Chile Inches Left
Jones, J. Hardy
Chile Inches Left by J. HARDY JONES The Pan American Highway runs south from Santiago through the central valley of Chile, bordered by fields and vineyards heavy with summer-ripened fruits and...
...intervention against him could force him to the extreme left...
...The Christian Democrats, still the largest party in Chile, say the problems result from an exodus of both foreign and Chilean administrative and technical personnel...
...They have on several occasions refused to print items they don't like...
...The atmosphere of the capital is charged with tension...
...They consider Allende a bourgeois intellectual...
...These conditions will also influence how radical the new president will be...
...His Popular Unity coalition is composed of six parties...
...He has personally taken charge of the agrarian reform program and condemned the radicals who incite the land seizures...
...He has given constant assurances that he will absolutely respect freedom of the press...
...In the southern part of the country, near Temuco, guerrillas control the roads and incite the peasants, many of them Mapuche Indians, to seize land from private owners...
...But at approximately the same time the government television station broadcast the movie 1984, which presents a strong anti-Communist allegory...
...He plays a control game, moving toward his goal in a measured way...
...private property is no longer sacred in Chile/' Two weeks later rumors spread that copper production had fallen dramatically, and the government sent "delegate directors" to run the three largest mines...
...perhaps he can produce radical reform within a democratic framework, just as he became the first Marxist in history to achieve power through democratic means...
...land that was taken from them in fighting that ended barely 100 years ago...
...Guerrilla action on his left may force him to seek support from the left wing of the Christian Democrats, whose votes he needs to pass legislation...
...Criticism of Allende's regime has been open and, in some cases, virulent...
...Reserves had more than doubled under the Frei administration because of high international copper prices...
...The government also forced the publishers of the magazine Zig-Zag to grant a sixty-five per cent wage increase to its workers without an increase in price...
...Exports of industrial products, which tripled from 1960 to 1970, are being adversely affected by the weakening economic climate in Ch\le...
...The newspaper was charged with illegal financial manipulations and nonpayment of taxes...
...The largest are the Communist, traditional and Moscow-inclined and the more radical, Peking-oriented Socialists among whom Allende belongs...
...For some time it appeared that nationalization of the copper mines might come off with a minimum of rancor...
...They will quickly assure themselves of the power...
...The national bank attributes this to U.S...
...Yet when I was last in Santiago I saw advertisements for the Socialist and Communist parties even in El Merc?rio...
...Perhaps this eminently pragmatic politician can bring it off...
...A Marxist government sits in Santiago, headed by President Salvador Allende, sixty-two, who won election last September...
...He served in the Peace Corps in Peru and later was a staff writer for the Peruvian Times of Lima...
...The government appears to have a good case against El Merc?rio, although it gave the appearance of being selective in its pursuit of delinquency...
...He thus creates jobs, taxes, and foreign exchange...
...However fast Allende would like to move, he must proceed judiciously for the time being...
...But Allende remains in charge, restraining abrupt tactics...
...Embassy told me Allende needs to acquire greater power before he can begin to ask sacrifices of the people...
...Each edition of the newspapers proclaims a new crisis...
...While he has opened new markets for Chile's copper in Cuba and the People's Republic of China, it is uncertain that this will compensate for losses of other markets...
...What may represent a greater threat to freedom of the press in Chile than the government itself are the Communist-dominated printers unions...
...The cancellation of the anti-Stalinist film, The Confession, indicates how freedom of expression may be stifled without government intervention...
...The left wing newspapers in Santiago accuse the copper companies of sabotaging operations in hopes of ruining Allende...
...But the young radicals feel cheated that Marxism's arrival was not consecrated in blood...
...But copper prices have recently fallen by nearly fifty per cent, and reserves have declined by $50 million since Allende took office...
...The opposition has fallen back into a defensive position, hoping to force him into a mistake...
...It was emphasized that this was not nationalization, but the result of breakdowns and problems in the mines, which may mean Chile will be unable to meet her international commitments...
...They may cause trouble for Allende but are not likely to find support for a full-fledged guerrilla war...
...Chile Inches Left by J. HARDY JONES The Pan American Highway runs south from Santiago through the central valley of Chile, bordered by fields and vineyards heavy with summer-ripened fruits and grains...
...Allende has chosen to nationalize the foreign copper holdings through an amendment to the Constitution which reserves all subsoil rights to the state...
...Allende recently said that Chile's moneyed class still controls the country, but added, "Today the people are the government...
...But Chile continued to sell her copper through the Anaconda company and even the partial ownership of subsoil rights by a foreign entity violates the Spanish legal tradition that the subsoil is exclusively the property of the state...
...This broke the publishing house and would have forced it out of business...
...The game is complicated because members of his own team try to capture the ball and kick for the goal now...
...The success of Allende's plans depends to a large extent on economic conditions...
...The government came into office with the highest level of reserves in Chile's history...
...The Communist newspaper Ultima Hora charged: "The CIA is into this up to its neck...
...This could mean that the companies will receive precious little, and might portend a dispute with the United States along the lines of the International Petroleum Company case in Peru, which nearly caused the United States to invoke the Hickenlooper Amendment terminating all aid and suspending the quota of sugar imports from Peru...
...Newspapers in Chile cannot survive without government advertising, another potential bludgeon against an opposition press...
...For private property is no longer sacred in Chile...
...As though in a soccer game, Allende works downfield with the ball of power he has just wrested from the opposition...
...But the government then bought out the debt-ridden operation, which permitted the magazine to continue publishing on what are now government presses...
...But perhaps the decision is not even in his hands...
...Minutes carry the import that days did before Chile elected its Marxist president...
...The first indication of how attached Allende is to the democratic process will come in his treatment of the opposition press...
...He pleads for time to redistribute land under the law...
...A newspaper's front page reports the large foreign-owned copper companies which satisfied, indeed delighted, the companies...
...Neat agricultural communities shelter the men who work the fields and live off them...
...Our Chile aid program has been diminishing in recent years, and revocation of the sugar quota would not be relevant for Chile...
...The two cases in which the government has intervened in the operations of the press are ambiguous in their implications...
...These seizures and others only a few kilometers from Santiago and Valparaiso are reported in the newspapers...
...This way he avoids the charge his action is unconstitutional...
...On the far left are the MIRistas, the Revolutionary Left Movement...
...As of now, Allende has not indicated whether he will continue to follow a constitutional course allowing a plurality of interests and philosophies to exist in Chile...
...But this may have been the last harvest for the landowners of Chile...
...The Congress will offer no opposition to the amendment, which prohibits foreign exploitation of gas, liquid hydrocarbons, and radioactive materials as well...
...Summer is passing into fall and the weather is mild and sunny...
...Manana" has become "today" in Chile...
...As yet the government has not moved in a concerted fashion to stifle freedom of press, although it has taken into its hands all means to do so if it chooses...
...The chaotic situation on the farms may force Allende to import food from abroad, adding to his balance of payments problems...
...Allende may expect some problems from his left...
...Furthermore, he promised to refine the copper in Chile rather than send it abroad...
...Each decision by the government or its opposition is critical in these early, consolidation days of the Allende government...
...So Allende's cry to complete nationalization struck home with the voters...
...companies defaulting on payments for copper, but there is talk that the government has been spending reserves to patch over dislocations caused by its economic policies...
...Allende himself would probably like to act within a democratic framework...
...A political analyst at the U.S...
...The Carabineros, or national police, duly arrive and note the act, but make no move to displace the peasants who have violated private property...
...They have been leading the guerrilla warfare and some of the land seizures...
...Gangs of Communist youth simply threatened theater owners with violence if they displayed the film...
...But in early March, seven men were arrested in an alleged plot to drive down the world price of copper, the metal which provides eighty per cent of Chile's foreign exchange...
...Allende has said he will indemnify the companies over a thirty-year period in cash or copper, for total investment minus amortization, depreciation, write-offs, and depletion of mines...
...Shortly after Allende took office, government tax investigators seized the books of El Merc?rio, owned by arch-oligarch Augustin Edwards, who has since fled to the United States...
...One is initially seduced into thinking all is in order, that the seasons are turning one into another and man going about his appointed tasks as always...
...J. HARDY JONES, a writer for CBS News, made his annual trip to Latin America in February...
...But the United States has far less leverage with Chile than with Peru, where threats failed anyway...
Vol. 35 • May 1971 • No. 5
