This is a very solemn, funereal day. It is the 43rd anniversary of the September 11, 1973 US-backed military coup in Chile when tens of thousands were murdered outright, tortured, disappeared.
There has never been an accounting of all who died nor has there been a modicum of justice. We commemorate the day precisely because until there is, there can never be a reconciliation with the past & human rights advocates in Chile & around the world will continue to demand it.
The last 100 years–the triumphal era of capitalism–have been marked by such events: wars that last years, occupations that last decades, & never an accounting of the victims who number in the several millions on every continent. September 11, 2001 is a part of that grotesque continuum.
We commemorate these days also to express our conviction that human beings are capable of taking destiny into our own hands to end the reign of terror that characterizes the last century.
Victor Jara, the Chilean troubadour of social transformation, was arrested, tortured, shot with 44 machine-gun bullets, & dumped on a street in Santiago on September 16th, 1973.