September 23, 1973. Chile has just fallen into dictatorship, twelve days earlier, following a coup fomented by the army led by General Augusto Pinochet. Salvador Allende, the socialist president, democratically elected in 1970, committed suicide within the presidential palace itself, bombarded by the army. On the radio, this other information resounds: the poet Pablo Neruda is dead, at the age of 69. The official reason? The prostate cancer from which he suffered ended up winning. But upon hearing the news, his family jumps: “My mother immediately said to me: ‘Your uncle has been murdered!’ », remembers Rodolfo Reyes, 73 years old today, and nephew of the poet, Ricardo Eliécer Neftali Reyes Basoalto of his birth name.
Years of fear followed, marked by the impossibility of formulating this suspicion openly, until the return of democracy in 1990. In 2011, an investigation was opened into the cause of the death of the Nobel Prize for Literature. Twelve years later, it leads to the analysis of scientific experts, unveiled by the lawyers of the family of Pablo Neruda, Monday February 13: Clostridium botulinum, a bacterium at the origin of a deadly toxin was found in the bone remains of Pablo Neruda.
According to the lawyers of family members – among whom, Rodolfo Reyes – this leaves no room for doubt: Pablo Neruda was poisoned. The bacterium “was administered and circulated through his bloodstream. It’s a biological weapon.”, says Rodolfo Reyes. Nevertheless, two members of the expert panel take the side of caution. Clostridium botulinum bacteria “was present at the time of his death but we still don’t know why. We just know she shouldn’t be there.”Hendrik and Debi Poinar of Canada’s McMaster University told Agence France-Presse on Thursday, February 16.
Died after an “injection in the belly”
Already in 2017, a group of experts ruled out death by “cancer cachexia” namely an aggravation of the cancer, as stipulated on the death certificate. However, these experts could not confirm or deny the theory of poisoning. This is notably worn by the poet’s former driver, Manuel Araya. Interviewed by Associated Press in February, he assured that Pablo Neruda died after “an injection in the belly” at the Santa Maria clinic where he was hospitalized in Santiago. A version obtained from a nurse, according to Manuel Araya.
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