KARACHI: The body of Nobel Prize winning poet Pablo Neruda, has been exhumed for forensic examination following fresh claims that instead of dying of cancer, the artist was actually poisoned.
The Communist poet was a staunch supporter and close friend of former Chilean President Salvador Allende, who committed suicide when military ruler General Augusto Pinochet took over. 12 days after the coup, at the age of 69, Neruda died allegedly of prostate cancer, although his wife Matilde Urrutia denied he ever had the disease.
His body, buried in the garden of their home on Chile's Pacific coast in Isla Negra, lay beside that of his wife until yesterday, when it was dug out on the orders of Chilean authorities after they heard what the poet’s former driver had to say.
Manuel Araya, Neruda’s driver and personal assistant, had been in exile for decades. Two years ago, he reportedly claimed Neruda had called him from a hospital, and told him he was feeling ill after having been injected in the stomach by a suspicious doctor. The Chilean Communist Party too supports these statements, and maintains that he did not show any symptoms of prostate cancer.
Historian Fernando Marin reports that Neruda planned to fly to Mexico after Allende died, so that he could join the party opposing Pinochet’s military rule. In fact, the historian is sure that there was a plane waiting for the Chilean poet at the Pudahuel airport on the day of his death.
Notably, Neruda’s postmortem has been rendered difficult by the 40-year delay, and by the fact that there allegedly appears to be a scarcity of medical records at the hospital where he was diagnosed. The latter is quite suspicious, considering how the poet was revered in Chile, especially for his collection: “Twenty Love Poems And A Song of Despair.”
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