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Happy Birthday Che Guevara; Photographer, Revolutionary, Martyr
Che Guevara in USA, New York December 16, 1964
Interview with several journalists (narrated by Chris Couch) in the Cuban Mission HQ in New York (East 67th St).
by Jon Lee Anderson
The horoscope was confounding. If the famous guerrilla revolutionary Ernesto "Che" Guevara was born on June 14, 1928, as stated on his birth certificate, then he was a Gemini--and a lackluster one at that. The astrologer, a friend of Che's mother, did her calculations again to find a mistake, but the results she came up with were the same. The Che that emerged was a grey, dependent personality who had lived an uneventful life. There were only two possibilities: Either she was right about Che, or she was worthless as an astrologer.
When shown the dismal horoscope, Che's mother laughed. She then confided a secret she had guarded closely for over three decades. Her famous son had actually been born one month earlier, on May 14. He was no Gemini, but a headstrong and decisive Taurus.
The deception had been necessary, she explained, because she was three months pregnant on the day she married Che's father. Immediately after their wedding, the couple had left Buenos Aires for the remote jungle backwater of Misiones. There, as her husband set himself up as an enterprising yerba mate planter, she went through her pregnancy away from the prying eyes of Buenos Aires society. When she was near term, they traveled down the Parana River to the city of Rosario. She gave birth there, and a doctor friend falsified the date on her baby's birth certificate, moving it forward by one month to help shield them from scandal.
...
If that child had not grown up to become the renowned revolutionary Che, his parents' secret might well have gone with them to their graves. He must be one of the rare public figures of modern times whose birth and death certificates are both falsified. Yet it seems uniquely fitting that Guevara, who spent most of his adult life engaged in clandestine activities and who died as the result of a secret conspiracy, should have also begun life with a subterfuge.
...
http://www.nytimes.com/books/first/a/anderson-guevara.html
From another martyr, Victor Jara, to Che: Zamba del Che
Vengo cantando esta zamba
con redobles libertarios,
mataron al guerrillero
Che comandante Guevara.
Selvas, pampas y montañas
patria o muerte es su destino.
Que los derechos humanos
los violan en tantas partes,
en América Latina
domingo, lunes y martes.
Nos imponen militares
para sojuzgar los pueblos,
dictadores, asesinos,
gorilas y generales.
Explotan al campesino
cuánto dolor su destino,
hambre miseria y dolor..
Bolívar le dio el camino
y Guevara lo siguió:
liberar a nuestro pueblo
del dominio explotador.
A Cuba le dio la gloria
de la nación liberada.
Bolivia también le llora
su vida sacrificada.
San Ernesto de la Higuera
le llaman los campesinos,
selvas, pampas y montañas,
patria o muerte su destino.
16 replies
= new reply since forum marked as read
= new reply since forum marked as read
Remember me in your will my friend 
I never heard it before and would love to hear the rest. I looked after you asked but couldn't find more of it online 
If I ever find it, I'll post it if you promise to do the same lol.
If you like that song by Jara, try this one:
I fell in love with him with that song. Then I read about his life and I was hooked. Do you know about it? It was JudyLynn who first mentioned him a few years ago.
... The songs of Victor Jara are filled with his thoughts on the simple people of Chile. He had a great love for the hard working people of small towns and villages, and many of his songs celebrate the lives of these people. Also, because of his great love for his country, many of his songs attack injustices in society or political scandals. Victor Jara is an essential part of the great Latin American musical movement known as "Nueva Cancion" or New Song. This movement is involved with many revolutionary activities in Latin America, and all of the artists of Neuva Cancion share many common goals and thoughts (please see the essay on Nueva Cancion for more information). Finally, Victor Jara's political ideas where an extremely important part of his songs. He believed in the general communist philosophy, like many progressive singers of Latin America, because of it's promises to better the lives of poor people.
You can see the devotion of Victor Jara to his political ideals most strongly in his support of the presendency of Salvador Allende in 1973. Allende was a part of the Popular Unity party (a subsection of the Communist Party of Chile) and Victor Jara, along with other Chileans singers, gave concerts in favor of Allende and his political goals. Allende was a progressive canditate who had a great love for the people of the small towns of Chile. The Popular Unity party had plans to increase education, and to supply increased housing and free socialized medical care. One of the concerts representative of this campaign for Allende was the concert given in the Stadium of Chile, where many political artists sang in favor of Allende. In the end, the Allende campaign was a success, and he was elected president of Chile, after some political compromise and manuevering. However, there was much opposition to the election of Allende and the military organized a coup to overthrow the newly placed president. In the resulting coup, Allende was killed and the military seized control of the government. On the day of this tragedy, Victor Jara was at his job in the State Technical University, which was surrounded by the military, who took Victor Jara prisoner for five horrible days. During these days, he was forced to live in cold and dirty prisons without proper food or water, but other prisoners there with him testify that during these sufferings, he was only concerned with the welfare of his fellow prisoners.
Finally, the military brought Victor Jara and other political prisoners to the Stadium of Chile, the place where the concert for Allende has previously been held. There the milatary men tortured and killed many people. They broke Victor Jara's hands (Note: many stories indicate that Victor Jara's hands were cut off, but Joan Jara's book about Victor indicates that when she saw him after his death, his hands were broken, so that is the version being used in this essay) so that he couldn't play his guitar, and then taunted him to try and sing and play his songs. Even under these horrible tortures, Victor Jara magnificently sang a portion of the song of the Popular Unity party. After this, he received many brutal blows, and finally was brutally killed with a machine gun and carried to a mass grave.
After his horrible death Joan Jara, the wife of Victor, was shown to his body and gave him a proper funeral and buriel. Because of all of the problems in Chile following his horrible coup, she was forced to leave the country in secret with tapes of Victor Jara's music. Even today, the policital and intensely human songs of Victor Jara are respected all over the world, and the ideals of Nueva Cancion and political music in general remain extremely strong. The life of Victor Jara is a beautiful example of an intelligent and sincere singer who spoke strongly through his songs. As a result, the songs of Victor Jara are a testimony to his strength and positive view of life.
...
http://www.scalan.co.uk/victorjara.htm
You can see the devotion of Victor Jara to his political ideals most strongly in his support of the presendency of Salvador Allende in 1973. Allende was a part of the Popular Unity party (a subsection of the Communist Party of Chile) and Victor Jara, along with other Chileans singers, gave concerts in favor of Allende and his political goals. Allende was a progressive canditate who had a great love for the people of the small towns of Chile. The Popular Unity party had plans to increase education, and to supply increased housing and free socialized medical care. One of the concerts representative of this campaign for Allende was the concert given in the Stadium of Chile, where many political artists sang in favor of Allende. In the end, the Allende campaign was a success, and he was elected president of Chile, after some political compromise and manuevering. However, there was much opposition to the election of Allende and the military organized a coup to overthrow the newly placed president. In the resulting coup, Allende was killed and the military seized control of the government. On the day of this tragedy, Victor Jara was at his job in the State Technical University, which was surrounded by the military, who took Victor Jara prisoner for five horrible days. During these days, he was forced to live in cold and dirty prisons without proper food or water, but other prisoners there with him testify that during these sufferings, he was only concerned with the welfare of his fellow prisoners.
Finally, the military brought Victor Jara and other political prisoners to the Stadium of Chile, the place where the concert for Allende has previously been held. There the milatary men tortured and killed many people. They broke Victor Jara's hands (Note: many stories indicate that Victor Jara's hands were cut off, but Joan Jara's book about Victor indicates that when she saw him after his death, his hands were broken, so that is the version being used in this essay) so that he couldn't play his guitar, and then taunted him to try and sing and play his songs. Even under these horrible tortures, Victor Jara magnificently sang a portion of the song of the Popular Unity party. After this, he received many brutal blows, and finally was brutally killed with a machine gun and carried to a mass grave.
After his horrible death Joan Jara, the wife of Victor, was shown to his body and gave him a proper funeral and buriel. Because of all of the problems in Chile following his horrible coup, she was forced to leave the country in secret with tapes of Victor Jara's music. Even today, the policital and intensely human songs of Victor Jara are respected all over the world, and the ideals of Nueva Cancion and political music in general remain extremely strong. The life of Victor Jara is a beautiful example of an intelligent and sincere singer who spoke strongly through his songs. As a result, the songs of Victor Jara are a testimony to his strength and positive view of life.
...
Victor Jara
words by Adrian Mitchell, music by Arlo Guthrie
....
He campaigned for Allende
Working night and day
He sang "Take hold of your brothers hand
You know the future begins today"
His hands were gentle, his hands were strong
Then the generals seized Chile
They arrested Victor then
They caged him in a stadium
With five-thousand frightened men
His hands were gentle, his hands were strong
Victor stood in the stadium
His voice was brave and strong
And he sang for his fellow prisoners
Till the guards cut short his song
His hands were gentle, his hands were strong
They broke the bones in both his hands
They beat him on the head
They tore him with electric shocks
And then they shot him dead
His hands were gentle, his hands were strong
http://www.scalan.co.uk/victorjara.htm
Ok, now this I didn't know until now while I was looking for another song for you. I had no idea he had inspired so many people. This is just a small sampling from Wiki, I stripped out the non-English references. Wow. I had no idea and need to find some of these now.
- American folksinger Phil Ochs, who met and performed with Jara during a tour of South America, organized a benefit concert in his memory in New York in 1974. Titled "An Evening With Salvador Allende", the concert featured Bob Dylan, Pete Seeger, Arlo Guthrie and Och
- In the late 1990s British actress Emma Thompson started to work on a screenplay, which she planned to use as the basis for a movie about Víctor Jara. Thompson, a human rights activist and fan of Jara, considered the political murder of the Chilean artist as a symbol of human rights violation in Chile. She believed a movie about Jara's life and death would make more people aware of the Chilean tragedy.[16] The movie would feature Antonio Banderas – another fan of Víctor Jara – as Jara himself where he would sing some of his songs and Emma Thompson as Víctor Jara's British wife Joan Jara.[17] The project has not yet been made into a film.
- Rebel Diaz's Broken Hands Play Guitars is a tribute to Víctor Jara.
- In 1976, Arlo Guthrie included a biographical song entitled Victor Jara on his album Amigo.
- The Clash sing about Jara in the song Washington Bullets on their 1980 album Sandinista!. Joe Strummer sings:
"As every cell in Chile will tell, the cries of the tortured men. Remember Allende in the days before, before the army came. Please remember Victor Jara, in the Santiago Stadium. Es Verdad, those Washington Bullets again."
- Holly Near's Sing to me the Dream is a tribute to Víctor Jara.
- British Jazz-Dance band Working Week's debut single Venceremos (We will win) from their 1985 first album Working Nights is a tribute to Victor Jara.
- Rory McLeod's title song on his album Angry Love is about Jara.[24]
- In 1987, U2 included the track One Tree Hill on their album, The Joshua Tree where Bono sings:
"And in the world a heart of darkness, a fire zone. Where poets speak their heart, then bleed for it. Jara sang, his song a weapon, in the hands of love. Though his blood still cries from the ground."
- Jackson Browne recorded My Personal Revenge on his CD World in Motion in 1989 as a tribute to Víctor Jara. The lyrics include
"My personal revenge will be to give you... these hands that once you so mistreated."
- Chuck Brodsky wrote and recorded The Hands of Victor Jara [25] This 1996 tribute includes these words:
The blood of Victor Jara
Will never wash away
It just keeps on turning
A little redder every day
As anger turns to hatred
And hatred turns to guns
Children lose their fathers
And mothers lose their sons
- On Barnstormer's album Zero Tolerance (2004), Attila the Stockbroker mentions Jara in the song Death of a Salesman, written just after the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center.
"You were there in Chile, 11 September '73. 28 years to the day - what a dreadful irony. Victor Jara singing 'midst the tortured and the dead. White House glasses clinking as Allende's comrades bled."
- Marty Willson-Piper, who plays guitar for The Church, included Song for Victor Jara on his 2009 solo album, Nightjar.
- Heaven Shall Burn wrote and performed two songs about him and his legacy called The Weapon They Fear & The Martyrs Blood.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V%C3%ADctor_Jara
It's great to meet so many people who know and like Jara here
for this entire thread.
[center]
Dr. Aleida Guevara, daughter
Camilo Guevara, named
for Che's good friend,
revolutionary Camilo Cienfuegos.
Camilo Cienfuegos[/center]
