Cantos Cautivos
Testimonies
Testimonies are sorted by witness.
Edgardo Carabantes Olivares:
- Music piece by:Luis H. Profili
- Experience in:
- Tags:
- « Horacio Carabantes Olivares, my brother, was locked up in January 1975 at the Maipo regiment of Valparaíso, with a large group of male and female prisoners, all arrested by the DINA. »
- [Read full testimony]
Eduardo Andrés Arancibia Ortiz:
- Music piece by:Silvio Rodríguez
- Experience in:Cárcel de Santiago, 1990
- Tags:
- « This was one of the songs
Silvio Rodríguez sang to us the day he visited the political prisoners in Santiago’s Public Jail in 1990. »- [Read full testimony]
- Music piece by:Los Prisioneros
- Experience in:Cárcel de Santiago, 1986
- Tags:
- « I learnt about Los Prisioneros through the 'Hecho en Chile' programme on Radio Galaxia, presented by
Sergio 'Pirincho' Cárcamo . Their music became our trench and musical poetry, like all other forms of struggles against dictatorship. »- [Read full testimony]
Eduardo Ojeda:
- Music piece by:Eusebio Lillo and Ramón Carnicer
- Experience in:Campamento de Prisioneros Isla Dawson, September 1973
- Tags:
- « We arrived at Dawson Island on the afternoon of
11 September . All we knew was that we had been arrested in the morning - nothing else. »- [Read full testimony]
- Music piece by:Djordje Marinkovic. Chilean adaptation of traditional Serbian song, originally composed in 1916.
- Experience in:
- Tags:
- « At Compingin Camp on the island, Mario started telling us about the Spanish lyrics of the Yugoslav song 'Tamo daleko'. The song was not Croatian: it was Serbian. »
- [Read full testimony]
- Music piece by:Clan 91
- Experience in:
- Tags:
- « We had a comrade who sang beautifully. He was called Peye and was a student at the State Technical University. »
- [Read full testimony]
- Music piece by:Manuel José Castilla (lyrics) and Gustavo Leguizamón (music). Popularised by Mercedes Sosa
- Experience in:
- Tags:
- « We arrived at Camp Compingin on Dawson Island on the afternoon of
11 September . We knew that we had been arrested that morning, and we knew nothing else yet. »- [Read full testimony]
Eduardo René Cuevas:
- Music piece by:The Turtles ('Elenore'), with new lyrics by Gianni Morandi
- Experience in:Cárcel de Los Ángeles, September 1973
- Tags:
- « This song was a workhorse for the prisoners. Iván Moscoso sang it, accompanied by a guitar, in a powerful and defiant voice, and the most altruistic among us sung along in the presence of the gendarme guards, in a courtyard that was only for political prisoners. »
- [Read full testimony]
- Music piece by:Jacqueline Misrahi, Lana Sebastian and Paul Sebastian. Popularised by Dalida in various languages: Italian ('Gigi L’amoroso'), Spanish ('Gigi el amoroso'), French ('Gigi l'amour'), English ('The Great Gigi l’amoroso'), German ('Gigi der Geliebte') and Japanese ('Ai suru Jiji').
- Experience in:Regimiento de Infantería Reforzada Nº 3, Los Ángeles (nowadays Regimiento de Infantería Nº 17), October - November 1973
- Tags:
- « This song was used while the Military Intelligence Service (SIM) subjected me to cruel torture at a clandestine torture centre in the southern Chilean city of Los Ángeles. »
- [Read full testimony]
Eliseo González:
- Music piece by:Jorge Peña Hen
- Experience in:Cárcel de la Serena, October 1973
- Tags:
- «
Jorge Peña Hen was in solitary confinement that day. I don’t know how, but someone brought him matches. With his saliva, he made ink from the phosphorus tips, which he then used to write a score of music on a scrap of paper. »- [Read full testimony]
Ernesto Parra Navarrete:
- Music piece by:Violeta Parra
- Experience in:Campamento de Prisioneros, Estadio Nacional, 9 November 1973
- Tags:
- « Run Run... On the big pitch, mild summer weather was in the air. »
- [Read full testimony]
Felipe Chiang Martínez:
- Music piece by:Violeta Parra
- Experience in:Regimiento de Infantería Motorizada Nº 23, Copiapó, October-December 1973
- Tags:
- « I was born in Vallenar, but I have lived in Copiapó practically all my life. At the age of 18, I started working in the mines and also began my political activity. »
- [Read full testimony]
Fernando Aravena:
You Will Pay (The Cigarette Smoke) (Pagarás [El humo del cigarrillo])
- Music piece by:Manuel Mantilla
- Experience in:Cárcel de Santiago, 1989
- Tags:
- « The political prisoners were isolated but when they made us go down to the courtyard, we were with the common prisoners. »
- [Read full testimony]
- Music piece by:Patricio Manns
- Experience in:Cárcel de Santiago, 1989
- Tags:
- « The political prisoners organised mateadas once or twice a week, during which we did poetry and sang songs, amongst them ‘El cautivo de Til Til’ by Patricio Manns, ‘Samba Landó’ and ‘Vuelvo’ by Inti-Illimani, ‘Valparaíso’ by Osvaldo ‘Gitano’ Rodríguez, and songs by Eduardo ‘Gato’ Alquinta and Silvio Rodríguez. »
- [Read full testimony]
- Music piece by:Patricio Manns (lyrics) and Horacio Salinas (music)
- Experience in:Cárcel de Santiago, 1989
- Tags:
- « During our mateadas in the Prison of Santiago, we always talked about the song ‘Vuelvo’ (I Come Back). It gave you the hope of returning to the fight. The prison was only something temporary. »
- [Read full testimony]
Fernando Lanfranco Leverton:
Cantata Our Great Mother (Cantata Nuestra Madre Grande) - Towards the Light (Hacia la luz)
- Music piece by:Manuel Luis Rodríguez Uribe (lyrics), Fernando Lanfranco Leverton (music), Marco Antonio Barticevic Sapunar (notation)
- Experience in:Campamento de Prisioneros Isla Dawson, December 1973; Cárcel de Punta Arenas, September 1975
- Tags:
- « Most of us, political prisoners from the Magallanes region, were transferred to the detention and torture camp on Dawson Island on 21 December 1973. We came from the more than twenty detention, torture and interrogation centres of the civil-military dictatorship in the Magallanes region. »
- [Read full testimony]
Gabriela Durand:
- Music piece by:Violeta Parra
- Experience in:
- «
- « We arrived at Camp Compingin on Dawson Island on the afternoon of
- « We arrived at Dawson Island on the afternoon of
- « I learnt about Los Prisioneros through the 'Hecho en Chile' programme on Radio Galaxia, presented by
- « This was one of the songs