Estadio Chile
Words by Victor Jara (1973)
Musical Setting by Pete Seeger (1974)
© 1975 Mighty Oak Music, Ltd., London, England
(spoken poem with guitar accompaniment)

We are five thousand, here in this little part of the city.
We are five thousand, how many more will there be?
In the whole city, and the country ten thousand hands
Which could seed the fields, make run the factories.
How much humanity, now with hunger, pain, panic, and terror?

There are six of us, lost in space among the stars,
One dead, one beaten like I never believed a human could be so beaten.
The other four wanting to leave all the terror,
One leaping into space, others beating their heads against the wall
All with gazes fixed on death.

The military carry out their plans with precision;
Blood is medals for them, Slaughter is the badge of heroism.
Oh, my God, is this the world you created?
Was it for this, the seven days, of amazement and toil?

The blood of compañero Presidente is stronger than bombs,
Is stronger than machine guns.
O you song, you come out so badly when I must sing - the terror!
What I see I never saw. What I have felt, and what I feel, must come out!
"Hará brotar el momento! Hará brotar el momento!"*
(*the moment will bloom.)


Somos cinco mil
en esta pequeña parte de la ciudad.
Somos cinco mil
¿Cuántos seremos en total
en las ciudades y en todo el país?
Solo aquí,
diez mil manos que siembran
y hacen andar las fábricas.
¡Cuánta humanidad
con hambre, frío, pánico, dolor,
presión moral, terror y locura!

Seis de los nuestros se perdieron
en el espacio de las estrellas.
Un muerto, un golpeado como jamás creí
se podría golpear a un ser humano.
Los otros cuatro quisieron quitarse todos los
temores uno saltando al vacío,
otro golpeándose la cabeza contra el muro,
pero todos con la mirada fija de la muerte.

¡Qué espanto causa el rostro del fascismo!
Llevan a cabo sus planes con precisíon artera
sin emportarles nada.
La sangre para ellos son medallas.
La matanza es acto de heroísmo.
¿Es este el mundo que creaste, dios mío?
¿Para esto tus siete días de asombro y de trabajo?
En estas cuatro murallas sólo existe un
número que no progresa,
que lentamente querrá más la muerte.

Pero de pronto me golpea la conciencia
y veo esta marea sin latido,
pero con el pulso de las máquinas
y los militares mostrando su rostro de matrona
lleno de dulzura.

¿Y México, Cuba y el mundo?
¡Que griten esta ignominia!
Somos diez mil manos menos
que no producen.
¿Cuántos somos en toda la Patria?

La sangre del compañero Presidente
golpea más fuerte que bombas y metrallas.
Así golpeará nuestro puño nuevamente.

¡Canto que mal me sales
cuando tengo que cantar espanto!
Espanto como el que vivo
como el que muero, espanto.
De verme entre tanto y tantos
momentos del infinito
en que el silencio y el grito
son las metas de este canto.
Lo que veo nunca vi,
lo que he sentido y lo que siento
¡Hará brotar el momento! ¡Hará brotar el momento!

Source: Where Have All the Flowers Gone?, by Pete Seeger.
Seeger says the this is an abridged English translation of the last poem written by Victor Jara, killed by Chilean fascists in September, 1973, on the day when General Pinochet took over the government of Chile, bombing the presidential palace of elected socialist Salvador Allende, and murdering him.

Victor was singing for students at the university when the whole area was surrounded. All within were taken prisoner and marched to a large indoor soccer stadium, Estadio Chile. For three days, it was a scene of horror. Torture, executions.

An officer thought he recognized Victor, pointed at him with a questioning look and motioning as if strumming a guitar. Victor nodded. He was seized, taken to the center of the stadium and told to put his hands on a table. While his friends watched in horror, rifle butts beat his hands to a bloody pulp.

"All right, sing for us now, you ___," shouted the officer. Victor staggered to his feet, faced the stands, and said,
"Compañeros, let’s sing for el commandante."

Waving his bloody stumps, he led them in the anthem of Salvador Allende’s Popular Unity Party. Other prisoners hesitantly joined in.
RAT-TAT-TAT-TAT.
The guards sprayed him and the stands with machine guns.

This last poem of Jara’s was smuggled out of Chile, in several different versions. This translation was given to Seeger by a woman at a Chicago concert in 1974. A few minutes later, Seeger stuck the words on a mike stand and improvised a guitar accompaniment as he recited them.

Estadio Chile by Pete Seeger