The victory of the far right José Antonio Kast is an outrage to the memory of Víctor Jara. In Augusto Pinochet’s 1988 plebiscite, Kast voted yes, arguing that the general had not used force to overthrow a legitimate government, but to save Chile from communism. At that time he was only twenty-two years old and his father Michael, originally from Bavaria, had been active in the National Socialist German Workers’ Party and had acquired the rank of officer in the Wehrmacht for his participation in the occupation of Paris and the invasion of the Soviet Union.
Like war criminals Ante Pavelić, Adolf Eichmann and Josef Mengele, Michael managed to flee to Argentina and, later, Chile, taking the “rat route” created by the Vatican so that Nazis and fascists could leave Europe and not face Allied justice. His son Miguel, originally from Oberstaufen, was minister of state and president of the Central Bank under the Pinochet dictatorship. Trained at the University of Chicago, he applied the ideas of Milton Friedman and Arnold Harberger, ordering a wave of privatizations and mass layoffs of public officials. In the long term, his measures caused a drop in GDP of 13.6% (the highest in Chilean history since the 1929 crisis), an unemployment rate of 20% and the bankruptcy of a large number of banks and financial institutions.
It is no wonder that with this family background, José Antonio Kast declared in 2017 that if Pinochet were alive, he would vote for him. In 2021, Kast declared himself in favor of closing the National Institute of Human Rights (INDH), Chile’s withdrawal from the UN Human Rights Council and the abolition of the Ministry of Women. Although during his presidential campaign he focused on migration control, security and economic growth, there is no indication that his values agenda has changed. He has never hidden his opposition to abortion in all circumstances and his contempt for the LGTBIQ+ group.
President Gabriel Boric failed in his constitutional reform plan and failed to convince Congress to approve a tax increase to improve social services, but he created a fairer and more supportive pension system, adopted measures to reduce surgical waiting lists, introduced zero co-payments in the public health system for low-income people, achieved moderate GDP growth, and kept the unemployment rate at 8.4 percent. In addition, he made important symbolic gestures, such as paying homage to the statue of Salvador Allende located outside the La Moneda Palace, asking Parliament for constitutional recognition of the country’s indigenous peoples, affirming that Chile would win in peace and unity, or expressing the desire to see Netanyahu and those responsible for the Gaza genocide sit on the bench of the International Criminal Court.
However, Boric’s government has not changed the social landscape. Chile remains one of the most unequal countries in the OECD. The richest 10% accumulate 60% of total wealth, while the poorest 50% only benefit from 8.2%. Poverty affects 27% of people, meaning they suffer from serious deficiencies in health, education and housing. The groups most affected are minors, the elderly, the disabled, women and migrants. Macroeconomic progress has not reduced structural inequalities. It is inevitable to think of Spain, where good economic data coexists with low wages, the housing problem and a pocket of twelve million people at risk of poverty or social exclusion. It is particularly devastating that Spain has had one of the highest rates of child poverty in the EU for decades, with one million children affected by extreme poverty.
Salvador Allende was much more radical than Boric, because he knew that the fight against inequality required drastic measures. So he nationalized large-scale copper mining, launched ambitious land reform, froze commodity prices, and raised wages for all workers. American companies Anaconda and Kennecott were among the biggest losers, as they received no financial compensation. This decision was justified by the accumulation of abusive advantages thanks to very low tax rates.
The response of President Richard Nixon and his Secretary of State, Henry Kissinger, was to organize a boycott against the Allende government by refusing foreign credit. Strangled by these retaliations and by the issuance of currency to increase wages and grant subsidies, the Chilean economy suffered from exorbitant inflation and a crisis of shortage. Financed by the CIA, the opposition press (Mercury, The Second, The Thirdthe last News, The Santiago Press, In the afternoon and Tribuna) relentlessly attacked the Allende government. The shortage of basic goods and the rise of the black market sparked social unrest. The truckers’ strike further aggravated the crisis. Attacks by the Organized Popular Vanguard and the Left Revolutionary Movement, two organizations that practiced armed struggle because they considered the democratic path to socialism impractical, only added more tension.
Finally, on September 11, 1973, the army revolted under the leadership of General Pinochet and, after suffering an incursion by Hawker Hunter fighter-bombers, Allende died at the Palacio de la Moneda. In his last speech on Radio Magallanes, the president declared: “Workers of my country, I have confidence in Chile and in its destiny. (…) Continue to know that, as soon as possible, they will once again open the great paths through which the free man passes, to build a better society.”
Singer-songwriter Víctor Jara was one of the victims of the ferocious repression unleashed by Pinochet, a monstrous operation that left 3,126 people missing and around 10,000 people tortured. With a symbolic value similar to that of Federico García Lorca in Spain, Jara suffered real torments at the Chile Stadium. Brutally mistreated by the young lieutenant Edwin Dimter Bianchi, nicknamed The Prince, and by other acolytes of the same ilk, he suffered multiple fractures and burns. The executioners were cruel with their hands for what they represented: a free song, a tool to protest against injustice. Before dying, he still had time to write with the help of his fellow prisoners: “I sing how bad you are / When I have to sing the horror / Scary like the one I live / Scary like the one I die.” The body of Víctor Jara was dumped near the Metropolitan Cemetery with forty-four bullet holes.
Today, more than seven million Chileans have entrusted the presidency to a Pinochet admirer. Obviously, not everyone sympathizes with the dictator. Many are moved only by disappointment and despair. Governments change, but inequality persists, and Kast, like other far-right leaders, has used illegal immigration and its supposed link to insecurity to mobilize voters. Despite everything, I think many remember you, Víctor Jara. You will always be a symbol of this desire for justice and fraternity which ignites the hope of the humiliated and the forgotten. Today may not be the moment that tomorrow could be, but hope is not based on facts, but on beautiful, foolish and inalienable dreams.
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