The Court of Appeal of Santiago de Chile decided on Monday February 19 to reopen the investigation into the death of Pablo Neruda. The Chilean poet died in September 1973 in unclear circumstances, just 12 days after the coup that overthrew his friend, the socialist president Salvador Allende. Thousands of opponents were killed and tens of thousands tortured under the dictatorship of General Augusto Pinochet (1973-1990).
For around ten years, the question of whether or not the 1971 Nobel Prize for Literature was part of this dark assessment has been debated in Chilean society. The investigation, opened in 2011 after the complaint from the Communist Party – of which Pablo Neruda was a member – has so far not made it possible to reach a conclusion. In her investigative book “Room 406, the Pablo Neruda affair” (Editions de l’Atelier), independent journalist Laurie Fachaux-Cygan recounts the last days of Pablo Neruda and returns to the testimonies and expertise – sometimes contradictory – which inform this fascinating affair. Interview.
Under what circumstances did Pablo Neruda die in September 1973?
Pablo Neruda died on Sunday September 23, 1973 in a private clinic in Santiago, Chile. He died 12 days after Pinochet’s coup. Neruda was a prominent member of the Communist Party, as he was also a candidate for a few months in the presidential election in 1969, before withdrawing his candidacy and joining the candidacy of the socialist Salvador Allende. The Communist Party was quickly banned by the military junta, its members arrested, taken to stadiums where they were tortured, sometimes murdered. This was, for example, the case of singer Victor Jara.
What we know for sure is that on the day of the coup, Pablo Neruda was at home, in his house on Isla Negra, 120 kilometers northwest of the capital. A few days later, his house was searched by the military, who suspected that there were communists hiding in his home. Pablo Neruda had planned to leave the country with his wife. The president of Mexico at the time had offered to welcome him, everything was ready. But on Wednesday, September 19, he went to the Santa Maria clinic in Santiago. What is very difficult in reconstructing the facts is that the versions differ to explain this: Pablo Neruda’s former driver, Manuel Araya (Editor’s note, died in June 2023), always said that Pablo Neruda felt good and that he had gone to the clinic for his safety. Other people like Matilde Urrutia (Editor’s note, his third and last wife, died in 1985) recall in her autobiography that Pablo Neruda had fragile health – he had prostate cancer.
What do we know about Pablo Neruda’s last days in this clinic?
It was a very famous clinic at the time, and it still is today. In both versions, that of Matilde Urrutia and that of Manuel Araya, both went to Isla Negra to look for books at the request of Pablo Neruda. But not on the same day. Matilde says that on September 22, her husband called the hotel next to the house – they did not have a telephone – to tell her that he was feeling ill. She says that she returned very quickly to the clinic, passing all the army checkpoints with Manuela Araya, that she climbed the four floors alone to room 406 and that Pablo Neruda was very agitated at the time. Friends had told her what was happening in the country – everything she had tried hard to hide from him – the torture, the murder of opponents whose bodies had been thrown into the Mapocho River. A nurse injected a sedative into Pablo Neruda, who fell asleep. According to Matilde Urrutia, he never woke up.
Manuel Araya’s version differs…
Yes. Here too, we have the story of the phone call, where Pablo Neruda said he did not feel well. But the call would have taken place on Sunday and, something that Manuel Araya was always the only one to say, Pablo Neruda would have said on the phone: “I feel bad, I have just been given an injection, it burns me all over. ‘interior.’ Manuel Araya said he returned to the clinic with Matilde, went up to the room to join Matilde and Pablo. He explains that Pablo Neruda felt bad, had a fever… He says that a doctor asked him to go get a medicine that the clinic did not have. At first he opposes it, tells the doctor that the clinic is very expensive and they should provide the medicine themselves, but as the doctor insists and Manuel Araya is very dedicated, whom he loved very much Pablo Neruda, he’s going. The doctor would have told him exactly which pharmacy to go to. On the way, he was arrested by the police and then tortured at the National Stadium, where he remained for around thirty days.
Already, at the time of Pablo Neruda’s death, were there doubts, accusations of a murder sponsored by the dictatorship?
Manuel Araya never doubted it. But the context at the time was difficult: after the coup, almost all media were censored, except two right-wing newspapers – La Tercera And El Mercurio, which still exist today – there was no freedom of speech. Manuel Araya says that he very quickly saw Matilde Urrutia again and told her “but Matilde, I am sure that Pablo was murdered, we have to say it”. He reported Matilde’s reluctance to make these accusations. Was this the context of the dictatorship? Pablo Neruda’s house in Santiago was completely ransacked after the coup. Matilde Urrutia was trying to watch over Pablo Neruda’s property. That said, for my book I found an interview with her with Spanish television in 1976, and it’s still very surprising when we watch it today, because she explains to the presenter that she is very surprised that her husband is dead, because she says a doctor told her that Pablo Neruda could live another six years.
And what did Chilean society think at the time?
Pablo Neruda was 69 years old, he had cancer. Among the people I interviewed for this book, there were some who said: “I don’t see why he would have died of anything other than his cancer, he was very ill.” And there are those who doubt: “He was not at the point of death either…”
Why did the debate around a possible assassination only arise in the 2010s?
During the dictatorship, it was complicated to talk about it. In the archives of foreign newspapers that I was able to find, there is not much doubt: Pablo Neruda died of natural causes. He was 69 years old and had cancer.
In 2004, Manuel Araya gave his first interview to a local newspaper, explaining his version of the facts. There was no echo. Manuel Araya often told me: “I’m not a rich man. I’m just a driver and no one takes me seriously.” And then after the dictatorship, you should know that the path towards post-dictatorship justice was very difficult in Chile: the first complaint for torture was only filed in 2004.
But Manuel Araya was a persevering man. In 2011 he gave another interview to the Mexican newspaper Process and that’s where the Communist Party took over.
Why has this file been open for so long?
The investigation was opened in 2011 and the exhumation of the body took place in 2013. Since then, four panels of experts have followed one another. The first, made up mainly of toxicology experts from Chile – where there really isn’t any cutting-edge technology – concluded that it was likely that Neruda actually died of his prostate cancer. Following which, the family, the nephew of Pablo Neruda in particular, said: “He died with prostate cancer, we know that, but did he die of his prostate cancer?
The judge at the time decided to go further in the investigation by asking the question of whether, by studying the DNA, other substances could be found in the body of Pablo Neruda. From 2013, remains were sent abroad: to Spain, the United States, Denmark, Canada… In 2017, after the analysis of the remains, the third panel of experts from several countries was formal by saying: “Pablo Neruda could not have died of his cancer.”
The same year, a Canadian laboratory found in a molar the remains of Clostridium botulinum, a bacteria which can produce, depending on its environment, the most toxic toxin in the world, botulinum toxin.
Does this conclusion support the hypothesis of assassination by injection, as Manuel Araya maintained?
This bacteria can be inhaled, injected, but also put in food. Many questions remain unanswered: how did this bacteria enter Neruda’s body? Did it produce botulinum toxin? We have not yet found the genes for this toxin.
If the investigation lasts so long, it is also because it is so scientifically complex. The world’s best forensic scientists are immersed in the Neruda case.
However, the investigation was closed last year…
On September 25, the judge considered that all investigations had been carried out and decided to close the investigation. The parties who wished to do so had 15 days to oppose this decision, which they – Neruda’s family and the Communist Party – did. The judge made a new decision on December 7, in which she considered that everything had been done and closed the investigation again. But the parties fought and opposed each other once again. In mid-February, notably after the pleadings of a Communist Party lawyer, the three judges unanimously decided to reopen the case.
What will happen now?
The investigation continues, and the Santiago Court of Appeal has requested several things: for example, that a new handwriting expertise be carried out on the death certificate. There will also be new interpretations of the results of scientific analyzes carried out in Canada and Denmark. And other people will be invited to testify.
Do you think the truth can be found out about a case that is already more than 50 years old?
Many witnesses have died. And even during their lifetime, Neruda’s relatives did not have the same testimonies. So I think it will be very difficult. The investigation today consists of 17 volumes and 7,000 pages. These are a lot of elements, but at the same time, there are still a lot of questions. It seems crazy not to know who the doctor on call was at the time, but you have to remember that nothing was digitized. That there was no camera. We don’t know who entered the clinic, we can’t know who left. Some nurses are still alive, others are no longer. In any case, there will be a verdict one day, perhaps even several, if there is an appeal…
Do you have your own conviction on this matter?
I really wanted to write a journalistic book, in which I don’t take sides. I call on the U.S. government to declassify all documents related to the 1973 Chilean coup, because elements of the truth may potentially be found in these documents. I also call on the German and Chilean governments to do the same.
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