Paper short abstract:

This paper investigates forced and voluntary musical activities in a number of detention and torture centres during the Pinochet regime. It does so through the testimony of an ex-agent of Pinochet's secret police.

Paper long abstract:

On seizing power on 11 September 1973, General Augusto Pinochet established over a thousand detention centres, from the Atacama Desert to the Magellan Strait. Tens of thousands of political prisoners were held in these centres, without recourse to fair trials and lacking elementary judicial guarantees. Most inmates were subjected to serious abuse through physical and psychological torture; many were killed, their bodies "disappeared". Despite the regime of terror, precarious living conditions and censorship, detainees developed diverse musical activities on their own initiative, including composition, performance and teaching. Pinochet's system also used music to indoctrinate inmates and as a form of, and soundtrack to, torture. Evidence of the above is fragmented and little known, and has been largely overlooked by critics. This paper investigates the musical landscape of detention and torture centres through the testimony of an ex-agent of the Dirección Nacional de Inteligencia (DINA, Pinochet's secret police), who I interviewed recently. The paper discusses practices of compulsory and voluntary musical activities in centres in Santiago and provinces, including Villa Grimaldi, Londres 38, Chacabuco, Tejas Verdes, Irán 3037 (aka La Discothéque) and José Domingo Cañas 1305. To present day, this is the most detailed account specifically dealing with forced musical activities in captivity during the Pinochet regime and also the only one coming from a Chilean ex-agent.