Watercolour by Francisco Aedo - one of the disappeared
11 Sep 2013 A University of Manchester researcher has revealed harrowing details of how Pinochet's torturers used music to torment their victims, exactly 40 years today after the dictator came to power. Dr Katia Chornik is the first to investigate music in Pinochet's notorious torture houses, concentration camps and prisons. When Pinochet seized power on 11 September 1973, the majority of the almost 40,000 political opponents imprisoned in 1,132 detention centres ensured physical and psychological torture. According to former prisoners she spoke to, George Harrison's My Sweet Lord, the soundtrack to Kubrick's film A Clockwork Orange, Joaquin Rodrigo's Aranjuez Guitar Concerto, songs by Julio Iglesias and the protest anthem Venceremos were all among the LPs played during torture sessions at high volumes, sometimes for days at a time. One former prisoner told how her jailers would sing the Italian pop hit Gigi l'Amoroso especially for her as they were taking her to the interrogation room, and carry on whilst they were torturing her, with the recording on in the background. Another prisoner told how his tormenter's singing felt as if it normalised torture. But the prisoners too, says Dr Chornik, used music to cope with the reality of not knowing if they were going to live or die.
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