Narrow but Endlessly Deep: the Struggle for Memorialisation in Chile Since the Transition to Democracy
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NARROW BUT ENDLESSLY DEEP THE STRUGGLE FOR MEMORIALISATION IN CHILE SINCE THE TRANSITION TO DEMOCRACY NARROW BUT ENDLESSLY DEEP THE STRUGGLE FOR MEMORIALISATION IN CHILE SINCE THE TRANSITION TO DEMOCRACY PETER READ & MARIVIC WYNDHAM Published by ANU Press The Australian National University Acton ACT 2601, Australia Email: [email protected] This title is also available online at press.anu.edu.au National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication entry Creator: Read, Peter, 1945- author. Title: Narrow but endlessly deep : the struggle for memorialisation in Chile since the transition to democracy / Peter Read ; Marivic Wyndham. ISBN: 9781760460211 (paperback) 9781760460228 (ebook) Subjects: Memorialization--Chile. Collective memory--Chile. Chile--Politics and government--1973-1988. Chile--Politics and government--1988- Chile--History--1988- Other Creators/Contributors: Wyndham, Marivic, author. Dewey Number: 983.066 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher. Cover design and layout by ANU Press. Cover photograph: The alarm clock, smashed at 14 minutes to 11, symbolises the anguish felt by Michele Drouilly Yurich over the unresolved disappearance of her sister Jacqueline in 1974. This edition © 2016 ANU Press I don’t care for adulation or so that strangers may weep. I sing for a far strip of country narrow but endlessly deep. No las lisonjas fugaces ni las famas extranjeras sino el canto de una lonja hasta el fondo de la tierra.1 1 Victor Jara, ‘Manifiesto’, tr. Bruce Springsteen,The Nation, 2013. Contents Illustrations . ix Glossary . xi Acknowledgements . xiii 1 . Introduction: Narrow but endlessly deep . 1 Part I 2 . Victor Jara, the State University of Technology and the Victor Jara Stadium . 23 3 . From state terror to state error: Patio 29, General Cemetery, Santiago . 39 4 . Carved cherubs frolicking in a sunny stream: The National Stadium . 59 5 . Last stand of the MIR: Londres 38 . 81 6 . The chosen one: 1367 José Domingo Cañas . 105 7 . A garden of horror or a park of peace: Villa Grimaldi . 127 8 . A memorial destroyed: Loyola, Quinta Normal . 155 Part II 9 . The memorials today and the advance of the state . 177 References . 215 Illustrations Interior, the Victor Jara Stadium. Students and staff from the State University of Technology were forced to sit on the left, workers on the right. Several detainees in terror and despair jumped from the balconies to the right of the picture. .........37 The seat painted white, in the ‘dangerous prisoners’ section, is that believed to have been occupied by Jara for a period after being recognised. .................................38 Nena González, caretaker of Patio 29, General Cemetery. ........40 In 1973 the caretaker hut of Nena González stood on this site in Patio 29. From here, unobserved, she witnessed the disposal of hundreds of those killed in the first weeks after the coup. .....47 Roberto Sanchez. ......................................60 The principal memorial, main entrance, National Stadium of Chile. .............................................77 The smaller structure at the left is the swimming pool changing room, National Stadium of Chile, occupied by the women detainees. The larger, more modern structure attached to it is the display area opened in 2014. .....................78 The front façade, Londres 38, showing the marks of burning candles resting against it during the vigils held for the detained-disappeared. ..................................88 Londres 38 with its message of November 2015, ‘Break the pact of silence’. On the darker flagstones are inscribed the names of the detained-disappeared believed held here, and their political affiliation. ...............................103 Poster, 1367 José Domingo Cañas, featuring Laura Moya Diaz and Lumi Videla Moya. ................................106 ix NARROW BUT ENDLESSLY DEEP Lumi Videla Moya’s name is the only one to appear on this side of the memorial stone at José Domingo Cañas. The names of others believed held here but who may have been killed elsewhere are on the other side, facing the pavement. .........123 Bureaucratically destroyed signage, José Domingo Cañas. Originally the message read, ‘Here were committed the/Most ferocious violations/Of human dignity/For this reason we demand/JUSTICE AND PUNISHMENT’. ...................125 Michele Drouilly Yurich. ...............................129 Fragment of electrified barbed wire, one of the few remaining artefacts surviving from Cuartel Villanova (Villa Grimaldi). .....147 The Ombú tree, Villa Grimaldi. No signage attaches to it. Only Michele Drouilly’s ‘Memory room’ gives an account of what happened here. ................................151 Josefina Rodriguez in her home at Renacer, Loyola. ...........157 Little is left of the once-guarded exterior wall of the Loyola CNI Depot. .........................................173 x Glossary CNI Central Nacional de Informaciones (National Information Centre) the Chilean state security service, 1977–90 Compañero/a Comrade Concertación Concertación de Partidos por la Democracia A coalition of centre-left parties in Chile founded in 1988. Presidential candidates under its banner won every election from when military rule ended in 1990 until the conservative candidate Sebastián Piñera won the Chilean presidential election in 2010 Detainee The name universally applied in Latin America to individuals secretly held by the state Detained-disappeared The name universally applied in Latin America by the human rights movement to political detainees in the context of state terrorism, and presumed murdered by the state DINA Dirección de Inteligencia Nacional, the Directorate of National Intelligence, Pinochet’s first state security and secret police service, established 1 November 1973 Extermination used by Latin American and other state authorities to describe the violent disposal of political enemies Frentistas Followers of ‘El Frente’, an extreme left group dedicated to armed opposition during the Pinochet years MIRista Member of the political party el MIR (Movimiento de Izquierda Revolucionaria, Movement of the Revolutionary Left), particularly marked for destruction by Pinochet in the first years after the coup xi NARROW BUT ENDLESSLY DEEP Pinochetistas Followers of General Augusto Pinochet, head of Chile’s military government, 1973–90 Politically executed Commonly used Latin American phrase to distinguish between the detained-disappeared and those whose bodies have been found Rodriguistas Members of ‘El Frente Rodriguista’, an extreme left group dedicated to armed opposition during the Pinochet years Site of conscience Term used by the human rights movement to describe centres of torture or execution, usually carried out by the state xii Acknowledgements We thank the Australian Research Council for the award of a Discovery Grant that made this book possible. We also thank our colleagues Judith Keene, Elizabeth Rechniewski and Adrian Vickers, with whom we held many discussions on ‘Judging the past in a post–Cold War world’. We thank the members of the Social Sciences Editorial Board of The Australian National University for their meticulous care in seeing the manuscript through its initial stages, particularly Professor Marian Sawer and Dr Frank Bongiorno. ANU Press handled production with its usual friendly efficiency. Thanks to Con Boekel for his technical assistance with the photographs using Lightbox. Thanks also to Geoff Hunt for his bright thoughts. We thank, in particular, our friends who have for many years contributed so much to our understanding of Chile’s recent past: Mario Artigas, the late Mauricio Barrientos, Bernardo de Castro, Luigi Cecchetto, Isolda Cid, Crifé Diaz Cid, Katie Hite, Mario Cortes Muñoz, Viviana Diaz, Michele Drouilly Yurich, Diana Duhalde, Francisco Castro, Mireya Garcia, Paula Gonzáles-Dolan, Nena González, the late Laura Moya, Elias Padilla, Victor Peña, Josefina Rodriguez, Roberto Sanchez and Denni Traubmann. The following people conducted formal or spontaneous guided tours of the sites we discuss in this book, often more than once. We are particularly grateful because to them, of course, these were no ordinary tours, but entries into sites of enormous traumatic significance to both themselves and their families: Michele Drouilly Yurich, Juan Espina Espina, Nena González, Josefina Rodriguez, Juan Medina, Leopoldo Montenegro, Rogelio Rodriguez, Roberto Merino Jorquera, Roberto Muñoz, Laura Moya, Victor Peña, José Uribe. Lyrics of Victor Jara songs, courtesy Fundación Victor Jara. xiii 1 Introduction: Narrow but endlessly deep On 11 September 1973, the Chilean Chief of the Armed Forces Augusto Pinochet overthrew the Popular Unity government of Salvador Allende and installed a military dictatorship. He believed he had two justifications that were shared by almost all of his senior officers and many civilians. The first was that under the rule of President Allende the country had become ungovernable. The second was that Allende’s Chile might swing even further to the left to become a Cuban-style dictatorship of the proletariat. By 1990, when Pinochet stood down after an unsuccessful referendum to legitimate himself, the danger to conservative Chile had passed. The country was uneasy but stable, and the possibility of a second Cuba remote. The victory of the right had come at a heavy cost