Status: 02/15/2023 8:32 pm
Poet, politician, revolutionary – Pablo Neruda died almost 50 years ago. His mysterious death is still a mystery to this day. New lab tests should now provide information.
By Natalia Laube and Anne Herrberg, ARD Studio Rio de Janeiro
Pablo Neruda spent his last days on Isla Negra, at his home on a wild beach south of Santiago de Chile. From the bed he could see the sea, saw the sun rise and set, and the incessant crash of the waves.
“He said that Chile was the light at the bottom of a sleeping South America”, Volodia Teitelboim once recalled. The poet and communist, who died in 2008, was a close friend of the Chilean poet and Nobel laureate, who actively supported Salvador Allende’s socialist government.
Neruda dies twelve days after Pinochet’s coup
While the rest of Latin America was ruled by dictatorship, oppression and cruelty, Chile was an exception in Allende’s time. But on September 11, 1973, the military staged a coup, General Augusto Pinochet took power, and Allende took his own life.
Neruda planned to go into exile in Mexico. But shortly before leaving the country, just twelve days after the coup, the poet died at the age of 69. The official cause of death: a drastic loss of weight, the weakening of the body due to the poet’s cancer.
Rodolfo Reyes, lawyer and nephew of Pablo Neruda and Elizabeth Flores, lawyer on the case. Neruda’s nephew says they had lunch together shortly before he died. Image: EPA
“My uncle was fine a little while before”
Did the coup rob him of all his illusions, did his disgust with the Pinochet regime accelerate the poet’s decline? “That didn’t make sense,” says Rodolfo Reyes, Neruda’s nephew, today. At first they had to accept the official autopsy, also due to the circumstances of the time, but there were doubts from the beginning. “My uncle was fine, we had lunch with him a little while ago in Isla Negra. He was tired, yes, he had cancer, but he didn’t die from it,” Reyes told news agencies on Monday.
Neruda’s driver, Manuel Araya, claimed in 2011 that the world-famous poet was killed by lethal injection while driving to a hospital. In 2013, a judge ordered that the body be exhumed and examined.
Forensic scientists found evidence of poisoning
At the time, no traces of violence were found. But the poet’s family insisted and asked an international forensic team to re-examine the bones. The team has already delivered its report to the judge in charge without commenting on the content. The court also stated that the report would first be reviewed and commented on at a later date.
Experts explained as early as 2015: The official description of the cause of death was not defensible, instead there were hints of possible bacterial poisoning.
Tests in Danish and Canadian laboratories have already confirmed this, explained Reyes, who is also following the case as a lawyer. A toxin that leads to paralysis of the nervous system and death has been identified. On Monday, Reyes voiced a long-standing suspicion: There were outside influences. In plain language he says: It was murder.
How Pablo Neruda died nearly 50 years ago is controversial. Now, the report of an international panel of experts should bring clarity. Image: dpa
Neruda was considered an icon of the Latin American left
“There’s a lot to be said for that, especially when you look at who Pablo Neruda was.” In 1971, he won the Nobel Prize for Literature. Neruda, who had also worked as a diplomat and was always involved politically, was one of the icons of the Latin American left, alongside Salvador Allende and singer Victor Jara – and therefore a mortal enemy of the military. “A Pablo Neruda in exile would have had the opportunity to unite all forces against the dictatorship like no other.”
criticism from feminist groups
The results are likely to reignite discussions about Pablo Neruda nearly 50 years after his death. The poet, who was also an ardent supporter of Stalin throughout his career, became known internationally mainly for his love poems.
In recent years, however, feminist groups have denounced the fact that Neruda committed a rape in the 1930s, which he admitted to in a book. There are also criticisms of Neruda because he would have distanced himself from his only daughter, Malva Marina, apparently because of an illness she had since birth.
Poisoned? How did Pablo Neruda really die?
Anne Herrberg, ARD Rio de Janeiro, February 15, 2023 at 12:48 pm