Florida jury holds ex-officer liable for slaying Victor Jara in Chile

[Judi Lynn]

Source: People's World

Florida jury holds ex-officer liable for slaying Victor Jara in Chile
by: Mike Schneider & Terry Roen
July 15 2016

ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) - A former lieutenant under the brutal dictator Augusto Pinochet tortured and killed famed Chilean folk singer and political activist, Victor Jara, whose family had been seeking justice for more than 40 years, a federal jury in Florida ruled June 27. The jury in the civil case ordered former Lt. Pedro Pablo Barrientos Nunez to pay singer Victor Jara's family $28 million in damages.

Jara's family had claimed that Barrientos was in charge of soldiers at the stadium where Jara was tortured and killed in the days after Pinochet's coup d'état in 1973. The coup led to the torture and disappearance of thousands of political opponents: trade unionists, students, journalists, communists, socialists, filmmakers and others.

. . .

The lawsuit was filed by Joan Jara; Victor Jara's daughter, Amanda, who was 8 when her father died; and his stepdaughter, Manuela, who was 13, under the Torture Victim Protection Act, which allows civil lawsuits to be filed in the United States against people who have committed torture.
. . .

Victor Jara was a popular singer and political activist who worked for the candidacy of Salvador Allende, a Socialist who was elected president of Chile in 1970. Allende's efforts to nationalize industries, including the takeover of U.S.-owned copper companies, drew fierce opposition internally and from the United States, which opposed leftist influences in Latin America.

Read more: http://peoplesworld.org/florida-jury-holds-ex-officer-liable-for-slaying-victor-jara-in-chile/

[forest444]

1. Justice delayed is justice denied - almost.

These are great news, Judi - and we certainly needed some today! Thank you for sharing, as always.

It's also worth mentioning that Barrientos' having $28 million+ to part with is very telling in itself.

[cstanleytech]

2. I wonder if it will survive appeal because I dont understand how the court

can allow the verdict to stand for something that took place in another country but then again I also didnt think the courts would allow people to be held for decades without a trial in Gitmo.

[Judi Lynn]

3. Barrientos fled to Florida, as do so many other LatAm fascists who hope to avoid prosecution

for the atrocities they committed against their fellow men and women in their own countries. They always hope to hide from the natural consequences their sadistic, evil behavior. Many people are protected here for the rest of their lives. In other cases, the fascist governments in their countries gave them all amnesty before stepping down, and those monsters are off the hook, perpentually, unless a leftist is elected and the people are able to require legal punishment of the fascist vampires.

As the article said, Victor Jara's wife, Joan, said it is ironic he finally was judged here, considering the US involvement in the violent coup which destroyed the elected leftist President Salvador Allende, and put the evil fascist monster Pinochet in the President's office.

Pedro Pablo Barrientos Nunez has been skulking around in Florida for years, having gone there years ago as a younger war criminal.

From 2015:

Chilean War-criminal Sheltering In the US May Finally Face Justice

A member of Pinochet’s secret police has lived in the U.S. for decades without the threat of being extradited to Chile to face murder charges, but a legal team has finally found a way around that: Prosecute him in the U.S.

By Ramona Wadi @walzerscent | April 27, 2015

ORLANDO — Earlier this month, Chilean media erupted with the news that a former member of Chile’s secret police under the dictator Augusto Pinochet would face trial in the United States for the 1973 murder of , a popular revolutionary folk singer.

The Center for Justice and Accountability (CJA) confirmed the news with a statement on its website on April 14. “We are delighted with the news that our case will move forward for torture and extrajudicial killing,” CJA International attorney Almudena Bernabeu is quoted as saying.

Pedro Pablo Barrientos Nuñez, a former National Intelligence Directorate (DINA) agent, has been living in the U.S. since 1989. Knowing that a number of previous extradition requests from Chile had failed, the CJA filed the lawsuit on behalf of Jara’s family in a U.S. District Court in Florida, asserting claims under the Alien Tort Statute (ATS) and the Torture Victim Protection Act (TVPA).

Court documents made available by the CJA show that Barrientos is being held responsible “for the arbitrary detention, torture, cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment, and extrajudicial killing of Victor Jara at the Stadium on or about September 15 1973.”

After subjecting Jara to extreme torture, Barrientos played Russian roulette, eventually shooting the nueva canción singer in the back of the head. Jara’s body was then riddled with bullets by five military conscripts under orders from Barrientos.

More:
http://www.mintpressnews.com/pedro-pablo-may-finally-face-justice/204854/


I should add, his men took their rifle butts and crushed Victor Jara's hands, and mocked him, challenging him to play his guitar for them. He did write music while in prison, and had it passed outside to his wife, Joan, before he was murdered.

[Ken Burch]

11. And here are the words of that last song:

(they cut off abruptly because Victor was led away by the guards while he was writing them, to be slowly, agonizingly beaten and shot to death)

IN THE STADIUM

We are 5,000 -
here in this little part of the city
We are 5,000 -
how many more will there be?
In the whole city, and in the country
Just here
10,000 hands
Which could seed the fields,
make run the factories.
How much humanity -
now with hunger,
pain, panic and terror

Six of us
lost in space among the stars,
One dead, one beaten like I never believed
a human could be so beaten.
The other four wanting to leave
all the terror,
One leaping into space,
Another beating the head against the wall
All with gazes fixed on death.
How terrible the face of fascism!

The military carry out their plans with precision;
They care for nothing
Blood is medals for them,
Slaughter is the badge of heroism.
Oh my God — is this the world you created?
Was it for this, the seven days, of amazement and toil?
In these walls there exists only a number,
That doesn't progress.
That will slowly desire more death.

But soon conscience hits me,
And I see this tide without a beat,
And I see the pulse of the machines,
And the troops showing their midwife-face,
full of sweetness.
And Mexico, Cuba and the world?
Scream this shame!
We are ten thousand hands
Less that can make nothing
How many are we in the country?
The blood of compañero Presidente is stronger than bombs
Is stronger than machine guns.
And so our fist will strike again

O you song, how badly you come out when I must sing the terror!
The terror that I live,
Like the death, the terror.
To see myself amongst so many
infinite moments
Where the silence and the scream
Are the call of this song.
What I see I never saw.
What I have felt, and what I feel must come out-

[Judi Lynn]

12. Whereas what he experience would have driven so many mad, he seemed very focused, very sane.

He was completely conscious, watching the way the soldiers behaved around him, how they were able to distance themselves from the horrors they were committing, as they "just followed" their orders like good boys.

His intensity never waned in those words. Clearly he knew what was ahead for him. A heroic nature.

He does live in the words, and they live as you see them and think about the meaning, you feel as if you were somehow witnessing through his eyes.

The open jaws of hell vomit these evil greedy monsters into our world, where they become Presidents, generals, CEO's, politicians, or Josef Mengele, Angel of Death, or Blowtorch Bob, big right-wing torturer for Guatemala's Rios-Montt, Ronald Reagan's beloved genocidal dictator.

Thank you for these words. He paid a terrible price to produce them, and those who helped get them to his wife were in grave danger, too, along with her. What a horror it is to know there are still people around who approve of what happened ...... that they are unfortunately very much with us in the present.

[duhneece]

4. Holly Near's song, 'It could have been me, but instead it was you'

taught me about Victor Jara years ago, "...the junta took the fingers from Victor Jara's hand, said to the gently poet, play your guitar now if you can...well, Victor started singing..."
This song helped give me strength to run against an ALEC Star. What I'm doing takes a fraction of the courage Victor Jara had, but I stand a little taller every time I think of him and this DOES give me hope.
Just a little over a minute are the lines above:

[Judi Lynn]

5. Duhneece, thank you! n/t

[Ken Burch]

6. There was also this song

(Which started as a tribute to Victor by the British poet Adrian Mitchell, and was then set to music by Arlo Guthrie-Arlo was handed the poem by Joan Jara at the Phil Ochs-organized "Night for Salvador Allende" benefit in 1974. Arlo improvised the tune onstage right after reading the poem. I'm posting the version sung by the Scottish singer Dick Gaughan.

Victor Jara of Chile
He lived like a shooting star
He fought for the people of Chile
With his songs and his guitar

And his hands were gentle,
His hands were strong

Victor Jara was a peasant
He worked from a few years old
He sat upon his father's plough
And watched the earth unfold

When the neighbours had a wedding
Or one of their children died
His mother sang all night for them
With Victor by her side

He grew to be a fighter
Against the people's wrongs
He listened to their grief and joys
And turned them into songs

He campaigned for Allende
Working night and day
He sang, "Take hold of your brother's hand
The future begins today"

The bloody generals seized Chile
They arrested Victor then
They caged him in a stadium
With five thousand frightened men

Victor stood in the stadium
His voice was brave and strong
He sang for his fellow prisoners
Until the guards cut short his song

They broke the bones in both his hands
They beat his lovely head
They tore him with electric shocks
After two long days of torture they shot him dead

Now the generals rule Chile
And the British have their thanks
For they rule with Hawker Hunters
And they rule with Chieftain tanks

[ReRe]

7. Thanks so much for this song...

Did you see Victor's wife and daughter a week or so ago on DemocracyNow?

[Ken Burch]

8. I'd seen Joan on the show a few months ago.

I'll have to go to the DN! website and look for the clip.

[ReRe]

9. This was NOT a rerun.

When I seen the headline of this OP, I thought "this is old news", as I remember seeing her right after this trial happened. She even smiled. Daughter didn't seem so happy, though. You'll find it there in last week's archive.

[Judi Lynn]

10. Thanks for the lyrics, background, and the singer. Exceptional. n/t