Victor Jara in Estadio Chile.

My intention is mainly to post my art and things related, but on this date, 9/11 1973, the lawful Chilean government was overthrown by the military. Four days later the tortured body of the poet and singer Victor Jara was found in a shanty-town outside of the Chile Stadium (Estadio Chile) that was used by the military as detention camp.

Before his death, while he was still at the Stadium, he wrote one of the most distressing and sad poems in the whole world (The circumstances of course adds to this, I know). It was written on a small piece of paper and smuggled out in the shoe of one of the other interned.

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I just used an hour translating this, and it could be that it is slightly incorrect... Spanish speaking people might help... (I already asked here)

You will find the Spanish original here.

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We are five thousand here
in this small part of town.
We are five thousand.
How many in all
in the cities, in the whole country?
Only here,
ten thousand hands that could seed the fields
go work in the factories.
All this human life
with hunger, cold, panic, pain,
pressure, terror and madness.

Six of us is lost
in space amongst the stars.
One dead, one beaten like I had never belived
a human could be beaten.
The four left just want to flee
all the terror,
one jumps into the nothingness.
another beats his head against the wall
but all stare at death.
What horror the face of fascism creates!
They carry out their plans with cunning precision
nothing means anything to them,
To them Blood is medals,
Killing an act of heroism.
Is this the world you created, dear God?
Was it for this: your seven days of work and wonder?
Inside these four wall exists only a number
that will not progress.
That will slowly crave more death.

But then consciousness hit me
And I see this tide has no heartbeat
And I see the pulse of the machines
And the military show off their motherly face
filled with sweetness.
And Mexico, Cuba, and the world?
Scream out againt this atrocity!
We are ten thousand hand
that can do nothing.
How many in the whole country?
The blood of our comrade president
hits harder than bombs and guns.
That is how our fist will strike back anew.

Song, how bad I am selling this
when I must sing of horror.
Horror that I am living,
that I am dying - horror.
To see myself amongst so many, and so many
Infinite moments
where the silence and the screams
are the goal of this song.
What I have seen I never saw.
What I have felt and what I fell
will grow from this moment...

(1973)

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And to make everything even more sad and sorrowful, listen to this beautiful piece which shows Jara’s fascination with the music of the Andes. So very melancholic, and so very God damn sad that a father and artist who had done nothing but sing, should be killed in this horrible way.