Thursday, January 03, 2013

Maybe we'll get to Dick Cheney yet …


Dictators, torturers (and the intellectual authors of torture), and fascist thugs can never be completely secure that society won't seek retribution for their crimes until they die.

A Chilean friend tipped me off to the important news that the Chilean government is trying to extradite a thug involved in the killing of the popular leftist singer Victor Jara almost 40 years ago during the U.S.-supported fascist coup against a democratically elected Chilean government.

Guess what? The shooter, named as Pedro Barrientos Nunez, has been hiding in plain sight in Miami. He is a retired U.S Army officer. The other seven charged with the crime are being taken into custody within Chile.

The Australian explains:

Jara, the singer whose lyrics spoke of love and social protest, became an icon of Latin American popular music with songs such as The Right to Live in Peace, The Cigarette and I remember you, Amanda. …

Jara was arrested the day after the September 11, 1973, coup that installed Pinochet as dictator. The singer's body was found days later, riddled with 44 machine-gun bullet wounds.

Jara, 40, had been held with 5000 other political prisoners in Santiago's biggest stadium, where he was interrogated, tortured and then killed. The case was revived in 2009 and Jara's body was exhumed after a soldier who had been in the stadium after the coup admitted to the shooting -- though he later retracted his confession.

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