Annotations for Countries: Austria

Two weeks after the beginning of the military coup in Chile, events there dominate the news. Although members of the Junta have made repeated claims of normalcy, and US newspapers such as The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal have characterized the military as mild and also claimed a return to normalcy, at the time this program is being produced, the Asia Information News Service monitoring wire services from Latin America reports that the Junta has just announced a state of internal war. 

In reverberations elsewhere in South America, Excélsior reports that in Uruguay the military government has shut down opposition papers, including the Christian Democrat-oriented La Hora. La Nación of Peru reports that the head of the Uruguayan government as saying that the articles on Chile would foment unrest. Also, the Brazilian military government has prohibited its newspapers from publishing or disseminating information about activities in Chile. According to The Wall Street Journal, the Bolivian military government has announced a move to arrest at least 70 leading labor leaders who were fomenting difficulties. 

Information other than official or censored reports from inside Chile are still difficult to obtain. Excélsior of Mexico City reports that Chilean Christian Democrats are still divided. Former President Eduardo Frei, implicated as early as 1970 in the ITT strategy memoranda as participating in efforts to induce economic collapse and a military intervention in Chile is reported to be supporting the Junta. While the previous Christian Democratic presidential candidate, Radomiro Tomic, is reported under house arrest. 

The English paper The Manchester Guardian noted continuing divisions in the military. The three highest ranking officers in Santiago as well as the head of the National Police did not support the coup. 

The Excélsior of Mexico reported an interview with Hugo Vigorena, the Chilean ambassador to Mexico, who resigned when his government was overthrown. The former ambassador said his government had documents and information on a CIA State plan senator, but had received the information too late to neutralize the plan. The New York Times reported that Mr. Kubisch, Assistant Secretary of State for Latin America, claimed the documents were spurious and being peddled by a known felon. He refused further public comments offering to appear in a secret session. 

The degree of difficulties inside Chile is still unknown with any precision. The official announcements of the Junta vary, beginning with a claim of 61 dead moving most recently to an admission of perhaps 250 persons killed. However, various international news agencies reported such items as that within the first 40 hours of the beginning of the coup, a Santiago hospital log indicated 500 bodies stacked in the hospital because the morgue was full and refused to accept further bodies. 

Inter Press, the Chilean news agency, which was forced to move its transmission facilities to Argentina following the beginning of the coup, reported requests from Chilean hospitals for medical supplies. Santiago hospitals were reported to be out of most medical supplies. 

The Asian News Service carried an interview from Argentina with the director of the Brazilian soccer team, which left Chile after the beginning of the coup. He reported upwards of 10,000 dead within the first three days. The Dutch newspaper Allgemeine Tagblatt reported on a telephone interview with a Dutch diplomat in Chile who reported in the initial days that the Junta was treating resisters with unimaginable violence and estimated casualties in Santiago alone at 6,000. 

Le Monde from Paris reported an interview with two Chileans held in the national soccer stadium, but released because they were the son and nephew of high-ranking military officers. They reported tortures, clubbing and executions of major proportions. British papers carried reports by two British subjects who said much of the same. 

In interviews with the US press, two American citizens, Adam and Patricia Schesch, released from the stadium after a considerable telephone and telegram campaign by citizens of their home state of Wisconsin, also noted that in the first days of the coup they saw numerous prisoners beaten to death and estimated that they directly saw 400 to 500 persons executed. Asia News Service estimated 20,000 to 30,000 dead within the first week. 

In Caracas, Venezuela, the daily paper Últimas Noticias reported an interview with a Venezuelan journalist who had been held in the national stadium for three days before being allowed to leave. He reported that he had been arrested because there were some magazines in his home published by Quimantú, the government publishing house. The Venezuelan journalist said that he could hear the cries of people being executed in the eastern grandstand of the stadium, that the blood was hosed down each morning, that survivors could see piles of shoes belonging to the previous night's victims and that the bodies were removed and blue canvas bags loaded into armed military trucks. 

A number of embassies in Chile are reported surrounded and in effect under siege to prevent persons from seeking asylum. The Guardian reports that the governments of Sweden, Finland, and Holland have announced that all aid destined for the Allende government would be frozen and not given to the Junta. Also, in a number of countries, including Mexico, Venezuela, Switzerland and Sweden, the Chilean ambassadors and diplomatic personnel have resigned rather than serve the Junta. 

Excélsior reports that the Chilean ambassador to the US is in Chile and is alive but under arrest. He has been replaced in the US by a naval officer. In London, the naval attaché has taken over the embassy there and locked out the ambassador. 

Diplomatic recognition of the Junta was initially accorded by Brazil and the two regime of South Vietnam, and the Junta claimed recognition by 17 countries as of the 22nd of September. However, according to Excélsior, that list includes Austria, Denmark, and Mexico, whereas Austria and Denmark have issued denials and Mexico announced that it would apply the Estrada Doctrine of maintaining officials at the embassy in Chile, but not extending actual recognition. 

Another reaction. La Opinión of Buenos Aires, Argentina, reported that the commander-in-chief of the Argentinian army has asked the government to immediately put an end to the US military missions in Argentina. He said that the recent events in Chile strengthened the conviction that, "the presence of North American missions in Argentina is not convenient for us."

Excélsior reported that the Chilean Junta, after outlawing the five political parties that had formed the Popular Unity Coalition and after informing the remaining parties to enter a recess, disbanding the Chilean legislature, has announced the writing of a new constitution. General Lei of the Air Force indicated that the new constitution would prevent the re-establishment of Marxism and would allow major participation by the armed forces in the political life of Chile, including in the future parliament. 

Excélsior continued that the new constitution would be actually edited by a yet-to-be-constituted jury commission and would be a corporate-type constitution in the style of the system instituted by Mussolini in Italy. That from the Mexican daily Excélsior. 

In commenting on developments in Chile, the English paper The Manchester Guardian reviewed the ITT memoranda that spoke of the need to induce sufficient economic chaos and violence into Chile to create the conditions for a military coup. The Manchester Guardian also quoted Henry Kissinger as having said, "I don't think we should delude ourselves that an Allende takeover in Chile would not present massive problems for us." 

The Manchester Guardian also referred to a meeting in October of 1971 between William Rogers, the Secretary of State, and representatives of corporations with investments in Chile, in which Rodgers made it perfectly clear that the Nixon Administration was a business administration and its mission was to protect business. 

Also, Murray Rossant, president of the 20th Century Fund, wrote in The New York Times of October 10th, 1971, that the government policy towards Chile was being formulated and that the Secretary of Treasury, John Connally, and other hard liners insist that Chile must be punished to keep other countries in check and favor a Bolivian-type solution of providing overt or covert support for anti Allende military men. That from The New York Times. 

In the most recent economic news from Chile, the black market, which was the primary cause of food shortages during the Allende period and which had been a major method of creating economic difficulties for the Allende government, has finally been outlawed. Although congressional opponents to Allende had prevented any legal moves against the black market during Allende's government, Excélsior reports that the military Junta has declared an end to black market activities. 

According to Excélsior, the Junta has also announced that gains made under Allende will not be rolled back, although all illegal worker takeovers of means of production will be cancelled and the illegally-taken-over factories, machines, and land will be returned to private entrepreneurs. Also, foreign corporations will be asked first for assistance and soon will be asked to invest and resume involvement in previously nationalized sectors. 

Excélsior also reports that the Junta has announced the formation of a Man of Public Relations composed of leading businessmen to travel internationally to explain the coup, discuss the reentry of foreign capital, and to improve Chile's new image. Already, according to the recent Junta announcements carried by the major wire services, the reported book burnings and cleaning of bookstores was carried out by overzealous persons and that at any rate the military was not against ideas and did not think that the burning of books would kill ideas. The Junta's only intention was to rid the country of alien ideas. 

The most recent information available is that despite disclaimers by the Junta, the cleaning of bookstores and the burning of books continues. The French Press Agency reports that the house of poet Pablo Neruda was vandalized by soldiers who conducted an exhaustive search, tored open beds, and burned posters, magazines, and books. 

The US government confirmed that it had granted diplomatic recognition to the Junta and the Junta declared what it called internal war, firing the mayors of all large villages and cities, the governors of all the provinces, and the presidents of the universities, replacing them with military personnel, and announced a review of all university faculty appointments. That from the Asian Information Service's compilation of wire service reports from Latin America.