Published at 1:12 am. Updated at 6:00 am.
Surname : Pablo Neruda
Age : He was 69 years old at the time of his death on September 23, 1973
Function: National poet, member of the Communist Party, world heritage author
Keywords : Coup, poisoning, bacteria, investigation
NEW YORK TIMES PHOTO ARCHIVE
Pablo Neruda, in New York, 1966
Why are we talking about this?
Pablo Neruda turns over in his grave once again. On February 20, the investigation into the poet's suspicious death was reopened at the request of his nephew and the Chilean Communist Party, to which he belonged. This appeal decision overturns the order terminating the case announced last December after a ten-year investigation.
Cancer or murder?
Pablo Neruda, Nobel Prize winner for literature in 1971, died on September 23, 1973, barely 12 days after General Pinochet's coup against socialist President Salvador Allende, a great friend of the poet. For 40 years it was believed that Neruda died of prostate cancer. But this official version was cast into doubt in 2011 after his driver revealed that Neruda had died of poisoning as a result of a stomach injection given to him in hospital a few hours before his planned exile in Mexico.
A series of investigations
In 2013, Neruda's body was exhumed to determine the exact causes of death. International experts in genomics and legal investigations are immediately called in to investigate to determine the true causes of his death. These include the Canadian team of Hendrik and Debi Poinar, ancient DNA specialists affiliated with McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario.
Look for the bacteria…
Debi and Hendrik Poinar were tasked with analyzing Neruda's remains (in this case a molar) to detect traces of the bacterium Clostridium botulinum, which can produce one of the world's deadliest toxins: botulinum toxin. After years of research, scientists were able to confirm that the bacteria were indeed in the poet's body at the time of his death. “Yes, absolutely, it was definitely there,” confirms Debi Poinar, contacted by La Presse.
Partial data
Can we conclude that said bacteria actually poisoned the poet, as his driver claimed? Negative, captain. Although Debi and Hendrik Poinar discovered traces of the suspect bacterium, they cannot be 100% sure that it produced the deadly toxins, as they were only able to reproduce a third of its genome and only discovered the gene that produces the toxin, not the toxin itself. It is also difficult to clarify whether he was actually vaccinated with the bacteria. In short, the data is incomplete. “Of course our scientific work cannot extrapolate,” emphasizes Ms. Poinar. I don't know how these bacteria got into his body. All we can say is that she was there. However, this is only part of the evidence and does not tell the whole story. »
Go further
Debi Poinar doesn't know if they will be asked to continue the search. She believes it's possible to go even further by “sequencing” more DNA fragments (“reads”), which could allow them to reconstruct the other two-thirds of the genome and detect the deadly toxin rather than that gene that produces it. “It would add more weight to the case.” The decisive evidence (slam dunk), in their opinion, would be the analysis of the bodies of two other prisoners who were poisoned by botulism six years later. “If these bodies were exhumed and the same strain of bacteria was found, then I could say with certainty that Neruda was poisoned. But it is up to the Human Rights Court to consider whether they want to go in that direction. »
And the death certificate?
Reopening the file should also make it possible to reactivate the death certificate trail, which was “not managed properly,” said the expert. The official document states that Pablo Neruda died of cachexia, a loss of strength caused by cancer. However, this theory is not credible, says Debi Poinar. “Cachexia involves weight loss,” she says. But Neruda was strong when he died. He was overweight. He was not yet at a stage of his illness where he had lost weight. » Many mysteries remain surrounding Room 406, where Neruda breathed his last, including a mysterious doctor who has never been officially identified.
Important to know
As Chile tries to make peace with the trauma of dictatorship, the investigation into the death of Pablo Neruda holds promise. Confirmation of his poisoning would not change the current political situation, but it would serve as a symbol, believes José del Pozo, professor at UQAM's history department. “I don’t think it’s intransigence to insist on finding out the truth,” he concludes. It is important for the poet's family. And I can also imagine it for all people who are affected by such an event. We must remember that there are still hundreds of cases of missing people in Chile whose fate has never been determined. Even here in Montreal there are family members of the Chileans who were killed during this time and we don't know who killed them, how or exactly when. All of these people can feel this thing as their own. »