Chilean-American to Stand Trial for Death of Victor Jara

September of 1973 was one of the worst months I can remember living through, and September 11 the worst day until another 38 years later.   A bright and hopeful new, democratically elected government in Chile, was smashed by Chilean armed forces, aided and abetted by the United States.  Thousands were rounded up.  Many were tortured and killed, among them Victor Jara, an internationally known singer song-writer.  His guitar hand was crushed and he was killed.  By the end of the regime in 1990 some 40,000 Chilean citizens had been detained, many of them tortured.  Over 200,000 left the country for exile.

Now, perhaps, one of those responsible, will get some time to reflect on what he did.

“A US judge has ordered a former Chilean army officer to stand trial in Florida in connection with the killing of folk singer Victor Jara in 1973.

Pedro Barrientos, who has US citizenship and lives in Florida, will answer charges of torture and extrajudicial killing.

Jara was one of thousands of people rounded up at a stadium in the capital Santiago after the coup that brought General Augusto Pinochet to power.

He was tortured and shot dead.”

 BBC

Vaitcan Dismissed Reports of Pinochet Murders and Communist Propaganda

“In a 1973 diplomatic cable addressed to Henry Kissinger, then serving as the United States’ Secretary of State, high-ranking Vatican official Giovanni Benelli was quoted as relaying “his and the pope’s grave concern over successful international leftisf campaign to misconstrue completely realities of Chilean situation.” Benelli dismissed reports of massacre as “unfounded” and “possibly [the] greatest success of Communist propaganda,” while explaining away whatever violence had occurred as “unfortunately natural following coup d’etat.”

The cable was written five weeks after the coup, during the reign of Pope Paul VI, with reports already surfacing that political opponents of the regime were being arrested and killed.”

Ugh

 

This cite is from a new WikiLeaks, unveiling of previously secretized sources….

WikiLeaks has announced the release of a huge archive of U.S. diplomatic records dubbed “The Kissinger Cables.”

The trove of more than 1.7 million documents contains “205,901 records relating to former US Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger.” The massive data collection is part of the launch of the WikiLeaks Public Library of US Diplomacy, or PlusD,