by Meritxell Freixas |
Santiago, Chile (EFE) 1973-1990) and transferred to this facility on September 12, 1973, one day after the coup.
Coll and Núñez, who receive EFE accompanied by the historian and journalist Mario Amorós, who next Wednesday presents his biography of Víctor Jara, “Life is eternal”, shared with the Chilean composer his last hours of life locked up in the stadium, which the regime had turned it into a detention and torture center.
“Coming here is reliving everything, as if it were September 11, 1973. That is the deepest feeling,” he confessed to EFE Coll, who at the time of the arrest was in charge of the Department of the Cultural Extension Area of the Technical University of State (UTE), today converted into the University of Santiago de Chile (and its regional headquarters), where, along with Jara, Núñez and many others, she was arrested.
“There are too many memories that are embedded in one,” Núñez told EFE. He, who was 27 years old at the time, was president of the UTE Student Federation and, as Amorós explains in his book, after being interrogated, beaten and subjected to a false firing squad, “offered to mediate (with the uniformed) for the eviction (of the university) to be done peacefully.”
“Víctor was held in many places inside the stadium, but I was in only one, in that gallery, up there, along with those sentenced to death, we were four sentenced to death,” he explains.
“From above I looked at my university classmates and, on one occasion, the third or fourth day we were here, when conditions were a little looser, looking down, Víctor was in the gallery talking with students and with some teachers”, adds Núñez.
“I felt a long feeling of guilt”
Cecilia Coll met Víctor Jara before they both met in the joint venture. She was in charge of the culture of the communist youth and, in that capacity, she had to prepare with the musician her album “Pongo en tus manos abiertas”, the third released by Jota Jota, the record label of the party that later became known as Discotheque. of the Popular Song (Dicap).
On the day of the coup, Coll went to work because President Salvador Allende (1970-1973) intended to call a plebiscite from the UTE and the center was preparing a previous act where Víctor Jara, among other artists, would participate.
“He called me and asked: ‘What do I do?’ ‘Come,’ I told him. I didn’t even think about it because we felt that the only important thing at that moment was to be where you had to be”, says Coll.
“Víctor arrived with the guitar, we talked in my office and I asked him to move to the Art School, where most of the people were, so they could be there and play the guitar, but later (the military) surrounded the university, we they arrested everyone and for a long time I felt a lot of guilt for having told him to come”, he continues.
“I had the last smile from Víctor”
“My first closest opportunity with Víctor Jara was when we were elected members of the Central Committee of the Jota (Communist Youth), in the 7th Congress, however, we never maintained close contact. For me, Víctor was someone that I looked up to”, says Osiel Núñez.
His “most revealing meeting” with the singer-songwriter, he recalls, was on September 15, when they began to take all the prisoners out of the Estadio de Chile to transfer them to the Estadio Nacional, also turned into a detention center.
“At nightfall, we formed the last group and they included me. We lined up in the hallway. I hadn’t seen Víctor (in line), but suddenly an officer came by taking prisoners out and took Víctor Jara and, behind me, he took Littré Quiroga (then General Director of Prisons). Both were reserved for torture and death, ”he recalls.
And he closes excitedly: “When I was leaving in line, I looked to the side and saw Víctor. I say that we smiled at each other, although it was most likely a grimace that we made, but I think it’s very nice to say that I had Víctor Jara’s last smile.