (13), Edwin Dimter Bianchi, René López Rivera (14), Carlos Souper Quinteros, and Víctor Urzúa Patri.

Most were in military prison in different units in Santiago, accused of insurrection and sedition.

The maelstrom of the events of the 11th stifled the release of the seditious military officers. But the secret was kept for many years. There were reasons for this. The main one: to hide the names of those who ordered the missions entrusted to the officers who were just leaving military prison, chewing on the failure of their operation and their recognized violent and extreme-right vocation.

But there were other facts that surrounded that release and that connected those men to the Estadio Chile and the fate of Víctor Jara.

One of those officers was the then-lieutenant and today Brigadier (R) Raúl Aníbal Jofré González, who was released at the Army Telecommunications School, along with the also-insurgent Lieutenant Edwin Dimter Bianchi. Jofré related:

“On September 11, around 18:00, they came to look for me and transferred me to the Garrison Command, located on the sixth floor of the then-Ministry of Defense. That same day, at different times, the rest of the officers who were detained arrived, with the exception of Colonel Souper, whom I did not see. The next day I was sent along with Lieutenant Edwin Dimter to the Estadio Chile…” (15).

Another insurgent officer who was released did see Colonel Souper that morning at the central command of the coup. The now-Colonel (R) Antonio Roberto Bustamante Aguilar (16) relates:

“On September 11, 1973, around 11:00, I was informed that I was free and was transferred to Zenteno No. 45, where the Ministry of Defense operated. I went straight to the sixth floor, where I remained in a 'available' status along with the other officers who had participated in the so-called 'Tanquetazo': Colonel Roberto Souper, Captain Sergio Rocha, and Lieutenants Raúl Jofré, Edwin Dimter, Mario Garay, and René López.

In the afternoon, we were assigned to different units. I do not know to which unit Colonel Souper was assigned. Captain Rocha was sent to the Jurisdictional Area Command of the Interior Security Zone (CAJSI) of Puente Alto, where he had been imprisoned (the then-Railroad Regiment No. 2); Jofré and López were sent to the Estadio Chile; regarding Dimter, I have doubts, and regarding Garay, it seems to me that he was sent to the Second Army Division.

I was assigned to the Jurisdictional Area Commands of Interior Security, or CAJSI of Santiago, which operated on the sixth floor, south wing of the Ministry of Defense (Fifth Department, Civil Affairs).

All security activities of the Army, Navy, and Air Force, as well as the Carabineros and Investigations, were subordinated to the CAJSI. The Fifth Department of Civil Affairs, to which I was assigned, was in charge of Army Captain Ramón Castro Ivanovic, a third-year student at the War Academy” (17).

But there was another fact that everyone kept quiet about for many years and that Lieutenant Edwin Dimter, another of the insurgents who was released, decided to reveal to the court 31 years later, when the figure of Víctor Jara returned with unusual force:

“At noon on September 13, 1973, all the officers who had participated in the uprising of June 29 were received by General Augusto Pinochet, who addressed a few brief words to us and then told us that we were going to receive instructions.

Present at that meeting were: Colonel Roberto Souper, Captain Sergio Rocha; and Lieutenants Raúl Jofré, Antonio Bustamante, René López, Mario Garay, and myself. Subsequently, I was assigned to the Estadio Chile, a facility to which I was transferred in a jeep that same day” (18).

The departure of Dimter and Jofré to the Estadio Chile was confirmed by the then-lieutenant and now-Lieutenant Colonel (R) Mario Garay Martínez, another of the insurgents from Armored No. 2: “Lieutenants Jofré and Dimter were sent to the Estadio Chile… In my case, I was kept in the Second Division to perform administrative duties and at the disposal of the senior officers of the General Staff” (19).

At 10:20, after having broadcast Salvador Allende's last speech for the second time, Radio Magallanes went silent forever. At 11:52, the first bomb fell on La Moneda. Víctor Jara witnessed the impact and called his wife. Joan would later relate that in that conversation, he told her to stay calm, that he would try to return home, but later…

Shortly before 14:00, the occupation troops, led by General Javier Palacios, with a contingent from the Tacna and the Non-Commissioned Officers and Infantry Schools, entered La Moneda. In charge of the five batteries of the Tacna Regiment, which later broke into the Ministry of Education, was Major Enrique Cruz Laugier (20).

Palacios said later that they received gunfire from inside the burning La Moneda and that the quick action of his aide, Lieutenant Iván Herrera López (21), prevented him from being hit by other projectiles.

And he added in an interview with María Eugenia Oyarzún: “Lieutenant Armando Fernández Larios bandaged me with a handkerchief that I myself handed him to cover the wound. Why was he there? I believe the Army Intelligence Service (SIM) sent people on their own to identify the prisoners.” Palacios was right.

Armando Fernández Larios already belonged at that moment to the intelligence team of the National Defense General Staff, headed by Major Pedro Espinoza, the group that had compiled the list of UP leaders and officials who were to be taken prisoner as a first priority. A task that the Intelligence personnel of the Coup General Staff would continue to carry out later at the Estadio Chile.

Inside the UTE, people were in turmoil. Rector Kirberg still could not convince himself that the government palace was burning in flames. Suddenly, shouts were heard: “To the Paraninfo! To the Paraninfo! General assembly!” In an interview with the author, Kirberg relates:

“The assembly was held. We were all together, professors, students, workers. The president of the UTE Student Federation, Osiel Núñez, spoke and called for the coup to be stopped… The morning had passed in a dizzying manner.

A delegation of Christian Democrat professors and students came to tell me that they were at my disposal. While we were still under the impact of the bombing, a patrol of Marines arrived. They were complaining about a flag at half-mast that someone had put up. ‘Either you raise it, or you lower it!’ they ordered. We agreed to stay at the university. There were about a thousand of us.”

Student Iris Aceitón does not forget those moments: “The cry of the UTE pierced the walls of the Paraninfo until it rose into the misty sky. A great chill ran through my whole body. The faces of my classmates were full of tears. We hugged each other… The men did not hide their shock. Very few left” (22).

Everyone organized themselves for what was coming, which was nothing other than remaining there, in the house that gave them their identity. Víctor Jara was one more among them.

“There in the courtyard, next to a large concrete column, leaning on his inseparable guitar, I spot Víctor Jara. He is with Patricio Pumarino. They invite me to approach. Víctor speaks to me and I hug him gratefully,” recalls Iris.

Shortly after, a Carabineros major in command of a patrol arrived at the UTE and informed the rector that they were cordoned off: “No one can leave, not even pass from one building to another, because you will receive fire. We are in a State of Siege and the curfew has already come into effect,” he said curtly.

Víctor Jara, true to his character, had decided to stay. Around 16:30, he communicated with his wife again: “After some difficulties, I managed to speak with him. He told me that he would not be able to get home because of the curfew, that he would have to stay at the UTE that night, that he hoped to see me at home the next morning.

That he loved me very much… That was the last time we spoke,” relates Joan Jara.

“We organized ourselves into two groups, one of them in the School of Arts and Crafts and another in the central campus, spread out in different offices. Of those of us in the central campus, some were in the industrial engineers' sector and others in the Paraninfo.

The central campus has a basement, so we felt safe. Víctor Jara remained in the School of Arts and Crafts, where the largest group of people was. He spent the night in one of its rooms,” related student leader Mario Aguirre Sánchez (23).

Indeed, Víctor Jara remained in the Physics Laboratory of the School of Arts and Crafts of the UTE. Student Juan Manuel Ferrari Ramírez was also there and did not forget it:

“That night, his expression was etched in my memory because he looked very serene, worried, and sad. He was hugging his guitar, which made him very particular, unlike the other people who were scared or in a panic” (24).

After Rector Kirberg reached an agreement with a Carabineros contingent to evacuate the university in complete calm the next morning, the longest night ever experienced at the Technical University began.

Neither Víctor Jara nor Kirberg nor any of the students and professors who had decided to remain at the UTE could imagine that at those same hours and at full speed, the coup-plotting military officers were preparing the Estadio Chile to receive its first prisoners. And they would be its next inhabitants.

Officer David González Toro, of the Army Administrative Command, received an order that linked him for life to the Estadio Chile:

“On the 11th, my General Viveros ordered me to take charge of the quartermaster's office of a prisoner center that was going to be created. Hours later, I was informed that I had to go along with Commander Mario Manríquez, Major Sergio Acuña, and Sergeants Sergio Etcheverry, Caupolicán Campos, and Corporal Héctor Bernal to the Estadio Chile.

When we arrived in the afternoon, there was no one… When the detainees arrive, I am clear that there was personnel from the Tejas Verdes Engineers School, the CAE, and the Calama Regiment. I do not know if there was personnel from another unit… I remember seeing Commander Manríquez in a small office located along a wide hallway, next to some bathrooms” (25).

Major Hernán Chacón Soto received other orders regarding the Estadio Chile:

“At about 16:00 on September 11, I was ordered through the head of the Housing Department of the Army Administrative Command, Lieutenant Colonel Mario Pérez Paredes, that I had to take charge of a section of the Tejas Verdes Engineers School.

In the company of Lieutenant Colonel Pérez, I had to move, with this section in my charge, to the Estadio Chile, arriving at the place at about 19:00, where I was informed that I was in charge of the exterior security of the gymnasium… In this task and with this section, I remained until September 15, 1973, according to my memory, when all the detainees from the Estadio Chile were transferred to the Estadio Nacional.”

One of the Tejas Verdes conscripts, M.C., recounted what was happening at the Estadio Chile during those hours:

“Around 19:00 on the 11th, we were all ordered as a section to go to the Estadio Chile, under the command of Lieutenant Rodríguez Fuschloger and Lieutenant Jorge Smith Gumucio [and he gives the names of all the sergeants, corporals, and conscripts who went with him].

Upon arriving, I observed several buses with detainees who were being brought down with their hands up and were being pointed at by soldiers. I was ordered to station myself at the entrance of the stadium, organizing the line of detainees that was entering.

This lasted for several hours until the stadium was almost full. Suddenly, next to the line of detainees, I saw an elderly man and I allowed him to rest on the ground. I was surprised by Lieutenant Smith, who scolded me and wanted to have me detained for disobedience.

Lieutenant Rodríguez Fuschloger interceded in my favor. Subsequently, I went to rest for a few hours in a room on the second floor, and later, upon returning, Corporal R. ordered me to stay as a sentry in the gallery that was in front of the main entrance, in the hallway that divided the lower and upper gallery” (26).

Conscript R.A., from the Tejas Verdes Engineers School, also claims to have received the order to go to the Estadio Chile at 19:00 on the 11th. And he remembers that his entire section went, which was led by Lieutenant Rodrigo Rodríguez Fuschloger (27).

Upon arriving at the stadium, he says that with him were Sergeants Víctor Heredia Castro, Exequiel Oliva Muñoz, and Corporals Nelson Barraza Morales, Homero Reinoso Valdés, Carlos Sepúlveda Moreno, José Galdames Arteaga, Jaime Sepúlveda López, and 38 conscripts (he gives all their names).

Also going were Sergeants Sergio Montiel Díaz and Manuel Rolando Mella San Martín, who were not from his section, but who were indeed at the Estadio Chile:

“Once we arrived at the stadium, on one side there were some Carabineros buses with detainees, waiting for us to take our position in the facility. To guard the place, we divided ourselves into six-hour shifts.

The corporals ordered us where we had to be as sentries. I remember that I was stationed at the main entrance, on the outer side. From my position, I could observe the entry of the detainees. It was a large quantity.

Their personal belongings were left in a handkerchief or whatever else on one side of the entrance. All night on the 11th and the early morning of September 12, detainees arrived. On the 12th, around 06:00, I was relieved and went to sleep, to then assume my shift in the same place.”

Not far from there, inside the UTE, hours of terror were being lived: “In the end, there were about 600 of us teachers, students, and staff who remained at the university, which was persistently shot at with long-range weapons throughout the night. Vehicles roamed the surroundings firing to frighten us,” says an Engineering student in an interview with the author.

Enrique Kirberg: “At midnight, they called from the School of Arts and Crafts. They informed me that there was a wounded person: a cameraman, at the…”

who they called El Salvaje, had received a bullet in the spine that compromised his kidneys. He was in very serious condition. I requested hospital assistance, I insisted to the military, we waited all night… Our man died on us… And I must say that there were no weapons inside the university and there was no resistance either.

A myth has been created: it is believed that we resisted… It saddens me a little to disappoint them.” The president of the UTE Student Federation, Osiel Núñez, also remembered very well those moments when the cameraman and photographer for the university’s Presencia magazine, Hugo Araya Araya, El Salvaje, was wounded: “The rector made several calls requesting an ambulance to transport the wounded man.

It was useless. At about one in the morning, we were informed that Hugo Araya had bled to death,” he recounted before the Rettig Report. (28) . The group from the “Arica” Regiment that arrived from La Serena to reinforce the military operations of the Coup was made up of two Infantry companies and an Artillery battery consisting of four pieces under the command of Major Marcelo Moren Brito.

Their first mission was to “evacuate and occupy all the facilities of the UTE.” “The intelligence information handled by the Santiago Military Garrison was that inside that house of studies there were between 300 to 500 people, many of them armed.

Navy personnel, dependent on the Quinta Normal Naval Station, together with carabineros from the Calle Ecuador police station, had not managed to evacuate it, reporting that they had received shots from inside,” recalls Second Lieutenant (R) Pedro Rodríguez Bustos, who participated in the occupation of the UTE (29) .

Officer Fernando Polanco was also part of the contingent that was ready to attack the UTE, under the command of Major Moren Brito: “We spent that night at the Buin Regiment. At dawn on the 12th, through an order that I presume was given by the commander of the Buin Regiment, Colonel Felipe Geyger, our entire group went to raid and occupy the premises of the State Technical University… Major Moren was the one who dealt with the superiors and received orders directly from the commander of the Santiago-Centro Group.

Our mission was solely to evacuate the premises and coordinate the transfer to the Estadio Chile. Approximately in October of that year, the DINA was created, to which Major Moren Brito moved directly and exclusively within our group” (30) .

What Polanco, better known in the Army as “El Polaco,” does not say is that in those same days he was also hunting for leaders of the Unidad Popular. That is how he arrived at the home of Félix Huerta, one of the members of Salvador Allende’s most secret advisory committee.

Huerta was an invalid, and Polanco extorted him to reveal the identities of his comrades in exchange for the life of his brother, Enrique Huerta (whom, however, they had already murdered). Polanco, in the end, did not kill Félix Huerta, but he continued his career in intelligence services, in the BIE, the most secret group of the Army Intelligence Directorate.

Other deaths, including that of Colonel Huber, a member of the DINA, would be attributed to him over the years. Huber was murdered when the illegal sale of arms to Croatia was discovered once democracy was restored.

Around 6:00 on September 12, Enrique Kirberg changed his shirt and shaved. He wanted to be prepared to receive the military delegation that would assist in the evacuation: “Suddenly I felt a terrible roar.

They fired a cannon shot toward the university building. The shell opened a huge hole and exploded two offices away from where I was. I ended up chewing pieces of concrete. I leaned out and saw troops entrenched, firing toward the university.

The windows of the front facade shattered, making a frightening noise. We had to lie on the floor to dodge the shots. As the attack did not cease, I took my white shirt, approached the window, and waved it outside.

I heard shouts: ‘Come out with your hands up!’ A woman started to cry… I heard myself say: ‘This is not the time to cry!’” “At approximately 7:00, I was in the administration offices, along with about a hundred people, and we saw when they installed a cannon in front of the main building and fired three shells.

Immediately, they unleashed a machine-gun attack for more than 30 minutes. Over loudspeakers, an officer asked us to surrender. Everyone came out with their hands up, in single file between two rows of armed soldiers,” recounted Professor Carlos Orellana (31) .

Enrique Kirberg: “People started to come out with their arms raised, but even so, they did not stop firing. My impression was that the soldiers were more scared than we were. Violently, they forced people to lie on the ground.

I did too, but the commander made me stand up with the butt of his rifle and shouted at me: ‘So you are the rector, you son of a bitch! Now you’re going to see what university autonomy is!’ He grabbed me violently by the arm, threw me against a wall, cocked his weapon, and aimed at me: ‘You have 15 seconds to tell me where the weapons are, otherwise I’ll shoot!’ It was very clear to me that I was in front of my university; professors and students were listening to me.

I don’t know where I found the strength, but very calmly I replied: ‘The University’s weapons are knowledge, art, and culture.’ The 15 seconds passed, and the man aiming at me did not pull the trigger.

He called a soldier and told him: ‘Aim at him! And if he doesn’t say where the weapons are, you know…’ They fired a second cannon shot and then took the cannon toward the School of Arts and Crafts. My people remained lying on the ground.

The soldier kept aiming at me; shouts and orders were heard while the troops broke down doors and windows and entered the buildings firing.” As soon as they entered, the military asked for the student leaders to identify themselves.

Osiel Núñez, president of the UTE Student Federation, did so. He was immediately separated, and the beatings began. “Where are the weapons?” was the shout that was repeated: “They beat me and threatened me with death.

They fired at me twice on the side to make me decide to talk. I insisted that there were no weapons at the university. At that moment, they arrived to inform the officer in command that a confrontation was taking place at the School of Arts and Crafts.

I asked this soldier to allow me to go there to avoid a massacre. He agreed. I arrived at the place, asking the students to leave the school, assuring them that they would not be fired upon, and mainly staff began to leave.

Then I was taken to another sector, where I did the same, but the students did not manage to leave because the military entered violently, firing. I asked the officer in command to stop the firing to avoid unnecessary deaths.

The firing stopped, and students began to come out. But the military continued firing” (32) . Student Boris Navia Pérez recounts: “The military took out students, professors, and staff, men and women, and between rifle-butt blows, they forced us to lie in the street, in front of the main building, including the rector himself.

We remained in this place throughout the morning and part of the afternoon. In the distance, lumps could be seen lying down, which made the neighborhood think we were all dead. Among these people was also Víctor Jara” (33) .

Many of the students and professors who remained at the UTE saw Víctor Jara lying on the ground with his hands on the back of his neck, like all his companions. This is how one of the students who was taken prisoner remembers it: “They moved us to the five-a-side soccer field of the School of Arts and Crafts.

Víctor ended up in my same row. Hours passed before they made us board the buses. They placed us on our knees on the floor of the bus, with our heads down and our hands on the back of our necks. Víctor traveled on the same bus as I did.” Mario Aguirre Sánchez: “Osiel Núñez’s actions managed to dissuade the military and convinced them to moderate their behavior so that people could leave and not be machine-gunned.

On a field at the School of Arts, we were kept on the ground, being beaten by the military guarding us while different facilities were raided. There was no resistance. Near noon, the raid ended, and the transfer of the detainees began in buses.

They drove us with our heads down to prevent us from seeing the detention site.” Enrique Kirberg: “Afterward, they put me in a jeep. On the side of the street, the women with their arms raised formed a line.

Someone took my wife out of the line so she could say goodbye. We gave each other a tight hug. I would not see her again for a long eleven months…” Rector Kirberg was taken to the Tacna Regiment, where he heard executions and became convinced that his turn would very soon be next. “And since I am an enemy of tragicomic things, I hesitated whether to shout something or not before the volley.

I noticed that my body was damp and my heart was beating rapidly. I wanted to take out a piece of paper and leave a message for my family… I regretted it… When I was already prepared, they came to look for me and put me in a jeep.” From there, he was taken to a basement of the Ministry of Defense, where he again witnessed beatings and insults. “On my knees, I saw a corporal walking around the premises with a scimitar in his hand.

An officer took me out, they put me in a jeep, and took me to the Estadio Chile.” When the prisoners from the Technical University arrived at the Estadio Chile in the late hours of the afternoon of September 12, they were received by a military contingent whose characteristics are remembered by the then-non-commissioned officer of the Arica Regiment of La Serena, Pedro Rodríguez Bustos, who had participated in the assault on the UTE: “Those who received the UTE detainees at the Estadio Chile were Captain Rafael Ahumada Valderrama, Captain Joaquín Molina Fuenzalida [who was murdered on November 9, 1988], and Second Lieutenant Jorge Herrera López [all from the Tacna Regiment]. I was able to observe these officers at the moments when it was my turn to hand over the UTE detainees on September 12. They received the prisoners in their capacity as those in charge of the facility. Captain Ahumada was an Intelligence officer, so I presume he had to participate in the interrogations with other officers from the Tacna.” A regime of terror Among the nearly 600 prisoners from the Technical University who arrived at the Estadio Chile, there was a 16-year-old girl, a 4th-year high school student from the Liceo Darío Salas (located on Avenida España). On the 11th, with some of her schoolmates, Lelia observed the bombing of La Moneda, trembling and from a distance. Shortly after, together with 12 other high school students, they decided to go to the Abelardo Núñez Normal School, located a few blocks from the UTE. They spent the night there. At 6:00 the next morning, a contingent of carabineros burst into the school and arrested them. They remained lying on the floor of the roadway, face down and with their hands on the back of their necks for about two hours. Suddenly, the carabineros made them stand up and took them to the front of the UTE, where they handed them over to a group of soldiers with orange armbands. Lelia does not forget that sergeant who gave them food and let them go into a house so they could call their families and use the bathroom. From the conversation, they knew they came from La Serena (Arica Regiment). They did not know that they would very soon enter hell. Lelia recalled: “Upon entering the Estadio Chile, they placed us in a line with our hands on the back of our necks and jumping. At the entrance, there were four or five tables attended by civilians wearing suits and ties. They asked for our names, political affiliation, and the reason for our detention. They also took our identity cards, which we were later to retrieve at the Ministry of Defense, as we were instructed. They separated us: the men to one gallery, the women to another. On the afternoon of the 12th, an Army official gave us a speech: he said that the days of Marxism were over…” UTE student Mario Aguirre Sánchez also remembered that harangue: “A soldier who identified himself as the person in charge of the facility took a microphone and gave a harangue saying that he had authorization to kill and did not want to be deprived of that pleasure. He intimidated us by saying that the soldiers also had that authorization with the machine guns that fired 30 rounds per second and were known as ‘Hitler’s saws’ since they cut those they murdered.” Years later (2004), Colonel Mario Manríquez Bravo (34) would acknowledge in a confrontation: “It is true that I stated to the prisoners that these weapons had been known in the Second World War as ‘Hitler’s saws,’ characterized by a high rate of fire that could cut a person in two.” The conscript C.E., from the Tejas Verdes unit, entered the Estadio Chile around 11:00 on September 12. He remembers: “Trucks with prisoners were arriving. Lieutenant Pedro Barrientos ordered us to form a cordon for the line of detainees, many of whom were hit with rifle butts. Once the detainees entered the stadium, Sergeant Mella distributed us in different sectors to guard the prisoners, located in the stalls and on the field, since in the gallery there was a .30 caliber machine gun, in charge of a soldier who had orders to fire in case of anything. It was my turn to be on the south-west side of the galleries, where there were about 70 foreigners of different nationalities [And he gives the names of the officers Jorge Smith Gumucio, Rodrigo Rodríguez Fuschloger, and Jorge Garcés Von Hohenstein, who commanded them (35) ]. The stay at the facility was not good, as we did not receive food for about three days, and neither did the detainees; furthermore, there was no water and the bathrooms were unsanitary.” Enrique Kirberg: “As soon as I arrived at the Estadio Chile, they placed me against the wall, with my shoes stuck to the wall and my arms raised. A soldier was aiming at me. I saw more people arriving, in a line and with their hands up and jogging. I saw Víctor Jara pass by my side. He gave me that wide smile that characterized him. I signaled to him with my hand… An hour later, they put me in another jeep and took me back to the Tacna Regiment (36) .” UTE professor Carlos Orellana was also with his hands on the back of his neck in the line of prisoners waiting to enter the stadium: “There were several thousand of us prisoners. The military had formed groups, and each detainee carried a number. Víctor Jara ended up in my group. I saw when an officer hit him. It seems the officer recognized him, approached him, and punched him in the face. Víctor received the blow without falling. The officer called some soldiers and ordered them to take him away. That happened in the corridors of the stadium. The soldiers took Víctor by the arms and led him to the basement. Before this incident, Víctor did not show any wounds.” Professor Ricardo Iturra Moyano: “Upon arrival at the Estadio Chile, in the same line as me, about fifteen people ahead, was Víctor Jara. At the moment he was entering the stadium, a uniformed man stopped him and threw him violently against the wall, while insulting him and hitting him… Later, when Víctor Jara came to sit in front of me, I noticed that he had his hands forward, with his fingers curled, and he seemed to be suffering terribly” (37) . UTE professor César Fernández Carrasco was also in that line of prisoners: “Víctor Jara was in the line four or five men behind me. A soldier identified him and informed his superior. Víctor Jara was detained by several soldiers and beaten. His chest was hit so hard with the butts of the rifles that he fell to the ground…” (38) . Julia Fuentes says she did not see Víctor Jara inside the Estadio Chile, but like almost all the conscripts, soldiers, and officers who dominated the facility, she knew he was there. Julia was not a prisoner, although in a certain sense she was. Because Julia was a cook at the stadium before September 11, and on the 12th a military patrol arrived at her house and took her straight to the sports facility. For a month, without the right to leave, she cooked for the officers and something for the conscripts in charge of the Prisoner Camp. She entered the premises she knew so well, escorted, through a corridor located on the right side of the ticket offices. They warned her to walk straight ahead without looking: “It was inevitable, I did it… there was a group of half-naked men, lying on the ground, piled one on top of the other. I didn’t know if they were alive or dead, but I saw their skin was a very dark color, not being able to specify if it was from hematomas or bruises. I also saw hands, many hands that were waving and asking for water. I went up to the second floor straight to the casino and the kitchen, and where I walked, I had no view of the field. In the dining room, the military ate, but the officers at separate tables. The first 15 days I slept on a mattress in the kitchen itself. Later they gave me a room. I remember having seen from the kitchen when the soldiers gathered all the tables in the dining room and from their pockets took out handfuls of bills they had stolen from the prisoners. I remember having seen in a corridor prisoners who were pushed by soldiers who stabbed them with bayonets. Also having heard many shots inside all day, both from rifles and machine guns, which I recognized by their unmistakable rattling… Several days after they took me to the stadium, a soldier commented secretly to me in the kitchen: ‘We finished off the singer Víctor Jara, because they killed him.’ That same soldier commented to me days later in private: ‘Tonight they are going to take 40 trucks loaded with dead people out of the stadium that they are going to leave at Cerro Chena’” (39) . Technical draftsman Guillermo Orrego Valdebenito was not taken prisoner at the UTE, but he did see Víctor Jara at the Estadio Chile. In 1973, he worked at the Standard Electric company, located in the Vicuña Mackenna industrial belt. He was arrested at Textil Progreso on the afternoon of September 12 along with 60 other workers, who were taken by bus to the Estadio Chile by carabineros and Army personnel: “Approximately on September 13 or 14, I remember having passed by Víctor Jara, whom I recognized immediately since, in addition to being a recognized artist, he worked as a professor at the UTE where I took evening classes in technical drawing. It was noticeable at first glance that he had been mistreated and very beaten in the face, although he was in good spirits. Víctor was surrounded by students and people from the UTE. Very close to them was a group from CORFO.” One of those professionals detained at the headquarters of the Production Development Corporation (CORFO), engineer Julio Del Río Navarrete, remembers: “On September 12, I was arrested at the central office of CORFO, located at Ramón Nieto with Moneda, along with the other professionals who were there, among whom I can cite Alfredo Cabrera Contreras, commercial engineer; Hugo Pavez Lazo, lawyer; Gustavo Muñoz López, commercial engineer, and others whose names I do not remember. We were transported on foot through downtown Santiago to La Moneda and sent to the Ministry of Defense, where we were interrogated and beaten in the basements. On the afternoon of the 13th, we were transported to the Estadio Chile in minibuses. We entered through the Unión Latinoamericana street access, where we saw Officer Mario Manríquez for the first time, who received us and asked where we came from. When we answered him, he said that we were the ‘ideologues of the system or the government’ and that we were communists. He drew a pistol, chambered a round, put it to my temple, and asked what my political affiliation was. Upon answering that I was independent, he said that I was lying and that now we were all independent. At that moment, they took out the corpse of a boy who could not have been more than 12 or 13 years old, to which Manríquez told us that the same thing was going to happen to us if we didn’t tell the truth. Then he sent us to the basement where there was a group of eight young officers with red berets. They placed us against the wall. They tied our hands behind our backs and hit us on the back with fists and feet. An officer hit us with a nunchaku. They asked us where the weapons were and especially about the whereabouts of Pedro Vuscovic, who had been Minister of Economy and until that moment executive vice president of CORFO. They even asked about the remuneration we received. Until Mario Manríquez, commander of the facility, arrived, accompanied by his general staff, formed precisely by the officers who were beating us. A dialogue took place that lasted approximately two hours, where the government of the Unidad Popular was discussed and talked about. I pointed out to Manríquez that I was in charge of the logistics part that supplied the Army, Navy, and Air Force, for which I had had a lot of contact with officers of the Armed Forces, which I also fulfilled by direct instructions from the President of the Republic. In the middle of the dialogue, Manríquez said that we were ‘recoverable.’ In the conversation, an officer intervened who stated that he had been imprisoned until September 11 for the events known as the ‘Tanquetazo,’ the same situation as other officers, he said. As we expressed to Manríquez our concern about the repeated robberies we had been victims of, he said he would take charge. We gave him our money, and he gave Alfredo Cabrera a card where his usual workplace appeared: the Army Administrative Support Command, located on Alameda upon reaching Portugal. He told us to go later to look for the money at this place and that he would return it to us. And that is effectively what happened when we regained our freedom. Once the conversation ended, Manríquez ordered them to bring us food and give us some mattresses to sleep on, before the officers’ complaints. We fell asleep. After a time that I cannot specify, I was awakened by Souper, an officer of thin build, short stature, and a very fine face. He said that we had to go up to the stands because we were in danger there… We understood immediately: we had already experienced the interrogation. Once they took us up to the stands, we were placed in those on the north side, where a selected group of prisoners was located. Víctor Jara was also there. He was alone, without people around him, and in the high part, near a transmission booth. Hours before, when we were still in the basement, I had spotted him in a locker room. His face was very well known. He was very bad, beaten, and with one eye practically closed. With my companions, we decided to go see him to know what he needed. His face was swollen from the beatings and one eye closed, it seems the right one. He could not move his hands; they looked fractured, swollen, and sore. We remained with Víctor for about one or two hours until they took us down to the field to be transported to the National Stadium” (40) . Technical draftsman Guillermo Orrego was a witness to another fact that illustrates what Víctor Jara and the more than five thousand prisoners of the Estadio Chile were living through in those hours: “On one occasion, a military man sent me to the infirmary with another detainee who had a nervous breakdown and who worked at Textil Progreso. In the infirmary, as well as in the foyer that leads to the stadium access, perpendicular to the Alameda, I was able to see several people lying on the ground who were not moving. There could have been about 20. Some were covered with white sheets, but all were bloodied. I heard some moans. No one was guarding them. The officers in charge were from the Army, they wore olive green uniforms with maroon red berets. The military man in charge of the facility was an officer who must have been between 40 and 50 years old, with a mustache and a bit corpulent, whom I later recognized in the press as an officer with the surname Manríquez. There were other officers, more than 20, who distinguished themselves because they gave orders and imposed themselves by their voice of command. Some of them wore black berets and others a kind of olive green cap. With greater certainty, I remember an officer with a black beret, a thick black mustache, and dark complexion, who fired a burst of machine-gun fire into the air, and another who called himself ‘The Prince,’ since when he addressed the prisoners he had no need to use microphones: he said he had a ‘prince’s voice.’ He was a tall officer, of medium build, very fair complexion, without a mustache, blond and straight hair. I do not remember him wearing a beret or a cap. He carried a nunchaku with which he hit the detainees, being especially cruel and vulgar in his treatment” (41) . As the judicial investigation progressed and when Commander Mario Manríquez could no longer continue denying the deaths at the Estadio Chile and neither that he was the officer in command, he stated: “At the moment of establishing myself at the Stadium, I called my hierarchical superior at the CAE, Colonel Martínez, by phone, to whom I informed that Intelligence personnel were operating in the basement of the Stadium, who belonged to the four branches of the Armed Forces. He ordered me to let them function, since they were doing important work considering the state of the country… I have the internal certainty that the Intelligence people in the basement also removed prisoners and took them out of the stadium, since they had their own vehicles and there was no control over them: they obeyed only their institutional commands. I remember that one of the young lieutenants of the Armored Regiment always walked around with a nunchaku. It is not part of Army training to use a weapon like the nunchaku” (42) . “There was a lieutenant of Germanic characteristics, with a maroon beret, who was very crazy and hit the detainees a lot. The soldiers and corporals themselves were worried about him, since his reaction was not known. No one approved of his action, but being an officer, no one said anything to him. Even the commander, Colonel Manríquez, did not know what to do with him. The conscripts called him ‘The Prince,’” relates a soldier in the case file. It took young student Lelia years to get the voice and hands of “The Prince” off her: “I was at the Estadio Chile until September 18. During those days, I suffered multiple humiliations, sexual assaults, and torture in interrogation sessions. The interrogations were done in the locker rooms and bathrooms of the stadium, and the interrogators changed. Among them, I remember one they called ‘The Prince,’ who tortured me on several occasions” (43) . One of the prisoners of the Estadio Chile complements the accounts and describes ‘The Prince’: “Tall and blond and with an orange handkerchief around his neck. He boasted with a powerful voice that now these Marxists would have to pay for having had him detained on June 29 [the day of the ‘Tanquetazo’].” And yes, precisely at the Estadio Chile was a group of the officers who led the rebellion of the Armored Regiment No. 2. They had been assigned to the prisoner camp as soon as they were released on the 11th itself, since they were being prosecuted for the crime of military insurrection. It is interesting to contrast the witnesses’ statements about the physical description of “The Prince” with the one made by the then-lieutenant and today Brigadier (R) and prosperous businessman Raúl Jofre, of the officers he claimed accompanied him at the Estadio Chile: Edwin Dimter, Rodrigo Fuschloger, and Luis Bethke Wulf (44) . Jofré, also a protagonist of the Armored Regiment No. 2 rebellion, said: “Edwin Dimter was thin, tall, fair-skinned, blond, and with a powerful and strong voice. He must have been one meter eighty-five centimeters tall, and I don’t think he used a maroon beret; he must have used a cap. Luis Bethke, of the Infantry branch, was stocky, a little shorter than Dimter, fair-skinned, blond hair, and with a strong tone of voice. Rodrigo Rodríguez Fuschlocher was tall, one meter ninety centimeters, he had been a national basketball player, he had dark brown hair, and was not fair-skinned… I remember these officers because with Rodríguez Fuschlocher and Bethke we slept in the same room at the stadium.” Brigadier (R) Raúl Jofré (45) , who did not remember before the justice system that there were machine guns emplaced in the high part of the Estadio Chile, did gather his memory and stated: “The officer who can respond to these traits is Edwin Dimter (46) , with whom I served for a year in the Armored Regiment, but we always had a strictly professional relationship and were not friends. Dimter’s personality was that of a person difficult to deal with, very intelligent, but with little judgment, and he had a great physical presence. I am not very clear about what activities he carried out at the Estadio Chile” (47) . In the process, Dimter denied any relationship with ‘The Prince.’ He said that while he was at the Estadio Chile, he used “combat attire: regulation parka in grayish-blue color and as headgear the regulation cap. I did not use a beret.” And he would repeat: “I am not the officer who has been described, nor did I mistreat or kill any prisoner at the Estadio Chile.” And he would then elaborate on other officers who could correspond to those characteristics: “A lieutenant less senior than me, with the surname Rodríguez Fuschlocher, who was from Concepción and a basketball player, taller than me, of athletic build, and light brown hair. Likewise, there were two other officers who had German surnames: Lieutenant Bethke, who was about my height, thin, and with light hair. The other officer was a lieutenant more senior than me, with the surname Haase [he refers to Nelson Haase (48) , from Tejas Verdes, who was indeed at the Estadio Chile], of the Engineers branch, who was in San

tiago under medical treatment at the Military Hospital for a mental health-related illness, as he reported to me” (49) . But conscript C.A., from the Tejas Verdes unit, did see Lieutenant Edwin Dimter (50) torture and murder a prisoner: a young man whom he describes as “well-dressed and appearing to come from a family of good economic standing, who claimed to be an Architecture student.” Dimter had arrived with a sketchbook that belonged to the young man and accused him of “making maps of military installations.” The conscript witnessed how Dimter interrogated him in German, only to then murder him “with a gunshot to his head from a SIG rifle.” C.A. remembered the scene that followed, which remained etched in his mind: “Brain matter from the young man splattered onto the wall… Then, Lieutenant Dimter took the Seiko brand watch that the young man was wearing on his wrist and handed it to Commander Manríquez, telling him: ‘It’s a war trophy!’” An incident that occurred around September 14 shocked the conscripts of Tejas Verdes. Almost everyone remembers it: “When I was on duty, I was relieved by another conscript and was heading toward the gallery hallway when I heard a gunshot. I went to where it had occurred and observed that soldier M. had shot a young man who had lunged at him, leaving the soldier in a very bad state of mind,” recalls conscript C.E. The perpetrator of the shot also recounted it: “Approximately on September 15, around 20:00, a detainee who had been heavily beaten by other officials tried to take my SIG rifle, struggling with it as he tried to pull it away from me. Instinctively, a shot went off, hitting him in the chest or stomach. I was taken to the exit by a group of Army officials of various ranks. Even the head of the facility, Colonel Manríquez, arrived and indicated to me that what I had done was fine, since the detainee could have taken the rifle from me and it would have been a greater evil.” Víctor does not return home Joan Jara anxiously awaited her husband’s return. But Víctor Jara did not return on September 12. Together with her daughters, she tried to follow the course of events from their home. Until that afternoon, the television gave her the news that the Technical University had been taken by the military and that “a large number of extremists had been detained.” On Thursday the 13th, she learned that professors and students from the UTE had been taken to the Estadio Chile. That same afternoon, she received a call: “At 16:30, a young man called on the phone. He told me that he had been at the Estadio Chile, that he had been able to leave, and that he had a message for me from Víctor. The last message Víctor sent me was to have courage, to take care of the girls, that he thought he was not going to be able to leave the stadium, that he was thinking of us… We were locked in the house without knowing what to do, without information.” Joan Jara never lied. Each of her testimonies always adhered to the truth. Years later, that last person who delivered her husband’s message would appear: Hugo González González. “I was detained on September 12 on the public thoroughfare due to the curfew and taken to the Estadio Chile. On September 13, I met Víctor Jara in a sort of hallway, on one side of the court. He was alone and sitting, without military custody, with physical signs of having been beaten severely, the wounds on his face being the most noticeable. I approached to speak with him. He told me that he had been detained at the Technical University and that he had been recognized at the stadium by the commander of the facility: a military man with a mustache, somewhat stocky, with black hair and middle-aged. He said this military man had separated him from the other detainees, subsequently being subjected to physical duress by the same officer. Víctor Jara indicated to me that he was threatened by the commander of the Estadio Chile, without specifying what type of threat. And he requested that I call his spouse, Joan Turner, in order to communicate to her where his Renault 4 was located, which he had left parked in the vicinity of the Technical University. I was released on September 14, 1973. I do not know if Víctor Jara remained in the place where I saw him, since after our first meeting I only spotted him one more time, in the same place, without being able to specify the exact day. After being released, I fulfilled what I had promised Víctor Jara and gave his message to Joan Turner. I called her from a public phone that was on the Alameda to the number that Víctor Jara indicated to me. I told Mrs. Turner the location of the Renault 4 and she asked me about Víctor’s state. I replied that he was doing well… (51) ”. The threat that Víctor Jara received and that Hugo González kept in his memory had another witness: Wolfgang Tirado, then a prisoner at the Estadio Chile: “On the morning of September 13, I was able to change my location in the Estadio Chile and get closer to the fences where the release procedures were taking place. There I saw Víctor Jara again. I noticed that he was talking to an Army officer who had recognized him. I saw that they pushed him and kicked him with their feet. I remember that the officer made a gesture with his hand across his neck, indicating to Víctor that he would cut his head off. The officer ordered two soldiers to take him aside. At that moment, they kicked him and struck him with their rifle butts. I did not see Víctor again after that” (52) . The architect Miguel Lawner also saw Víctor Jara on September 13. Lawner, who was the main director of the Urban Improvement Corporation (CORMU), had been detained in his office, where he remained along with other workers from the same entity until September 12. He was taken to the Estadio Chile and left there thanks to the intervention of General Arturo Viveros, due to the relationship established between both through an agreement signed between the Army and CORMU. Lawner would manage to leave the Estadio Chile alive to be sent, like the rector of the Technical University, Enrique Kirberg, as a prisoner to Isla Dawson. He never imagined that the episode of his meeting with General Viveros during those days at the Estadio Chile would be important for identifying the commander of the Estadio Chile 30 years later. This is what Miguel Lawner recounted in the legal proceedings: “Upon returning to the access hall of the stadium, carrying the mattresses, on a staircase with an iron handrail, about 6 or 7 meters away, I was able to observe Víctor Jara. He was alone. Soldiers were guarding him nearby, so I approached, being able to see that he was very beaten and tortured, despite which he remained standing. What I remember is that it must have been very late. That September 13, 1973, was the last time I was able to see Víctor Jara alive” (53) . Boris Navia: “On Thursday the 13th, in the afternoon, there was a great commotion in the stadium upon the arrival of several buses bringing residents from La Legua. It was said that they had resisted the military forces with weapons. There were dead people, some very badly wounded, and others taken to the basements. There was a temporary forgetting of Víctor Jara’s existence. And then, the professors and officials of the UTE who were closely watching over Víctor’s fate took advantage of that moment to drag him to the galleries and try to make him just another prisoner. He was looking with only one eye, as the other was totally swollen. We cleaned the blood from his face and a carpenter from the UTE gave him his jacket to keep him warm. In our attempt to disguise his figure, someone provided us with a nail clipper and, with great care, we began to cut his curly hair, which was so characteristic. A soldier gave him a raw egg. He said he would eat it as the peasants of Lonquén did: he punctured it at the bottom and then sucked it out. Víctor was revived. Despite his wounds, he shared his fears regarding his family and his friends.” Carlos Orellana: “On Thursday the 13th, I met with Víctor Jara when the military began to organize the prisoners into groups. His face was very mistreated, swollen, and there was blood on his face and clothes. His hands were very swollen and he could only move them with great difficulty. He told us that he had been beaten for a large part of the night by the same officer from the entrance. And he told us that this officer recognized him and was the brother of a man with whom he had had an altercation two or three years earlier at the Saint George’s College in Santiago, where he had sung ‘Preguntas por Puerto Montt,’ leading to an incident with some students, among them the officer’s brother and one of the sons of the minister alluded to in the song [Edmundo Pérez Zujovic, who was Minister of the Interior for President Eduardo Frei Montalva and who was assassinated by an extremist commando on June 8, 1971]. The officer had evoked this fact during the course of the night… Víctor remained with us for two or two and a half days.” Orellana’s account is corroborated by another prisoner: “On Thursday the 13th, when Víctor Jara finally went up to the bleachers, together with Carlos Orellana and other detainees, we treated his wounds as best we could. We took turns going to the bathroom to wet our handkerchiefs, with which we made compresses to calm the swelling. On Friday the 14th, around 11:00 in the morning, a relative sent me some cookies and a small jar of jam through a sergeant. The cookies were easy to distribute, but how to distribute the jam? It occurred to us that everyone had the right to put their finger in the jar, turn it around, and take it out to suck on it… I seem to see Víctor’s finger today dripping with jam… He was much better: his lips and his face had gone down in swelling a little.” It is difficult for any conscript or officer who was at the Estadio Chile during those days in September to speak about Víctor Jara. Everyone knows he was one of the prisoners, but they remain silent. It would seem that, over the years, the secret that has surrounded his death, imposed by the Army, has permeated each of the men. But there is also guilt. Much guilt and memories of all those men and women who died there, whose identities and numbers are unknown. But in those days of 1973, what prevailed was total impunity. Because the greatest power was held by the officers and soldiers who accessed the facility where the detainees were interrogated. There, where a few days later, according to the most reliable judicial testimonies, officers from the Army War Academy arrived. The then-second lieutenant Pedro Rodríguez Bustos, who participated in the assault on the UTE and whose unit was later assigned as reinforcement to the Tacna Regiment, relates: “I remember that on September 16 or 17, it was my turn to go to the Estadio Chile for the second time, where I was able to confirm that the conditions of the prisoners were bad; it was noticeable that they were tired people, although I cannot ensure that they had been beaten. On this occasion, I confirmed that the situation at the stadium had changed. The guard of the stadium still corresponded to Army personnel from the Tacna Regiment, but those in charge of the interrogations inside the stadium and of checking the detainees were personnel from the Intelligence area of the Santiago Army Garrison, with reinforcements from second and third-year students of the War Academy, with the rank of major and lieutenant colonel, with the mission of directing the interrogations.” Among those War Academy officers who arrived at the Estadio Chile to reinforce the interrogation teams, two names are repeated: Major Hernán Chacón Soto, then a first-year student at the academy, and Víctor Echeverría Henríquez, from the second year. The latter, who retired as a colonel, would later be seen at Villa Grimaldi, one of the DINA’s main secret prisons (his daughter would later be Undersecretary of the Navy in the Ministry of Defense of Michelle Bachelet’s government, 2006-2010, but would not be able to assume the position of Undersecretary of the Armed Forces in 2014 after other accusations of torture against her father were made public). Colonel (ret.) Juan Jara Quintana, who was also stationed at the Estadio Chile during those days, recounted: “There were also about 40 officers from the Army War Academy at the Estadio Chile, from the first and second year, who worked a four-hour shift and were relieved by their own classmates since the academy was very close to them: at García Reyes and Alameda. Among those who performed duties in the control of incoming detainees at the Estadio Chile, I remember the officers Rubén Burgos Vargas, Víctor Echeverría Henríquez (who was my second-in-command at the Rancagua Regiment in Arica at the end of 1980), Sergio Urrutia Francke, Patricio Vásquez Donoso, and Hernán Chacón Soto, among others” (54) . Jara’s testimony was expanded by another of the War Academy officers who would be assigned to the Estadio Chile: officer Alejandro González Samohod, who became an important general of the military regime. González acknowledged having been at the stadium and also affirmed having met there with his War Academy classmate, Richard Quass: “Days before September 11, being a student of Strategic Leadership, Third Year, at the War Academy, I was assigned as a member of the general headquarters of the commander of the Military Forces of the Metropolitan Region, under the command of General Sergio Arellano Stark. During the 10 days that I served there, I had to perform duties at the Estadio Chile for about three days, as I was sent to collaborate in the security of the facility, without direct contact with the detainees.” Raúl Jofré would corroborate the role of the War Academy officers in the installation of the prisoner camps when he declared: “It was at lunchtime on September 12, when my Colonel Oscar Coddou, at that time head of a General Headquarters of the Garrison Command and professor at the War Academy, sent me to reinforce the Estadio Chile, which was being created as a provisional detention center while waiting for the National Stadium.” Jofré would also say that among the interrogators was “a Navy reserve officer, with the surname Prieto [Daniel Prieto Vidal, who currently presents himself as an ‘international affairs consultant,’ declared on October 26, 2007. He has a long history in Navy Intelligence].” “At the access door to the stadium court, precisely on the northeast side, was the access to the basement. At that door was an officer in an Army dress uniform, who ordered the different prisoners to be brought. In this basement, the detainees were interrogated. It was a closed sector with only one access. On one occasion, out of curiosity, I tried to go down to that sector, but another soldier indicated to me that he did not recommend it, since they had recently killed someone and it was full of blood. From the outside, the gunshots could not be heard. In this place, there was personnel most likely from Army Intelligence,” says conscript C.E. Conscript M.C. remembers: “The interrogations were carried out in a basement located on the ground floor where the locker rooms were. We did not have access to this place, but the officers did, among them Rodrigo Rodríguez and Jorge Smith, in addition to civilians and other Army officers. To be taken to this place, the detainees were commonly taken from the galleries by the soldiers who guarded that sector. They returned in very bad condition… On one occasion, during the night, I could not specify the date, while on sentry duty in the gallery located in front of the entrance, which had a small view of the door to the interrogation room that led toward the stadium exit, I observed that they were taking out several bodies, almost naked. They were loaded into an ambulance, which left for an unknown destination. It was a common comment that from that place, during the night, they took out the corpses from the basement. From the comments of the soldiers themselves, it was known that Víctor Jara was being held in the stadium, but I do not know in what place. One day, around 14:00, another conscript indicated to me that Víctor Jara had died… I did not want to ask any more.” Conscript C.E.: “At the stadium, I was in charge of guarding the foreigners, about 60 of them, among them two Mexicans who were in the hall in poor physical condition. On one occasion, it could be between September 13 or 14, in the afternoon, an officer with a maroon beret of the armored specialty ordered me to guard two detainees whom he himself told me were Mexicans. After approximately twenty minutes, he signaled for me to accompany him along with the detainees, leading me toward the exterior, precisely to Bascuñan Guerrero street, where a machine gun was stationed. The lieutenant told me to leave the detainees on the way and that he would take them ‘for a ride,’ and he headed toward the machine gun. It was the term used to indicate that they would be executed. A few minutes later, I heard the burst, presuming that they were killed. It was common to hear it firing, mainly at night. The dead were thrown into the excavation for the Metro works, which were collected by an ambulance that passed by daily, which I could see from a distance: a white vehicle like a hospital one. It was rumored that the lieutenant who gave me the order to guard those two Mexicans was the same one who had crashed his tank into the doors of the Ministry of Defense for the ‘Tanquetazo.’ He distinguished himself from the rest of the officers because he wore a maroon beret.” “Taking them for a ride.” An expression that to this day makes many of the soldiers who passed through the Estadio Chile shudder. For the majority, it means execution. But also, where the execution would proceed. Conscript G.M. says it short and direct: “The phrase meant that the detainees were going to be executed either on the street that led toward the Alameda or in the basement.” “It meant that the detainees were going to be executed on the street toward the Alameda,” says soldier M.T. The bleachers of the Estadio Chile were filling up with prisoners. The bathrooms collapsed; there was no water or food. Many came from the factories of the industrial belts. Manuel Bustos, who in September 1973 was a Christian Democratic union leader and president of the union of the intervened textile industry Sumar, also saw Víctor Jara: “In the morning [of September 11] we held an assembly at Sumar to repudiate the Coup. On my shift, there were about a thousand workers and I maintained that we should leave. But since many did not manage to get very far because there was no public transportation, they returned to the factory seeking refuge. As president of the union, I decided to stay in the factory with about 300 people who did not manage to leave when the curfew was announced. On the 12th, around 6 in the morning, the military arrived in trucks. They threw us all to the ground and began to beat us. I tried to explain to them, but I received more blows. I was detained along with about 150 workers. They took us out with our hands on our necks and at gunpoint, they took us to the Estadio Chile. I remember that very close to me they killed a worker. I never knew his name, but the image remained etched in my mind. Military personnel passed through the hallways and one hit a man’s face with a submachine gun. The man shouted ‘Fascist!’ and they shot him. He was right next to me. Two colleagues from Sumar went crazy because of what they saw. One has already died and the other is wandering around out there… I spotted Víctor Jara from afar.” The arrival of the new prisoners has other witnesses. Like the protagonists of the peculiar shipments that would begin to leave from the Tacna Regiment in the direction of the Estadio Chile. To the Tacna, they had taken the prisoners who survived the attack on La Moneda, to whom very soon would be added, just as the coup-plotting war command—also formed by officers of the Army War Academy—had established, hundreds of other prisoners coming from the industrial belts. The order was that only the La Moneda prisoners should remain at the Tacna. Shortly after, they would be assassinated in Peldehue. Second Lieutenant Iván Herrera López, of the Tacna Regiment, participated in those summary executions. He received the order from the regiment commander, Joaquín Ramírez Pineda, to transfer the La Moneda prisoners to Peldehue, together with reserve Second Lieutenant Castillo. The one who received the prisoners at that military training camp was Lieutenant Julio Vandorsee Cerda, of the Artillery Branch (55) . The one who certified the deaths at the site itself, to then inform the heads of the Coup’s General Staff, was Major Pedro Espinoza, of the same General Staff Intelligence group. The now Brigadier (ret.) affirmed: “The only thing I had to perform in an extraordinary manner in September 1973 was that on the 12th, I was ordered by General Nicanor Díaz to go to the Garrison Command, where I would be given a document to be taken to the commander of the Tacna Regiment. I went to the office of the aide to General [Herman] Brady, commander of the Garrison, who gave me a sealed envelope that I transported to the Tacna Regiment and handed to the second-in-command, whose surname was Fernández. I told him, also by instructions of General Díaz Estrada, that he should release all the Investigations personnel. I must add that the following day I received the order from the same general to witness the execution of the La Moneda detainees, with the obligation to report the result upon my return” (56) . It was not, however, the only execution of prisoners to which Pedro Espinoza was linked during those days. According to the author’s investigation, on September 14, he arrived at the sixth precinct, located on San Francisco street, to take away members of the GAP and the son of Mirya Contreras, the secretary and companion of Salvador Allende, who were detained on the morning of the 11th at the doors of La Moneda. All of them were assassinated and later dumped on some street in Santiago. (57) The rest of the detainees at the Tacna were taken to the Estadio Chile, except for exceptions that still remain to be clarified. The Army civilian official Eliseo Cornejo, who transported some of those shipments, relates: “I was a driver of a bus, a truck, and a jeep assigned to the Logistics Battery of the Tacna Regiment. And it was my turn to drive detainees who were in the boxes of the regiment… I believe many of them came from the industrial belt, especially I remember Madeco and the textile factories Hirmas and Sumar. There were also other people detained for curfew. On that occasion, I drove the bus with approximately 60 people, being escorted by two jeeps with regiment personnel, an officer, and permanent staff. All the vehicles parked on Unión Latinoamericana street and, escorted by two conscripts, the detainees were made to get off and advance through the passageway through which one enters the stadium, about 100 meters away. As a driver, I had to make about three trips to the Estadio Chile driving the same bus and transporting detainees” (58) . Soldier C.A. acknowledged having seen Víctor Jara at the Estadio Chile. And he affirmed having crossed paths with him on September 14 between 17:00 and 18:00 “in the hall sector, east hallway, upon returning from patrol, when I was in the company of the commander of my section, Rodrigo Rodríguez Fuschloger.” And he adds that later he saw a person in civilian clothes call him “for an interrogation.” C.A. also saw Litre Quiroga, who had been the Director of Prisons of the Allende government, in the same stadium. Conscript G.B., of the Tejas Verdes unit, was a direct witness of how Lieutenant Edwin Dimter interrogated Litre Quiroga: “In wandering through the hallways, I saw many people killed… One day, in the morning hours, while on guard in the sector of the east entrance hallway that overlooks the court, I saw Lieutenant Dimter, who together with his group of escorts mentioned the name of Litre Quiroga. The detainee was together with seven other people lying face down with their hands on their necks. Dimter proceeded to beat them both with his foot and with rifle butts on their bodies… After midnight and while on guard on the roof of the facility, in the northwest corner, I saw when Litre Quiroga and the other seven people were leaving toward the street. They were walking, one after another, along Arturo Godoy street, in a westerly direction, where there were soldiers arranged in two rows, leaving the middle free and a jeep, apparently armored, with a Rheinmetall (59) on its rear part. When the detainees passed, they began to shoot at them, then everyone left, leaving the bodies lying on the ground… I clearly identified Litre Quiroga, since I knew him when they were interrogating him in the stadium. And I know there were seven because afterward I counted them and certified that they were dead… After a few minutes, a large, white, thermal truck, freezer type, arrived with military personnel. They loaded the bodies and took them away.” Soldier G.M. of Tejas Verdes: “Two or three days after we arrived, I was ordered to guard a detainee who was later commented to be Litre Quiroga, Director of Prisons, who was in the entrance hall and whom the soldiers who passed by would beat. I was in his custody for the entire shift, which was taken over by another soldier whose name I do not remember.” Conscript R.A.: “From the comments of the conscripts, I learned that inside the stadium was the Director of Prisons (today Gendarmería), Mr. Litre Quiroga, who had pulled the fingernails off General Roberto Viaux Marambio for the ‘Tacnazo’ [the uprising that Viaux led during the Frei Montalva government]. It was characteristic, because he was big and fat. I do not remember the date, but it should have been between September 14 or 15, at the moment I was changing shifts, I observed Litre Quiroga in the access hall, who was lying on the ground, in poor physical condition, but alive. I know this for a fact because he was complaining a lot. I did not observe anyone else around him. As the days went by, I did not see him again nor did I know what happened to him.” Carlos Orellana: “On Saturday the 15th, while in the bleachers, a soldier came to look for Víctor Jara. This distressed us a lot. That same day, in the afternoon, a prisoner came to tell me that Víctor Jara wanted to speak with me. I went to the urinals, managing to pass in front of the office where he was detained. As I passed, I signaled for him to follow me. He met me in the urinals under the guard of a soldier, who stayed in front of the door. At that moment, Víctor was very weak, he walked with great difficulty. His nose was broken. His face was even more swollen. His shirt was full of blood. He spoke with difficulty. He told me that he had been beaten again. What he mainly wanted to tell me was that, in his opinion, a spy had infiltrated our group. Indeed, when he was interrogated, he noticed an employee of the university who spoke very freely with the military and he wanted to warn us of this fact. The soldier put an end to the conversation. I never saw him again. When we were leaving for the National Stadium, a Brazilian told us that he had seen him the night before, in the basement, lying on the ground. He could no longer speak. He had blood on his belly.” César Fernández: “There was another group also separated from the rest of the detainees, in the upper part of the south gallery. Both groups had been separated for being better-known people. I recognized there Osiel Núñez, president of the UTE Student Federation, and a journalist and professor whose name I do not remember who did a very famous quiz show on radio and television [Mario Céspedes]. Víctor Jara stayed with our group for approximately one full day. A reorganization of the prisoners into groups then took place for the purpose of the transfer to the National Stadium. And in those circumstances, a couple of hours before our group left, some three or four military men came to look for Víctor Jara, beat him, and took him away to an unknown destination” (60) . Another of the prisoners relates: “On Friday the 14th in the afternoon, they made us form into groups of about 200 to be transferred to the National Stadium. Víctor remained in my group. He wrote on a small piece of paper a poem that he titled ‘Somos cinco mil’ (We are five thousand). Later I learned that the poem went to the outside, but with another title. The original that Víctor wrote was handed to a companion who continues to live in Chile and who hid it in one of his socks, where it was discovered by the military in the interrogation they did to him in the sadly famous velodrome of the National Stadium. Our group was the third to last that left for the National Stadium on Friday the 14th, around 22:00. About two hours before, a patrol came to look for Víctor and, amidst blows and insults, they separated him from us. When our group abandoned the Estadio Chile, through a side passageway, I spotted Víctor in the entrance hall of the stadium. He was on the ground and bleeding… It was the last time I saw him. Víctor did not arrive that night at the National Stadium. Neither that night nor in the following days…”. Lawyer Hugo Pavez: “On Friday, September 14, we were taken up to the bleachers and there, a few meters away, I saw Víctor Jara, who had half of his face very bruised and swollen as a result of the blows received. He was sitting and not speaking. When they placed us in the bleachers, they ordered us to register and then, in different groups, they were taken out of the stadium. The group I was in was the last to register. I saw Víctor again the next day when we were formed on the court about to board a bus that transferred us to the National Stadium. The Estadio Chile was already practically empty. Only a small group remained, among whom were Víctor Jara and Danilo Bartulín, a doctor on Salvador Allende’s staff” (61) . Boris Navia Pérez: “On the night of Friday...

On the 14th, we were about to board the buses that were taking people to the Estadio Nacional. Víctor was with my group. However, a final order made us turn back, and we returned to the gallery where we spent the night.

On the morning of Saturday, September 15, some prisoners were released, and we all began to write small notes addressed to our families to inform them that we were alive, hoping that some of the lucky ones might be able to carry our letters.

Víctor asked me for a pencil and paper and began to write what we all thought was a note to Joan, his wife. At that moment, he was sitting between Professor Carlos Orellana and me, when suddenly two soldiers approached; one struck him hard in the back with the butt of his rifle, and the other grabbed him by the collar of his jacket and dragged him to the upper part of the stadium.

Víctor dropped the pencil and paper and could barely take a few steps between his captors. That same Saturday, at 14:00, we were taken out of the Estadio Chile, and in the foyer, we witnessed a hellish spectacle: 40 or 50 corpses lying at the entrance, almost all stained white by the plaster that was in the basements, a facility that was undergoing repairs at the time.

Among those bodies was that of Litre Quiroga, Director of Prisons, and our dear Víctor Jara. His body was lying on its side; we could see his face and his clothes stained with blood... Upon arriving at the Estadio Nacional, beaten, tortured, and saddened by Víctor's death, we verified that the paper and pencil he asked me for at the Estadio Chile were not intended for writing a letter, but rather gave life to the final expression of his song and poetry, as he wrote his last poem.”

UTE Engineering student Erika Osorio: “I saw Víctor Jara again on Friday, September 15, when I was taken down for the second time to the basement for interrogation. When they took me out, an officer ordered the soldier guarding me to move me to where the UTE group that remained in the same basement was, since they were going to kill us all.

I could see, at the end of a sort of hallway in that sector, several dead people. Their corpses were piled on top of one another. Others were still alive, but all showed signs of physical abuse or wounds.

Among these people was Víctor Jara. He was sitting on the floor, looking down. His face was very wounded, and especially his hands, which were bloodied. At the urging of the soldier who was escorting me, I was fortunately able to be returned to the stands of the Estadio Chile, being released the following day along with a group of women who came from the Cordón Industrial de Cerrillos.” (62)

Forty years after the coup d'état, secret compartments of what happened that September 11, 1973, are still being opened. Because there were other troops assigned to the Estadio Chile besides those known until now.

This is the precise case of the contingent that arrived from Antofagasta, from the “Esmeralda” Regiment. Colonel (Ret.) Juan Quintana was a lieutenant and second-in-command of the Second Rifle Company of that regiment on that date, a unit led by Captain Jorge Ramón Durand González and which also included Second Lieutenants José Luis Contreras Mora, Fernando Daguerrasar Franzani, and Rolando López Álamos.

That group of soldiers who came from Antofagasta would be one of the last to withdraw from the Estadio Chile. A window that opens up new witnesses.

Colonel (Ret.) Quintana recounted

“We left Antofagasta at 00:00 hours, arriving at 4:00 hours at the Grupo 10 in Cerrillos, with a total of 160 men. Once in Cerrillos, at around 7:00 hours, we were transported by bus to the Estadio Militar, located on Rondizzoni [today the Army Non-Commissioned Officers' Country Club], meeting there with a force of 6,500 men from all over Chile.

The First Rifle Company of the ‘Esmeralda’ Regiment was ordered to embark for Santiago 24 hours earlier, under the command of Lieutenant Alexander Hananías Barrios... On the 15th, at around 8:00, by order of Captain Durand, the entire company had to go to the Estadio Chile, where we were received by Commander Mario Manríquez Bravo, who informed us, along with Captain Durand, that there were a total of 5,500 detainees in the facility who came mainly from the companies of the Cordón Cerrillos and that our mission was the custody of all the detainees distributed solely in the stands and on the field... I have absolute certainty that in addition to the students of the War Academy, the 1st and 2nd courses of Assistant Aspirants from the School of Telecommunications were at the Estadio Chile. But the First Rifle Company of the ‘Esmeralda,’ led by Lieutenant Hananías, did not set foot in the Estadio Chile, as they were assigned to establish themselves at La Moneda after the military uprising. We were in the Estadio Chile as the entire Second Company, from 8:00 on Saturday the 15th until 9:00 on Sunday the 16th, when the total transfer of the 5,500 political prisoners to the Estadio Nacional began. Those who carried out the interrogations in the basement of the facility or the locker rooms were Lieutenants Edwin Dimter and Raúl Jofré, among others... Inside the stadium, I met Litre Quiroga, Director General of Prisons, whom I saw next to about 30 extremist detainees in a hall at the entrance of the facility, called Patio Siberia. They were all tied by their hands and feet, face down on the floor. Litre Quiroga was wearing a dark gray suit with white stripes; he was in poor physical condition, and I lost track of him during the transfer to the Estadio Nacional. When our company arrived at the Estadio Chile, the War Academy courses were already there, and we were the last to arrive and the last to leave.” (63)

Osiel Núñez: “On Saturday the 15th, I was isolated from the rest of the detainees, along with a Uruguayan couple and an Argentine with a shaved head who was finally executed, according to a soldier's version.

At approximately 19:00, a line of prisoners was formed in front of a right-side door. In that line, I distinguished, among 20 or 30 other prisoners, Carlos Naudón, Mario Céspedes, Danilo Bartulín, and Víctor Jara.

Moments before leaving, a young officer, fair-skinned, almost blond, with a commanding voice, passed by and pulled Danilo Bartulín and Víctor Jara out of the line. He placed Víctor in an adjoining room, and we were made to leave.

Víctor smiled at me... We were transferred to the Estadio Nacional, where they set up a locker room for the so-called ‘big fish.’ Bartulín arrived at this locker room, so Víctor must have been left alone.”

That was the last time Víctor Jara was seen alive.

The last link It was a day in May 2009 when the former conscript from Tejas Verdes, José Paredes Vásquez, made up his mind. Paredes was assigned to the Estadio Chile, and for 36 years he kept the secret of what he experienced there, until he went to a judge and revealed what he saw one day in the basements: Víctor Jara and Litre Quiroga were thrown against the wall.

Behind the prisoners, Paredes saw Lieutenant Nelson Haase and the second lieutenant in charge of the conscripts arrive. This was part of his account before the justice system: “Lieutenant Jorge Smith began to play Russian roulette with a revolver he was carrying.

He approached Víctor Jara, who was standing, looking at the wall, with his hands behind his back, so Smith spun the cylinder of the revolver, closed it, aimed at Víctor Jara's head, in the right parietal region, and fired.

After receiving the shot, Víctor Jara fell to the floor, to the side. He began to convulse on the floor, and Lieutenant Smith ordered me to finish him off on the ground... When this was happening, the other detainees who were in the place, among whom was Litre Quiroga, were cornered, remaining silent.

After the shots, other officers arrived at the locker room to see if we, the uniformed men, were all right. After this, Lieutenant Smith called for an ambulance on the radio, and a stretcher-bearer arrived after a short while, who gave us a brown plastic bag with camouflage, so we proceeded to put Víctor Jara's corpse in the bag and loaded it onto the stretcher, to then be removed from the place, ignoring what they would do with the corpse...”.

Smith and Nelson Haase, along with other officers, allegedly murdered the other prisoners who were inside the locker room, among whom was Litre Quiroga. According to the autopsy protocol, the singer-songwriter's body had approximately 44 bullet impacts. Quiroga's indicates 38 projectile impacts.

José Paredes would later say that he invented everything. Because he is fanciful. Other officers would say that he was a thief, which contrasts with the service record of Paredes's employers, the son of a Carabineros non-commissioned officer.

And many have reiterated that Paredes did not travel to Santiago with the Tejas Verdes contingent and that he was never at the Estadio Chile. Nothing fits. Not only because Paredes's account is consistent with the more than one hundred accumulated testimonies of how and who interrogated, tortured, and murdered inside the Estadio Chile.

As fanciful as Paredes might be, it is difficult to believe that his imagination would recreate such a level of detail of what happened there. Because the most important thing is that there are at least three other testimonies that certify that José Paredes did indeed travel to Santiago from Tejas Verdes and was at the Estadio Nacional.

Víctor Jara's corpse was dumped on a street in Renca on the morning of Sunday, September 16. The autopsy report, signed by Dr. Exequiel Jiménez Ferry, indicates that Víctor Jara was 1.67 meters tall and weighed 66 kilos. “In the right parietal region, there are two bullet entry holes.

In the thoracic region, 16 bullet entry holes and 12 exit holes of different sizes. In the abdomen, there are 6 bullet entry holes and 4 exit holes. In the right upper extremity, there are 2 transfixing bullet wounds. In the lower extremities, there are 18 bullet entry holes and 14 exit holes. Cause of death: multiple gunshot wounds.”

To this day, the trial to identify the men who tortured and killed Víctor Jara remains open. One of its covers reads: “It is established that in the last group that remained at the Estadio Chile and in which Víctor Jara was, there were also Manuel Cabieses, Laureano León (Undersecretary of Social Security), Waldo Suárez, Darío Pérez, Adriana Vásquez, and Danilo Bartulín.” (64)

The War Academy and the DINA

In September 1973, Manuel Contreras obtained Pinochet's consent for his great obsession: the organization of a new intelligence structure to begin the anti-subversive struggle. And it would be he who would command it.

The DINA had been born, and its first headquarters would be the War Academy, an institution he would very soon direct. In fact, the first service commissions of the officers chosen by Contreras to integrate the high command of the secret organization bear the label “assigned to the War Academy”: Raúl Iturriaga Neumann, Gustavo Abarzúa (65), and Rolf Wenderorth (66), all of them students of the academy.

Until today, it was not known that high-ranking officers of the War Academy participated in the teams of interrogators and torturers at the Estadio Chile. Perhaps that is a key that explains why the Army, for more than 35 years, refused to hand over the rosters of those who were assigned to the Estadio Chile and their commanders, which were requested on countless occasions by various judges.

The same happened with the list of students who were at the War Academy in 1973.

That persistent obstruction of justice by the Army, which continues to this day, acquires another meaning when it is revealed that the protected names were part of what was the military elite in 1973. Because from September of that year, they were the ones who would maintain control of the State for the next 17 years.

That generation, strategically located at the War Academy, would have the greatest power ever deployed in the history of the military regime. Of its students, 28 became generals and occupied the highest positions in the State and the institution.

And another 14 officers led the secret services, either in the DINA or in the CNI (see roster). Therein lies, in part, the origin of the secrecy surrounding who murdered Víctor Jara, Litre Quiroga, and all those who died and were brutally tortured at the Estadio Chile.

Source: ciper.cl, September 4, 2014