On Sept. 16 1973, Victor Jara was murdered. Five days earlier, a military-led coup had taken the life of Chilean President Salvador Allende and installed a new regime. Jara, a singer and political activist, had aggressively campaigned in favor of the democratically elected president.
Jara was seized on Sept. 12 at the University of Santiago. For four days, he and thousands of other political prisoners were brutally tortured at the Chile Stadium in Santiago.
On the morning of Sept. 16 Chilean soldiers singled out Jara and beat him mercilessly. They broke his hands. They mocked him, telling him to play the guitar with broken fingers. In the face of death, Jara sang “Venceremos” (We Will Win), the rallying cry of Allende’s political party.
An attending military officer loaded a single bullet into his revolver, spun the chamber and pressed the pistol against Jara’s head.
He squeezed the trigger once. Nothing. A second time. Still nothing. On the third attempt, a gunshot echoed through the stadium, and Jara’s body dropped to the ground. Two subordinates machine-gunned his body, leaving 44 bullet wounds to ensure that Victor Jara would never sing again.
