02/16/2023
After 50 years, the doubts about the death of the great Chilean poet would be on the way to clarification thanks to the investigations of two laboratories in Canada and Denmark.
In September 1973, Neftalí Reyes, known to the world as Pablo Neruda, entered the Santa María Clinic in Santiago de Chile, where he was hospitalized. At that time, a military dictatorship began in the South American country that was to last 17 years. In the midst of this dark passage in Chilean history, the famous poet died under strange circumstances. The medical report said his death was due to prostate cancer, which he had been suffering from since 1969, but oddly enough, his death occurred on September 23, the day before he went into exile in Mexico.
Assumptions about the cause of Neruda’s death (Nobel Prize in Literature 1971) were always present, because a figure like him would have been an annoying voice for the Pinochet regime. However, things remained in the dark for years until the Chilean Communist Party filed a complaint in 2011 to investigate what happened after the poet’s driver assured him that Neruda had been murdered.
The report notes the presence of Clostridium botulinum
In 2013, Pablo Neruda’s body was exhumed to examine his bones. On that occasion, no relevant chemical agents were found, but in 2017 a second analysis was carried out by 16 experts from different countries and disciplines, proving the presence of Clostridium botulinum, a bacterium considered to be a biological weapon when it hits a human is applied.
Rodolfo Reyes, the poet’s nephew and plaintiff’s lawyer in the case, who is tasked with clarifying the truth about Neruda’s death, tells DW: “In 2017, a large amount of Clostridium botulinum was found in the bones, particularly in an intact molar, which also attested that Neruda had cancer, but that it wasn’t cancer that took his life.
As a result of the discovery of this agent, a new study was commissioned “to determine whether the bacterium was part of an exogenous or endogenous contamination.” The report was released January 28 this year by the laboratories of McMaster Universities, Canada, and Copenhagen submitted , from Denmark, concluded that the bacteria did not enter the corpse from the outside, but that he already had them before he died, they were in his body, which is categorical to us and confirms that Neruda murdered said Rodolfo Reyes. However, the investigation is still ongoing.
The verdict is still awaited
For attorney Elizabeth Flores, complainant and family representative, “that struggle started and has always been trying to find out the truth about what happened to Pablo Neruda. There’s a family issue here, but regardless, this death is that of a Nobel laureate. , a former ambassador, a former senator, presidential candidate, a man who combined culture and critical and political thinking around him.”
“If we decide to disclose the contents of the report, which all other lawyers also have in their hands, it is because, unfortunately, there is a certain intention in Chile not to disclose it. We have now reported verbatim what the report says. “The story has to take over the content,” the lawyer told DW.
Yesterday, February 15, the last expert review of the reports of foreign laboratories was made. Judge Paola Plaza must now render her verdict on whether or not Neruda was murdered. Upon receiving the final paperwork, the judge told the press: “This is only in the investigative phase which has been open for twelve years and is subject to the strictest secrecy.
first reactions
In the world of culture, Roberto Ippolito, author of “Delito Neruda”, has celebrated the preliminary result of the report, considering that the truth about his death was “a guilt” pending on the famous poet and that the extent “It witnessed the crimes of the dictatorship” by Pinochet, as he told the Argentine newspaper Página 12. While, according to the Chilean newspaper La Tercera, the writer Jorge Edwards was surprised by the scientific revelations about his friend’s death.
On the other hand, there seems to be silence in the political world about the conclusions of the latest analysis of Neruda’s bones. But for his nephew Rodolfo Reyes, “now the science has spoken. The labs determined that Neruda was injected with the bacterium Clostridium botulinum, now the logical conclusion is that it killed him. It is a great pity that they murdered this man who left a huge legacy. With his work, at least I know that the power of his verses will never fail”.
“I’ve been born from scratch many times
of vanquished stars, rebuilding the thread
of eternities that I peopled with my hands
And now I’m going to die with nothing else, with dirt
on my body destined to be earth”. (…).
(“Death”, Pablo Neruda)
(c.p.)