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CHILE STADIUM
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(Arturo Godoy 2750, Estación Central)
On the morning of September 12, 1973, the Chile Stadium began to be used as a detention center, also under the control of the Army. The first prisoners to arrive there were the approximately 600 people arrested at the Universidad Técnica del Estado (UTE), followed by numerous prisoners from the so-called "industrial belts." On September 14, there was a massive prisoner transfer from the Chile Stadium to the National Stadium, which was larger and could hold more people.
As in the National Stadium, prisoners here were not allowed to interact with people outside the stadium and were subjected to a rigorous disciplinary regime. The prisoners were segregated according to the degree of political importance the military regime assigned them. Many of the interrogations were conducted by Army Intelligence Service operatives.
Testimony from people who were detained in Chile Stadium coincide in that the lights were permanently on and mealtimes were deliberately irregular, causing a loss of a sense of time in the prisoners.
Some Chile Stadium prisoners were taken out of the center and subsequently executed and their bodies abandoned on nearby roadsides. This is the case, for example, with National Prison Director Littre Quiroga Carvajal. Singer Victor Jara was arrested and brought to Chile Stadium on the day of the coup. He had been arrested along with Osiel Núñez at the Universidad Técnica.
Victor Jara's dead body was found on September 16.
Osiel Núñez grimly describes his stay at the Chile Stadium:
"The Chile Stadium was no joke. We saw them kill people right in front of us, we saw how people went crazy from that terrible, tense situation. Torture is not only when the torturers are in front of you, abusing you directly, destroying you, but that atmosphere was also torture."
("Chile. La Memoria Prohibida")
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