Family of Slain Chilean Folk Singer Files Suit in Florida

[Judi Lynn]

Family of Slain Chilean Folk Singer Files Suit in Florida
By PASCALE BONNEFOY
Published: September 5, 2013

SANTIAGO, Chile — A former Chilean Army officer charged with murdering Víctor Jara, a popular folk singer, shortly after the 1973 military coup has been sued in a Florida court under federal laws allowing legal action against human rights violators living in the United States.

Mr. Jara, then 40, was a member of the Communist Party and an accomplished theater director and songwriter whose songs of poverty and injustice remain vastly popular. He was arrested with hundreds of students and employees at the Santiago Technical University, where he was a professor, a day after the Sept. 11 coup that ushered in 17 years of the Pinochet dictatorship.

The prisoners were taken to Chile Stadium, used to hold thousands of prisoners. There, Mr. Jara was singled out with a few others, beaten, tortured and shot. His body, with 44 bullet wounds, was found dumped outside a cemetery with four other victims. The arena was later renamed Víctor Jara Stadium.

The lawsuit against the former officer accused of his murder, Pedro Pablo Barrientos, comes as Chileans take part in a number of cathartic, emotionally charged events leading up to the 40th anniversary of the coup. It was filed on Wednesday by the San Francisco-based Center for Justice and Accountability in a Jacksonville district court on behalf of Mr. Jara’s widow and daughters under the Alien Tort Statute and the Torture Victim Protection Act of 1991. Mr. Barrientos, 64, moved to the United States in 1989 and became an American citizen. He lives in Deltona, a city southwest of Daytona Beach, Fla.

More:
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/06/world/americas/family-of-slain-chilean-folk-singer-files-suit-in-florida.html?_r=0

[center]

Pedro Pablo Barrientos



Victor Jara [/center]

[idwiyo]

1. K&R

[noiretextatique]

2. i hope he is convicted

and all the rest of the murderous bastard who came here.

[Xipe Totec]

3. If the singer is silenced

Si se calla el cantor calla la vida
porque la vida misma es todo un canto,
si se calla el cantor muere de espanto
la esperanza, la luz y la alegría.

If the singer is silenced, life is silenced
because life, life itself is just a song,
if the singer is silenced, hope, light and joy
die of fright.

[Judi Lynn]

5. Incomparable Mercedes. She paid a great price in her life, too, didn't she?

They all paid the price for telling the truth.

Thank you, so much for this.

Never heard it, before tonight.

It is wonderful.

[Judi Lynn]

4. Former Chile army officer sued in Florida for torture death of folk singer Victor Jara in 1973 coup

Former Chile army officer sued in Florida for torture death of folk singer Victor Jara in 1973 coup

Victor Jara’s family says it has solved the mystery of who killed the Chilean folk singer. They have filed a civil suit against a former army officer who they claim tortured Jara to death in 1973.

By: Frederick Bernas Luis Andres Henao The Associated Press, Published on Thu Sep 05 2013

SANTIAGO, CHILE—The family of Victor Jara claims to have solved the 40-year-old mystery of who killed the revered folk singer during Chile’s 1973 coup, and they’re preparing to prove it in a federal courtroom in Jacksonville, Florida.

The family’s civil lawsuit accuses former Chilean army Lt. Pedro Barrientos Nunez of ordering soldiers to torture Jara, and it says Barrientos personally fired a fatal shot into the folk singer’s head while playing a game of “Russian roulette” inside a locker room in Santiago’s Estadio Chile, where some 5,000 supporters of socialist President Salvador Allende were being detained.

The lawsuit was filed Wednesday, and the family’s legal team tells The Associated Press that Barrientos was served notice later at his home in Deltona, Florida, where he now lives as a U.S. citizen.

Barrientos, part of a group of officers who also face criminal charges in Chile related to the folk singer’s killing, has denied all involvement, saying he wasn’t there and didn’t even know who Jara was at the time of the coup.

“I do not need to face justice because I have not killed anyone,” he said during a May 2012 interview with Chilevision TV.

More:
http://www.thestar.com/news/world/2013/09/05/former_chile_army_officer_sued_in_florida_for_torture_death_of_folk_singer_victor_jara_in_1973_coup.html