Some Small Measure of Justice for Victor Jara - tortured and murdered in 1973

[Peter Lemkin]

In Florida, a jury has found a former Chilean army officer liable for the murder of folk singer and activist Víctor Jara in 1973. Jara was tortured and shot more than 40 times in the days after dictator Augusto Pinochet seized power in a U.S.-backed coup. The verdict against Pedro Pablo Barrientos Nuñez marks what The Guardian newspaper called "one of the biggest and most significant legal human rights victories against a foreign war criminal in a US courtroom." Speaking on the steps of the Florida courthouse, Jara's widow Joan Jara Turner said, "What we were trying to do for more than 40 years, for Víctor, has today come true." Barrientos could face extradition to Chile, where he could be brought up on criminal murder charges.

Victor Jara Presente!!!!

[Peter Lemkin]

Thursday 23 July 2015 15.31 The Guardian

Former Chilean military officers charged in 1973 murder of singer Víctor Jara
Jara, a political activist, was dragged down to the basement of an indoor stadium during Chile's 1973 coup and was shot more than 40 times[URL="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jul/23/chile-military-officers-victor-jara-killing#img-1"]

[/URL] Víctor Jara was also a folk singer, theatre director and communist party member. Photograph: Patricio Guzmán/APJonathan Franklin in Santiago and Jonathan WattsLatin America correspondent

This article is 12 months old

Forty-two years after the Chilean military murdered the poet and musician Víctor Jara, ten of the alleged perpetrators have finally been called to face justice after a judge announced charges against a group of former officers.

Agony of Chile's dark days continues as murdered poet's wife fights for justice


Four of the suspects immediately handed themselves in and other arrests were expected to follow.

Jara who was also a folk singer, theatre director and communist party member - was taken prisoner during the coup by General Augusto Pinochet in September 1973.

Military officers tortured him, broke his wrists and hands, played Russian roulette with him and then on 16 September executed him with 44 bullets.
He remains arguably the best-known victim of the coup, but there are many other outstanding cases.
According to Chile's truth and justice commission, 3,095 people were killed during the 1973-90 Pinochet dictatorship, including about 1,000 who "disappeared". Bodies are still being found today.
Judge Miguel Vázquez Plaza also indicted several of the officers in the kidnapping and murder of former prison director Littre Quiroga Carvajal. Like Jara, he was held prisoner at the national stadium in Santiago, then singled out and taken into the dressing rooms where he was tortured and executed.
This step in the legal process is more advanced than a simple charge. The next stage will be a trial on charges arising from both cases, which will probably take place around the end of this year or early next year.

Jara's widow, Joan Turner Jara, originally from Britain, called the charges "a message of hope" but said much work still needed to be done to secure justice for her husband and other victims of the Pinochet dictatorship.
"If Víctor's case serves as an example, we're pushing forward in demanding justice for Víctor with the hope that justice will follow for everyone," she told reporters.

Others involved in the long struggle to hold the military accountable said the judge's announcement was an important step forward.
"These are important advances that are also healing in terms of the psychological and moral [wellbeing] of family members. But it is also healing for society. We want a society built upon truth and justice," said Alicia Lira, president of AFEP, a support group for relatives of political prisoners executed during the dictatorship.
Human Rights lawyer Nelson Caucoto said the courts were moving closer to a judgment in the Jara case, and pointed to progress recently made in another emblematic human rights case, that of activists Rodrigo Rojas and Carmen Gloria Quintana, who were burned alive by military officers in 1986.


Earlier this week, a judge ordered the arrest of seven army officers for their role in the attack in which Rojas and Quintana were drenched in petrol, set alight and then left for dead. Rojas died from his injuries, and Quintana was severely injured.
"These are cases that are burned into Chile's historical memory," said Caucoto in a telephone interview with the Guardian. "They are crimes committed during a dictatorship and supposedly to never be solved. Now, the accused will be planning their defense and this year we may have sentencing."
The Chilean courts are not the only setting for the long struggle for accountability. In 2013, Joan Jara and her daughters Amanda and Manuela filed a civil lawsuit in the US for torture and extrajudicial killing against former lieutenant Pedro Barrientos Nuñez, who fled Chile in 1989.
Barrientos, who has US citizenship through marriage, is alleged to have played Russian roulette with Jara before ordering his troups to open fire. Attempts to extradite him to Santiago have so far proved unsuccessful, but the Jara family's lawyers are hopeful about the prospects of taking him to court in the US.
"We are gearing up for a trial. I am gathering evidence and interviewing [former] members of the Chilean military," said Almudena Bernabéu, a human rights attorney with San Francisco-based Center for Justice and Accountability (CJA).

"Barrientos denies he was physically at the stadium [where Jara was shot] but the conscripts say he was there and was in the room when Jara was shot," said Bernabéu who filed a civil lawsuit on behalf of Jara's wife Joan and the folk singer's two daughters, Amanda and Manuela.
Barrientos was not included in the latest list of indictments in Chile because prosecutors wanted to prevent the case being held up by his attempts to resist extradition from the US. He may be added to the case later if he is eventually returned to his homeland.

[Magda Hassan]

It is certainly good that they have done this case but I am not sure that he will ever see a court room in Chile though as the US is full of criminals which they do not and will not extradite irrespective of the evidence or guilt. Fingers crossed though. And he is exposed for what he is and that itself is a victory.

[Peter Lemkin]

It is certainly good that they have done this case but I am not sure that he will ever see a court room in Chile though as the US is full of criminals which they do not and will not extradite irrespective of the evidence or guilt. Fingers crossed though. And he is exposed for what he is and that itself is a victory.

You may well be correct that he won't be extradited nor face any punishment in the USA. After all, even those US officials involved in the 'other September 11th' have yet to face justice for this one of many fascist coups and anti-democratic secret military and 'intelligence' actions. And yes the USA is a refuge for thousands of war criminals, torturers and others of that ilk.... We even have our own who have committed such actions not just on foreign countries, but on our own. If Mrs Jara and her family slept a little better after the jury's decision, that alone is worth it. Maybe Henry Kissinger would be the appropriate escort for the convicted on their way back to Chile to face justice.

[Peter Lemkin]

On the internet are several articles [one in the Guardian] extolling the CIA as behind the conviction..... Give me a break, the CIA was one of the entities behind the coup that brought in Pinochet and that period of darkness in Chile - and most of South and Central American with Condor and similar programs. American CIA-connected hitman Michael V. Townley, already convicted of killing Allende in D.C. instead of being put in prison now is in a 'witness' protection program with a new identity.......so many others are protected such as mass-murderer Orlando Bosch...the list is very long.

[Peter Lemkin]

In Florida, a jury has found former Chilean army officer Pedro Barrientos liable for the murder of legendary folk singer and activist Víctor Jara in September 1973. In the days after dictator Augusto Pinochet seized power in a U.S.-backed coup, Víctor Jara was rounded up, tortured and shot more than 40 times. Barrientos has lived in the United States for more than two decades and is now a U.S. citizen. The Jaras sued him under a federal civil statute known as the Torture Victims Protection Act, which allows U.S. courts to hear about human rights abuses committed abroad. The Guardian newspaper called the verdict "one of the biggest and most significant legal human rights victories against a foreign war criminal in a US courtroom." We speak to Víctor Jara's widow Joan, his daughter Manuela Bunster and Dixon Osburn, executive director of the Center for Justice and Accountability, which represented the Jara family.

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TRANSCRIPT

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: "Te Recuerdo Amanda," "I Remember You, Amanda," by Víctor Jara. This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I'm Amy Goodman, with Juan González.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: In Florida, a jury has found former Chilean army officer Pedro Barrientos liable for the murder of legendary folk singer and activist Víctor Jara in September 1973. In the days after dictator Augusto Pinochet seized power in a U.S.-backed coup, Víctor Jara was rounded up, tortured and shot more than 40 times.
In 2013, on the 40th anniversary of Víctor Jara's murder, his wife and daughters filed a civil lawsuit in U.S. court against the former military officer Pedro Barrientos, who has lived in the United States for more than two decades and is now a U.S. citizen. The Jaras sued him under a federal civil statute known as the Torture Victims Protection Act, which allows U.S. courts to hear about human rights abuses committed abroad. Chilean prosecutors have indicted Barrientos and another officer with Jara's murder, and Chile is seeking his extradition so he can be tried on criminal murder charges.
AMY GOODMAN: Well, in a landmark legal victory Monday, an Orlando court ruled Barrientos is liable for the killing of Víctor Jara, and awarded the Jara family $28 million in damages. The Guardian newspaper called the verdict, quote, "one of the biggest and most significant legal human rights victories against a foreign war criminal in a US courtroom," unquote.
In a moment, we'll be joined by Víctor Jara's daughter and widow Joan. But first I want to turn to our 2013 interview with Joan Jara, talking about the day Víctor disappeared.

JOAN JARA: We were both at home with our two daughters. There was somehow a coup in the air. We had been fearing that there might be a military coup. And on that morning, together, Víctor and I listened to Allende's last speech and heard all the radios, thewho supported Salvador Allende, falling off the air as, one by one, being replaced by military marches.

Víctor was due to go to the technical university, his place of work, where Allende was due to speak to announce a plebiscite at 11:00, and Víctor was to sing there, as he did. And he went out that morning. It was the last time I saw him. I stayed at home, heard of the bombing of the Moneda Palace, heard and saw the helicopter's machine gun firing over Allende's residence. And then began the long wait for Víctor to come back home.

AMY GOODMAN: And how long did you wait?

JOAN JARA: I waited a week, not knowing really what had happened to him. I got a message from him from somebody who had been in the stadium with him, wasn't sure what was really happening to him. But my fears were confirmed on the 11th of Septemberwell, I'm sorry, on the 18th of September, Chile National Day, when a young man came to my house, said, "Please, I need to talk to you. I'm a friend. I've been working in the city morgue. I'm afraid to tell you that Víctor's body has been recognized," because it was a well-knownhis was a well-known face. And he said, "You must come with me and claim his body; otherwise, they will put him in a common grave, and he will disappear."

So then I accompanied this young man to the city morgue. We entered by a side entrance. I saw the hundreds of bodies, literally hundreds of bodies, that were high piled up in what was actually the parking place, I think, of the morgue. And I had to look for Víctor's body among a long line in the offices of the city morgue, recognized him. I saw what had happened to him. I saw the bullet wounds. I saw the state of his body.

And I consider myself one of the lucky ones, in the sense that I had to face at that moment thatwhat had happened to Víctor, and I could give my testimony with all the force of what I felt in that moment, and not that horror, which is much worse, of never knowing what happened to your loved one, as what happened to so many families, so many women, who have spent these 40 years looking for their loved ones who were made to disappear.

AMY GOODMAN: That's Víctor Jara's widow, Joan Jara, speaking in 2013 onDemocracy Now! She joins us live now from Orlando, Florida, along with Víctor Jara's daughter, Manuela Bunster. And in San Francisco, we're joined by Dixon Osburn, executive director of the Center for Justice and Accountability, the law firm that represented the Jara family.
Joan, let's begin with you. Your reaction on Monday to the court decision?
JOAN JARA: Well, it was almost incredule
AMY GOODMAN: Joan, if you could respond to the decision in the court on Monday?
JOAN JARA: Yes, well, I can only say it was with happiness, incredulity, casi. But we lived withall these years with gradually losing more and more the hope of justice for Víctor. It was wonderful here in the United States, in an American court, to find this unanimous verdict.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, Manuela Bunster, your reaction, after so many years, of finding some measurenot full measure, but some measureof recognition and justice for what happened to your father?
MANUELA BUNSTER: Well, as Joan says, it'sI think, I mean, for us, it's still difficult to weigh, really, how this is going to affect our lives in the future, because, I mean, we've lived with the sense of impunity and a pain within, you know, in relation to thenot knowing the truth of what happened with Víctor. And so, it's beenwe're stillI mean, we are happy, but calm, because alsoI mean, there's a lot to do still, you know, in relation to justice for Víctor and for other victims of the stadium. But, you know, we received it. We're very grateful, really.
AMY GOODMAN: Joan Jara, how did you learn that it was Barrientos who was responsible for your husband, for Víctor Jara's murder, right in the midst of the coup of September 11th, 1973, in Chile?
JOAN JARA: Yes, well, it has been only gradually. And during this trial, I learned many things about what happened in the stadium. And that, in itself, is a wonderful progress to justice in Chile, because other people will be able to find a certain amount of justice for their loved ones who were killed there. But I must say that during the trial there was so much evidence against Barrientos, so much evidence and so much lying on the part of the people who were defending him and the witnessesI mean, incredible, just easily proved lies, which were quickly dismissed and overcome by our lawyer, our wonderful lawyer.
MANUELA BUNSTER: Well, he's beenBarrientos, we've known about him for years now, around seven years, I should say. Many conscripts haveI mean, he's been denying having been in Chile Stadium, and he's been, you knowthe evidence presented in this, in this trial, and also all the previous investigations that have been going on in Chile, have put them in the stadium, with a command responsibility in the stadium. And this has been confirmed, you know? And no officers who have command responsibility in a situation like that, during that week, that specific week, you know, just after the coup in Chile, can say they didn't know anything and that theyI mean, they've been constantly denying everything that happened in the stadium. And also, basically, he's been denying having even been there in that week.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Well, we're also joined by Dixon Osburn, the executive director of the Center for Justice and Accountability, who tried the case against Pedro Barrientos. Dixon Osburn, could you tell us who was Barrientos? What was his role? And what were you able to establish in the trial?
DIXON OSBURN: Yes, and good morning. Barrientos was a former lieutenant under Pinochet. And whatwhat we were able to show in the court was in direct contradiction to what Barrientos claimed, which is that he didn't know Víctor Jara, that he had never been in the stadium. We had one of the conscripts who testified, very chillingly, that Barrientos braggednot just once, but many timesthat he's the one who shot and killed Víctor Jara. We had other conscripts who identified Barrientos as being in Chile Stadium and having command responsibility there, performing a wide variety of duties, and therefore having responsibility over the events at Chile Stadium. We had civilians. We had a former student from the university where Víctor taught who identified that Víctor was assaulted, beaten badly at the university when the military laid siege to it. And we had another witness who identified Víctor's body tossed outside of Chile Stadium. So, through and through, we presented more than a dozen witnesses and significant evidence of what transpired in the days following the Pinochet coup, and specifically what happened to Víctor Jara.
AMY GOODMAN: You know, in 2012, I got a chance to travel to Spain and interviewFrancisco Etxeberria, the forensic specialist who exhumed the bodies of both ousted President Salvador Allende of Chile and singer Víctor Jara to determine the nature of these deaths. I asked him to tell us what he discovered about Víctor Jara's murder.

FRANCISCO ETXEBERRIA: [translated] What happened in the case of Víctor Jara is that he was at a university in Santiago, arrested there, and witnesses confirm that. Then we believe he was brought into a locker room. The military knew who he was. He was a popular person. He ended up with a single bullet wound through the back of the head and with over 50 broken bones throughout his body that we determined were caused by what looked like machine gun fire. After he died, they fired many, many shots at him and then dragged the body out into the streets where people would find it and think perhaps that it had been a gunfight between the authorities and others.

What happened to Víctor Jara is similar to what happened to other people who "disappeared" in that period of time. The bodies were found in the streets and brought into the morgue, where they were identified. This was very common at the early stages of the dictatorship. Later, probably due to their international political reputation, "the disappeared" were still being killed, but the bodies were hidden in mass graves, mines, throwing them into the sea, and other places.

AMY GOODMAN: That was Francisco Etxeberria, the forensic specialist who exhumed the bodies of both Salvador Allende, the president who died in the palace, September 11, 1973, and Víctor Jara. Dixon Osburn, can you talk about how significant this case is in Florida? And what will happen to Barrientos?
DIXON OSBURN: It's a very significant case. This is the first time that the Jara family has had their day in court, and for a courta jury of six individuals was able to find somebody liable and responsible for the torture and murder of Víctor Jara. I think this is not only significant for the family, as they have said, but for so many victims and survivors who are continuing to look for truth and justice in what happened under the Pinochet coup.
What happens next for Barrientos? Now, this was a civil lawsuit; it's not a criminal lawsuit. What the jury found is that he was liable, and they awarded damages. The next step will be to enforce that judgment to the extent that we can.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: But what about the criminal case in Chile? If Chile has been seeking his extradition, why has the U.S. government not extradited him?
DIXON OSBURN: That's a good question for the U.S. government. No, we certainly urge the U.S. government to move forward with extradition at this point. As you correctly noted, Chile has indicted him. They've requested it. The U.S. government has moved forward on other extradition requests. So we hope that the U.S. government will take this request very seriously and move forward.
AMY GOODMAN: And, Joan Jara, what is your next plan, as you head back to Chile?
JOAN JARA: Well, to go on as one has been going for 40 years, is to seek justice for all the victims. I mean, this trial has revealed, in a very special way, what has been hidden for years, because there has been a veil over the history of what happened in the Chile Stadium. And it is our job to force thisthe request to get together with the relatives of other victims to continue the search for justice for all, and to know, from moment to moment, what happened in the stadium.
AMY GOODMAN: Well
JOAN JARA: It has beenyeah, it's been extraordinary how all this has been hidden for so long, you know?
AMY GOODMAN: Well, Joan Jara and Manuela Bunster, thank you so much for being with us, joining us from Orlando, where the decision was handed down on Monday, responsibility for the death of your husband, your father, Víctor Jara. And, Dixon Osburn, thanks so much for joining us from the Center for Justice and Accountability in San Francisco.

[Peter Lemkin]

And on the opposite side [that of goodness, humanity] were a few...here is the brief story of one....

The Man Who Saved 30,000 Political Prisoners

04/28/16
[/FONT]

• Roberto Kozak, then Chief of the IOM Mission in Chile, welcomes refugees returning to Chile in 1993 after the dictatorship. Photo: IOM 1993
  

Forty years ago, Roberto Kozak, an official with IOM (or the Intergovernmental Committee for European Migration [ICEM] as it was known then), was instrumental in the release and relocation of more than 30,000 political prisoners from Chile.
Fast forward to January 2010, when Roberto and his son, Nikolai, had just arrived in front of Chile's Museum of Memory and Human Rights, which was being inaugurated that day. Suddenly, his father's attention was placed firmly on this individual in the large crowd that had gathered for the ceremony. This individual was also looking directly at Roberto.
"I felt a very strong connection. They walked towards each other and embraced," recalled Nikolai, then 20, "and the tears began to fall. I had never seen him like this."
The man in the crowd was Dr. Patricio Bustos. The first time Roberto had seen him was in the mid-70s, when he was heading ICEM in Chile. In one of the many visits to the political prisoners' detention center in Tres Alamos, Patricio caught Roberto's attention. Despite the torture, Patricio was doing gymnastics. "I was tremendously impressed," recalled Roberto, who ended up helping Patricio leave the country.
"There, in Tres Alamos, I saw Robert Kozak as a person who exuded solidarity and humanity," recalled Patricio. Not only did Roberto prepare the paperwork to get him out of the detention center, but he also helped him reunite with his wife in Italy.
"To meet with Roberto, as a free man, in my own country, meant a lot to me," said Patricio.
Roberto Kozak passed away in September 2015.
Read more (in Spanish)
Roberto Kozak speaking about IOM's role in saving thousands of Chilean political prisoners (Spanish)

[Magda Hassan]

What a wonderful man. Too few like him.

[Peter Lemkin]

What a wonderful man. Too few like him.

All too few......but it is people like him that give me hope for humanity, even if the 'bad guys' are almost always in control. He often risked his life, and saved so many who likely would have died had he not.