Today we remember Victor Jarra

Today we remember Víctor Jara, famous Chilean musician and member of the Chilean Communist Party, tortured and executed by the US-backed Pinochet dictatorship on this day in 1973. Jara’s torturers smashed his hands and mocked him by asking him to sing and play the guitar. To this day, Jara’s music inspires people in Latin America and beyond to fight for the right to live in peace.

There is not one person in the Latin Americas that cannot sing or hum with Manifiesto, the protest song that you can sing to a baby as a lullaby. Then, you can hear a soft Siempre! Always!

(Music quality is not good)

Víctor Lidio Jara Martínez – 28 September 1932 – 16 September 1973, was a Chilean teacher, theater director, poet, singer-songwriter and social political activist. He developed Chilean theater by directing a broad array of works, ranging from locally produced plays to world classics, as well as experimental work. He also played a pivotal role among neo-folkloric musicians who established the Nueva canción chilena (New Chilean Song) movement. This led to an uprising of new sounds in popular music during the administration of President Salvador Allende.

Jara was arrested by the Chilean military shortly after the 11 September 1973 coup led by Augusto Pinochet, which overthrew Allende. He was tortured during interrogations and ultimately shot dead, his hands cut off and his body was thrown out on the street of a shantytown in Santiago where dogs ate at him.

The contrast between the themes of his songs—which focused on love, peace, and social justice—and his murder transformed Jara into a potent symbol of struggle for human rights and justice for those killed during the Pinochet regime. His prominent role as an admirer and propagandist for Che Guevara and Allende’s government, in which he served as a cultural ambassador through the late 1960s and until 1973, made him a target.

In June 2016, a Florida jury found former Chilean Army officer Pedro Barrientos liable for Jara’s murder. In July 2018, eight retired Chilean military officers were sentenced to 15 years and a day in prison for Jara’s murder.

Manifiesto Lyrics in English

I don’t sing just for singing
Or because I have a nice voice
I sing because the guitar
Has a sense and a cause

It has an earthly heart
And little dove’s wings
It’s like holy water
It blesses glories and sorrows

Here my singing fits
Like Violeta would say
Worker guitar
With a spring smell

It’s not a rich’s guitar
Or something alike
My song is from scaffoldings
To reach the stars

Singing has a sense
When it beats in the veins
Of the one who will die singing
The real truths

Not the fleeting flatteries
Or foreign fame
But the song of a slice
Until the depths of the Earth

There, where everything arrives
And where everything starts
The song that has been brave
Will always be a new song
Will always be a new song
Will always be a new song