The Fall of Chile

Last year in France, Kennecott Copper brought legal suit against the government of Chile in relation to the nationalization of their El Teniente copper mine. In a summation before the French Court, Kennecott lawyers acknowledged that their actions were an exercise in “teaching Chile the political realities of life. On 11 September 1973, the world watched as Chile learned its lessons well.

On that morning the Chilean Navy seized control of the important port city of Valparaiso and broadcast a demand “that the President of the republic must proceed immediately to hand over his high office to the Chilean armed forces and police. President Salvador Allende Gossens quickly left for the presidential palace, La Moneda, to repel the second military attempt at coup d’état in four months. From the beginning this one looked more serious. He told his wife over the phone that “there’s an uprising of the navy and many riots in Santiago. I don’t know whether we can resist or not. These are very difficult moments. Let’s hope we come out all right. As the crisis deepened, Allende increased his determination to see it through to the end. In his public statement, made by radio as two airforce jets screamed over La Moneda, Allende said: “I will not resign. I will not do it. I am ready to resist with whatever means, even at the cost of my life in that this serves as a lesson in the ignominious history of those who have strength, but not reason.

When the deadline passed without Allende’s resignation, the presidential palace was bombed by the air force and attacked by the army. Victory came violently, but quickly, as the military junta took control of the government that same day and declared a state of siege. The four members of the junta were the com­manders of the army, navy and air force and the chief of police, with General Augusta Pinochet Ugarte of the army named as president. They claimed Allende committed suicide; few believed them.

Chile had become another on a growing list of South American countries to fall under military rule. Uruguay came under armed forces domination just last May. Only four remaining countries are in the hands of civilian government: Argentina, Columbia, Venezuela and Guyana.

Events in the days immediately following the coup bore the distinct earmarks of fascism. Pacification, terror tactics and the systematic suppression of human rights ran rampant. Thousands were arrested in military witch hunts for extremists, “foreigners, and habitual delinquents and placed in detention camps. Imprisoned with leftist Chileans were many of the 10,000 foreign refugees who obtained political asylum in Chile when Allende took office. Most of the refugees were from Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay where they fled persecution by other military dictatorships. Because the Chilean junta portrays them as infiltrators and instigators of violence against the Fatherland, their lives are in great danger. Allende's 30 top aids are being taken care of on Dawson Island in the Strait of Magellan.

Those released from national stadiums (the main detention camps) said many prisoners were being tortured to death; and two Britons released confirmed widespread systematic brutality. Executions occur on the spot as well as in the national stadiums. A Wisconsin couple, held prisoner in the stadium for a week, reported a pogrom on foreigners and that they had witnessed the execution of 400 to 500 persons. In addition the government has admitted executing former government officials and leaders of left-wing organizations. The most convincing evidence of the systematic violation of human rights and lives came from a three-man international com­mission on human rights. After interviewing eyewitnesses, released prisoners and Chilean clergy, they reported to the United Nations that we send 30 to 40 missions around the world yearly and we have not seen in recent years a situation so grave as that in Chile, not even in Brazil or Greece.

Junta control over the institutions of Chile is as complete as their suppression of liberty. The constitution is being rewritten to give the military, a permanent role. All Marxist political parties have been outlawed and all non-Marxist political parties were placed in indefinite recess. Congress has been placed in indefinite suspension; and all Congressional seats have been declared vacant. Every mayor and city councilman in the country has been removed from office. The junta totally controls the two newspapers allowed to print and the few radio stations allowed to broadcast. Operas, Mickey Mouse cartoons and junta statements are all that is on television. Left-wing literature has been systematically confiscated and destroyed. All university chiefs have been ousted and replaced by military appointees. The country's largest labor union has been abolished.

For over 20 years Salvador Allende Gossens had been involved in Chilean politics. He was a Senator most of that time and in both elections preceding his 1970 victory he ran for president. In 1958 Allende lost to Jorge Alessandri by only 33,500 votes. It was this election that almost destroyed (and the 1970 election did destroy) the assumption, long held by Washington, that no nation would ever freely elect a Marxist head of government. Allende's opponent in the 1964 election, Eduardo Frei, was pictured by the U.S. as the last best hope of Chile; but the U.S. did not stop with talk. In his United States Foreign Aid In Action: A Case Study U.S. Senator Ernest Gruening (who chaired the Senate Subcommittee on Foreign Aid Expenditures) remarked:

In Chile AID continued budget support and balance-of-payments assistance during the 1964 election year to prevent economic deterioration which would have sparked unemployment and discontent and, presumable, a swing to the far left politically

Allende lost that election, too. With Frei barred by law from running again, Allende faced a weaker opponent named Radomiro Tomic. Campaigning on the program to bring socialism with liberty to Chile; Allende won with a 36.3% plurality.

The first months of Allende's term were ones of cautious optimism. Agricultural and copper production rose slightly, more industries became nationalized, poor workers had more money and unemployment in Greater Santiago decreased from 8.3% to 3.5%. By late 1971 the economic situation began to deteriorate. The international price of copper, Chile's major export, began to decrease drastically at the same time the cost of major imports (foods, beverages, industrial materials, transport equipment) increased rapidly. Largely due to this combination, Chile incurred a 1971 balance-of-payments deficit of $315 million. Soon Chile had to reduce its imports, creating serious shortages of consumer items such as food, cooking oil, film, tobacco, textiles and even wheel chairs and crutches. In addition, tires and replacements for autos and buses, components for machinery, rails and cement were all in short supply. Furthermore, Chile’s inability to secure loans and credit from the U.S. and in­ternational financial agencies deepened the economic crisis even more.

Accompanying the developing economic chaos was a polarization of the population. On the one hand were the upper and middle class Chileans, the ones hardest hit by import reductions. Although they comprise less than half of the population, this economic strata made (in 1964) over 70% of all income and consumed 68% of all consumer imports.

Feeling the sting of the shortages, many began to demonstrate against the government. Tens of thousands of women demonstrated in the well-publicized "march of the empty pots," doctors, dentists, agronomists and other professionals went on strike to show their disapproval; educators and students, 90% of whom come from middle class backgrounds, voiced their opposition; and, perhaps most significantly, industrialists, especially truck owners, rallied dissent against the administration. Because trucking is the major transportation line in Chile, the strikes they initiated further depressed the country's economy and morale. Allende's legal opposition began to block all reform legislation while the fascist Patria y Libertad (Fatherland and Freedom Party) organized terrorist operations against bridges, railroad tracks, power facilities and the few remaining operating trucks.

At the other side of the pole were the workers and the poor, the ones who benefited most from Allende's programs. They began to operate closed factories, organize their own unions and arm themselves for what seemed to be the coming confrontation.

In the midst of the developing economic chaos and population polarization came the March 1973 congressional elections. Despite predictions to the contrary, Allende's coalition (Unidad Popular;UP) won 44% of the vote and gained congressional seats. It became apparent to Allende's political opposition that they could not count on the ballot box to bring Allende down. Especially the military began to act independently of the government. Utilizing a recently passed gun controls law, the army began to routinely raid factories and search for arms, almost always finding none. Discontent became so acute within some segments of the military that a coup was attempted in June 1973. However, loyalist troops squelched the uprising. Ramparts (November 1973) reported the following about the failure:

The CIA must have laughed at the rebels' ineptness: their tanks stopped for stop signs and red lights on their way to seize the government palace; mass communication networks were overlooked; and when a tank commander requested petroleum and was refused by the gas station attendant ... the putschists abandoned the tank.

If the June 1973 coup attempt was characterized by ineptness, the September 1973 success was the epitome of precision and professionalism.

From the day of the coup, much of the world has pointed a strong suspecting finger at the United States as the power behind it. The well-documented CIA coups and attempted coups in Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Guatemala, Indonesia and Vietnam as well as the Senate expose of ITT's attempt to stop Allende's 1970 election are only a few of the reasons for the accusations. Argentinean President Juan Peron, hardly an amateur at underhanded politics, said shortly after the coup: I firmly believe that the United States gave direct support because I know all about this process. I believe it could not have been otherwise. Recently the U.S. government has come under heavy attack from former prominent government officials for its clandestine foreign intelligence operations. In the October 1973 issue of Foreign Affairs, Nicholas deB. Katzenbach (Attorney General 1965-1966, Under Secretary of State 1966-1969 and currently vice president and general counsel of IBM) wrote the following:

We should abandon publicly all covert operations designed to influence political results in foreign countries. Specifically there should be no secret subsidies of police or counterinsurgency forces, no efforts to influence elections, no secret monetary subsidies of groups sympathetic to the United States, whether governmental, non-governmental or revolutionary. We should confine our covert activities overseas to the gathering of intelligence information.

In the September 1973 Progressive, Andrew Hamilton (a former member of Henry Kissinger's National Security Council staff) warned that "the only way to clear the nation's reputation, restore credibility and re-establish a basis for foreign policy based on broad consensus...is to put a firm end to clandestine operations." Even Richard Nixon, in a speech to CIA employees in 1969, acknowledged the underhanded, undemocratic nature of CIA operations: "This organization has a mission that, by necessity, runs counter to some of the very deeply held traditions in the country and feelings, very idealistic feelings, about what a free society ought to be."

Several factors indicate the strong probability, though not conclusive proof, that the U.S. was directly involved in the coup. The U.S. Ambassador Nathaniel Davis, assigned ambassador three months after Allende's election, is a veteran with practical experience in dealing with leftists. During his ambassadorship in Guatemala, several thousand working-class and peasant militants were gunned down. The diplomatic personnel with whom Davis surrounded himself all have ample expertise in coups, intelligence and pacification. Their credentials speak for themselves: Harry W. Shlaudeman, Deputy Chief of Mission (joined State Department 1954; consular officer in Barranquilla 1955, Bogata 1956, Bulgaria 1959 and the Dominican Republic 1962 where he stayed until four months after the 1965 U.S. invasion); James E. Anderson, Consular Officer (joined State Department 1962, as a political officer in Monterey; transferred to the Dominican Republic March 1965, one month prior to U.S. invasion; political officer, Mexico City 1966-1970; became consular officer in Santiago January 1971, two months after Allende's election); Fredrick W. Latrash, Political Officer (civilian intelligence analyst, Office of Naval Intelligence, 1948-1949 and 1951-1954 during which time he is believed to have participated in the 1954 Guatemalan coup; State Department, Calcutta and New Delhi 1949-1951; political officer Amman 1959; AID official in Cairo 1960, Caracas and Panama 1965-1967; came to Santiago May 1971); Daniel N. Arzac, Political Officer (Army Intelligence 1951; CIA 1953; Phnom Penh 1954-L958, Montevideo 1957-1958, Bogota 1963-1969, Ascuncion 1969-1971, Santiago September 1971); John W. Isaminger, Political Officer (Army Intelligence 1942; Pentagon Intelligence 1951; operations in La Paz, Guatemala and Washington).

A second factor is the military aid given to the Chilean armed forces simultaneous with the cessation of all aid to the Chilean government itself. For fiscal years 1970, 1971 and 1972 U.S. military aid and credit grew from $800,000 to $5.7 million to $12.3 million. Aid for 1973 was about the same as 1972. Even more, revealing is the in­crease and amount of aid specifically earmarked for the training of Chilean military officers. In fiscal year 1973 the total was $50,000; however, in fiscal year 1974 that amount increased to $1 million--the highest military training the Nixon Administration budgeted for anywhere in the world. Such funding in the past has been used to train the military in other countries (e.g., Vietnam and Uruguay) for the type of pacification Chile is now experiencing.

The final factor relates to the activity immediately preceding and on the day of the coup. On 8 September, Ambassador Davis flew to Washington to meet with Henry Kissinger, who at that time had not been confirmed as Secretary of State. Davis stayed only two days, skipping the normal meeting returning ambassadors have held with Congressional figures. The day after his return to Santiago, the coup began. In addition, Jack Kubisch, Assistant Secretary of State and U.S. Coordinator for the Alliance For Progress, has admitted knowledge of the coup sixteen hours in advance. Finally the Navy has acknowledged conducting "routine hemispheric maneuvers" on the morning of the overthrow in the port of Valparaiso, where the coup began.

The charges of U.S. involvement do not, however, center on direct participation in the coup. On 4 December 1972, Allende spoke before the General Assembly of the United Nations.

From the very day of our electoral triumph on 4 September 1970, we have felt the effects of a large-scale external pressure against us, which tried to prevent the inauguration of a government freely elected by the people and has tried to bring it down ever since. An action that has tried to cut us off from the world, to strangle our economy and paralyze trade in our principle export, copper, and to deprive us of access to sources of international financing...This aggression is not overt and has not been openly declared to the world; on the contrary, it is an oblique, underhanded, indirect form of aggression.

Criticism came from home too. After the coup, Laurence Stern of the Washington Post wrote:

The swift toppling of the Allende government in a military coup last week inevitably touched off speculation about U.S. involvement in the upheaval. From the White House, from the State Department and even from the Central Intelligence Agency there were stolid denials of U.S. intervention in the Chilean crisis...Nonetheless, since its inauguration in 1970, the Marxist government of the late Salvador Allende had been the target of economic policies that have squeezed the fragile Chilean economy to the choke.

Since Allende's election, it has been the policy of the U.S. government and the strategy of U.S. corporations to envelope Chile in an invisible blockade to exacerbate the economic conditions of Chile as a seedbed for internal sedition and subversion.

Important to an understanding of this strategy is the degree to which the Chilean economy is dependent upon the United States. Since World War II, 40% of Chile's total imports and 65% of its capital imports (food, machinery, transportation equipment, manufactured goods) came from the U.S. By 1970, forty of Chile's one hundred largest firms were under foreign (mostly U.S.) control; and the bulk of these industries were strongly dependent on imports from the U.S. (especially machinery and machinery parts) for their operations. Any significant reduction in U.S. imports would have critical effects on the Chilean economy. In addition, the availability of credit is the backbone of normal economic operations of underdeveloped countries like Chile. Without credit, Chile's ability to import vital consumer and capital goods and to pay back past debts is greatly impaired. At the, beginning of Allende's tenure 78.4% of Chile's short-term credits came from U.S. suppliers and banks. The bulk of Chile's medium and long term loans came from bilateral and multilateral financial agencies. In nearly all of these the U.S. holds veto power or considerable influence.

Shortly after Allende expropriated (without financial reimbursement) the properties of ITT, Kennecott and Anaconda in July 1971, the action began. On 14 September 1971, ITT President Harold Geneen met over lunch with Peter Peterson (then assistant to President Nixon for international economic policy) and Brigadier General Alexander Haig (then Deputy Assistant, under Henry Kissinger, for National Security Affairs) to discuss Chilean expropriations. On 1 October 1971 William Merriam (ITT Vice-President and Washington lobbyist) wrote to Peterson proposing an "economic squeeze" on Chile through denial of international credit, a ban on imports of copper and on vital exports to Chile so that sufficient "economic chaos" would, develop to convince the armed forces to "step in and restore order."

Shortly after his October 1971 appointment as Ambassador to Chile, Nathaniel Davis sent a secret cable to the State Department (revealed by columnist; Jack Anderson on 28 March 1972). Davis indicated that the "prospects of military intervention for the foreseeable future are extremely small. It is held that the military will turn blind eye to virtually any constitutional abuse. It is not our impression that Chile is yet on the brink of showdown." He continued by suggesting that to pull off a military coup it would first be necessary to create "discontent so great that military intervention is overwhelmingly invited." That same month, in a closed door meeting, Secretary of State William Rogers reassured executives of several major U.S. corporations threatened by Chilean nationalization (ITT, Anaconda, Ralston Purina, the First National City Bank and the Bank of America): "The Nixon Administration is a business administration. Its mission is to protect American business."

The culmination of such behind-the-scene jockeying was President Nixon's 19 January 1972 announcement of the hard-line policy toward Chile:

When a country expropriates a significant U.S. interest without making reasonable provision for such compensation to U.S. citizens, we will presume that the U.S. will not extend new bilateral economic benefits to the expropriating country unless or until it is determined that the country is taking reasonable steps to provide adequate compensation...In the face of the expropriating circumstances just, described, we will presume that the United States Government will withhold its support from loans under consideration in multilateral development banks.

The official justification for credit and loan denials is, therefore, that Chile did not "provide adequate compensation" for the expropriated property of U.S. corporations; however, the credibility of this reasoning is in extreme doubt. The United Nations Trade and Development Board, in clarifying appropriate modes of expropriation, said that "it is for each State to fix procedure for these measures, and any dispute which may arise in that connection falls within the sole jurisdiction of its courts." Because U.S. corporations failed in the Chilean courts to overturn Allende's actions, it is clear that Chile has not violated the international law of just compensation. After the coup, the New York Times quoted an official of the New York Mercantile Exchange as playing down the possibility that the nationalized holdings would be restored. "They (the junta) haven't got any money anyway and all parties (in Chile) support nationalization." Thus Allende's policy did not violate the will of the Chilean people.

Finally, Allende never claimed to be denying ITT, Anaconda and Kennecott any compensation. What he did claim was that they had already received just compensation with the "excessive profit" they have gained in the years of Chilean operation. Statistics easily support his argument. Between the years 1911 and 1971, the years during which Kennecott and Anaconda operated in Chile, foreign companies removed from Chile a total of $7.2 billion. During those same years, foreign investment amounted to just over $1 billion. In other words foreign investors removed from Chile seven times more than they put in. Kennecott and Anaconda alone removed $4.6 billion. The records for Anaconda for 1969 show specifically how lucrative its Chilean operations have been compared to its world-wide operations. While only 16% of its total investments were in Chile, it earned 79% of its profits there. In fact the four U.S. corporations which utilized Chile's copper, nitrate and iron resources over the past sixty years have collected earnings which amount to more than the present total commercial value of Chile itself.

Clearly, Chile has violated neither the letter nor the spirit of "adequate compensation" and U.S. reprisal on that basis is totally unjustified. Another principle, however, does justify the reprisals -- the principle that the United States has the right to exploit the human and natural resources of underdeveloped countries for the American gods of profit and property. It is this that lies behind U.S. denials of credit to Chile and it is this that lies behind the bulk of our foreign policy toward Latin America, Africa and Asia.

Even before Nixon's announcement credit started to be cut. The U.S. Export-Import Bank (Eximbank) denied the Allende administration's first request for a loan subsequent to the copper expropriations. Eximbank President Henry Kearns informed Chile's ambassador in Washington that Chile would get no more loans or guarantees until the question of compensation was solved. The New York Times (1 August 1971) indicated that the decision to block Eximbank loans to Chile was,"made on the White House level," under pressure from American companies. The loan request was for three Boeing passenger jets for the government airline LAN-Chile. The Washington Post reported that a U.S. Commerce Department official familiar with the negotiations said that "the credit position of the airline was excellent at the time." Eximbank, in the past 25 years, has supplied one-half of U.S. economic aid to Chile ($600 million).

The other major U.S. loan agency funding Chile was the Agency for International Development (AID) which provided the money for the massive Alliance For Progress program. Since 1946 AID provided Chile with $540 million. After Allende's election less than two million dollars has been allotted. Eximbank and AID have supplied Chile with $40 million per year. To eliminate these sources is to drastically alter the Chilean economic picture.

The two major multilateral institutions (Inter-American Development Bank—IDB, and World Bank) took their cue from Eximbank and AID. The U.S. supplies three-fourths of IDB's capital and all of IDB's "Special Fund." As such the U.S. holds virtual veto power over all loans. Since its inception in 1959 until 1970, IDB had loaned Chile $310 million. After Allende's election only two loans have been made: $7 million to Catholic University (a stronghold of anti-UP activities) and $4.6 million to Austral University (dominated by Chile's conservative German population). Since its beginning in 1944 until Allende's election, World Bank has granted $234,650,000 in loans to Chile. Since then it has refused all requests including a fruit-growing project, the second stage of a cattle breeding program (the first stage was begun under the Frei administration with World Bank assistance) and an ongoing electrification program (which for twenty previous years had been actively supported by the Bank).

As could be expected, the hardline policy greatly influenced the decision of private U.S. banks to cut off credit lines. In the past Chile had received over $220 million in short-term credit lines from U.S. banks; to the Allende government more than $35 million had been made available. Five major New York banks stopped immediately: Chase Manhattan, Chemical, First National City, Manufactures Hanover and Morgan Guarantee. Chase and Chemical had especially close ties with Anaconda: the president of Anaconda was once an officer at Chase and a member of Chemical’s International Advisory Board is currently Vice-President of Anaconda.

In November 1971 the shortage of foreign exchange and the decline in copper prices forced the Chilean government to request the rescheduling of its debt repayments. Debt renegotiation for underdevelopment countries is not at all uncommon. The Frei government won a debt postponement in 1965. At the meetings in Paris in 1972 the U.S. did all it could to block Chile's attempts at renegotiation, but was not strong enough to stop the bilateral plans. More than a year later the U.S. was the only country which had not formally signed the rescheduling agreement.

Corporations even began to take things into their own hands. Through foreign litigations Kennecott attempted, with a large degree of success, to create an international embargo of Chile's copper shipments. The most important con­sequence of Kennecott's proceedings was the reduction of Chilean credit worth by the near elimination of credit possibilities based on future copper sales.

The credit denials from U.S. agencies and private banks and the bilateral and multilateral lending agencies coupled with the debt renegotiation delays and Kennecott's personal embargo had a catastrophic effect on the Chilean economy. The extreme difficulty in importing vital consumer goods produced immediate difficulties. People found it hard to get certain food stuffs (like chicken, beef, pork and potatoes); consumer items such as yarn, textiles and medicines; and more expensive items like radios, tires, cameras, film, and photo lab chemicals. A concomitant development was the growth of a black market where speculators sold hoarded items at huge profits. The lack of credit also took a heavy toll on Chilean industry. The most immediate effect of the trade reductions were the production bottlenecks and layoffs caused by lack of replacements and parts for machinery. Most of these inputs cannot come from outside the U.S. The transportation sector suffered especially as the lack of tire and parts immobilized the bus and trucking force made up primarily of Ford and General Motors models. The production of copper fell drastically because of Kennecott's embargo, the heavy dependence on U.S. parts and machinery and the drop in the international price of copper. Agricultural production declined too, although even the U.S. Department of Agriculture admitted it was not Allende's fault:

Institutional changes introduced by the Allende Administration may not have had much direct impact on 1971 crops because crop decisions had been made and planting had taken place prior to the change in administrations ... For the 1972 crop, productivity may be down sharply ... However, the causes of the decline cannot be clearly identified with changes introduced by the Allende government.

The subsequent economic chaos formed the basis of instability and created the climate of no confidence which led to Allende's downfall.

The U.S. government waited for two weeks after the coup to formally announce that diplomatic relations with Chile "would remain unbroken." But the continuation was more than casual and neutral. On 4 October 1973, the State Department stated that the U.S. had detained the Cuban ship Imias in the Panama Canal Zone at the request, of the military junta. The official justification was "that legally the United States had to abide by Chile's wishes since the Imias was crossing American territory." (Emphasis added)

American culture is again starting to have an impact upon Chile. For the first time since Allende was elected American films will be available. The junta announced on 1 October that it would import 15 American films that week, "putting an end to the black night of Marxist cinema." The films will include "The Godfather," "Clockwork Orange," "The French Connection," "Cabaret," and "Last Tango in Paris."

The most revealing aspect of U.S.-junta relations is the rapid steps the military rulers have taken to restore American management in companies with considerable U.S. investment (although denationalization has not and likely will not occur). The Chicago Daily News Foreign Service reported that the junta reappointed the American administrators to their old positions because, as Leigh (the Chilean air force commander) put it: "The junta admires the United States and the system they have acquired for their development." Companies in which former management officials have been reinstalled include Phelps-Dodge, Johns Manville, General Cable, Corning Glass and Pittsburgh Plate Glass, Inter-Chemical Fibers, RCA, General Electric, Dow Chemical and Textron (whose subsidiary is called, appropriately, American Screw).

Clearly the goals of the invisible blockade are succeeding. As a former high Nixon administration official told Associated Press two days after the coup: "Allende's overthrow was the culmination of a very successful policy we've been following...The only thing we did was to cause problems for them when they tried to borrow money on the international market." No longer must the U.S. send marines abroad to prop up military dictatorships or unpopular governments cooperative with the goals of American economic expansionism. There are better, cleaner, more innocuous ways (for Americans) to implement those desired ends -- the slow, economic strangulation of any unwilling Third World country. This is the new Nixon-Kissinger "low profile" strategy; and Chile was its first victim.

Since the coup, the POST-AMERICAN has been in contact with several Christians in Chile. Their correspondence confirms the most dire speculations about life in post-Allende Chile. The following comes from a letter written to the POST-AMERICAN and smuggled out of Chile.

"As you have probably read, this has been the most bloody and repressive coup in Latin America. The Government tries to hide behind the number of 450 dead. It is ridiculous because the massacre on the Technical University alone surpassed that number. Time talks about 5,000 dead, but our calculus goes to some 12,000. In popular sectors the armed forces have been searching house by house, carrying people off to the stadium as prisoners. Many disappear and are never heard of again. The curfew is absolute, killing many at night and leaving their bodies in fields, roads, dumping them in the river and sea. One of our priest friends was found in the river machine gunned in the back. Another priest was killed by torture. More than 80 priests have had to leave the country, many expelled after being imprisoned and tortured, others looking for asylum in embassies, others trying to get out before they were taken. The very Church has lost-liberty, be it the right for meeting, be it the right to raise the voice in a critical way to question what is happening. One attempt to make a statement about the actual situation was threatened with immediate imprisonment for those who signed it. One priest dared to pray for those suffering from the bloody abuses and bad use of armed forces, and was consequently put out of the country the following day.

The military control all aspects of the country. They have absolute control of the universities. In the school of business and administration of the University of Chile of the 2,000 students they are allowing only 400 to continue their studies.

The economic rationality is to favor the rich; they have allowed a tremendous increase on the prices, maintaining the same salaries, and giving two bonifications for compensation.

We are going to see hunger among the poor, but no protest would be able to be uttered. The Chileans have become slaves to a small dominant class; we have to produce for their benefit and behave ourselves but we are-not allowed to be subjects of our own history. We are only pieces (parts) of a big machine, that is the way we feel.

They have outlawed all unions' rights to meet or speak out, disbanding our equivalent of the A.F. of L., firing workers by the thousands simply because they were leftists. This policy has brought a tremendous problem in thousands homes of the poor.

It is from this situation that in behalf of the poor I have the courage to ask your enthusiastic help. To put it bluntly we need all the money that we can get to form cooperatives and give work to as many as we can of those that have been fired. I hope that your organization at the People's Christian Coalition "can give us a hand."

The need for money is clear and desperate. The POST-AMERICAN desires to support the cause of the Chilean poor by honoring this request. Please, if at all possible, join in this need for victims of the coup. Pray about the need and your ability to help meet it. ...

Before the coup, another group of Christians in Chile (the Missioners' Committee On International Awareness) wrote an open letter to the American Church. Their response to the oppressive effect of American economic presence in Chile is still accurate and appropriate:

The position of the Church before this reality can no longer be an ambiguous one. The position of Christ was in no way ambiguous: his was an option for the poor and against anyone or any system that stood in the way of man's liberation. The present international economic system is a situation of sin, and as such it must be rejected. And yet it is not enough for the Church to elaborate theologies and declarations of concern for the individual poor. If

Christians do not effectively opt for the poor and oppressed by entering into their struggle then the Church cannot really claim to be a sign of the liberating presence of Christ in the world.

Joe Roos was the Associate Editor of the Post-American, precursor to Sojourners, when this article appeared.