Letter from Santiago

As the Chilean parliament elected in March convened May 21, it was difficult for observers to assess what was going on, to chart where the country was moving. We Chileans are living in a surrealist world. Consider some of the following: Item: The President, Salvador Allende, has to enter one of his own ministries through the service entrance in order to talk to rebellious workers who have locked the principal entrance to dramatize their case for closing the parliament that is just now reopening. Item: The Director of the University of Chile, a Christian Democrat, is kept from addressing the students of that university over the university’s own TV channel because the station has been taken over by extreme leftists. The Director then applies to the Rector of the Catholic University, another Christian Democrat, for permission to use his TV outlet, and is refused. Finally, he is allowed on the air on the government’s own TV channel, which is in Marxist hands. Item: Raúl Silva Henriquez, Cardinal of Santiago, fails for the first time to attend labor’s traditional May 1 celebrations, and no one notices. Item: The military establishment that comes to the aid of a Marxist ruler when the country is on the verge of revolution (which was the case last October) and tides him over the worst of the winter months, in effect helping him to win the parliamentary elections, then allows itself to be eased out of power.

What, above all, is General Carlos Prats, the commander in chief of the armed forces and the man directly responsible for saving Allende last October, up to now in the, for Chile, not so very merry month of May?

NO

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Nena Ossa

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As the Chilean parliament elected in March convened May 21, it was difficult for observers to assess what was going on, to chart where the country was moving. We Chileans are living in a surrealist world. Consider some of the following: Item: The President, Salvador Allende, has to enter one of his own ministries through the service entrance in order to talk to rebellious workers who have locked the principal entrance to dramatize their case for closing the parliament that is just now reopening. Item: The Director of the University of Chile, a Christian Democrat, is kept from addressing the students of that university over the university’s own TV channel because the station has been taken over by extreme leftists. The Director then applies to the Rector of the Catholic University, another Christian Democrat, for permission to use his TV outlet, and is refused. Finally, he is allowed on the air on the government’s own TV channel, which is in Marxist hands. Item: Raúl Silva Henriquez, Cardinal of Santiago, fails for the first time to attend labor’s traditional May 1 celebrations, and no one notices. Item: The military establishment that comes to the aid of a Marxist ruler when the country is on the verge of revolution (which was the case last October) and tides him over the worst of the winter months, in effect helping him to win the parliamentary elections, then allows itself to be eased out of power.

What, above all, is General Carlos Prats, the commander in chief of the armed forces and the man directly responsible for saving Allende last October, up to now in the, for Chile, not so very merry month of May?