Annotations for Countries: Brazil

The Brazilian weekly, Opinião, reported this week from Rio on the further activities of the Catholic Church in opposing the military government. Brazil's bishops, in their strongest and most detailed declaration of human rights, have denounced various types of discrimination in this country and the limitation on basic freedoms here. According to conclusions of the 13th General Assembly of the National Conference of Brazilian Bishops made public last week, "It is the duty of the Roman Catholic Church to inform public opinion of the violations of human rights and to defend those rights." The question of human rights was one of the main topics on the agenda of the General assembly that met in Sao Paulo for 10 days last month. A total of 215 bishops or 80% of the episcopate of the world's largest Catholic country, took part in the meeting.

Opinião continues, "The document is not really an open challenge to Brazilian authorities, but a clear statement of the church's position on the question of human rights, and an offer to work with the authorities to improve the situation. In the last year, individual bishops and groups of bishops have publicly attacked Brazil's military regime on its social policies. In particular, they have denounced police and military authorities for arbitrary and repressive actions which have included torture. They have also attacked civilian authorities for allowing large business interests to exploit rural workers in the name of economic development."

The basic human rights, said by the bishops to be among those least respected, were the right to liberty and physical integrity when faced with excessive repression. The right to political participation, in particular denied to the opposition party. The right to association, especially in regard to labor unions. The right to expression and information. The right to a legal defense, in view of the absence of habeas corpus provision. The right to possess the land on which one works. The right not to be subjected to systematic, political, and social propaganda, and aggressive and indiscriminate commercial advertising. And the right of the church to greater participation in social activities sponsored by the civilian authorities.

Opinião concludes, "The bishops came out even more strongly in denouncing various types of discrimination in Brazilian society. Including discrimination in favor of big landowners and against peasant families. For business management against workers. For whites against blacks. For pro-regime, political parties against the opposition. And for men as opposed to women. The bishop's strongest denunciation was directed against the oppression of Brazil's Indian population. The document charged that about 100,000 Indians were in the process of being exterminated. The document urged that the church make a study of the present condition of the Indians and that all persons engaged and work with Indians join forces to help them." This is from the Brazilian weekly Opinião.

Argentina, Guatemala, and Venezuela, all of which have territorial disputes with Britain or former British colonies, strongly opposed Britain's application for permanent observer status at the Organization of American States. Venezuela also raised the issue of colonialism, which was criticized by Brazil and Peru on the grounds that other colonial countries such as Portugal have been granted observer status as a matter of routine. They also pointed out that Britain gave regular technical assistance to the OAS.

Changes in administrative staff is also reported in the United States, when according to The Miami Herald Latin American staff. The Nixon administration has nominated Jack Kubisch as its next Assistant Secretary of State for Inter-American Affairs. His nomination to the post is viewed by Washington insiders as a triumph for the State Department because Kubisch, unlike Meyer and the other Nixon administration officials, is a veteran diplomat. It's unlikely that Kubisch's nomination will be confirmed in time for the meeting of the Organization of American States to begin in Washington April 4th, but it is at this meeting that he is expected to be reintroduced to the Latin American scene after a two-year absence.

This gathering likely will feature heated debates on the sanctions imposed by the OAS against the Cuban government of Fidel Castro in 1964 when the US first built the sugarcane curtain. It will also serve as a forum for those Latin American nations who want to have the sanctions lifted and Cuba readmitted to the hemispheric group. Kubisch served in Brazil as Director of the United States International Development Agency from 1962 to '65. He was head of the Brazilian Affairs of the State Department in Washington from 1965 to '69. As a result, he has said to have strong emotional ties with Brazil and is considered an admirer of the economic plan used there.

Shifting from the diplomatic to the military front, Campainha, a weekly newspaper published by Brazilian exiles in Santiago, Chile, describes with concern the increasing militarization in Brazil. When General George Underwood, commander of the Panama Canal Zone, traveled to Brazil last year to discuss Latin American problems, particularly the internal politics of Peru, Chile, and Uruguay, General Sousa Mellow of the Brazilian military stated, "The General Underwood's visit with us reinforces the spirit of our presidents, who examined together the problems of the world which gave Brazil and the United States responsibilities to maintain the continuation of democracy." The statement by General Mellow demonstrates the purposes of the Brazilian arms race to assume the responsibility along with the United States of "maintaining democracy" in Latin America.

Campainha continues, "The warlike capacity of the Brazilian armed forces has already far surpassed the necessities of maintaining territorial boundaries. This excess capacity constitutes a danger for other Latin American countries to the extent that it seeks to create conditions to impose its leadership in Latin America. There is reason to believe that this could include intervention in countries that become unreceptive to Brazilian and North American models of development. The Brazilian preoccupation with entering the group of nations, which possess nuclear arms, reflects this objective. An agreement with the German Brazilian Commission of scientific and technical cooperation was signed last November, to further promote research in nuclear energy and the construction of missiles. Also, last year, Westinghouse Electric began constructing the first nuclear power plant in the country with a potential capacity of 600,000 kilowatts."

Campainha continues, "That the installation of arms factories in Brazil continues rapidly. Dow Chemical had proposed that their Brazilian plants begin producing napalm, which would be used in Vietnam. The so-called end of that war has postponed Dow's production of napalm in Brazil, but for how long?" Campainha asks. Print Latino reported last July that the Italian manufacturer Fiat, was trying to convince the Brazilian government to build a military aeronautics plant in Brazil. A similar offer was received from the French firm Dassault, which tried to sell its patent for the construction of its mirage jets in Brazil. Although in its propaganda, the Brazilian military government insists that the massive arms purchases are only in keeping with their intention to "modernize the army." Realistically, this arms race has one objective, to enable the Brazilian army to repress liberation movements both within and without that country.

Unfortunately, the increased militarization of Brazil is occurring in the context of growing tensions between the Brazilian government and other Latin American countries. Opinião, Brazil's major daily, reports from Rio, that Brazil and Paraguay are in the final planning stages of a huge hydroelectric dam on the Paraná River, and the agreement on the project will probably be signed next month when Paraguay's president visits Brazil.

The Itaipu Dam will be the largest in the world, cost over $2 billion supplied by the Brazilians, and provide energy to a huge area in Southern Brazil and Eastern Paraguay. The project has been criticized severely by the Argentinian government and by influential newspapers in Buenos Aires. Opinião predicts that the protests will grow now that the Peronist Party has won the elections, because the Peronists were outspoken during the campaign in criticizing Brazil's tampering with the Paraná River Basin.

Opinião continues that there are three basic reasons for Argentina's negative reaction to the proposed dam. First, it will seriously affect the flow of the Paraná River with unknown consequences for the trade and agriculture of six Argentine provinces. Secondly, the Brazilian project will make the construction of an Argentine hydroelectric plant further down the river impossible. Finally, the project has military implications, for if the Itaipu Dam is built, the Brazilians will have their hand on the faucet of the Paraná River and could use the dam as a weapon during war. For instance, flooding Argentina's most important and populous cities.

Opinião believes that the Argentinians have just complaints and urges the Brazilian government to stop rushing the planning stages and discuss the problem with neighboring countries. The Rio paper calls for a "disarmament of spirit without which it will be impossible to unite the forces necessary for the integral utilization of the Paraná River." That from Opinião.

Other observers are less optimistic than Opinião about the possibilities of an Argentine-Brazilian accord. Latin America sees the election of the strongly nationalistic Peronista Party in Argentina as likely to sharpen conflicts between the two nations. He reports that the Brazilian foreign office was preoccupied with Perón's victory and seized the deteriorations of relations as inevitable. The new government in Argentina, according to the Brazilian analysis, will be more than nationalistic. It will be overtly opposed to Brazil.

The probable foreign minister of the new Argentine regime has already spoken of smashing the Brasilia-Washington axis and it is expected that Argentine diplomats will soon try to restore Argentine influence in Uruguay, Paraguay, and Bolivia. Latin America concludes that an alliance of the other Latin American nations against Brazil is a distinct possibility if the Peronists can solve some of Argentina's internal problems. That from Latin America.

The following article on political developments in Peru since the illness of President Velasco Alvarado originated with the Latin America Newsletter. It was reprinted by the Brazilian Daily, Opinião. Peruvian President Juan Velasco Alvarado recovering in a hospital from an operation suffered a setback last Saturday when his doctors had to amputate his right leg above the knee. Official bulletins stressed the normality of such a complication, but there can be no doubt in the political impact of this new operation.

Prime Minister Edgardo Mercado Jarrín is temporarily presiding over government meetings. But until last week, Velasco still had to sign all legal instruments. The problem was partially that the Air Force minister should, in strictly military terms, take precedent. However, Mercado is probably the effective ruler of Peru at this point. Mercado is by no means as committed to radical change as Velasco, although he apparently moved to the left during his years as Peru's foreign minister.

Latin America continues. One of the most difficult tasks facing analysts of the Peruvian process has always been to cut through the revolutionary rhetoric and assess the true ideological commitment of the various generals who try so hard to outdo one another in verbal militancy. But there are interesting indications that the government's efforts to stimulate popular participation in the Peruvian revolution have been successful in awakening a militant consciousness in the workers' movement, which never existed there before. How far the militancy can control this development and how far they really want it to go remain to be seen. But the signs are that popular mobilization may be taking on a dynamism of its own.

The First National Congress of Comunidades Industriales, which entered a fortnight ago, provided some interesting evidence to support this view. A creation of the regime's theorists of social solidarity and inter-class collaboration, the Comunidades form of organization are nonetheless throwing up some radical demands which show that the class consciousness is very much alive and indeed growing. Although government officials who helped arrange the congress stressed all along its complete independence from official manipulation or influence, they were probably not prepared for the vigorous declarations of independence from the floor, which led the representatives of the ministry of industry to withdraw.

The ministry's Office of Labor Communities was also accused of lacking revolutionary consciousness and a unanimous vote accensure led to the abrupt departure of the ministry observers. Just for good measure, the Ministry of Labor was criticized for provoking industrial conflicts and the umpteenth call made for its complete reorganization.

Latin America's analysis on the Peruvian situation continues noting, although no open attacks were made on the government policy as such, a number of motions go considerably further than the official stance on such key matters as agrarian reform, nationalization, and workers' participation in decision making. The Communeros called for acceleration of land distribution programs without compensation for exppropriated landowners, complete nationalization of national resources and more active intervention by workers at all levels of management, not just on company boards. Other motions called for the immediate introduction of social ownership of the principle sector of the economy and the Comunidade organization in sectors where it does not yet exist.

From the Congress debates, it seems that despite official exhortation working class leaders persist in viewing the Comunidade as an instrument in their struggle against the capitalistas. A series of demands called for the takeover of firms which tamper with the balance sheets or to declare themselves in liquidation to frustrate the growth of the Comunidade. Other proposals are to exclude the landowners, the owners, and the executives from controlling counsel of the Comunidade and to exclude them also from the annual profit share out. Finally, delegates voted for a strengthening of the unions on the motion that they "constitute the main instrument of class struggle and defense of the workers."

To a certain amount of teaching can bring about a change in consciousness was shown by the experience of the big Northern Sugar cooperatives where, although they are a relatively privileged sector of the Peruvian working class, the field and factory workers directed their fire against the perpetuation of "capitalist attitudes among the managers and technicians." Something similar seems to be happening in industry which was previously a small and weak sector, but which is bound to grow enormously as a result of the government's accelerated industrialization programs.

The government by its no doubt well-intentioned encouragement of participation has opened the door to a militant class consciousness, which is not precisely what it intended. Although as the government is well aware, the Comuneros make up only a tiny and again privileged minority of Peru's working class, they could well become its vanguard. Unless an unexpected change of direction takes place at the top, the newfound self-confidence and independence of spirit among the leading sectors of the working class can only lead to an important radicalization of the Peruvian situation. The above analysis was from Latin America.

Juan Perón's electoral victory in Argentina and the political embarrassment suffered by the United States in Panama in March indicate a new willingness on the part of Spanish-speaking countries in Latin America to assert themselves. This has left Brazil, one of the United States' strongest supporters in the hemisphere, in an increasingly isolated position. This week's feature from Rio de Janeiro's Opinião discusses the possibilities of and fundamental reasons for a diplomatic realignment, which seems to be taking place in the Western Hemisphere.

Opinião asks, "Does some antagonism exist between Brazil and the rest of Latin America? Is Brazil the second-largest country in the Americas trying to exercise a type of sub imperialism in the hemisphere? And with the rush of huge foreign firms to Brazil, is that nation not transforming itself into a type of bridgehead over which the companies will carry out their actions in the hemisphere or is it exactly the opposite of all this? While Brazil transforms itself rapidly into a modern industrialized nation, are the majority of neighboring countries bogged down without direction in a swamp of under-development, looking for a scapegoat to explain their own failures and afraid of Brazilian development? Are they not the ones who are conspiring to encircle Brazil?"

As strange as these questions seem, they have influenced the actions of a good number of nations of the continent. Ever since President Nixon affirmed at the end of 1971 that as Brazil leans, so leans the rest of Latin America. Accusations and denials of a pretended hegemony have been issued with frequency from Brazil as well as from its neighbors. At the end of March, for example, an important leader of the Peronista party denounced a Washington Brasilia access and the ambition of the Brazilian government to try and exercise a delegated leadership and serve as a bridge for the entrance of an ultra capitalistic form of government incompatible with the interests of Latin America.

Opinião continues by noting that the declarations of the Peróneus leader are perhaps the most dramatic in a series of events which appear to be separating Brazil more and more from Spanish America. In Panama, the Panamanian foreign minister, speaking at the close of the United Nations Security Council meeting, talked about the awakening of Latin America and referred to the almost unanimous support of neighboring countries for panama's demand that the United States withdraw from the canal zone. To this same meeting, the Brazilian foreign minister had sent a telegram of evident neutrality, asking only for just and satispharic solutions to the problem of the canal.

After the meeting of the Security Council, the ministers of Panama and Peru announced that they are going to suggest a total restructuring of the Organization of American States, the OAS. Brazilian diplomacy, however, has systematically supported the OAS, which is seen by various Latin nations as an instrument used by the United States to impose its policies on the continent.

It was the Organization of American States which legalized the armed intervention of a predominantly American and Brazilian troops in the Dominican Republic in 1965. The Organization of American States also coordinated the political, economic, and diplomatic isolation of the Cuban regime within the Americas. Another event in February of this year can also be interpreted as a tendency away from Brazil's foreign policy, this time in the economic sphere. President Rafael Caldera announced that Venezuela, one of the richest nations in Latin America, and until recently, closely tied to the United States, would join the Andean Pact, an association formed in 1969 by Ecuador, Chile, Colombia, Peru, and Bolivia.

The pact was one of the solutions devised by the Andean nations to overcome the obstacles to regional integration found in the Latin America Free Trade Association. These nations saw the association as an instrument for large European and American firms, based in Argentina, Mexico, and Brazil, to realize their transactions more easily.

Opinião continues. "Today when the Argentinians have already announced that their intention to join the Andean Pact, where there are significant restrictions on foreign capital. Brazil is preparing a plan destined to permit the survival of the Free Trade Association. Thus once again, moving in the opposite direction of its Spanish-speaking neighbors. At the same time Brazil faces another political problem in the Americas. During the past decade, various nationalistic governments have appeared on the continent with widely divergent tendencies, including Chile, Peru, Mexico, Ecuador, and most recently Panama and Argentina. This new situation has given rise to a policy of coexistence, which is termed by the diplomats as ideological pluralism. This pluralism accepts the collaboration among governments of different natures and is opposed to the ideological frontiers against communism practiced by the Organization of American States, an idea which seems to orient Brazilian diplomacy to the present day."

Opinião speculates that Peronism could be the new element which will separate Brazil even more dangerously from the rest of Latin America. Representatives of the government elect in Argentina have already announced their intentions to denounce accords reached by the Brazilians and the present Argentine government over the utilization of the water of the Paraná River. At the same time, many nations in Latin America believe Brazil is trying to create its own sphere of influence. As typical examples, they cite the cases of Paraguay and Bolivia. The latter nation received $46 million in aid from Brazil last year while during the same period, the United States contributed only a little more, 52 million.

Opinião concludes that Brazil's economic growth, obvious favor in the eyes of American business and government officials, and the search for areas of influence, all indicate the emergence of a Brazilian sub imperialism in Latin America. There are two interpretations of this new phenomenon however as Opínion notes. "One sees Brazil always acting in accord with American interests while others feel it is acting for its own ends." To explore the subject further, Opínion offers three special reports from its correspondence on relations of Brazil with the rest of Latin America.

Opinião diplomatic correspondent filed the following report. "The idea of a diplomatic plot against Brazil is at best speculation. Concretely, Brazil's diplomacy in Latin America is in great difficulty, and therefore, there exists a possibility of isolation. The announcement of Brazil's foreign minister that he will visit the Andean Nations implies a recognition of this possibility and is an evident effort to avoid a total collapse. But the basic reason for the phenomenon is in Brazil's fixation with instruments of policy considered outmoded, such as the Latin American Free Trade Association and the Organization of American States, even the North Americans since this and in a recent interview, William Rogers, the United States Secretary of State, suggested a transformation of the OAS, the Organization of American States. However, Brazil clings to these old organizations."

Opinião correspondent continues. "In mid-March, the Brazilian Department of State announced that it was preparing a plan to save the Latin American Free Trade Association and that Brazil saw this as indispensable to the solution of Latin America's commercial problems. Other Latin nations feel, however, that the 12-year-old association has done nothing to fulfill its promise and has benefited the great Latin American firms, the only ones with the power, organization, and dynamism necessary to take advantage of the concessions granted to encourage industrial development. The consequences of the Free Trade Association agreements have been that the multinational corporations have established a division of labor among their Latin American factories. Through the agreements, they trade with one another and even win new markets while benefiting from suspensions of tariffs."

The Brazilian idea of integration through the Free Trade Association appears therefore as an attempt to create an ample market for multinational corporations. An OAS study of the continent's economy in 1972 affirms that 90% of all manufactured goods produced are made by subsidiaries of American firms. These firms export 75% of their products to other Latin countries and over half of this commerce is, in reality, internal trade between different branches of the same corporation. It is therefore clear why United States corporations are so interested in Latin American free trade. It opens a market too attractive to be ignored. Brazil's efforts to save this free trade area are not likely to find support in the rest of Latin America. As to Brazil's fixation on the Organization of American States, the recent meaning of the United States Security Council in Panama seems to have decreed the end of that obsolete instrument. The president of the OAS was not even invited to speak at the meeting.

One Latin American commented that the OAS evidently no longer had any importance in the solution of Latin American problems. With the demise of the Organization of American States, the rigid ideological stance of Latin America, born of the Cold War, will also disappear. Opinião correspondent concludes that, "Latin America is now going to assume its own personality in the pluralistic context and this is the reality which Brazil must recognize if it wants to avoid the total collapse of its Latin American diplomacy."

But the battle is really not against Brazil as some poorly informed or cynical editorialist pretend. Opinião correspondent says, "The battle is against the action of the great imperialistic powers that transformed Brazil into a spearhead for their interests." He says, "In this rich dialectic of Latin American history, the presence of a Brazil, overflowing with economic power and ready to join the Club of the Great Nations, encountered the Treaty of Cartagena, which created the Andean Pact in an effective agreement, which integrates six nations and imposes severe restrictions on foreign investment. The Peronists want to join this pact, and given the economic structure of the Andean region, it is clear that Argentina's entrance constitutes a necessary contribution to the solution of problems which affect the viability of the agreement."

Opinião analysis continues with a report on the significance of the elections in Argentina for the rest of the continent. Perón's triumph in the March 11th elections was the most important fact of the past few months in Latin American history when there were many decisive events. When Perón launched his party's platform in December of last year, he ended his message to the Argentine people by prophesizing, "In the year 2000, we will be united or we will be subjugated." The Argentine people believed this and when they elected Perón's party, they not only voted against 17 years of military inefficiency, but also, with a consciousness of the importance of historical development, and opted for the union of Spanish-speaking America. It was not only Perón's program, which created a consciousness of the problem. Undoubtedly, the country's geopolitical awareness was a direct consequence of Brazil's emergence as a power with pretensions to hegemony on the continent.

Argentina has the space, resources, and experience to supply all that is lacking in the Andean Nations, but it has above all, a tradition of popular masses who are profoundly committed to militant, Peronist, nationalism, which could function as the true backbone of the new attempt to integrate Spanish America. The emergence of a nationalistic type government in Uruguay, seen as a distinct possibility since the Peronista victory, is probably the next step and what Opinião reporter thinks is inevitable. The creation of one great Latin American country stretching from ocean to ocean, the only organization capable of confronting the multinational corporations and Brazil, which is being manipulated by the multinationals.

The final part of Opinião's report is an interview with Marcelo Sánchez Sorondo, an important figure in Perón's party and considered the probable next foreign minister of Argentina. Sorondo notes that this is a special time in Latin America, a time when new historical forces are at work and new configurations are emerging. He stated that it is necessary to converse, to dialogue, and to seek new forms of understanding, but the Argentine did not confine himself to diplomatic platitudes. He reiterated his opposition to what he termed the Brasilia Washington Axis.

Sorondo called this axis, "An obstacle for the unification of Hispanic America and a bastion of melting national firms interested in maintaining the dependence and backwardness of the Latin American peoples." He concluded by saying that the subject will require the future Peronist government to recuperate the Argentine predominance in the region and to discuss with neighboring countries modalities of economic interdependence and to impose energetically the imposition of an ultra capitalistic domination manipulated by huge companies without nations that are establishing themselves in Brazil. This report was taken from Opinião of Rio de Janeiro.

Many Latin American newspapers commented this week on the surprising degree of unity displayed at a UN Economic Commission for Latin America, ECLA, gathering during the last week of March in Quito, Ecuador. The wire service Prensa Latina reports that the Latin America of 1973 is not the Latin America of 1962. No longer is it Cuba alone that engages in vast economic and social transformations in this hemisphere, and ECLA must be prepared to face this new stage. This was the gist of the statements made by Cuban Deputy Prime Minister Carlos Rafael Rodriguez, head of his country's delegation to the 15th meeting of ECLA, which took place in Quito. The Cuban minister cited as facts which prove the new situation in Latin America, the process of construction of a socialist economy in Chile, the Peruvian revolutionary process and the results of the UN Security Council meeting held in Panama recently.

Rodriguez said, "We Latin Americans have come to an agreement at least on what we don't want, and that is backwardness, illiteracy, hunger and poverty, which are prevalent in practically every society in the region. Without an ingrained desire for development, without the determination and the will for development of the peoples, development is absolutely impossible," he added. He went on to say that one cannot demand sacrifices from people where 5% of the population receives 43% of the national income and 30% barely received 10 or perhaps 15%.

The head of the Cuban delegation said, according to Prensa Latina, that "accelerated development under the existing conditions implies in investments that the peoples cannot tackle for a lack of resources. After affirming that, here is where international financing comes into play." He said that "As far as the great capitalist economic powers are concerned, their help should not be considered as a gift, but rather as restitution for all the pillage the Latin American peoples have been subjected to." He added, "Such financing will never be obtained without the people struggle." This report from the Latin American wire service, Prensa Latina

Chile's participation in last month's ECLA meeting is reported in the Santiago weekly, Chile Hoy, which said that, "In clear language, the Chilean delegation to ECLA described the causes of the low level of economic development in Chile in recent years. The directions undertaken by the Allende administration, the successes of these strategies, and finally, the obstacles which block this path. In our judgment," said that Chilean delegation, "a number of historical errors were committed during this century in our country, which led to negative results for the Chilean people."

"In summary, we can point out seven fundamental errors. First, the surrender of basic natural resources to foreign capital. Secondly, a narrow base for the national economy with only one industrial potential, copper, generating a national external dependence, financial, commercial, technological, and cultural dependence. Third, land ownership remained in the hands of a few large landowners. Fourth, manufacturing was concentrated in the hands of a few monopolies. Fifth, Chile fell into intense foreign debt, $4 billion through 1970, the second largest per capita debt in the world, behind Israel. Sixth, establishment of a repressive state, which maintained an unequal distribution of income within the framework of only formal democracy. And seventh, the limited economic development was concentrated geographically in the capital of Santiago creating a modern sector while the rural provinces stagnated."

Chile Hoy goes on to say that, "Demonstrating the historical failure of capitalism in Chile, the Chilean delegate showed that in the 1970 presidential elections, two candidates who won over 65% of the votes suggested two different reforms. The Christian Democrat Reform had the goal of a socialist communitarian society, and the popular Unity's goal was the gradual construction of a true socialist economy. Since the popular unity won the election, there have been distinct revolutionary changes in the government's two and one half years in power, the recovery of national ownership of natural resources, the elimination of industrial monopoly through the formation of the area of social property, which is creating the mechanisms for workers' participation, nationalization of the finance and foreign commerce sectors. The Chilean state now controls 95% of credit and 85% of exports as well as 48% of imports. Further changes are that large land holdings have been expiated."

"The reformed sector now represents 48% of arable land, and with the passage of a new law during 1973, the second phase of agrarian reform will begin. Also, changes in international relations shown in the widening of diplomatic and commercial agreements, Chile is less dependent than before, and the diversification of our foreign relations permits us to say with pride that we are no longer an appendix of anyone. In addition, a vigorous internal market has been created raising the buying power of the people redistributing income and increasing national consumption." Chile Hoy further states that, "We are alleviating the burden of the inherited foreign debt. We hope that during 1973, we obtain the understanding of friendly countries in order to relieve our international payments problems." This report on Chile's statement at the ECLA gathering is from the Santiago Weekly, Chile Hoy.

The British News Weekly, Latin America gives a more detailed account of the main issues of the ECLA Conference. "The most remarkable feature of the meeting of the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America, ECLA, which ended in Quito at the end of March, was the degree of Latin American unity. The mutual distaste felt by the governments of Brazil and Central America on the right and Chile and Cuba on the left was no secret, and since development strategy was what the discussion was all about, a good deal of mutual recriminations might have been expected, but mutual interest prevailed. Faced by the economic power of the world's rich and particularly the United States, every Latin American country appreciated the need to stick together. Indeed, there seems to have been a tacit understanding that Latin American governments would not criticize one another. As a result, nearly all their fire was concentrated on the US with a few broad sides reserved for the European economic community."

"In fact," says Latin America, "only the United States failed to vote with the rest, including even the Europeans for the rather gloomy report on Latin America's development strategy over the past decade. One of the reports Chief criticisms was directed at the growth of Latin America's enormous external debt, now estimated at around 20 billion dollars, and it called for refinancing and even a moratorium on payments in certain circumstances. This of course affects the US first and foremost, as did the criticisms of private investment and the financing of foreign trade. But the United States ambassador refrained from the hard line retaliations that had been expected by the Latins. Instead, more in sorrow than in anger. He urged them to look at the advantages of private investment and pointed out that the US imported more Latin American manufactured goods than any in other industrialized country, and instead of voting against the report, he continued himself with abstaining."

Latin America continues commenting that, "The United States was also in the firing line with the resolution denouncing transnational companies for the enormous economic power which is concentrated in them and allows them to interfere in national interest as has happened in some cases. This echoed the resolution approved at the security council meeting in Panama and coincided with the Senate hearings in Washington on the attempt by IT&T to finance a CIA operation against Dr. Salvador Allende in 1970.

There was also considerable interest in the proposal put personally by the Chilean delegate, who emphasized he was not speaking for his government, that the United States and European members of ECLA should be expelled. This proposal is unlikely to be carried through, but is symptomatic of the Latin American desire to have an influential body of their own to look after their own interest without interference. It was notable too that all Latin American governments, whatever their political coloring, felt able to support the recommendation that social development and reforms should accompany economic development, something which would appear to run counter to current Brazilian development strategy," concludes the weekly Latin America.

Another hemispheric meeting with important consequences for US Latin American relations was the Organization of American States meeting the first week of April in Washington. Mexico City's Excélsior comments that, "The Latin American OAS members who have recently reasserted their continental solidarity in Bogota, Panama, and Quito are now seeking US isolation from their affairs. The most recent assembly during the first week of April officially called in order to examine political, economic, cultural and administrative problems also dealt in a radical way with the entire inner American system, with the hope of reducing the influence exercise by Washington. At the last three assemblies in Bogotá, Panama and Quito, Washington was accused of many actions detrimental to Latin American interests, and subsequently manifested a rather hostile attitude towards the accusing countries. Came voting time, and the US abstained."

"The most recent OAS assembly began and operated in the air of uncertainties," says Excélsior, "primarily because all members, including the US, realized that some fundamental structural modifications must be made, but no one was sure how to go about initiating them. The central debate centered on two issues. Venezuela challenged the validity of the OAS mission by inviting the entire assembly to reflect on the political nature of the institution within the international perspective. The second point was brought up by OAS Secretary General Galo Plaza, who proposed a revision of the inner American cooperation system. More specifically, he proposed the prevention of unilateral services and agreements, which often have detrimental results. For Latin America. The US attitude was one of surprise, but the problem they said was not insurmountable." This comment from Excélsior in Mexico City.

The Jornal do Brasil from Rio comments on the opening of the OAS meeting. "The days are long gone when the organization of American states with its orthodox image and its ideological and political unity constituted one well-tuned orchestra under the constant and undisputed direction of one director. Ideological pluralism is the order of the day in Latin America, and there is no longer any way the United States or anybody else can impose unity. The Jornal's editorial goes on to say that Brazil, though it is not encouraged or even liked the development of ideological pluralism in Latin America, must accept the facts and learn to live with them. Brazil cannot turn its back on the continent through lack of interest or resentment at the turn of events because Brazil belongs with Latin America."

The problem at the OAS meeting, therefore will be to establish new objectives for the organization. Ideological pluralism has made the OAS unfit for many of its former task, such as military planning on a hemispheric scale. However, the organization still can be used for presenting a united Latin American view to international groups on certain issues such as the demand for a 200-mile fishing limit. The Jornal do Brasil concludes that, "The OAS must change, but still can be useful to Latin nations."

April 1st was the anniversary of the 1964 military coup in Brazil, which has resulted in a military government to the present time. This anniversary was treated very differently by two newspapers. The Jornal do Brasil in Rio noted the ninth anniversary of the 1964 Brazilian Revolution and in its editorial commended President Médici for emphasizing the social aspects of the Revolutions program. Médici in his address to the nation mentioned the construction of housing for low income groups, the multiplication of schools and plans for sanitation as the great accomplishments of the government installed by a military coup in 1964. These social developments are based on the economic progress of the country since '64 and will eventually lead to the complete modernization of Brazilian society and a mature political system. The Jornal do Brasil feels this is already happening and points to this year's local elections where the government party received large majorities as proof of Brazil's political development.

An opposite view was given the anniversary by Campainha, a weekly newspaper published by Brazilian exiles in Chile. Campania says, "Nine years ago on April 1st, 1964, there was a military coup in Brazil. The national and international patrons shook hands and mobilized their troops to block the struggle of the people. Today completes nine years of dictatorship, nine years of superexploitation, misery, repression, and torture. Some of the achievements of the Brazilian generals are: the working class lost the right to demonstrate or to strike. The wage control law of 1965 states that wages can only rise in accordance with the cost of living. The result of this is the decline in value of real wages by 36% between 1958 and 1969. Because of wage controls over time is obligatory. Factory workers must work 10 hours a day. The awful working conditions and long hours are responsible for more than a million and a half industrial injuries in 1971 alone."

Campainha concludes, "Nine years after the coup, we have in front of us the same task; to organize the resistance to the dictatorship, to stop the disintegration of popular struggles, to organize the resistance in each factory, in each farm, in each university, in each workplace, Chilean workers, Latin American workers. What happened in Brazil is called totalitarian. It is called superexploitation and oppression. This is what the Brazilian military dictatorship wants to export to all of Latin America. To stop this from happening, there exists only one path: to organize the Latin American working class against the Brazilian dictatorship and their sub-imperialist politics. This comment from the Brazilian Exile Newspaper, Campainha.

Moving on to news of other less covert diplomacy by the United States. Opinião of Brazil reports that the United States Department of Defense has announced that General Creighton Abrams, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, will soon visit several countries in Latin America.

Opinião reports from Rio de Janeiro that Brazil will be one of the nations visited by Abrams, and says that there are two theories in diplomatic circles to explain the reasons for the trip.

The first and simpler one is that Abrams is laying the groundwork for President Nixon's visit to Brazil later this year. The Brazilian press has reported rumors of this trip for some time now, and Opinião feels it is certain that Nixon will visit Brazil to consolidate political, economic, and financial ties between the two countries.

Opinião continues, explaining that the second interpretation of Abrams visit is more complex. Some see it as the start of a diplomatic counteroffensive on the part of the United States against the growing ideological pluralism in Latin America, represented especially by Argentina, Chile, Peru, and Panama. Observers feel that Spanish American nations are trying to cut the economic ties which make them dependent on the United States. And that the US and the person of General Abrams will be trying to stem the rising tide of anti-Yankee feeling, probably with the help of Brazil, which feels itself more and more isolated from its Spanish-speaking neighbors, that from Opinião.

Censors struck the newspaper Oestado de São Paulo, and its afternoon sister paper, Journal da Tarde, prohibiting three stories in each. Oestado covered up the censored items with letters to the editor, while Journal da Tarde used kitchen recipes. Had the papers printed the vetoed stories, federal police would've seized all the issues as they came off the press.

Unfortunately, that may be our last report from Opinião. This independent weekly has been shut down by the Brazilian regime and the publisher arrested for editorial speculation on the military regime's succession, a theme currently forbidden in the press. Brazil has a recent history of severe press censorship, started by the military after their coup in 1964. Just prior to the shutdown of Opinião, the Miami Herald reported concerning two other papers from Brazil that-

The Herald continues that censors are assigned by Brazil's military run government are on permanent duty at the Oestado building. The censored items were a story from the Inter American Press Association meeting in Jamaica, saying that there was press censorship in Brazil. Also, a critical quote from a federal congressman from the only political opposition party allowed in the country and testimony in a case of alleged corruption in the Army. Two days later, according to the Miami Herald, the state government withdrew its advertising from the same two newspapers. It should be noted that Oestado and the Journal da Tarde are Brazil's principle daily newspapers. We know that Brazil is the US government's major ally in South America, with Nixon having expressed the hope that other Latin American countries would follow Brazilian leadership.

Continuing our coverage of a US diplomatic offensive, or counter offensive in Latin America, The Guardian reports that preceding General Abram's planned visit, United States General Vernon Walters, second in command of the Central Intelligence Agency, visited Brazil last month. After his visit, Brazilian General Mello declared that the United States and Brazil, "Will continue their struggles against communism, which is showing its claws in South America."

In another view of impending diplomatic developments and especially Nixon's possible trip to Latin America, Excélsior of Mexico reports that Nixon would encounter considerable hostility. Nixon, Excélsior reports, will encounter a Latin America radically different from that of 15 years ago when he made his last state visit there.

The hostility with which he was received in touring several countries as Vice President reflected an anti North American sentiment that had at the time barely taken hold among the students and workers. A decade later in several nations, Excélsior says, the sentiment has spread reaching even official levels. In addition, the internal situation of most countries has changed. Only in Paraguay where Alfredo Stroessner remains dictator is the political atmosphere unchanged.

In Peru, 15 years ago, Nixon was welcomed by protests and stones, but he received an official apology from the government. Now, the government there itself has had several serious run-ins with the US foreign investment policies. In Venezuela, 15 years ago, Nixon was bombarded by eggs, tomatoes, and rocks, and the army was forced to intervene to literally save Nixon's life from a so-called mob. Now, while there are officially amicable relations between the two governments, Venezuela has imposed severe restrictions on the US companies operating in the region, and a humorist there suggests that Nixon had better keep a low profile.

Excélsior also reported that in evident disregard for Latin American needs and opinions, Nixon made a speech, April 10th, asserting that, "Multinational corporations are a viable source of world prosperity," and asking the US Congress not to pass reform legislation attempting to curb their power. In addition, Nixon's new foreign trade proposals have been described by the Mexican ambassador as posing an enormous threat to Mexico. Nixon announced that if he had his way, the US would help Latin American countries only if they helped the United States. That poses a problem for Latin American countries since they are already running a major trade unbalance that is in the favor of the United States, that from Excélsior.

In addition to the trip of General Vernon Walters, second in command of the Central Intelligence Agency, the announced trip of General Creighton Abrams of the joint Chiefs of staff and the possible trip of Nixon to Latin America, William Rogers of the State Department has announced some plans for a trip. The Miami Herald reports that Secretary of State, William Rogers, will visit a half a dozen key countries in a two-week trip through Latin America next month. The 14-day trip, tentatively set from May 5th to 20th, will include stops of between one and two days in at least five Latin American nations, Mexico, Brazil, and Argentina before the inauguration there of the new Peronist government on May 25th are certainties. Columbia and Venezuela are likely stops and Peru is a possible one.

The Miami Herald continues noting that Chile, where the United States faces some of its most difficult bilateral issues, will not be included on the Roger's itinerary. Nor will Panama, where the United States has come under increasing pressure over the canal. Among bilateral issues to be raised are those of trade and tariffs, petroleum, the law of the sea, the changing role of the United States and a Latin America anxiously asserting political and economic self-determination. No high ranking US official has systematically visited Latin America since New York Governor Rockefeller undertook a protest marred country by country tour in 1969. The Nixon administration has consistently ranked Latin America near the bottom of its foreign policy priorities, but President Nixon, in a recent message to Latin American leaders, promised to accord inter-American affairs priority consideration during this, his second term. That from the financial section of the Miami Herald.

Meanwhile, as US diplomats plan their trips, Latin American officials are not exactly waiting around. Excélsior reports that Mexican President Echeverria was visiting Moscow. President Echeverria also announced during his trip to Europe, Moscow, and Peking that he definitely will not establish relations with General Franco, the US ally who has been ruling Spain since the fascist victory there in the 1930s. Excélsior further reported that Echeverria did meet in Paris with Perón and cordial relations between Mexico and Argentina are expected to develop after the popularly elected Peronist candidate takes office when the military steps down. That report from the Mexican daily Excélsior.

The ecology movement has recently captured the public's attention in industrialized countries. As the deterioration of the environment becomes more evident and the scientific evidence on the dangers of pollution accumulates, it is to be hope that Western Europe, Japan, and the United States will begin to implement policies to protect the ecosystem, but the programs proposed while popular at home are being seen as a threat to development in many parts of the world.

Some underdeveloped countries view ecological concerns as yet another obstacle created by the developed countries to their economic growth and are refusing to defer their dreams of industrialization because of the dangers to the ecology. The conflict between industrialized nations and the Third World over ecology is in its early stages, but important political, legal and moral questions have been raised, and these questions are of such a fundamental nature that there is some doubt as to whether they can be solved peacefully. Today we will describe the position Brazil took at the United Nations Conference on the human environment in Stockholm last year and then discuss some of the implications of their position. Though we feel that the issues advanced are of extreme importance, ironically, it seems to us that it will not be Brazil, but other poorer countries that will find themselves immersed in these conflicts.

Brazil's position in Latin America is most unique. Brazil has neither been resigned to the status of a non-developing satellite of the developed world, but neither is it moving in the direction of attaining development according to socialist models, nor is it moving towards an economics of cooperation with other underdeveloped nations. Instead, Brazil's governing military group is attempting rapid growth in industrialization similar to the developed mental methods followed by Western capitalist countries earlier in their histories. Brazil is one of the few Third World countries, perhaps the last, that has a chance of making it into the ranks of the so-called developed countries under this model of western, i.e. Capitalist development. Brazil's development seems to look favorably upon by the United States, Japan, and Western Europe, and it will presumably assume a place alongside these economically, politically and militarily.

We do, however, in the more general case, agree strongly with these articles' concerns over impending conflicts between developed and undeveloped nations over the usage of world resources. For given the disproportionately enormous resource usage patterns of the developed capitalist countries, it is reasonable to speculate that the development of most of the Third World will indeed be opposed by the economic elites of the developed nations as these powerful nations vie for control of limited resources. The following then is the Brazilian administration's arguments for its right to develop without regard to ecological considerations. The arguments are those developed in a series of articles from Brazil's daily Journal do Brazil, and it's weekly, Realidad.

The Brazilians were unusually blunt in Stockholm, arguing that the worst form of pollution was human poverty and that the industrial nation's concerns about the quality of air and water were luxuries the poor countries could not afford. Brazil's Minister of the Interior told the Assembly on Environment that quote, "For the majority of the world's population, the bettering of conditions is much more a question of mitigating poverty, having more food, better clothing, housing, medical attention and employment than in seeking atmospheric pollution and its reduction."

Brazil's Minister of the interior's argument is open to criticism because rapid industrialization in the Third World without income redistribution often does not improve conditions for the vast majority of the population. Certainly the so-called Brazilian economic miracle has caused widespread suffering among the lower classes. In fact, it has decreased the proletarian share of goods because capital accumulation for industrialization is being achieved by a reduction in workers' real wages. In fact, the situation is so appalling that even Brazil's President Médici remarked publicly last year that, "The economy is doing well and the people are doing poorly."

Yet the Brazilians press on with their policies, justifying them with the convictions that at some point in the future, industrialization will indeed produce great benefits for all classes. This may or may not be true, but from an ecological viewpoint, the important thing is that urgent attempts to industrialize will continue under this model of development.

Basically, the issue as Brazil sees it, revolves around how new ecological concerns will affect their rates of development. Brazilians want to close the enormous and widening gap between themselves and the industrialized nations. While they recognize that ecological problems are not illusory, they feel that a concern for the environment is a trap which may frustrate their desires for rapid development, and they cite three reasons for that fear.

First, devices to reduce chemical and thermal pollution will be expensive and may in addition require lowering production to levels where the environment can absorb the waste generated. It's also observed that precious investment funds would become tied up in non-productive anti-pollutant devices which do not generate new capital. Perhaps most importantly, an anti-pollution campaign would increase the prices of each item produced. The consequences of a jump in prices would be disastrous for a developing economy because it would reduce the already small market for manufactured goods and create a structural block to any further economic growth. Therefore, the Brazilians do not want to take on the economic burdens of protecting the environment. They argued in Stockholm that the rich nations never had such a burden during the 19th century when they were industrializing, and that if the Third World is ever to catch up, it must now have all the advantages the developed world once did.

A second fear expressed by the Brazilians was that the issue of ecology will be used by the industrialized nations as a rationalization to block the Third World's development. They are afraid that rich consumer countries unable or unwilling to control pollution at home and conscious of rendering resource supplies will use these as a justification for keeping a large percentage of the species in underdevelopment and poverty. Ecological concerns have already had an effect, in fact on loan practices from the developed world. As Kalido Mendez, a delegate to the Stockholm Conference pointed out, "It is no accident that the only contributions from the industrialized world that have not declined in the past few years have been military funds and funds designated for population control."

Kalido Mendez's fears, "Namely that the developed countries will act to block development of most of the Third World, seem very real to us. It is however, our perception of the political map that Brazil's development will be permitted even aided by the first world in an effort to make her a partner in maintaining the current power distribution."

The third fear Brazil expressed in the Stockholm conference was that the ecological issue may sometime be used as an entering wedge by the industrialized nations to interfere in the internal affairs of the Third World. While this possibility seems remote at the moment, the situation could become extremely explosive if there were an ecological crisis, such as an oil shortage. Brazilians are especially sensitive to any infringement on their sovereignty because of a developing conflict over their usage of the Amazon River basin and a not dissimilar argument with Argentina over the Parana river. Both of these questions were raised at Stockholm.

The particulars of the Amazonian basin argument are as follows, the consequences of tampering with the ecology of the Amazon may have a very serious ramification for all people. Some scientists estimate that as much as one half of the world's oxygen supply may be generated by the foliage of this huge tropical forest. Also, that the tropical forest ecosystem is a very fragile one. Misuse of the areas such as caused by heavy mining and timbering and the concomitant erosion could convert that area of extremely thin soil layers into a desert within a generation. This may be an overstatement, but it is clear that the area plays a very important role in the world's ecosystem.

The Brazilians, on the other hand feel that for their successful development, they need to be able to exploit these frontier lands much as the United States used the West as a vast reservoir of untapped natural resources for population relocation and to be meted out as incentives for investment. Thus, through expensive governmental programs like the construction of the Trans-Amazonian Highway and grants of millions of acres to multinational corporations, the Brazilians are trying to develop the virgin area quickly. Brazilian army engineers have cut huge swaths through the jungle to open roads.

The international corporations, mostly United States based, have begun to exploit timber and mineral resources and plan to turn thousands of square miles of forest into pasture land. All of this is being done very rapidly with only a superficial knowledge of the Amazon's ecosystem and with the hope that these disruptions of the forest will not touch off an ecological disaster.

It should be noted as an important aside that the involvement of multinational corporations are an aggravating element in this conflict between rapid development and ecological soundness. Because they remit large profits to their headquarters, usually in the United States, they increase the extent of ecological exploitation necessary to produce the desired level of development for Brazil itself. Finally, international corporations seem to be beyond the control of any nation and try to maximize profits without regard for the wellbeing of any single country. It appears doubtful that these companies will adopt policies which follow sound ecological principles.

When Western environmentalists criticize the opening of the Amazon because it is being done too quickly without sufficient consideration for ecological consequences. The Brazilians answer quite simply, the Amazon is theirs and they will broke no interference, or to state the matter more sympathetically to the Brazilians, they have no intention of maintaining the Amazon as a pollution free zone so that the industrial nations can keep their industrial economies and consumption levels at the current high polluting levels. In effect, the Brazilians are claiming the right to develop at the cost of nature as the US did and continue to do so.

A similar and equally unbending position is taken by the administration on the question of an enormous hydroelectric plant it's building on the Parana River, the Argentinians through whose country this river also flows, argue that the project will wreck havoc with the ecology of the entire area harmfully affecting fishing and farming. The Argentinians during the conference in Stockholm unsuccessfully lobbied for an agreement that would've required a nation to supply information to its neighbor about any project which might cause damage to the neighboring country.

Argentina is not in good economic or political shape at this time, so a military confrontation over the Parana does not seem likely. However, the problem certainly illustrates the explosiveness of the entire question of developmental projects and their effects on the ecology of neighboring countries. One can imagine, for example, how the US might react if the Canadians set about implementing a developmental plan that affected the entire Mississippi Valley. Argentina believes it is facing just such a situation now, and most other Third World nations will probably be in similar positions in the coming decade as competition for materials, energy, and the use of the environment increases.

In this report, we have emphasized the fears that underdeveloped nations feel about the ecological issue, and how it might slow their development and compromise their sovereignty. There is no doubt that if they followed the industrialized country's advice and took better care of the environment, their rate of development would be slowed. Furthermore, their assertion that the rich nations industrialized without considering the ecological balance is historically accurate, and it is also correct to say that almost all pollution comes from Europe, Japan, and the United States, but all the arguments in the world do not change certain grim realities, which must be faced by rich and poor nations alike, for there is an ecological crisis and it does involve all of humanity.

If there is a solution at all to this problem, it must fly with the richer nations. It was the industrialized nations which created the environmental crisis in the first place through decades of dumping waste into the biosphere. It was their non-rational, indeed wasteful usage of energy and natural resources that hastens us towards scarcity. The developed countries have accustomed themselves to using grossly and equitable shares of the world's limited resources, and it is a continuance of this policy, which will absolutely prohibit Third World development and make clashes between poor and rich nations over resource usage inevitable. As these practices continue, it is hardly realistic to ask the undeveloped world, not to pollute and to remain undeveloped while the developed world continues it's high pollution and consumption rates.

So the industrialized nations must cease polluting and bear the economic burden for cleaning up their own territories. More importantly, the general high level of industrial activity must be controlled. To achieve this, the richer nations must stop expanding their economies so rapidly. In other words, the industrialized nations must be willing to reduce their standards of resource use and energy use, while helping to raise the economies of other countries out of their current conditions of abject poverty. They must make a serious attempt to redistribute their wealth, which would allow the Third World countries to be industrialized in an environmentally sound way.

Unfortunately, we do not expect this to happen because we see no way it could be done given the present political, economic, and military structures of the richer nations. Perhaps an ecological disaster will be necessary to awaken people to the need for fundamental change on a global scale. Our hope is that such a disaster will not do irreparable harm to the biosphere. Perhaps wars for the control of natural resource and the usage of energy will be inevitable before people become enlightened as to the consequences of so, does equal a distribution of the world's wealth. Here to, we can only hope and plead that somehow reason and a sense of human solidarity can spare humanity this sort of bloodbath.

Two comments in the Latin America press seemed to sum up the general feeling on the continent in the wake of the recent organization of American States meeting in Washington DC. Mexico's President Echeverría, when asked by Rio de Janeiro's Opinião about his opinion of the organization was replied, "The OAS? Does it still exist? It is necessary to reconstruct it on different bases. It is necessary to establish a new regional organization which does not exclude anybody, including Canada and Cuba."

In Lima, a newspaper favoring the government, El Expreso, said that the Latin Americans now need a Declaration of independence equal to the one the North Americans gave to England in 1776, and concluded that the organization of American states will not survive if the United States continues to dominate it.

A more detailed view of the OAS (Organization of American States) meeting was given by the British Weekly, Latin America, which said that the general assembly of the OAS ended its meeting in Washington two weeks ago without voting on the question of Cuba's readmission, or the lifting of diplomatic and economic sanctions against the island. Although there was undoubtedly a majority in favor of ending Cuba's isolation, most delegates withdrew from the brink of an outright confrontation with the US, which continued to object to Havana's military links with Moscow, and maintained that despite certain changes, Cuba was still interfering in other countries' internal affairs. A working group was set up to find a compromised solution with both Chile and Brazil among its members representing the most extreme viewpoints on Cuba.

It was also agreed unanimously to form a commission to study the complete restructuring of the OAS, and there was a unanimous vote for ideological plurality in the hemisphere. A resolution approved by 21 votes to none, with only the United States and Honduras abstaining, called on Washington not to sell its strategic mineral reserves in a way that would harm Latin American economies.

Another resolution approved unanimously, except for the abstention of the US, called on Washington to prevent transnational companies from intervening in other countries internal affairs. This report from the weekly Latin America.

Opinião of São Paulo comments on the fact that prominent members of the Brazilian Congress have recently demanded more democratization of the nation's political institutions before this election of a new president, which will occur later this year. The president of the House of Deputies recently expressed these goals in an interview with Rio's Jornal de Brazil. He defended the need for greater participation on the part of the Congress on the grounds that Brazil has the necessity of presenting itself in foreign lands as a democratized nation. Other members of the Congress, even within the government's party, have echoed these sentiments. Opinião however thinks this will all come to nothing, and the congress will have the opportunity to discuss the choice of the next president only after the army has effectively made that choice.

An open declaration of war by the Brazilian church against the government seems to have been the effect of the memorial service for geology student Alexandre Lemi who was killed while in the custody of São Paulo security services. Latin America News Weekly reports that Alexandre Lemi, 22, was one of the brightest students in the geological faculty of Sao Paulo University, and came from a traditionally Catholic family. He was arrested on March 16th for being a member of the National Liberation Force. On March 17th, he was killed while in police custody, ostensibly by passing motor vehicle. The official police report issued by the security secretary of São Paulo said he was taken to a street crossing where he had a meeting with a friend at a bar, and while the security agents remained at a distance, he ran away across the road where he could not be followed because of the amount of traffic, but was run over by a truck.

Police refusal of an appeal from the boy's parents for their son's body, and of a call by the Council of the University's teaching staff for an exhumation and postmortem, is being seen in some quarters as proof that this was an official murder. But Alexandra's death, in a manner all too common in present day Brazil, would've passed without notice had it not been for the shattering effect of the memorial mass held for him and the Cathedral da Sé, presided over by the Archbishop and Bishop of Sorocaba, assisted by 24 priests. The mass was fixed for 6:30, but by four o'clock the center of São Paulo was occupied by armed police and shock troops, while the university was surrounded by military police.

Nevertheless, 3000 students managed to enter the cathedral. No doubt to their surprise, the first song in the service sheet, which had been prepared by a special commission was no hymn, but a song prohibited by the Brazilian censorship, and who's author, Geraldo Vandré, lives in exile. The liturgy of the mass included the words, "We are imprisoned in our egotism instead of catering for the great causes of our society," and one of the songs proclaimed, "We offer the end in the asking, the hard struggle between the old and the new, the dark night of the people and the dawn of the resurrection."

"If the liturgy was subversive," says Latin America, "The sermons were almost revolutionary". The Bishop of Sorocaba accused the government openly. "We are unable to give the lie to the police accusations against this young student. God knows and He will be the judge, but I find that he was barbarically liquidated." The cardinal, in the first words of his sermon, noted that even Christ after his death was returned to his family and friends. The representative of Roman power was able to do that much justice. The repercussions were immediate. A complete censorship was imposed on any reference to the mass in press, radio, and television. The government was further embarrassed by the fact that the mass was on March 30th, the day before the anniversary celebration of the revolution of 1964.

But the censorship was broken. São Paulo's channel five television station broadcast a news flash for which it has been punished under the national security law. More daring was the weekly Opinião, which has recently been increasing sales in leaps and bounds as the only publication that dares to criticize the government. Not only did it publish a brief report on the mass, as well as the security secretary's statement, but it also gave an interview with the cardinal in which he described the people of São Paulo as living in a situation of emergency in relation to wages, health, and public security.

Nemesis for Opinião was not slow in coming. The censorship has demanded that all its material must be submitted to the sensors 48 hours before going to press, effectively making publication impossible. This week's proposed edition, which it is understood, will not be appearing, had 8 of 24 pages completely censored. The censored pages contained material on wage problems, the political situation, and Brazilian investments in Bolivia. A protest has already been made by the Inter American Press Society to the Brazilian government while the Estela de São Paulo and Jornal da Tarde, two other newspapers, have announced that they will accept no government advertising nor government announcements for publication, as a protest against censorship. The government has banned live television reporting as dangerous, and all programs must in the future be prerecorded.

"But whatever happens to the press," concludes Latin America newsletter, "The real importance of the death of Alexandre Lemi is that the church has revealed a newfound and aggressive militancy. If, as it appears, the church is now on a collision course with the government, there is little doubt who will win in the end. The government may be able to suppress a handful of left-wing terrorists, but the Christian Church has for nearly 2000 years, thrived on persecution and martyrdom and always come out on top. All the signs are that Alexandre Lemi is to be presented as a martyr of the regime." This from Latin America.

Religious militancy is also appearing in the Dominican Republic. The Miami Herald reports that the country's Roman Catholic Church has denounced that there is no respect for human life in the Dominican Republic. In an Easter message before numerous government officials at Santo Domingo's Cathedral, a bishop said, "There is no respect for human life here. Human life is worth less than a cigarette in our country." The priest charged that inhumane punishments are being inflicted on inmates in Dominican jails, and that brutal assassinations occur frequently. He added that, "Hunger and misery affect most of the people in the country."

The latest developments in the Watergate scandal are receiving wide international attention. Mexico's Excélsior, for example, reported extensively on former Attorney General Mitchell's payments of more than $2 million to Republican spies, and the paper provided detailed reports on subsequent events.

The Watergate affair has also occasioned some editorial comment in the Latin American press. Brazil's News Weekly Visão said, "The revelations surrounding Watergate will not have much practical effect since Nixon is already reelected. The wave of mud, which stretches from the Democratic headquarters to the basement of the White House will result in a few convictions, but little else."

Visão continues, "At this point, it is possible to expect that the case will end with a few resignations, because of sudden illness in the family or pressing private business affairs of some prominent White House aides. Certainly the interest of justice will not be entirely served, though the law makes no distinction between those who execute a crime and those who order it. Experience clearly shows that the former almost always go to jail, while their chiefs only lose their jobs. But it is also easy to predict that the example of Watergate will serve some use and that this type of electoral politics will lose for a good while its attractiveness."

"We conclude," Visão writes, "That the wave of reaction created around Watergate was not useless. It was a wave which was born after the official investigation had dried up and became irresistible, in spite of the frank opposition and all the capacity for pressure of the most powerful force of the republic, the White House."

Other types of police activity of the United States also received attention in the Latin American press. Excélsior, the Mexico City Daily, comments that the Watergate scandal has shown that in violent clashes against anti-war demonstrators in the US, the attackers have not always been US citizens who support the war, but frequently Cuban refugees drafted by the CIA. These counter demonstrators use typical storm trooper tactics. Their clumsiness and immorality are a well-known disgrace.

But in the US, it is aggravated by taking advantage of former exiles who are all ready to do what is requested of them, not only to assure their own refuge, but as a repayment of gratitude. Publicly, little has been said of the government officials who recruited the Cuban exiles. One of the Cuban witnesses in the Watergate affair described how upon being apprehended by the police while in the act of assaulting an anti-war demonstrator, he pointed to his recruiters and was immediately set free. It is clear that the Cuban youth were recruited to commit an illegal act, guaranteed impunity by the same authorities whose job it is to prevent and punish such crimes.

Another comment on US police. A Brazilian exile publication Frente printed in Chile, has made public a letter from the late FBI boss J. Edgar Hoover, praising his agents who took part in the 1964 coup against Brazilian President Joao Goulart. Directed to a Mr. Brady, the letter read, "I want to express my personal thanks to each of the agents posted in Brazil for service rendered in the accomplishment of Operation Overhaul." Hoover continued, saying that he felt admiration at the dynamic and efficient way in which you conducted such a large scale operation in a foreign country and under such difficult circumstances. "The CIA people did a good job too. However, the efforts of our agents were especially valuable. I am particularly pleased the way our role in the affair has been kept secret," Hoover concluded. This is from Frente.

The Miami Herald reports from Rio on recent political arrest in Brazil. Grim accounts are emerging in the wake of the latest wave of political arrest, of widespread use of sophisticated torture techniques by Brazil's security forces. The accounts include use of electric shocks, prolonged interrogation, cold rooms, intense noise, and occasional physical beatings. When the details first began surfacing, many observers were inclined to dismiss them as left-wing propaganda. For many of the people who have been arrested, allegedly are members of leftist organizations ideologically opposed to Brazil's militarily controlled regime. Brazil's censored press has printed no torture stories.

The Miami Herald continues, but dozens of conversations with lawyers, doctors, politicians, and diplomats, plus details of the personal accounts from some of the prisoners who are being released have built up a massive information so consistent it no longer can be dismissed. Names of former prisoners cannot be given, because they say they have been threatened with rearrest if they talk. The details of the methods of operation of the security forces are frightening, in a country where a person accused of acting or conspiring against the rigid security laws has almost no protection. Lawyers, politicians, family and friends of some of the victims tell similar stories of the circumstances of arrest that more nearly resemble kidnappings, in which are reminiscent of Gestapo methods in Hitler's Germany.

Account after account tells of invasion of private homes by armed men dressed in civilian clothes who refuse to identify themselves. The arrested person is taken from the residence, pushed into the back of a car, told to lie on the floor and is hooded. Others are arrested sometimes during the day on city streets. One account tells of a prisoner being beaten and kicked while lying on the floor in the back of a car. This prisoner refused to talk to reporters of his experiences, but when he was released, his face still was badly cut and bruised. The hood is not removed until the prisoner already is in a cell and for the first two or three days is taken out only for long periods of questioning. During this period, the prisoner receives neither food nor water.

According to the Miami Herald, the treatment is designed to lower the physical resistance of the prisoner and to induce fear of the coming shock, humiliation, and degradation. Men and women are told to remove their clothing. Some are given thin prison uniforms, but others remain nude. They are put for varying periods in cold rooms. Descriptions of these vary from cell-like rooms to structures that resemble commercial refrigerators in which the prisoners cannot stand up. The noise treatment is given in specially prepared rooms which are silenced with acoustic tiles and in which the prisoner remains for long periods without hearing any noise, then blasts of sound are channeled into the cell.

Some prisoners say these are noises of people screaming as if in pain, and they seem to be tape recordings greatly magnified electronically. The prisoners also spend periods in rooms with metal floors through which they receive electric shocks. Details of the treatment of the prisoners have surfaced slowly, because of the difficulty lawyers and relatives have in getting in touch with the prisoners. In cases in which the people are arrested away from home, it is sometimes more than a day before relatives become concerned. From then on, locating the missing person is an extremely difficult task.

The atmosphere of uncertainty and fear this flouting the law generates has been condemned openly several times by Brazil's Bar associations and by leaders of the Roman Catholic Church. But lawyers say that despite the protest, the situation has not improved. In the recent wave of arrest, which began in March, nearly 300 persons are believed to have been detained in Rio alone. Though some of these later were released, the arrests still are going on. Nationwide, the number arrested is estimated at about 700 to 800 persons. Lawyers say they have not been able to speak to many of those still held prisoner, even though the detention has been officially notified with officials of the military courts. The security authorities say they're inquiring into two organizations, the Communist Party of Brazil and the National Armed Resistance. This report from the Miami Herald.

In a related story, United Press International reports from London. Amnesty International asked for an impartial inquiry into the alleged deaths of some 26 jailed opponents of the Brazilian military government. The organization, which is concerned with political prisoners throughout the world, said in a statement, that political prisoners have been run down or shot by friends in exchanges of gunfire with police, with such surprising frequency that we believe an impartial inquiry is essential. The organization also said it was concerned about reports that a number of those who died had been tortured while in prison.

The weekly report Latin America from London states that the US government is considering selling surplus stocks of a herbicide used in Vietnam to the governments of Brazil, Venezuela, and Paraguay. The herbicide Agent Orange was withdrawn from military use in Vietnam, because it was believed to damage human and animal fetuses in the womb, resulting in deformed children.

In Brazil, currently ruled by a right-wing military organization, an editorial headline, "Brazil Will Have The Bomb", the pro-government Rio weekly Manchete said Brazil would put into operation a "great power policy" sooner than anyone imagined. Referring to the recent purchase of French Mirage jets, Manchete said, "No one should be surprised if after the mirages, in an almost inevitable progression to cover the next decade, they'll come Phantoms, F-111s, modern tanks, Polaris nuclear-powered submarines, aircraft carriers, satellites, rockets, and the atomic bomb itself." The Weekly said that the Brazilian military power would not be used against anyone, but rather as a "persuasive force," but the atomic bomb is as they say, perhaps a military necessity for Brazil. Manchete generally reflects the thinking of the Brazilian military government.

In a more peaceful vein, an article from Latin American Newsletter, entitled "Bears Like Honey", reports that a major deal with the Soviet Union seems likely to follow the journey of the head of Brazil's sugar industry to Moscow. Neither the Brazilians nor the Russians seem anxious to give the negotiations the prominence they deserve. The Cuban government sent a discreet protest to Moscow last week manifesting Havana's concern at the official welcome accorded by the Soviet authorities to the president of Brazil's Instituto de Azucar.

The officials' trip during the week before Easter was deliberately played down by the authorities so as not to attract attention. The reasons are clear, Moscow did not wish to offend Havana and the Brazilians are always sensitive to possible reactions from Washington. The overt purpose of the trip was to exchange views on matter of mutual interest ahead of this week's conference in Geneva, where a new international sugar agreement is to be discussed. That from Latin America Newsletter.

This week's feature is on Mexico and we're happy to have Robert Hedner with us who has been a correspondent to Mexico for some time. What can you tell us given the recent kidnapping of the American consulate about the guerrilla movements in Mexico?

Well, first of all, due to the attitude of the government and the controlled press, little is really known about the guerrilla movement. The government either denies their existence or claims that they have just been destroyed or alternatively says they're only a matter of thieves and assassins anyway and they can be dealt with by the local police. The press complies by relegating all reports of guerrilla activities to the crime pages. So, it would seem that the Mexican authorities would prefer that Mexico be known as the country with the highest crime rate in the world rather than having foreign investors and tourists and most importantly their own population suspect that a widespread popular movement may be developing.

How widespread would you say that movement is?

Well, I think first of all, we have to speak of various local movements rather than a national movement. There doesn't seem to be evidence that there's any national coordination among these various local movements. The strongest movement is undoubtedly that of in Guerrero, which is in the state and the southeast of—excuse me, the southwest of the country and is headed by Lucio Cabañas. Judging from the repression there, the movement seems to be very strong indeed. There's been two to three years of repeated search and destroy missions in Guerrero. The former leader of the movement, Genaro Vázquez, was murdered by the police about a year and a few months ago, has now become a national hero.

Napalm has apparently been used, American helicopters, CIA-trained counterinsurgency teams, but all of this has failed to diminish the growing movement. Growing in any case, if we can measure it by the attacks on military camps, army convoys and the repeated kidnappings of the past year and a half, which now have been reported in the newspapers. There's also mass repression in Guerrero, reports of mass arrests in the slums of Acapulco and the other major cities in Guerrero, and also reports of what the Mexicans call "Vietnam villages", which are what we call strategic hamlets, villages surrounded by barbed wire in order to control the rural population.

So, that apparently, Lucio Cabañas, his group is not just a guerrilla band, but a popularly supported movement, not just in the countryside but in the cities of Guerrero and not just in Guerrero, but also in neighboring southern states. There have been many reports of other guerrilla movements such as in Sinaloa, in Tlaxcala, in Chiapas, and in various other parts of the republic.

Are there any reports of activities in some of the major cities?

Yes. There have been numerous reports of urban guerrillas, particularly in Monterey and Acapulco, in Mexico City, but in almost all the main cities of Mexico. And in all of them, you find now that the banks have details of soldiers outside them guarding them. Usually these guerrillas demand the freeing of political prisoners, and this suggests that the Mexican jails are once again overflowing with them. I think the most important urban guerrilla movement has been that of in Chihuahua. In January of '72, a number of the downtown banks were expropriated, as the guerrillas put it. Some of the guerrillas were then arrested. There were reports of there being tortured and even of murders in jail.

In the face of these reports, a popular assembly was called Foreign Chihuahua and 15,000 people turned out for the first one. Subsequently, a popular tribunal was formed to judge first the local repression, but then finally the repression on a national scale to judge the whole regime and it's a permanent political organization, and there now have been popular assemblies in other cities in Mexico, including Puebla and Monterey. So that there seems to be a connection and certainly a great impact between the guerrilla movements, the underground and clandestine movements and these popular movements. But in some, again, I would say that there's no national coordinated movement with a national program, but rather growing local guerrilla actions and then generally, a growing political movement despite sophisticated and very violent repression in Mexico.

Guerrilla movements sound rather strange to us. I was wondering if you could explain some why there are guerrilla movements and why these movements seem to be growing.

Well, I think the fundamental and root cause is the distribution of the social product in Mexico, a distribution which despite, or rather really because of Mexico's wanted economic growth in the past 20 or 30 years is very, very uneven. The 50% at the bottom of the social scale received 15% of the national income and the 15% at the top, those have been benefiting from this economic growth now receive 60% of the national income. This of course after American corporations have subtracted their part.

Why is the income so concentrated or so uneven?

Well, as in all societies, control of the means of production determines how the product will be distributed. In Mexico, which is a dependent capitalist society, the means of productions are controlled by the foreign monopolies in alliance with a local big bourgeoisie. Together, they have pursued an economic policy, which they call import substitution, which is finally responsible I think for the nature of the distribution of the social product there.

This particular policy of import substitution, what is that? Can you describe that?

Yeah. I think there are two ways of looking at it. One, from the point of view of the Mexican and the other from the point of view of the multinational corporations. The Mexicans, and for the underdeveloped countries in general who undertake this kind of policy, it means the substitution of products previously imported from the metropolitan countries, almost always manufacturing, manufactured products, substituting for these imports by making the products at home, by importing the means of production to make them. That is, instead of importing commodities, you import machinery and you make the products at home.

Where did they get the capital for that? How is that arranged?

Well, the capital comes from multinationals. And from the point of view of the multinational corporations, this is a very attractive policy. Rather than export to Latin America manufactured items made by expensive American labor, you export your youth machinery and you get the super exploited Latin American worker to produce the products. And in exchange for this flexibility, you get a guaranteed monopoly in the national market and tax concessions from the local bourgeoisie anxious to share in the profits from foreign capital investment.

However, this process does create serious problems. The one thing, it's based on an existing and given market, that is all it does is substitute where the product is made, and since this foreign investment is attracted by low wages, it's very difficult to expand the market. What happens is to the extent that the market is expanded is it is expanded by deepening it, the 15% or so who are benefiting from this process by more, television sets and automobiles, let's say. So, that capital moves from one branch, which has been substituted such as textiles to another branch, such as television sets, and then when this branch is saturated, when the market has been used up or can't expand anymore, capital has shifted into another branch such as now petrochemistry, or intermediate production goods in general.

But what happens is that the population remains underfed and underclothed and 15% of the population, which benefits from the process continues to benefit and the gap grows wider. It also causes balance of payment problems because the whole process is finally dependent on foreign loans to pay for the importation of machinery from the metropolitan countries.

Given this economic situation, what are the multinationals in the Mexican government planning to do?

I think basically they're planning to follow the Brazilian model, the model that Brazil has followed since 1964, which is to emphasize exportation, to try to solve the balance of payment problems by exporting manufactured items principally to the regional markets in Latin America. However, this also creates problems, perhaps even more serious problems. In order to participate in the world market, the Mexican industry must become more efficient. It's now been protected by 30 years of high tariffs in this import substitution policy, so that it is very inefficient. Therefore, productivity has to be increased, machinery has to be bought, the industry has to be modernized.

Well, it's obvious that the companies which can afford to buy machinery will be the big ones, the monopolies, the foreign monopolies particularly, so that those companies which will benefit from the process will be the North American companies, who will continue to penetrate the Mexican market even more so. The small businessman will be the one who will suffer. He's been protected by this import substitution policy, but now tariffs are being lowered again to raise the efficiency of Mexican industry.

And finally, since the whole process is based on increasingly sophisticated machinery, technological unemployment will rise. The only thing that the president of Mexico, Echeverría, has done to deal with these contradictions, particularly among the smaller businessmen, is to present his policy as a very nationalistic anti-imperialist policy that Mexico will grow greater and begin to export. In fact, it is anything but an anti-imperialist policy and Echeverria is perhaps the new model of the anti-imperialist imperialist statesmen.

How would you see then the future of this development that would seem that the income distribution is already severely strained and that the possible growth plans for the economy would emphasize exports rather than improvement of the mass standard of living at home, that would only seem in the long run to make things worse?

Yes. I think that on the one hand, there will be some attempt to co-opt the working class as they have been to some extent the unionized working class co-opted since World War II. But they haven't been so much co-opted, as had their trade union organizations controlled and dominated. But they will try to create a kind of labor aristocracy in Mexico, but it'll be very, very difficult in the face of falling wages.

I think the only thing that would really be left for the government is what they're already doing, which is massive repression of any kind of political descent, mass descent movement. There will be increasing political prisoners and the left will be faced with the job of really implementing the worker, peasant, student and unemployed alliance that they have been talking about. I think a great deal will depend on the working class movement. If the working class movement, which has arisen in the past few years and has threatened the control of the trade unions in the past two or three years, if this movement becomes more than a syndicalist reformist movement and begins to become a revolutionary movement to align with the campesinos, to align with the unemployed and with the students, then I think Mexico will be entering into a pre-revolutionary, even a revolutionary period.

And the whole, I think an interview in El Punto Crítico, which is the finest magazine in Mexico for this kind of information, an interview with one of the guerrillas, one of the Chihuahua guerrillas perhaps summarize what we can expect in Mexico in the next few years. This prisoner was in jail and heard that one of his compañeros, one of his associates had been captured. He later heard the next day that there had been a shootout in the jail and that someone was killed. He was told that. When he asked who it was that was killed, he received no answer and was just left wondering what had happened to his compañero.

A few hours later, the subdistrict attorney came in and the interview goes on and says, "He told me that the dead man was Raul Diaz," his campanero. I answered him. I said to him, "Revolutions are made with the barbarity of some and the sacrifice of others. And I think this is what we can expect will continue to be the case in Mexico, and even more so in the next few years. Barbarity on the one hand and enormous sacrifice on the other."

The London News Weekly Latin America reports that the dramatic new initiatives launched by President Nixon in Europe and Asia this year and last are not to be matched in the region nearest to the United States, Latin America. This is the only conclusion that can be drawn from the Latin American section of his annual policy review to Congress last week, which was significant for what it did not say than for what it did. The only major positive move to be announced was that the president himself is to make at least one trip to Latin America this year, preceded by his Secretary of State, William Rogers. In the light of the Watergate scandal and of the current bad relations between the US and Latin America, it may be doubted whether President Nixon's trip would be any more successful than his disastrous tour of Latin America as General Eisenhower's vice president in 1958.

Latin America continues, certainly, there is little enough in the policy review for Latin Americans to welcome. An assertion of the president's desire to underscore our deep interest in Latin America through closer personal contacts was not accompanied by any concession to Latin American interests or aspirations. Only, perhaps, the Mexicans can find some satisfaction in Nixon's promise of a permanent, definitive and just solution to the problem of the high salinity of Colorado River waters diverted to Mexico, but there was no give it all in the United States position on many of the other broader disputes with Latin America. On the Panama Canal issue, he appealed to Panama to help take a fresh look at this problem and to develop a new relationship between us, one that will guarantee continued effective operation of the canal while meeting Panama's legitimate aspirations.

Panama's view, however, is that its effort to persuade Washington to take a fresh look at the problem had been frustrated for so long that its only recourse was to make this matter an international issue at the United Nations Security Council. On this, President Nixon merely noted disapprovingly that an unfortunate tendency among some governments and some organizations to make forums for cooperation into arenas for conflict, so throwing the blame back on Panama.

Latin America's report continues that, in a clear reference to the dispute with Chile over compensation for the copper mines taken over from United States companies, the president said adequate and prompt compensation was stipulated under international law for foreign property nationalized. There was no sign of any concessions there nor did Nixon envisage any reconciliation with Cuba, which he still saw as a threat to peace and security in Latin America. Furthermore, his proposal that any change of attitude towards Cuba should be worked out when the time was ripe. With fellow members of the Organization of American States, OAS, came at a moment of deep disillusion with the OAS on the part of many Latin American governments. The review displayed no understanding in Washington of why nearly all Latin American and Caribbean governments sympathize with Chile and Panama and many, if not most, want to reestablish relations with Cuba.

Nixon's undertaking to deal realistically with Latin American governments as they are, providing only that they do not endanger peace and security in the hemisphere, merely begs the question that Latin Americans have been posing for years nor did the review reflect in any way the Latin American feeling expressed with a unanimous vote at last month's meeting of the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America, ECLA, in Quito that the countries of the region are helping to finance the rise in United States' standard of living at the cost of their own impoverishment.

Latin America concludes that there is some satisfaction at President Nixon's call to Congress to revise the legislation that imposes penalties on countries which arrest United States' fishing vessels in territorial waters the USA does not recognize, but many Latin Americans see this merely as a recognition that the existing policy hurts United States' interests, but the failure of Washington to appreciate Latin America's views may not be the main feature of the United States' policy towards Latin America this year. Unless the White House can overcome the Watergate scandal and revive its decision-making process, the United States will be quite unable to react to the new Peronist government in Argentina or exert any influence over the selection of Brazil's new president. This report was taken from the London News Weekly Latin America.

Latin America reports that even more severe censorship and other signs of repression in Brazil are believed to stem from conflict over the presidential succession. Although July 15th, the day when candidates for election to the presidency must reveal their candidacy, is still a long way away, the problem of presidential succession appears to have become a very live issue in official circles in the last few weeks. In the view of some observers, the military are rapidly dividing into two clear-cut camps, the supporters of President Médici on the one hand and those of General Ernesto Geisel, supported by his brother and minister of the army, Orlando, on the other.

Although until recently, the election of Ernesto Geisel was considered practically a foregone conclusion, there are now straws in the wind which could indicate that Médici himself does not support Geisel and that he may be seeking ways to continue his term in office.

Whatever the ins and outs of the presidential succession stakes, the last week or two has revealed increasing nervousness and near hysteria on the part of the authorities toward the press, apart from the government's continued campaign against the Liberal Weekly Opinião, whose publisher and staff have been constantly in and out of police headquarters for questioning while their paper has been butchered by the censors and almost complete censorship of any comment has fallen over the country. One reason for this is to be found in the appointment of a new censor for Rio de Janeiro to replace the former one who was dismissed by the justice minister for not being tough enough.

Latin America notes that the censor's regime extends to well-known cartoonists whose contributions have been banned and even extraordinarily to the full text of the press law which was published in the weekly O Pasquim in a censored form. The Newsweek's style weekly, Veja, is reported to have a spy on the staff who informs the police about everything, including cover layouts, and has had sudden police raids as a result. The prestigious Oestado de São Paulo has a wallpaper in its offices composed entirely of pieces censored from the day before and its evening edition, Jornal da Tarde, has been forced to publish cake-making recipes instead of editorials.

The censorship has been extended to foreign newspapers and magazines. These will be reviewed before going on sale since certain overseas publications are offensive to morality and proper habits. The list of such offensive magazines ranges from stern to the monthly review, and one commentator has remarked that, "Soon only Batman, Dick Tracy and Superman comic books will be uncensored in Brazil. As to the television and radio, all live broadcasts have been banned for fear that something might be said that went against the image of our Brazil."

The Brazilian Weekly Opinião reports that in the first public disagreement over economic policy within the government in over three years, Brazil's Minister of Agriculture resigned in protest last week. In his letter of resignation, the minister complained of the continuing low income levels in rural areas despite increases in all farm prices. His letter stated, "Unfortunately, governmental policy has favored the industrial sector and the commercial export sector, both of which are increasingly foreign owned." 

The letter went on to note that the smaller, medium-sized Brazilian industrialist and farmer have suffered from governmental policies while the multinational corporations have prospered. This is the first time a high official of the Brazilian government has stated that the much praised Brazilian economic miracle has actually been detrimental to the Brazilian people. The minister's letter was printed in Opinião of Rio de Janeiro. 

On the same subject. The Washington Weekly Times of the Americas commented that it has long been widely assumed that President Medici is strong enough in military circles to name his successor when his term ends next year, but his agriculture minister's resignation serves to raise some doubts. 

In further news of Brazil, Prensa Latina reports, the scandal involving the Fiat Auto Corporation and the Minas Gerais state government is one of the main topics in Brazilian political and business circles. According to the Brazilian press, the government has submitted for the approval of the State Assembly, a bill for setting up a Fiat plant without clarification of important data on the amounts of investments and with large parts of the commitment completely blank. For example, the articles on the transfer of know-how and the technological aid to be provided by the parent corporation in Italy to its Brazilian subsidiary are all left blank, thus permitting endless undercover deals. 

The bill with all its defects was passed by the two existing political parties without important commentaries simply because none of the members of the state Assembly had seen the bill beforehand. Another point criticized in Brazil was the decision by the new partners to name the International Court of Justice at The Hague, not Brazilian courts as the body to settle any future disputes. Thus starting a precedent extremely favorable to transnational corporations. Meanwhile, Italy's Fiat workers have protested against the exploitation of Brazil's extremely cheap labor. The main reason why the plant was set up in Minas Gerais, this from the Latin American News Agency, Prensa Latina. 

There've been several strong reactions to US Secretary of State Rogers recent visit to Latin America that were ignored in the US press, but received ample coverage in Latin America. This report from Chile Hoy the Santiago weekly, is typical. 

The old rhetoric of the good neighbor no longer serves to suppress Latin American insubordination to aggressive US policies, leaving a trail of popular protest in Caracas and Bogota, prearranged tribute in Managua, and cold official receptions in Mexico City and Lima, Secretary of State, William Rogers arrived May 19th at his first breathing spot, Rio de Janeiro in Brazil, in his impossible goodwill mission to Latin America.

Rogers seeks to soften the growing Latin American reaction to the imperialist policies of his country, expressed clearly in recent international events and to make the road that President Nixon will soon follow, less rocky. Since the Secretary of State can obviously offer no real solutions to the antagonism between his country and Latin America, he has embellished his tour, characterized as a diplomatic diversion by an American news agency, with gross rhetoric. That from Chile Hoy.

Focusing next on one country where Secretary of State Rogers was welcome, namely Brazil, Opinião from Rio de Janeiro, and Marcha, the Uruguayan paper comment on the international implications of President Medici's recent visit to Portugal. 

Opinião reports that on his recent trip to Portugal, Brazil's President Medici was asked by Portuguese authorities for support of Portugal's colonial policy in Africa. Portugal, which is increasingly isolated within the United Nations because of this policy, is seeking diplomatic support and perhaps military aid, for its policy of maintaining colonies in Africa, despite world opinion and strong movements for national liberation in these colonies. 

The Portuguese press, pointed up a dilemma in Brazilian foreign policy. For over a decade, Brazil has been interested in extending its economic and diplomatic influence in Africa. Brazil's official position is that it will try to penetrate Africa on all fronts. However, as Marcha points out, there are only two doors to Africa, through the Portuguese colonies or by way of the independent nations of Black Africa. 

If the Brazilians support the Portuguese, they will have access to the markets of Angola and Mozambique and will win favor with the white supremacist government of South Africa. Yet if Brazil chooses to support Portugal, it will be siding with the colonial powers and will anger and alienate black independent African nations. As Senegal's representative to the United Nations expressed it, "Brazil must choose between justice and injustice, between supporting an Africa free of colonialism and supporting Portugal." 

Marcha concludes that the Brazilians will most probably support Portugal, because it wants to become a great power and sees more immediate advantage for itself in close ties with South Africa. Opinião is not so sure of this and sees Brazil's position as still neutral. However, Opinião concludes that Brazil will have to make a decision soon. This from Opinião of Rio de Janeiro and Marcha of Montevideo. 

The growing feeling of nationalism in every country he visited is the most significant impression reported after a 17-day trip to Latin America by Secretary of State William P. Rogers. "We do not see why we can't cooperate fully with this sense of nationalism," he said. Rogers, who recently returned from an eight-country tour, said that, "Contrary to some news reports, the nationalistic feelings apparent in the countries he visited carry no anti-American overtones." The secretary said that there was not one hostile act directed at him during his trip. Rogers said the United States will participate actively in efforts to modernize the organization of American states and emphasized United States willingness to encourage hemispheric regional development efforts. This from the Miami Herald. 

There were several comments in the Latin American press concerning Secretary of State Rogers' visit to the continent. Secretary Rogers' trip was ostensibly aimed at ending paternalism in the hemisphere. However, Brazil's weekly Opinião found little change in the fundamental nature of United States policy. While Rogers' words were different from those of other US officials, his basic attitudes on things that really matter seemed the same.

Opinião points to two specific cases, what it considers an intransient and unreasonable United States position on the international coffee agreement, something of vital importance to Brazil. Second, Rogers promised favorable tariffs on Latin American goods, but failed to mention that the US would reserve its right to unilaterally revoke these concessions without consultation. Opinião in short found Rogers' promise of a new partnership in the hemisphere to be the same old wine in new bottles.

La Nación of Santiago, Chile was even more caustic. It accused the Nixon administration of talking about ideological pluralism and accepting diversity in the world while at the same time intensifying the Cold War in Latin America by maintaining the blockade of Cuba and reinforcing the anti-communist role of the Organization of American states. La Nación concludes that the United States is the apostle of conciliation in Europe and Asia, but in Latin America it is the angel of collision, the guardian of ideological barriers.

La Opinión of Bueno Aires was less critical of Rogers' trip. It felt that the US Secretary of State was in Latin America to repair some of the damage done to Latin American US relations by Washington's excessive admiration for the Brazilian model of development, and also to prepare the way for President Nixon's possible visit, now set tentatively for early next year.

Rogers showed some enthusiasm for the wrong things, according to La Opinión, such as the Colombian development, which is very uneven and foreign investment in Argentina, which is not especially welcome. Rogers also ignored many important things such as the Peruvian revolution, but La Opinión concludes, "Even if Rogers' trip was not a spectacular success, something significant may come of it in the future." This report from Opinião of Rio de Janeiro, La Nación of Santiago, Chile, and La Opinión of Bueno Aires.

The London News weekly, Latin America reports on Brazil. A new and perhaps decisive phase in the conflict between the military government and the church has been initiated by three archbishops and 10 bishops from the northeast, the poorest and most backward part of Brazil. In a lengthy declaration, the 13 Prelates, who included archbishops Hélder Câmara of Recife and Avelar Brandão of Salvador, issued a blistering attack on the government and all its works.

The statement which because of the government's strict censorship did not become generally known to the public for 10 days after it had been issued on the 6th of May is notable for its strongly political tone. This and its highly political criticisms have convinced most observers that the open conflict, which already exists between the government and the church has moved into a new and altogether more dangerous stage. Such a development could hardly have occurred in the view of many observers without the green light from the Vatican, something which may give Brazil's military rulers even more cause for concern.

Latin America continues the May 6th declaration not only attacked the government for repression and the use of torture, it also held it responsible for poverty, starvation wages, unemployment, infant mortality, and illiteracy. In broader terms, it openly denounced the country's much-vaunted economic miracle, which it said benefited a mere 20% of the population while the gap between rich and poor continued to grow. There were also derogatory references to the intervention of foreign capitalists in Brazil. Indeed, the whole system of capitalism was attacked and the government accused of developing its policy of repression merely to bolster it up.

Latin America continues in the view of most observers, the church has now got the bit well and truly between its teeth and is effectively demanding a return to some kind of democratic government with an emphasis on social justice. Up to now, the censorship has been able to prevent proposals of such a revolutionary kind from being publicized in anything but a clandestine way. But with the prospect of every pulpit and parish magazine in the country becoming vehicles for such revolutionary propaganda, it would appear that the censorship is powerless.

Whether by design or from pure force of circumstances, the church is on the verge of becoming the focal point of all opposition, whether social, economic, or political, to Brazil's present regime. Furthermore, the declaration of May 6th appears to show that in contrast with its previous policy, the church is no longer afraid of stepping into the political arena. This from Latin America.

Another report from Excélsior concerning Paraguay reports that the major opposition party of Paraguay, the Radical Liberal Party, issued a statement opposing the Treaty of Itaipu with Brazil in which it denounced the secrecy of the terms and the condescending attitude of Brazil. The treaty, signed in Brasilia, calls for the construction of a jointly owned hydroelectric plant. In condemning the Paraguayan government for accepting terms which the opposition party says are highly favorable to Brazil, the Radical Liberals said the treaty, "Opens the dangerous doors of Brazilian domination." 

Latin America has interpreted the signing of this treaty as a significant turning point in the struggle between the two relative superpowers, Brazil and Argentina, over the "buffer" state of Paraguay. The issue of the hydroelectric project and dam may appear minor, but on close examination has a great deal of significance. There are strong indications that the environmental effects of the dam will adversely affect the Argentinian port of Rosario, which is not far downstream. 

Latin America reports on Brazil. The forthcoming goodwill visits by the Brazilian foreign minister to Venezuela this month, and later to Colombia, have served to remind Brazil's neighbors of Brazilian wariness and strategic caution. There are fears that the liberalization of certain regimes will be a threat to the Brazilian military dictatorship and upcoming elections in Venezuela may bring a liberal Christian Democrat into power. However paranoiac and unrealistic some of these fears may seem, the fact remains that the military nervousness is reflected in an extraordinary arms buildup.

At the end of last month, it was announced that Brazil was buying 58 fighter bombers at a cost of $100 million from the United States to join the 16 Mirage Jets and four other planes bought last year, in addition to Brazil's own production of fighter bombers made under an Italian patent. This re-equipment of the air force is coupled with similar re-equipment of the Army, which recently bought a large number of self-propelled guns from the United States and increased production of small arms. Last year, Brazil's military expenditure formed 18.7% of the national budget.

For many years, one of the major complaints of underdeveloped countries has been that they did not receive a fair price for their raw materials. Another complaint was that the prices for raw materials fluctuated so much, it was impossible to plan investments in their economies. 

Over the past decade, the answer to these complaints has been international agreements which stabilized prices on raw materials. The International Coffee Agreement was one such accord. It was first signed in 1963 between the United States and other coffee consumers and 41 coffee producers, including Brazil and Colombia. The agreement fixed prices and assured a steady supply to consumer nations.

As Opinião of Rio de Janeiro notes, the agreement has now collapsed. The basic reason is that the supplier nations wanted a higher price to compensate for the losses suffered when the United States devalued the dollar last year. The United States refused to agree to this price hike and the agreement lapsed last October. 

The coffee-producing countries are now trying to take matters into their own hands. Brazil, Colombia, the Ivory Coast, and the Portuguese colonies will soon establish a multinational corporation which will control prices and supplies on the world market. The corporation statutes were written in Brazil. As Opinião notes, the purpose of the new multinational company will be to keep the price of coffee up, ensure a supply to consumers, and prevent manipulation of prices by the huge importing firms in the United States, such as General Foods. 

Opinião concludes that the new corporation could result in an important modification in the international coffee market which will favor the underdeveloped world. This report from Opinião in Rio de Janeiro. 

Right-wing provocation seems to be on the rise in Chile. Besides the Right's involvement in the current miner strike, Chile Hoy reported last week evidence of a plot against the popular unity government. Roberto Thieme, a Chilean Fascist, declared to the Paraguayan press last week that to bring down the government of Salvador Allende is the only way to destroy the Marxism that pervades Chilean society. Thieme is presently on a tour of Paraguay, Bolivia, and Brazil, openly plotting against the government of Chile. He abandoned his political asylum in Argentina to seek support for his conspiracy. Brazil and Bolivia are the primary training grounds for the leadership of "Patria y Libertad", the Chilean Fascist organization of which Thieme is a leader. 

Thieme is seeking economic and military aid from Paraguay, Bolivia, and Brazil, three countries which speak loudly in the international arena of the principle of non-intervention and which are good examples of the undemocratic dictatorship that the burning patriot Thieme proposes for Chile. This report from Chile Hoy. 

This week's feature concerns the military dictatorship in Brazil. The following interview with Brazilian exile, Jean Marc von der Weid was made while he was on a national speaking tour sponsored by the Washington-based Committee Against Repression in Brazil. Von der Weid was a student leader in Rio when he was imprisoned and tortured in 1969. He was subsequently released from prison in 1971 along with 69 fellow prisoners in exchange for the kidnapped Swiss ambassador to Brazil. We asked Jean Marc von der Weid about his involvement in the student movement in Brazil.

Well, I was president of the National Union of the Brazilian Students, and I was elected in 1968 in an underground congress. The student movement was strongly opposed to the Brazilian dictatorship that came to power in 1964 by the overthrow of the constitutional government of João Goulart. The National Union was banned, was out-ruled in 1965, and it went underground, but it had a normal support the support of the overwhelming majority of the university students in Brazil, and I was elected with the participation of 200,000 students. 

The university students in Brazil were fighting for some specific goals, at the beginning against the repression on university, and again, the banishment—the decree that closed the National Union of Brazilian Students and fighting for the right of a free association. And also, they began to fight against the whole system of dictatorship and oppression, not only on students, but also on all the Brazilian society. So, we criticized the repression on the working class and the trade unions and on the peasant leagues and all the imprisonments and everything. 

And also, we had a specific problem in terms of the university that was the military government proposed university reform based on a US aid program that should transform the public university in Brazil in a private foundation. And already, two American foundations were proposing to invest on that. Those foundations were the Rockefeller and the Ford Foundation. And so we strongly opposed to that and for two reasons. One is that in general, the middle class student has not the money to pay for the university so lots of us would have to quit.

And another point that we didn't want the American foundations, that means foreign foreign enterprises, to control the universities in Brazil. We thought this would be against the national interest of the Brazilian people. And so we fought against this reform in a very successful way. In a way, until today, they could not, let's say, completely impose it.

And finally, in general, in a very general analysis, we knew that our specific problem in terms of university reform or freedom of association at university was closely linked with the problems of the Brazilian society in general. So, we were fighting for the liberation of the Brazilian people from foreign domination. So, we saw that, for example, that if it was necessary for the American money to dominate the Brazilian university, that exist because they dominated already the Brazilian industry so they needed to adapt the university to their needs on the industry. 

So, we began a very strong anti-imperialistic campaign in Brazil. And this campaign, one of the big points of it was the 1969 demonstrations against the visit of Governor Rockefeller to Brazil. And this was one of the charges on my trial in 1970.

Could you describe your imprisonment and torture and then later release? 

Well, in 1969, the end of '68 and during 1969, well, I was already—how do you say this in English?—being searched by the Brazilian political police because of my role as student leader. And they took 24 hours to identify me as a student leader, as the person they were searching. And when they did so, they transported me to the Island of Flowers. That was the Marine battalion headquarters where the Navy information service worked. 

And then I was submitted to a continuous torture during four days and four nights. And this torture consisted on electric shocks, beatings on the kidneys, well, almost—on the whole body, on the head, very strongly on the head in the kind of torture they call telephone. And also, I was all the time suspended by hands and feet from a rope and then spanked and received electric shocks in that position. There were also some other things like drowning or a false firing squad. 

Well, then I spent almost one year and a half in prison in the Island of Flowers and then in the air force base of Rio, and in very bad conditions. We were threatened several times to be shot, those they considered irrecuperable? Yeah. 

And I was released in January '71 in exchange of the release of the kidnapped Swiss ambassador who was kidnapped by a revolutionary organization in Rio. And then I was sent to Santiago with 69 other political prisoners. 

And what's been your activity since then? 

Well, I have been traveling around in North America, mainly in Canada, and Europe and also Santiago, Chile, to denounce the violations of human rights and the crimes of the Brazilian dictatorship and to develop a consciousness, an awareness on the international public opinion to that and to develop pressure on the Brazilian dictatorship, at least to limit the level of violence they're using today. 

Who supports the military? 

Well, the support of the Brazilian dictatorship is a very narrow one. They just have the military forces, and even the military forces are divided in different factious groups. And they have the support of a very small strata of the Brazilian upper class, perhaps 5% of the Brazilian population. And these people are those who are profiting from the exploitation of the 95 million Brazilians who are suffering this economic miracle. And these are, let's say, the Brazilian supporters of the military dictatorship. 

But the main supporters of the military dictatorship or the foreign powers, like the United States and other investors in Brazil, like Germany, Japan, Switzerland, France, Italy, Belgium, Holland, Sweden, England. All them—Canada, are big investors in Brazil. And the US are the most important investors. The American money controls, let's say it's 55% of the whole foreign investment. And they control 75% of the capital goods production and the durable goods production and 52% of the non-durable goods. So, our economy is completely controlled by foreign investment and mainly US investment. 

To guarantee these investments, the American policy in Brazil is to support the military dictatorship with the Military Assistance Act and with the public safety program of the US aid. And that even a direct, let's say, diplomatic support for the General Médici, who is the current dictator. So, it's very clear that the American strategy for Brazil is to make Brazil the privileged satellite of the United States in economic, political, and military terms.

And the Brazilian army is being prepared, as the Brazilian generals say themselves, to face the internal and external war at the same time, if necessary. That means to oppress the Brazilian people and people from other nations in the continent. So, there's a kind of Vietnamization of Latin America, if we can say so. The Brazilian armed forces are being prepared to fight for the American interest in the whole Latin America. And this can provoke in this next 10 years, let's say, a general conflict and a general struggle in Latin America.

Can you give some incidents of how Brazil has played this gendarme role in Latin America? 

Yeah, there are two good examples. One is Bolivia. Brazil has prepared the Colonel Banzer's coup d'état of 1971 since the '70s, since the General Torres came to power in 1970. And in the first attempt of the coup d'état that failed, the one that failed at the beginning of '71, a Brazilian brigade invaded the border of Bolivia and had to come back when the coup failed. Then, they prepared it better and giving weaponry and money and a kind of base, let's say, a Rio guard base to the reactionary rebels of Colonel Banzer. And so Banzer's government is a satellite from Brazil right now, and the Brazilian troops has received order to invade and occupy Santa Cruz if the coup d'état not work in La Paz. 

That was an interview with Brazilian exile Jean Marc von der Weid. You have been listening to Latin American Press Review, a weekly selection and analysis of important events and issues in Latin America, as seen by leading world newspapers, with special emphasis on the Latin American press. 

Word from Rio de Janeiro indicates that the problem of the presidential succession in Brazil has been solved. Since the 1964 revolution, civilians have had little say in major political decisions in Brazil, especially about who would be president. In 1964, '67, and '69, the new president came from the ranks of generals on active duty, and it was the army itself which decided which general would hold office. The same will be true this year. On June 18th, President Medici announced that Brazil's new president will be General Ernesto Geisel, presently head of the state's petroleum monopoly.

Geisel, 65 years old, has had a very successful military career, including service at Brazil's prestigious Superior War College and at the Army Command and General Staff College in the United States. Interestingly enough, he's a Lutheran, in a country which is over 90% Roman Catholic. This is just one indication of the fact that what counted in his selection for the presidency was his support in the army and not other political considerations. 

Press opinion on the significance of Geisel's selection is divided. The weekly newsletter Latin America sees Geisel as a liberal who will open the political system to civilians on the left. It also feels that Geisel will take a more nationalistic stance in foreign policy and economic affairs. This will mean more state investment and a less favorable policy towards foreign capital, according to Latin America. 

The Manchester Guardian agrees that liberalization and nationalism are distinct possibilities when Geisel becomes president. However, it raises the question of how much change the Army will accept. Geisel's main problem will be to avoid a split in the Army. As the Manchester Guardian concludes, "Each president of Brazil since 1964 has promised a return to democracy, but none has actually brought it about." 

Opinião of Rio de Janeiro does not expect any great changes with Geisel as president. It notes that in his career, the general has never opted for radical breaks with past policies. In every one of his posts, he has followed the policies of the government and instituted changes very slowly. Opinião concludes that Geisel's selection is far from representing a radical shift in the government's direction. This report was from Latin America, the Manchester Guardian, and Opinião of Rio de Janeiro. 

At a recent meeting, the Organization of American States survived some vehement criticisms and emerged relatively unscathed. Argentinian diplomats reflecting the new leftist Argentinian regime objected strongly to the exclusion of Cuba from the discussions. It was also suggested that the Organization of American states be replaced by a new and specifically Latin American body. Such sentiments have also been voiced by Peru. 

However, the United States still has several strong supporters on the continent. Brazil and Bolivia proved their allegiance by warning against destruction of the organization of American states. Nevertheless, even they could not agree with the US ambassador's speech, which claimed that the Organization of American States successfully served to avoid domination by any one member. This from the British News Weekly, Latin America. 

Latin America reports on recent political and economic developments between Brazil and Africa. Brazil's booming economy is leading it to seek markets while supplies, and commodity agreements with certain African nations. While Brazilian diplomats are experiencing some success here, there are delicate political problems concerning Brazilian Portuguese ties. Portugal, the only remaining European power to hold outright colonies has been battling growing liberation movements in recent years.

Brazil, a former colony itself, won its independence peacefully in the 19th century, largely because of Napoleonic Wars racking the European continent. Now, Brazil seems to have eclipsed its mother country economically, but politically the two remain on the same level. Both countries are ruled by extremely repressive dictatorships.

Some members of the African Independence Movement fear actual military involvement by Brazil and Guinea-Bissau, the colony in which Portugal seems closest to military defeat. They report that Brazilian officers in Portuguese uniforms were detected in Guinea and Cabo Verde last November. Further evidence was provided by opposition groups in Portugal who reported on conversations between Brazilian officers and the Portuguese authorities in Lisbon. One concrete suggestion is believed to have been that Brazil and Portugal should establish a joint naval base in the Cabo Verde Islands. This from the British News Weekly, Latin America. 

The Third Council of Latin American Public Employees recently met in Brazil. 40 union leaders at the conference, representing eight Latin nations, produced a document strongly attacking the concept and activities of multinational corporations in the third world. Opinião of Rio de Janeiro reprinted the union leader's statement. What follows are excerpts from that statement. 

"Transnational and multinational corporations are, through their economic, financial, and political power, virtual states within states. More than that, many multinational corporations have more power than a majority of the nations in which they operate. Supported by the technological revolution and economies of scale, the multinationals alter or block programs of the nations and impose those that are in their interest. Such considerations as cheaper labor, a larger market, or a more favorable political atmosphere lead the multinationals to distribute their facilities in different countries, with the sole purpose of obtaining the greatest profits. This leads to uneven development in most nations where the multinationals operate." 

The labor leaders then went on to list the ways multinational corporations penetrate Latin America. These include ownership of raw materials and natural resources, attraction of Latin capital to their enterprises, buying of Latin American talent, policies imposed from without, especially by the international banks, and even bribery of political labor and other leaders. The labor leaders concluded that they must join forces to battle the multinational corporations. In the first place, they must protect the members of their unions, since many multinational corporations are not covered under labor laws in Latin American countries. This means that conditions of work, pay, job security and so forth are determined solely by large companies. 

But the labor leaders took a broader view of the problem. They concluded their analysis of the multinationals with the following statement: "It is necessary that the labor movement demand more and more that the easy terms under which the multinational firms operate do not continue serving only the enrichment of small groups of financiers, and the technology, scientific progress, the internationalization of production, cooperation among states, and worldwide commerce fundamentally serve our nations and those who produce this wealth." This statement from the Third Council of Latin American Public Employees was reprinted in Opinião of Rio de Janeiro. 

The Miami Herald reports that 30 years of democracy in Uruguay have ended in a military-backed coup by the current president Juan Bordaberry. The demise of the Switzerland of the Americas, reputed for years to be Latin America's most progressive country, has been a slow and lengthy process. Gradual Errosion of the country's economic position, runaway inflation, which reached nearly 100% last year, widespread popular opposition to governmental policies, increasing thirst for power on the part of the military, and a gradual eradication of all civil rights, these were the prelude to the events of late June. 

The Manchester Guardian claimed that the response to the deterioration of government in Uruguay was to be found in increased workers' militancy, the longstanding successes and popular support won by the Tupamaros guerrilla group, the high percentage of the vote pulled by the leftist Broad Front coalition in the 1971 elections, the constant exposure and public outcry at scandals in the government, and the increased use of torture and United States developed military and police technology, which failed to either eradicate the revolutionary opposition or to satisfy demands for more effective government. 

Bordaberry was driven to take a drastic step. On June 27th, he dissolved Congress. Public response came in the form of a general strike, which continues to virtually paralyze the country. Industrial production has ceased, banks have shut down, public and private transportation has come to a standstill.

To counter this popular resistance, says the Manchester Guardian, Bordaberry, in a move without precedent in Uruguayan history, declared that the country's largest and most powerful labor union shall be henceforth illegal. The leadership of the National Workers Convention went immediately underground. It is known that the government has issued a list of 52 union leaders who are to be arrested on site.

Still, the general strike continues. Despite efforts by the military and some technicians to reopen the most vital plants, striking workers have been threatened with being fired and being inducted into the army. Many have been rounded up and are being held in a large football stadium.

La Nación of Bueno Aires comments that the battle between Bordaberry and the Congress has been a long one. Congress has been fighting off its own demise since February of this year. At that time, the army intervened in the government process to force Bordaberry to set up a council of national security to be controlled by three top military officers. In March, when Congress reopened, Bordaberry proposed anti-union legislation and the institution of new security measures. He also demanded the lifting of parliamentary immunity from two opposition senators. 

Congressional hearings on one of these congressmen, Enrique Erro, continued throughout April and May. Erro contended that the attack against him was motivated by his documented charges that the military had carried out illegal arrests, tortures, and murders against members of the opposition. He also uncovered evidence of US involvement in these activities. The senators refused to revoke Erros' immunity, and in the face of their opposition, the alliance between Bordaberry and the military became stronger. In April, Bordaberry appointed three military commanders in chief as official advisors to the president, and the Council for National Security began investigating and firing school teachers and principals whom they considered too liberal. 

By early June, the crisis was coming to a head. Members of the opposition parties boycotted the meetings of the legislature to prevent passage of Bordaberry's repressive legislation. And on June 27th, he ordered the military to surround the congressional palace and then dissolved Congress. 

Excélsior of Mexico City comments, "Those who hope for nationalist progressive solutions, somewhat along the lines of the current Peruvian government, were disappointed. The younger and more progressive officers were outmaneuvered by the Army's nationalist conservative wing, who have consistently called for a more authoritarian regime and who are reputed to have been preparing Parliament's demise for the past six months, through the Army Intelligence Unit." 

"Since the decree, the country has been in turmoil. Daily activity has been brought to a halt by the general strike. A large woman's march through Montevideo to Constitution Square, in protest of the suspension of Congress, was disbanded by police and tanks. Bands of youths hurled stones at public buses, defying the strike, at least one of the youths was killed by the police." This report compiled from the Miami Herald, the Manchester Guardian, La Nación of Buenos Aires, and Mexico City's Excélsior. 

Uruguay's president, Juan Bordaberry, now vested with dictatorial powers, discussed the causes which motivated him to dissolve the Uruguayan Parliament in an exclusive interview with a correspondent of the Argentine daily La Nación. In the interview, Bordaberry stressed his conviction that despite certain similarities with the Brazilian military regime, his government's newly assumed stance is "strictly Uruguayan."  

Bordaberry denied any imitation of Brazilian political practices on the part of his government, but he admitted to a certain sympathy for the Brazilian regime and stated that both governments share a common desire for democracy against communism. Referring to his recent visit to Argentina for the inauguration of the new Peronist president, Hector Campora, Bordaberry denied that angry crowds had shouted "murderer", "torturer" to him as he passed by.

The proposed constitutional reform, according to Bordaberry, will have as its primary goal the limitation of parliamentary power in order to prevent its encroachment on the power of the executive. "Such a procedure, he added, is in line with all modern constitutions." In light of the current political events in the country, Bordaberry indicated that the population is not up to an electoral campaign. Consequently, the constitutional plebiscite will be postponed until the national elections in 1976. This interview is translated from La Nación of Buenos Aires. 

A view even more critical of the Banzer regime was published this week in an interview by the weekly Chile Hoy. Ruben Sanchez was the only high Bolivian official that remained faithful until the end of the leftist nationalist government of general J.J. Torres. Sanchez fought on the front lines with the Colorado regiment against the 1971 military coup launched with the support of Brazil and the United States that brought Hugo Banzer to power. Even in exile after August of 1971, he contributed to the formation of the anti-imperialist front, the present government's exiled military opponents. In Buenos Aires, he was interviewed by Chile Hoy, the Santiago Weekly, "What do you think of the announced elections of Banzer?" 

"It seems to be a desperate maneuver. It's a cover to hide their contradictions and to distract from the popular discontent generated by the poor economic situation and the unending military repression. It is characteristic of the irresponsible mishandling of domestic and foreign policies." 

"Do you believe there are minimum conditions for realization of normal elections in Bolivia?"

"Absolutely not. You can't talk of elections with the jails full of patriots. You can't talk of elections when all of the popular organizations are exiled by the regime. The general amnesty and the removal of restrictions upon the trade unions and political parties are the basic conditions for solving the crisis that grips the country. For many people, their only dream is to have the right to participate in the national debate." 

"In your opinion, what is the actual situation of the Banzer regime?"

"The regime has no real popular base. The two parties that actually wield the power fight against each other. The internal divisions within the ruling parties are more obvious every day. The regime is set up by, maintained by and financed by the CIA and the Brazilian military." This interview with a leader of the Bolivian opposition from Chile Hoy. 

Accusations that the Brazilian government has been using torture as a part of its official policy of repression have been common from as long ago as 1968. These allegations have, in the course of time, become more detailed, and the lists of tortured ever longer. In 1970, Brazilian president Emílio Médici admitted that there had been cases of torture, but he denied that this was an official policy and promised that the torturers would be brought to justice. However, in the intervening years, the government and its agencies overseas have taken up an increasingly rigid stand and have denied that there have been any cases at all. 

With the imposition of rigid press censorship, it became increasingly difficult to substantiate allegations of torture that were made. The one body within Brazil that has from time to time taken issue with the government has been the church, but until recently, its complaints were mainly directed against torture perpetrated on members of the clergy. Earlier this year, however, the church began to take up a much more militant attitude, particularly since the death of a student at the hands of the police.

Latin America says that in the second week of July, Brazil's National Council of Bishops, referring to a decision by a military tribunal, listed a number of other cases of torture, including an incident in which four priests were forcibly removed from the house of a bishop by the military police, who then proceeded to torture them. The accusations by the Council of Bishops happened to coincide with the publication by the New York Council on Religion and International Affairs of allegations by a former advisor to Senator George McGovern that there had been more than 1000 political prisoners in Brazil and that probably between 40 and 120 have been tortured to death. 

In the light of these accusations, it may be significant that three police officers are now to be tried in Rio de Janeiro for torturing two prisoners. One of the officers is already well-known as the man who, after conducting a television campaign against delinquency and drug addiction, was reputed to have allowed the escape of a drug peddler for a bribe of $30,000. The indictment of the three policemen states that the two prisoners were submitted to all kinds of torture in an attempt to force them to admit their complicity in a murder that took place in June 1972. 

In the view of most observers, the mere fact of this trial is an admission by the government that torture is being used in Brazil, and this in itself is a step forward. It is being seen as an indication of new and less repressive policies to be introduced when General Ernesto Geisel takes over the presidency next year. But other observers are less optimistic. They point out that both these cases relate only to common criminals and that this cannot be taken as an indication of any easing of repressive measures against political prisoners. This analysis is from the London Weekly Latin America. 

The Miami Herald reports that the Brazilian government has been telling its consumers recently that they are the ones who must take action to stop the inflation which has plagued this country for many years. In government-sponsored newspaper ads, housewives are told to shop around and think before they buy. 

Inflation in Brazil was approaching 100% a year when the armed forces threw out a civilian administration in 1964. The military regime opened the country's doors to foreign investment, held down workers' salaries, outlawed strikes, and forced people to pay taxes. As a result, inflation last year was only 14%. This year, the government says it will be 12%, the lowest in two decades. 

Also, Brazil's gross national product has increased by more than 9% annually for the past six years, to around $50 billion. Exports for this year are forecast at a record $5.3 billion with 40% coming from manufactured goods. However, critics of the regime point out that most Brazilians have not benefited from the economic growth. Per-person income in Brazil is around $500 a year. In the United States, it is about $4,000. Millions of farmers in the country's vast interior still live mainly on what they grow and barter. They do not participate directly in the money economy. 

While top Brazilian executives are reported to be bringing in annual salaries of $200,000 or more, sugar cane cutters in the Northeastern states get a dollar for every ton of cane that they can chop, stack and bundle. It takes a strong worker nearly an entire day to cut a ton. 

A group of Roman Catholic bishops charged recently that Brazil's present economic system does not help Brazilian society, but only the profit interests of foreign companies and their associates in our country. The clergyman said the only only solution is social ownership of the means of production. 

The government acknowledges that workers pay has not increased as fast as the economy as a whole, but they argue this is the price of controlling inflation. About the lopsided distribution of income, Brazil's finance minister said, "Nobody is satisfied with the way income is distributed in Brazil, but if some country had discovered a better way to distribute income, it would've been put in action." 

Marcha, of Montevideo Uruguay, reports the future president of the Republic of Brazil has been selected. The official party selected General Earnest Geisel, whose nomination will be officially ratified by an electoral college in which the official party has a rather large majority. The Brazilian people, denied for nine years the right to elect their own rulers, has only one liberty left - that of speculating about the future president. Of course, this luxury must be kept to themselves since it is dangerous to actually talk about such things. At the same time, a thoroughly domesticated Brazilian press is trying to popularize the general, who is an illustrious nobody in the eyes of 99% of the population who can't even pronounce his German surname.

Geisel, the designated successor to Médici, is still an unknown to several political observers. Some call him a liberal, some a conservative. It is said that he's a nationalist and anti-American, but no one denies that he is a staunch army man. There are several reasons to believe that he is a conservative. When he was head of the military cabinet of Branco, he was sent to Brazil's northeast to investigate claims of government torture. He concluded that there was absolutely no torture despite common knowledge that The Fourth Army was conducting a reign of terror in the Northeast. 

His sponsors within the country are also proof of his conservatism. Both ex-President Branco and General Golbery are well-known reactionaries. Golbery is the author of a work proclaiming that Brazil's domination of the South American continent is manifest destiny. But, Marcha writes, "He doesn't spend all his time formulating Brazilian imperialist strategy, but works at something far more lucrative. He is president of the Brazilian branch of Dow Chemical, which has a great deal of political influence in Brazil today since the country has been transformed into a virtual colony of large multinational corporations." 

As president of the Brazilian state oil industry, Petrobras, General Geisel took no steps to recover control of the petrochemical industry, the filet mignon of the petroleum business. Under his leadership, Petrobras, once a symbol of Brazilian nationalism, has provided lucrative investments for Phillips Corporation and Dow Chemical. It has also made some very suspicious moves overseas, investing in many other countries, including the Middle East. Marcha concludes that the nationalism of Geisel, if it does exist, is merely an imperialist nationalism that is aimed at transforming Brazil into a superpower. In short, the repressive situation in Brazil will most likely continue. The power of the Army remains supreme and not even a pretense of democracy or civilian control seems necessary anymore. This from the Uruguayan weekly, Marcha. 

In further news of Brazil, the Cuban Press Agency, Prensa Latina, reports that Uruguayan National Party Senator Wilson Ferreira, exiled in Buenos Aires, has claimed that Brazilian troops have violated Uruguayan territory on several occasions. This follows a series of reports of ominous preparations by the Brazilian dictatorship. Troops and armored units of the Brazilian Army's Third Core, its biggest and best equipped military outfit, are reported to have penetrated Uruguay by one of the four major highways which Brazil has built on the border between the two countries. The construction of the highways and the rapid buildup of troops along the border came under fire from the Montevideo press in 1971 when the existence of this operation was revealed on the eve of Uruguayan presidential elections. 

According to some sources, the Brazilian regime had prepared an invasion plan which was to culminate with the total occupation of Uruguay within 30 hours if the left-wing broad front coalition won the elections. Although the operation was seen at the time as little more than an intimidation measure at a time when the Uruguayan working class was able to offer much stronger resistance than it can under the present dictatorship conditions, the resilience have established a history of strong arm methods. 

Meanwhile, in Uruguay, the Guardian reports the Uruguay working class is back on the job this month, but discontent against the new dictatorship boils beneath the surface. The National Workers' Confederation called off its two-week general strike, July 11th, vowing to continue the struggle through different routes and methods. The strike ended four days after a militant demonstration of some 50,000 workers, students and housewives against the Bordaberry government.

Dozens were wounded by police. The strike lasted 15 days, despite heavy armed repression and government efforts to divide workers. Military units forced refinery workers to return to their jobs. Some 1500 union leaders were jailed. Thousands of workers were arrested and herded into sports stadiums for lack of prison space. Two deaths were reported in demonstrations by students and women.

Repression against the workers is likely to increase. The dictatorship has declared that it will regulate strikes and control union elections in order to promote a free, strong and Uruguayan syndicalism. Brazil's heavy-handed intervention in the right wing coup included a $30 million loan to the Bordaberry government plus military equipment. In accord with the Brazilian formula, President Bordaberry may be replaced by a military junta. Armed forces occupied the presidential mansion July 28th, claiming that Marxist subversion threatened to smash the government. This from the Guardian. 

Excélsior of Mexico City adds that Uruguayan police opened fire on a thousand demonstrators at the National University in Montevideo last week while armed troops patrolled the nation's capitol. Dozens were injured by police gunfire and many were arrested. Police reportedly searched the homes of university students and professors, but authorities declined to say if any arrests were made. Last month, university demonstrations were accompanied by showers of homemade bombs thrown at the police from rooftops in the city. 

These demonstrations are only a part of the political upheaval which has raged in Uruguay since President Juan Bordaberry dissolved the National Congress on June 18th and set up a military dictatorship. Soon after the coup, the National Workers Union called a general strike which paralyzed the country, but this was brutally repressed by the government.

Many observers feel that the way was cleared for the June military takeover in April of last year when the government waged an all-out war on the Tupamaros, an urban guerrilla group. While many of the more moderate figures in the previous Uruguayan government found the Tupamaros leftist politics too extreme, it has felt that the strength of the Tupamaros guerrillas kept the right wing military from taking over the government completely.

Now that the Tupamaros have been defeated and the military has indeed taken over, many moderates perhaps now regret that they did not object to the military's brutal campaign against the Tupamaros last year. But while the Tupamaros were defeated, they were not exterminated. They issued a statement recently calling for a reorganization of the popular forces for a war against the fascist dictatorship. While admitting that they were defeated last year because they underestimated the Uruguayan military and overestimated their own strength, the Tupamaros said they would increase their organizing of the working classes and pledged to continue the revolutionary struggle. This from the Mexico City daily, Excélsior. 

The Mexico City Daily, Excélsior, reports from the United Nations, Mexico, Switzerland, and Brazil vehemently attacked the United States and the Soviet Union, who continue to conduct underground nuclear testing despite the fact that they signed a treaty 10 years ago to bring such nuclear testing to an end. There is particular concern over a new type of nuclear weapon known as the mini nuke, which is a small-tonnage nuclear weapon. It can be aimed with absolute precision and has a small concentrated effect. Critics feel that its production could easily lead to a new and dangerous arms race.

A United Nations representative pointed out that the nuclear potential of the superpowers is already equivalent to 15 tons of TNT for every single inhabitant of the planet. Mrs. Alva Myrdal, the Swedish representative, said that the majority of nations who do not possess nuclear arms consider continued testing a breach of promise and an insult to the will of the majority of nations at the United Nations Assembly. Meanwhile, in Lima, Peruvian doctor, Louis Patetta declared that French nuclear testing in the Pacific had raised the incidences of respiratory, eye and skin diseases. He also claimed that radioactivity in Lima had reached alarming proportions. This from Excélsior. 

The Guardian reports from Uruguay that the Uruguayan dictatorship of President Juan Bordaberry is desperately attempting to destroy its left opposition before it can fight back effectively. 

The Guardian article says that attacks have been launched against leftist political parties, trade unions, and universities. University autonomy was ended August the 1st. Four days earlier, the government passed new union regulations aimed against the Communist Party led National Workers Confederation, which led a two-week-long general strike immediately following the military coup that dissolved the Parliament. The National Workers Confederation itself was declared illegal June the 30th, three days after the coup.

The union has 500,000 members out of the country's total population of nearly three million. A union leader who escaped government repression and reached Cuba, told the press conference there last week about developments during the strike. The union leader, who asked to remain anonymous, said that within an hour of Bordaberry's dissolution of Congress, the National Workers Confederation was able to paralyze 80% of the country's economy. The strike was supported by students, teachers, and after the first week, by the Catholic Church. 

"Because the general strike began just before payday," the Guardian article says, "Workers did not have much money, but block committees were organized for food distribution". The National Workers Confederation leader said that some elements in the Navy and Air Force supported the strike and refused to participate in the repression against it. At one point, sailors saluted striking dock workers in Montevideo. About 200 officers were arrested for disobeying orders, some of them after trying to hold a protest meeting. 

At Uruguay's only oil refinery, though, soldiers did aim rifles at workers and held them as hostages to ensure the arrival of the second shift, forcing them to work. Sabotage forced the closing of the refinery 48 hours after workers damaged a chimney. At a power plant, workers through a chain against the generator, destroying it. Technicians from the power plant hid to avoid being forced to repair it, but were captured by the military after two days. 

Several workers were killed and many were injured during the demonstration in Montevideo. By June 11th, however, the National Workers Confederation said that the workers were exhausted and out of funds. The Confederation directed them back to work, without, however, gaining any concessions and with 52 of their leaders still in prison. 

A number of opposition leaders still remain in jail, including retired General Liber Seregni, the leader of the leftist Broad Front, and Omar Murda, national director of the liberal National Party. The Broad Front and the National Party, along with the communist and socialist parties, have formed a united front against the dictatorship. Those groups, together with the National Workers Confederation, called a one-day general strike for August the 2nd. 

In another important development, the Tupamaros, a guerrilla group, released a statement at the end of July calling for a people's war against the dictatorship. This was the first public statement issued by the Tupamaros since large scale repression began against them in April of 1972. The Tupamaros said the general strike had shown that revolution is a possibility in their country.

The organization also made a self-criticism that it had underestimated the enemy, which had much more power than they had earlier realized. And on the other hand, they said they did not give proper evaluation to the tremendous capacity for struggle of the people, and they confined themselves too much to their own forces. "Without the participation and the leadership of the working classes," they said, "No revolution is possible."

Uruguay is currently being run by the National Security Council created by the military last February. The organization consists of the chiefs of three military services, president Bordaberry, and the ministers of interior, foreign relations, defense, and economy. The council is being aided by the military intelligence service. The military intelligence service has the main responsibility of counterinsurgency against the Tupamaros and repression of political opposition, including torture of political prisoners. The Guardian article concludes that although the workers are well organized and fought hard, they see ranged against them not only the power of the Uruguayan military, but also that of Brazil and US supporters.

Chile Hoy reports from Brazil that the left could take power in most any country in Latin America, but if this happens, what measures would the Brazilian military adopt? they ask. This question, phrased in 1969 by high level officers of the Advanced War School in Brazil, was answered by the highest echelons of the armed forces in a recently released classified document entitled Plan Alpha, in the following manner. If the left took power in Latin America, Uruguay and Chile being the most likely places, the Brazilian armed forces would adopt the following measures. First, they would strengthen and perfect the internal security of Brazil, and secondly, they would transform into strategic areas for Brazil through possible military interventions, various countries and regions, including all of the Uruguayan territory, parts of Brazilian territory, the Guyanas and Paraguay.

The Brazilian military Plan Alpha is not a mere project on paper, as many believed when it was revealed after being smuggled out of secret army files. Ever since the leftist Popular Unity government took power in Chile, the plan appears to be implemented in accelerated form. First, there were expanded arms purchases. Brazil spent $270 million on defense in 1971 and projected spending 800 million in '73, having recently concluded with the Nixon administration in the US, the largest arms deal in Latin American history.

In addition, they have rigorously followed part two of the plan. The aggressive presence of the Brazilian military in Uruguay and Bolivia coincides with the political and economic changes in those countries. Also in Paraguay, the Brazilian regime owns enormous quantities of land along the borders.

Chile Hoy continues that after the Bolivian coup overthrew the moderate liberal Juan Torres, Brazil immediately sent $54 million of credit to the new military regime as well as selling arms to the Bolivian army. A new highway is being constructed through Bolivia to northern Chile and will provide easy access for arms and troops. Before, Bolivia was a landlocked buffer state between the two countries, now it is practically an appendage to Brazil. In another instance, the Brazilian military has a well-known contingency plan known as "Operation 30 hours" to move into Uruguay if opposition to the recent military takeover there becomes too strong. This from the Santiago Weekly, Chile Hoy. 

Another country which deserves special attention at this point is Uruguay, a small nation wedged between Argentina and Brazil on Latin America's South Atlantic coast. The past six months have seen the collapse of civilian rule in Uruguay and the institution of a military dictatorship. Actually, the constitutional fabric of Uruguay has been disintegrating for quite some time. Former president Jorge Pacheco ruled the better part of his term in office by decree and through emergency security measures.

And, like the Uruguayan Congress, it was constantly riddled by scandals exposing the corruption of the regime. The current president of Uruguay, Juan Bordaberry, can hardly pose as a champion of democracy and civil power either. He was a long serving member of the Pacheco government and his own term has been marked by brutally repressive measures at times. The growing involvement of the armed forces in Uruguayan political life began in April of last year when President Bordaberry declared a state of internal war and called in the armed forces to confront the Tupamaros, an urban guerrilla group.

The Tupamaros, and armed group dedicated to the establishment of a new social order, have gained great support among Uruguayan urban masses in recent years simply because in cities such as Montevideo, there are serious social problems which previous Uruguayan regimes, both military and civilian, have failed to deal with. The Tupamaros, in fact, seem to have had some effect even on the military. In the battles waged last spring, many of the captured guerrillas began to tell their captors that the real enemies, cattle smugglers, corrupt politicians, tax dodgers, and currency speculators, were still at large, often in high places in the government.

As a result, many Uruguayan soldiers and even some senior officers emerged from the campaign saying that the Tupamaros would not finally be defeated unless the root causes of the country's social and economic problems were tackled. Yet despite the reservations of some officers, the military accomplished its task of defeating the Tupamaros with brutal effectiveness.

This military campaign against the Tupamaros had two important consequences. First, the most powerful force on the left had been eliminated, and thus, leftist leaders in both the military and in Congress were in a weakened position. When the military began going after more moderate political figures later on, it no longer had to worry about reprisals from the Tupamaros. Secondly, the material buildup of the military gave them much more political clout. This clout was demonstrated in February, when a clash between Bordaberry and the armed forces resulted in a state of near-civil war.

Bordaberry, however, realizing that the military held the cards in any such confrontation, was forced to accept a junior partnership with them. A National Security Council was set up, which placed Bordaberry virtually under the military's control. The Congress, relegated to a somewhat lower position, was furious, and many of its members made strong anti-military statements. The weeks following the military's intervention in February saw the increasing hostility between the Congress and the military, with Bordaberry somewhere in-between.

By April though, an alliance was clearly emerging between Bordaberry and the conservative sectors of the military. First, Bordaberry created a special junta of commanders in chief to advise him. Also, the National Confederation of Workers, Uruguay's largest trade union syndicate, demanded a 30% wage increase to make up for cost of living increases since the beginning of the year. The military supported Bordaberry and his flat rejection of this demand.

In fact, Bordaberry allowed the military to step up its program of political arrests and systematic torture, and even supplied it with some of the most repressive legislation in the world. An issue of increasing importance to the military was that of the parliamentary immunity from arrest. One Senator, Enrique Erro, was a constant thorn in the military's side, and in April, the National Security Council accused Erro of collaborating with the Tupamaros and asked that his parliamentary immunity be lifted. 

When the Senate refused to lift Erro's immunity in May, the military moved troops into the capitol. A crisis was averted when the question was sent to a house committee for reconsideration. In late June, a final vote was taken and the request was again refused. This time, Bordaberry responded by dissolving the Congress altogether, making the military takeover complete. The National Confederation of Workers did what it always threatened it would do in the event of a military coup and immediately called for a nationwide general strike. The government responded quickly and brutally.

It officially dissolved the National Confederation of Workers and arrested most of its leadership as well as other prominent trade unionists. But this decapitation failed to do the job, the unions were well-organized on a grassroots level and had support from students as well. Many workers occupied their factories, and student demonstrations and other agitation kept the army and police constantly on the run. 

As the strike went on, continuous arrests overflowed the jails, and police began herding prisoners into the Montevideo football stadium. Finally, the strike collapsed and Bordaberry was able to bring things somewhat under control, but opposition continues. Anti-government demonstrations have recurred and another general strike has been threatened. Bordaberry certainly did not eliminate all of his opposition by dissolving the Congress and crushing the general strike. The Tupamaros, for example, have been slowly rebuilding their strength and avowed to continue their struggle. 

This has been a summary and background of important events in the past six months in two Latin American countries, Chile and Uruguay. These analyses are compiled from reports from several newspapers and periodicals, including the London weekly, Latin America, the Mexican daily, Excélsior, the Chilean weekly, Chile Hoy, and the Uruguayan weekly, Marcha. 

The last country we will look at today is Brazil. While Brazil has not experienced the political turmoil of other countries in this broadcast, developments in Brazil are important, simply by virtue of the importance of Brazil on the continent. The single most important event in Brazil this year was the announcement in June that the current military president, Emilio Médici, will be succeeded next March by another general, Orlando Geisel.

In this analysis, we will look at developments in three main areas dealing with Brazil and attempt to foresee what changes, if any, can be expected when Geisel assumes power. First, we will examine Brazil's economic development and its effects. Next, we'll look at Brazil's foreign policy and its role in Latin America, and finally, we will deal with recent reports of torture by the Brazilian government.

The military has been in power in Brazil since 1964, when a military coup toppled left liberal president João Goulart. Since then, Brazil has opened its doors to foreign capital, attempting to promote economic development. In some ways, results have been impressive. Brazil's gross national product has grown dramatically in recent years, and it now exports manufactured goods throughout the continent, but this kind of growth has not been without its costs. The Brazilian finance minister received heavy criticisms from his countrymen this March for two aspects of Brazilian economic development. 

The first was the degree of foreign penetration in the Brazilian economy. For example, 80% of all manufactured exports from Brazil come from foreign owned subsidiaries. The second problem brought up was the incredible mal distribution of income in Brazil. The essence of the critic's argument is that the top 5% of the population enjoys 40% of the national income while the top 20% account for 80% of the total, and moreover, this heavily skewed distribution is becoming worse as Brazil's economy develops.

Many of these same criticisms were raised again in May when Agricultural Minister Fernando Cirne Lima resigned in disgust. He said it would be preferable to cut down Brazil's growth rate to some 7% or 8% in the interest of a more equitable distribution of income. He also said, "The quest for efficiency and productivity has crushed the interests of Brazilian producers of the small and medium businessman to the benefit of the transnational companies."

Whether any of these policies will change when Geisel comes to power next March or not is uncertain. Some feel that he is an ardent nationalist who will be cold to business interests. Others point out though that the interests which have maintained the current military regime are not likely to stand for any radical changes. Brazil has sometime been called the "United States Trojan Horse" in Latin America.

The idea is that Brazil will provide a safe base for US corporations and then proceed to extend its influence throughout the continent, either by outright conquest or simply economic domination. Brazil has, to be sure, pretty closely toed the line of US foreign policy. It has taken the role of the scourge of communism on the continent and has been openly hostile to governments such as Cuba and Chile, and there's no doubt that American corporations do feel at home in Brazil.

Brazil, of course, discounts the Trojan Horse theory and instead expresses fears of being surrounded by unfriendly governments. But whether for conquest or defense, Brazil has built up its armed forces tremendously in recent years. In May of this year, Brazil signed a treaty with neighboring Paraguay for a joint hydroelectric power plant opposition groups within Paraguay called the treaty a sellout to Brazil, and it is generally agreed that the treaty brings Paraguay securely within Brazil's sphere of influence. In fact, the Paraguayan Foreign Minister said recently Paraguay will not involve itself in any project with any other country without prior agreement of Brazil.

The treaty was viewed with dismay by Argentina, which has feared the spread of Brazilian influence from the continent for many years, especially in Bolivia, Paraguay, and Uruguay. A Brazilian military buildup along its Uruguayan border caused some alarm last year and this spring and Uruguayan senator said he had discovered secret Brazilian military plans for the conquest of Uruguay. According to the plan, Uruguay was to be invaded in 1971 if the left wing Broad Front Coalition won the Uruguayan elections.

While these developments seem to point to an aggressive program of Brazilian expansion, some observers feel that Brazil may be changing its policy in favor of more cooperation with its Latin American neighbors. They point to the Brazilian foreign minister's recent diplomatic tour in which he spoke with representatives of Peru and Chile as evidence, but if Brazil's attitude towards its neighbors is beginning to thaw, it will be sometime before many countries can warm up to Brazil's ominous military regime. 

Since the military regime came to power in Brazil, there have been increasing reports of torture of political prisoners. In recent months, the Catholic Church has risen to protest such occurrences with surprising boldness. In April, 24 priests and 3000 students held a memorial mass for a young man who died mysteriously while in police custody. The songs in the service, which was conducted in a cathedral surrounded by government troops, were not religious hymns but anti-government protest songs. The real blockbuster came though a month later when three Archbishops and 10 Bishops and from Brazil's northeast issued a long statement, a blistering attack on the government.

The statement which because of the government's extreme censorship, did not become known to the public for 10 days after it had been released, is notable for its strongly political tone. The declaration not only attacked the government for repression and the use of torture, it also upheld it responsible for poverty, starvation, wages, unemployment, infant mortality, and illiteracy. In broader terms, it openly denounced the country's much vaunted economic miracle, which its said benefited a mere 20% of the population. While the gap between rich and poor continued to grow, there were also derogatory references to the intervention of foreign capital in Brazil. Indeed, the whole system of capitalism was attacked and the government accused of developing its policy of repression merely to bolster it up.

Such a statement could hardly have occurred in the view of many observers without the green light from the Vatican, something which gives Brazil's military rulers cause for concern. The government up to now has been able to stifle dissent through press censorship, but with the prospect of statements such as these being read from every pulpit and parish in the country, it would appear that the censorship is powerless. Whether by design or pure force of circumstances, the church is on the verge of becoming the focal point of all opposition, whether social, economic or political to Brazil's present regime, perhaps because of pressure from the church. The government recently admitted that torture had occurred in two cases and the offending officers are awaiting trials. 

In the view of some observers the mere fact of these two trials is an admission by the government that torture is being used in Brazil and this in itself is a step forward. It is being seen as an indication of new and less repressive policies to be introduced when General Ernesto Geisel takes over their presidency next year, but others are less optimistic. They point out that these cases relate only to common criminals and that this cannot be taken as an indication of any easing of repressive measures against political prisoners. 

This week's feature has been a summary and background of important events in the past six months in two Latin American countries; Argentina and Brazil. These analyses are compiled from reports from several newspapers and periodicals, including the London weekly, Latin America, the Mexican daily, Excélsior, the Chilean weekly, Chile Hoy, and the Uruguayan weekly, Marcha.

The British news weekly, Latin America, reports that the Brazilian Army has been battling with peasant guerrillas near the Araguaia River in Northern Brazil, and recent events have shown the impotence of the Army in dealing with these jungle fighters. Two landowners have been killed by the guerrillas for collaborating with the armed forces during anti-guerrilla operations, which ended in April, and other important landowners who assisted the Army have been forced to leave their haciendas to take up residence in the comparative security of larger cities. 

The leader of the guerrillas, the now legendary Osvaldão, nailed the guerrillas' manifesto to the door of a church in a village near the Araguaia. The statement reaffirmed the 27 points of the guerrillas' program. In this document, the guerrillas, who began to settle the region in 1967 as a part of the long range strategy of the pro-Chinese faction of the Brazilian Communist Party, supported the principal demands of the local population. 

They used simple and direct language in making their points. One of the chief demands involved the posseiros, small farmers who have lived in the Araguaian River for generations without legal title to the land. Large landowners have been taking over in recent years, and the guerrillas demanded that the posseiros be given security of tenure. 

A second point of the guerrillas' manifesto involved an ancient scandal in which gatherers of Brazil nuts are forced to sell their harvest to local merchants at the officially-controlled price, which is approximately 1/13th of the price which merchants sell them for. These widespread grievances, combined with the violence and corruption of the military police, provide the guerrillas with an ideal environment, and this explains the fantastic popularity of Osvaldão and his followers among the local people. In the region, tales of the guerrillas' exploits paths from mouth-to-mouth, and apart from Osvaldão, one hears mention of others, especially the women of the group.

The decision of the Army to end active operations against the guerrillas angered local oligarchs, who recently met with the military commander and suggested a final solution to the problem. The suggestion was that they should form a death squad of hunters who knew the forest, men accustomed to kill Indians, entrusted by the landowners. This band of killers would be employed to hunt the guerrillas for a bounty of 10,000 cruzados each. The offer was refused by the Army on the grounds that it did not accord with the philosophy of the government, but local opinion was that the risks outweigh the possibility of success. The guerrillas already have local recruits with them and the hunters might well change sides, and furthermore, the conflict would inevitably run out of the control of the Army. 

The Army also claims the guerrillas forces to be now reduced to a half a dozen fugitives, but Air Force officers based in the area told a recent inquirer that of the 35 original combatants, 20 still remained active. Local civilian sources assured the same inquirer that Osvaldão commanded at least 60 men divided between two vans, which were themselves divided into yet smaller patrols. Their influence is felt along 100 kilometers of the River Araguaia. Popular support from the local population ranges from several cases of incorporation into the guerrillas, to discrete provision of information, supplies, and often, shelter. 

The present situation is complicated for the government by the fact the peasant leagues springing from the spontaneous need of country people to defend themselves and their scant livelihoods are again important for the first time since their suppression during the first years of the military government. Their demands are backed by the church, which has been taking an increasingly hard line with the government in recent months, and it is this wider movement which gives the Araguaia conflict its particular significance. This from Latin America. 

Meanwhile, in Caracas at the 10th Annual Conference of the Inter-American Army, Peru accused the United States of accusing Latin American armed forces to serve its own purposes. At the same conference, the Brazilian representation represented the opposite thesis regarding the position to modify the Reciprocal Support Treaty. They stated that, "Our enemy continues to be the international communist movement." This proclamation by the Brazilian generals was interpreted by observers to be a denunciation of the Peruvian project. 

Also, meeting in Caracas was the Confederation of Latin American Workers who claimed militarism is in the service of exploitation. They cited the military governments of Brazil, Bolivia, Uruguay, Nicaragua as examples. The workers stated that militarism in Latin America has institutionalized dependence and alienation. That report from Excélsior. 

This from the London Weekly, Latin America. Indeed, one of the most consistent themes in press reporting of recent events in Chile is the sternness and brutality of the measures being adopted by the junta. A Mexican journalist, Patricia Vestides, has provided new accounts of the treatment of prisoners inside Santiago's National Stadium, where she was held for three days by the Chilean authorities. According to a report this week from the Cuban News Agency, Prensa Latina, Ms. Vestides talked about her detention to reporters in Lima, Peru after she was allowed to leave Chile. 

The journalist said that she was arrested with a group of teachers, employees, and students at the technical university. She told reporters that troops had stormed the campus after an artillery attack, indiscriminately beat young and old men and women. She was taken to the defense ministry and later to the National Stadium where she said she was held with a large group of women. She said she saw soldiers beat an old man to death, and when other prisoners protested, an officer ordered them to lie down and fired over their heads. She said, "When we were told we could stand up, the old man was gone." 

Prensa Latina continues with Ms. Vestides saying that on another crucial occasion, one prisoner in a nervous crisis started walking around the grandstand among the soldiers muttering incoherently. He got into a squabble with one of the guards who shot him in the head. One woman, an Argentine filmmaker, was treated with particular brutality. Ms. Vestides said, "They beat her all over with clubs and rifle bets. She passed out several times and came back with bruises over her whole body." 

The journalist said, "One man couldn't take anymore and threw himself from the highest point of the stadium, shouting, 'Long live the people's struggle.' He fell on a wall and appeared to be dead. After a quarter of an hour, two soldiers moved him and a scream was heard. They lifted him up by the hands and feet. I think his spine was broken." This report from Prensa Latina. 

A somewhat similar story was published last week in Excélsior about a student who was kept in the National Stadium and later released by the junta. Pedro Quiroz Lauradne, the student, said, "I don't know why they didn't kill me like they did so many others. I have returned from hell. No one can really understand what it was like." He said, "No words can really describe it. The fear, the passage of time, the cold, the heat, the hardness of the concrete, the nights, the anguish. It all truly belongs to another dimension." 

The Mexico City Daily Excélsior also reports that for the first time since the coup, the military has announced full-scale military operations against resistance fighters in rural areas in both the southern and northern parts of the country. In Valdivia, in southern Chile, government planes and helicopters combined with 1000 troops in actions against organized groups of workers in sawmills of the Andes Mountains. There are unconfirmed reports that two military patrols were defeated there by groups of resistance fighters. 

35 armed civilians were reportedly arrested outside of Santiago. According to Excélsior, 32 civilians were executed recently in various parts of Santiago, and more than half of them were peasants and workers captured in the military operations in Valdivia. A group of newsmen recently visited the island of Quiriquina, where 545 civilians have been held since the coup. The island is one of four concentration camps, which according to Excélsior, have held a total of 1,700 prisoners. No information has been released on three fourths of these prisoners. 

The Washington Post has revealed that dozens of Brazilian secret police have flown to Chile to interrogate political exiles from Brazil and to bring them back to Brazil. There are an estimated 3 to 4,000 Brazilian political exiles in Chile. That report on Chile from the London Weekly Latin America, The Washington Post, the Mexico City Daily, Excélsior, and Prensa Latina. 

Our feature today is an interview with Ms. Elizabeth Burgos, who spent most of last year in Chile working on a book with her husband, Régis Debray. Ms. Burgos, originally from Venezuela, has spent many years studying Latin American politics and has visited Chile several times. Our subject today is the coup in Chile and its effects. Tell us, Ms. Burgos, we've heard a great deal about what's happening in Chile. We've heard many conflicting stories.

There have been a lot of reports of a lot of brutality, repression, mass arrests and executions, while the military junta in Chile has been telling us that things are relatively stable and that there's really not a great deal to worry about. Based on your experiences in Latin America and your experiences in Chile and your knowledge of contacts and informational sources, what do you think the situation is in Chile?

The situation in Chile is that the repression is going on. Maybe they don't kill people like in the first day of the coup, but they do still kill people, and it's very—Witness say that in the morning, it's very usual to find bodies of people killed in the street very early in the morning. They use the coup to do this work, the junta. And the repression is going on. In the stadium, for instance, there are 8,000 prisoners in very bad conditions. And there are two islands where they have concentration camps.

So the repression is going on in Chile. It's not finished. The life in Chile is completely changed after the coup. Chile was the most liberal country in Latin America, and now you have a country where the schools and the universities are leading by military, directors and people who direct the schools and university have been fine.

There is no possibility to have library. People who were known that having good library, those books have been burned. The bookshops, books from bookshops have been burned too. So it is not only a repression against people, but it's a repression against culture and minds. The junta ask people to—They give money to people, they pay them in order to inform about people who had sympathy with Allende's government. And by this way, they arrest every day more and more people without any proof, only because if a neighbor wants to denounce to say that you were involved with Allende's government, only having sympathy is enough for them to arrest people. 

One thing we've heard particularly a lot about is the question of foreign political exiles in Chile. We were told that there were a lot of people who had escaped repression from military governments, particularly those in Uruguay and in Bolivia and Brazil who were living in Chile at the time of the coup. And there's been a lot of concern expressed about that. Could you tell us, do you feel that's a serious problem? And do you know of any steps that are being taken either by the United Nations or the US government or any other groups to intervene on behalf of these political exiles? What's the situation with them? 

Yes. We have to say that Chile has always been the country where exiles used to go because it was a very liberal country, even before Allende's government. Even when the Christian Democrat were in power, Chile had always this politic of receiving exile from other countries. So it is true that they were about, maybe 5,000 to 10,000 people from several countries from Latin America, especially from Bolivia, Brazil, and Uruguay.

And the junta start a campaign against them from the beginning, saying that they were Jews, because they couldn't say that only because they weren't from those countries and they knew that they weren't fascists. So it was to prepare the Chilean and the world public opinion to the fact that they were going to send them to their countries. It happened in the very few first day of the coup that several Bolivians have been sent to back to Bolivia.

To be prosecuted there by the Bolivian government for their political— 

Yes, they are persecuted from the Bolivian government, which is a fascist government too. And those people have been sent from there to Bolivia, and when the United Nations knew this situation, they have made interventions. And now, it seems that the United Nations, we can see that maybe they could avoid this. They have several centers in Santiago now where those people are, but we still don't have new about all those people. We know that some of them are there safe. But I hope the United Nations is going to take really this responsibility to send those people to other countries where their life could be safe. 

Another thing that's been particularly talked about a lot here in the United States is the question of resistance to the military junta. Before the coup in Chile, a lot of people predicted that there would be a lot of armed resistance. And indeed, when the coup broke out, we did hear some reports of scattered resistance, and since then there's been a lot of conflicting reports about that.

The junta, of course, claims that now that things are quiet and they have things in control. What are your opinions about, first of all, the degree of any resistance now or the possibilities that the left might be laying back now and organizing themselves for a more concerted effort at armed resistance later on? What's the status there?

During the coup, after the coup, there was a lot of resistance, especially in the factories where workers fought very hard. They had been bombed, especially the two factories, Yarur and [inaudible 00:21:34], and then lot of workers have been killed. There was also resistance in the south of Chile.

And in Valparaiso were reported 2,000 people killed only in one day. But now, I don't think there is what we can say resistance. Now, it is resistant to save the life of people because the repression is so hard, that the army is searching house to house during the night, during the coup—it's why this coup is still going on.

Because they need every day, some few hours to search for guns and for people, especially for people that they know that they are not in prison and that they are not dead. Especially leader of the Socialist Party, of the Communist Party, of the MIR and of the MAPU and Workers' leader. Because what the junta had decide, and it's very clear, is to kill all people who could make resistance against this, the fascist men, Bolivia. I don't believe that there is still resistance in the way that we could think. Maybe there are—I guess they're organizing themselves for a future resistance. 

One thing that was said, particularly that the junta was well-prepared for the coup and that they anticipated particularly that there might have been resistance among workers in factories. And that in the month or so preceding the coup, that they went about disarming workers in factory. Was this the case? 

Yes, yes. Since last year, because the coup was going to happen last year. Last year, we had the same strike, lorry strike, shop striked. All was prepared. But it seemed that the ruling class in Chile wasn't prepared for the coup, so it took a year to prepare more and more this coup. And during this year they used this law of controlling of arms that the Congress had vote, but they used this law only against the unions and against the left. So the searching for guns start six months before. And so they control it. They knew all the houses or people who were involved in the Unidad Popular. 

What do you think the effects will be of the coup, both on the continent of Latin America and internationally? One thing we've heard, there seems to be some rumblings of the increase of repression in Uruguay, Argentina, Brazil perhaps, Bolivia. And another question in line with that is the question, generally, internationally, among communist socialists and leftist people of the question of electoral strategy, what about those international repercussions? 

The significance of the coup in Chile is very wide internationally, and especially for Latin America. I think imperialism is using Brazil in Latin America as their sort of agents because they don't want to make the same mistake that they have done in Vietnam. I mean, direct intervention. So they can't agreed with the fact that there could be a sort of block, a block of country like Peru, Chile, Argentina, and Bolivia.

The first country, which four who felt is Bolivia. So fascism was imposed in Bolivia by the Brazilian government. Then the country in which the situation was the most explosive after Bolivia was Chile. So now Chile felt too. So we have now Peru and Argentina, which are in danger of coup.

And at the same time in other countries in Latin America where there are sort of Democrat representative governments or even military, this could reinforce the right fraction of the armies of those countries. So it seemed that Latin America is now facing a new period of dictatorship, military dictatorship, like before '68—before the Cuban Revolution.

And in the other hand, in the question of taking power by election, I mean a socialist movement, Chile was a sort of process, very important for those people who say that it's possible. Chile showed that it's possible, but it seemed that it's not possible to keep the power, taking power by elections with and—keeping the same army and the same security service—I mean police and so, of the former regions.

Fairly briefly, what do you think will be the policy of the United States towards the no Chilean junta, either on the question of a political exiles or just generally the question of foreign aid and foreign aid and assistance in general? Do you think it'll be significantly different from their policy toward the Allende regime? 

Yes. At first, the United States cut off the aid to the Allende's government when Allende took power. And I believe that now they are going to give them to the junta, millions and millions of dollars, to improve immediately the economical situation in which the United States put the Allende's government. That is clear.

But I knew that the Senate last week vote against the resolution to cut all aids to Chile until the civil rights are restored. This resolution are very important because the junta, they are aware that they couldn't do all what they're doing without international campaign against this. So it was very important what the American Senate has done.

You have been listening to an interview with Ms. Elizabeth Burgos, a woman who has spent the last year in Chile and who has spent many years studying politics in Latin America. 

Our feature this week is a reenactment of an interview conducted by a reporter from the French newspaper Rouse with a leader of the revolutionary left movement in Chile, more commonly known as MIR. The MIR supported the Popular Unity government of former president Salvador Allende, but they always maintained that a peaceful road to socialism would not be allowed by the right-wing leaders of the economic status quo, and that armed struggle was inevitable. 

Thus, at several points in the following interview, the MIR criticizes what they call the reformist path of electoral politics and conciliation. While many of the terms and political strategies discussed in the interview differ from those frequently heard in the political discussions in the United States, the interview is important because it is the first statement by any group resisting the Junta to emerge since the coup on September 11th. 

The interview took place on October 1st in secret in Chile, since those answering the questions are currently been sought by the military. The newspaper Rouse began the interview by asking MIR, "Had you already foreseen this coup? What are the first lessons that you've drawn from it?" 

"The coup d'etat that took place on September 11th was politically written in events that had already happened. We were prepared from a political as well as an organizational point of view, and we have prepared the sectors of the working-class and those of the presentry which we directly influence. We have not stopped denouncing the allusions of reformist strategy, allusions that cannot but disarm, in the full sense of the word, the Chilean people." 

"In that sense, the September 11th coup confirms in the most tragic way our predictions and analysis. It was written in the events of the short terms since June 29th. It was clearly apparent at that moment that a section of the army was ready to do anything in order to confront a popular mobilization, which was becoming larger and larger." 

"From then on, the principal concern of the military heads and of those who had been appointed to government posts could be reduced to one thing, to maintain discipline and cohesion in the military within that last rampart of bourgeois order and of imperialist order. The majority of the officers were in favor of the golpe or coup." 

"At the same time, one witness during those last months a mobilization and heightening of consciousness among the Chilean workers, which was totally new, having no common measure with anything that had transpired before. It is a phenomenon that was disseminated by the revolutionary press throughout the world. I won't get into that now, although that is the fundamental element of the last period." 

"In practice, to their concerns, by their enthusiasm, entire sectors of the Chilean working-class had begun to break away from the orientation of reformist directions. If the bourgeoisie and imperialism can to a certain extent tolerate Reformism, such a phenomenon cannot last very long. The means of production come more and more into the hands of the workers, and the previous capitalist owners of the means of production get more and more upset. This mobilization did only make the coup unavoidable, but also made the confrontation inevitable. It is crucial to underline the massive, global confrontation." 

"What did you do to help the emergence of that proletarian power and its consolidation?" 

"All of our militants participate fully in the birth process of popular power and in many cases played a decisive role in its consolidation, but they were far from being the only ones. The militants from the Socialist Party also played an important role in many cases, but since it was a question of an extremely wide phenomenon, especially in the Cordones industrial belts, one cannot speak only in terms of a consolidation of organized forces." 

"In fact, it was a question of a totally exemplary phenomenon of a massive ripening of workers' consciousness. In this framework, whenever possible our activities and propaganda, agitation and organization, always aim towards accelerating and consolidating that process. I would also like to add that we've considered of prime importance our work with respect to the army. This work is now the main accusation against us." 

"About this work you did with respect to the army, and without going into details which have no place in a public interview, were there important divisions or evidence of resistance within the army at the moment of the coup?" 

"Rumors to that effect have not ceased since September 11th. In fact, although there have been no decisive divisions in the armed forces as a whole, one would to be blind in order not to see the differences between the various sectors. Within the Junta in power, it is undoubtedly members of the Navy and Air Force that represent the ultra elements, but one should not overestimate them. They will not fail to reflect the very real divisions which exist in the bourgeoisie." 

"It is certain that sectors of the dominant class will have disagreements with the politics of the Junta, but right now there is just an almost unanimous sigh of relief, but at what a price. Let us not forget that many sectors which are joined to Christian democracy, in particular, have an old tradition which joins them to bourgeois democracy. A certain bourgeoisie legality and all that has been swept away by the coup. Not to speak of the excesses which seem to bother some of those gentlemen." 

"A more significant element in the armed forces is the fact that certain regiments did not really participate in the daily operations of house searches and repression. I am not saying that they are dissident. Rather, it's a question of tactical precaution on the part of the Junta to avoid the sharpening of potential splits." 

"In order to answer your question precisely, I can say that the fragmentary information that we have on the situation of the army indicates that in the beginning there were quite a few refusals to obey on the part of certain soldiers and sub-officers. They were all shot immediately. At least 10 of these cases were reported directly or indirectly, and therefore there must have been many more. That makes work within the army extremely difficult, almost impossible in certain cases." 

"On the other hand, if there were a political and military revolutionary offensive which appeared as a real alternative, there is no doubt that a good number of sub-officers and soldiers would be on our side. Several times during the house searches, soldiers, sub-officers and even officers closed their eyes, let us say, when they found weapons. They said, 'All we ask is that you don't use them against us.' " 

"Considering this, therefore, we will avoid in the near future irresponsible acts which might help to cement the armed forces into a homogeneous block, and we will work towards furthering the slight but significant manifestations of resistance within the army." 

"You talk of work plans of a political and military revolutionary offensive, but the thing that strikes us the most is the absence of visible signs of such an offensive." 

"That's true. At least at the level of visible signs, as you say, but on this point we must be very lucid because of the weight of the reformist illusions, mainly because of the blind politics of reformist directions, which have caused the Chilean workers to lose the battle. For this lost battle they have paid a great, great price. In editing the information which comes to us from all the suburbs of Santiago and from the rest of the country, we estimate at 25,000 dead, the number of victims from this battle." 

"According to our information, this number circulates also in the military high command and every day the number increases. The day of the coup the workers regrouped massively in work sites which they had already been occupying for several weeks. In many factories, the workers defended themselves heroically, in hand-to-hand combat against the military who were bent on retaking the factories, but the proportion of power was to unequal." 

"The military was armed to the teeth with modern weapons, using also tanks and at times air power. In contrast, the workers were very poorly armed, almost not armed at all in certain cases. The military were a well-coordinated centralized force carrying out a plan which had been extremely carefully prepared in advance. The workers from the different factories, from the different areas were not centralized, were not even coordinated among themselves." 

"Nevertheless, it took about five days, sometimes longer, for the military to defeat the industrial areas around Santiago. In the provinces, things happened generally in the same manner. This explains the great number of dead during the first few days. In certain places it was a veritable massacre. In one of the most important factories in Santiago 200 dead bodies were taken out of the basement. Under such circumstances, retreat was inevitable." 

"You characterize the actual situation as a retreat and not as a crushing defeat." 

"Without any doubt, because in spite of the extraordinary number of victims, the repression in most cases has not been selective at all. A fact that one must know and make known to the outside world is that a great number of militants, syndicates and political cadres perished at their posts, but the revolutionary organizations, ours in particular, have not been dismantled. In spite of two heavy losses, the essential core of our structure and our apparatus are absolutely intact." 

"In this sense, we have been consistent in our analysis and the measures we have taken have borne fruit. The military know this and it bothers them terribly. Their victory communiques are tainted by an undercurrent of fear. Without conviction, they exhibit material and weapons that have been seized and try to demoralize us by pretending to have made massive arrests in our cadres, but they know that they're lying and this is a decisive factor in the phase that is now beginning. A factor which allows us to talk of inevitable revolutionary offensive." 

"What about the other leftist organizations? In particular the parties in the Popular Unity Coalition". 

"Although I have had contacts with militants of the Communist Party, Socialist Party and the MAPU, United Popular Action Movement, I will talk with prudence and on an individual basis. About the MAPU, although it is a small group, I think I can say that it has not suffered much damage, either in its organization or in its structure. About the Communist Party, it seems that many intermediate cadres disappeared or were arrested." 

"One thing is certain, the core of the party in Santiago, notably, is completely disoriented. In one blow, the illusions about the peaceful road to socialism have fallen. In addition, the structure of the Communist Party seems to be deeply disorganized, although the leadership of the Communist Party has participated in the battles in the Cordones. Today, a great number of militants have no precise guidelines and are left completely on their own." 

"As for the Socialist Party, the situation is relatively complicated, given the complexity of the cross-currents which existed in the party when it was in power. The structure itself of the Socialist Party did not prepare it for the situation, but many militants, many revolutionary currents with the Socialist Party, which had their own struggles and organized cadres, fought the repression and are preparing for future struggles. There again, our responsibility is very great." 

"How does the MIR plans to carry out this responsibility?" 

We advocate the formation of a revolutionary front, which according to us, should regroup the parties of the Popular Unity and ourselves. The task of this front would be to prepare, as soon as possible, a counter-offensive against the actual regime, a political and particularly a military counter-offensive." 

"What is the current climate that the Junta is creating for you to work in?" 

"The climate of xenophobia that the Junta is trying to foment surpasses the imagination. Here also it is necessary to mobilize people outside of the country. Our militant comrades, political refugees, even simple residents, Bolivians and especially Brazilians risk their lives every instant. They are the Jews for the Junta. Simply because they speak with an accent, they are turned in by their neighbors." 

This concludes the reenactment of an interview between MIR and the French newspaper Rouge. 

Secret testimony by William Colby, Director of the Central Intelligence Agency, has confirmed a number of charges made by Chileans who support the overthrown government of President Salvador Allende. Colby had discussed the US relationship to the military coup in Chile in October 11th testimony before the House of Representatives Subcommittee on Inter-American Affairs. Washington Post correspondent, Tad Szulc, was given a transcript of the testimony by sources in the intelligence community. 

"This extensive testimony," says the Post, "touches principally on the CIA's own very extensive covert role in Chilean politics, but it also helps in understanding and reconstructing the administration's basic policy of bringing about Allende's fall one way or another. We are appraised not only that the CIA's estimate of the number of victims of the military government's repression is four times the official Santiago figures, but that the United States in effect condones mass executions and imprisonments in Chile because a civil war there remains a real possibility." Yet even Colby warned that the Junta may "overdo repression." 

Colby's testimony, according to The Washington Post, in parts unclear and contradictory, offered a picture of the CIA's activities in Chile between Allende's election in 1970 and the September 11th coup. The activities then described a range from the penetration of all the major Chilean political parties, support for anti-regime demonstrations, and financing of the opposition press and other groups to heretofore unsuspected Agency involvement in financial negotiations between Washington and Santiago in late 1972 and early 1973, when Chileans were desperately seeking an accommodation. 

There are indications that the CIA, acting on the basis of its own reports on the deterioration of the Chilean economic situation, was among the agencies counseling the White House to rebuff Allende's attempts to work out a settlement on the compensations to be paid for nationalized American companies in Chile. 

"Although denying CIA involvement in the coup and the preceding truck owner's lockout", says The Washington Post, "Colby conceded the CIA had assisted various anti-Allende demonstrations. He refused to answer questions about CIA involvement in the rightist offensive in October 1972 and an abortive coup attempt in March 1973 because, 'I don't want to be in a position of giving you a false answer.' Colby told the closed session, 'We have had various relationships over the years in Chile with various groups. In some cases this was approved by the National Security Council, resulting in assistance to rightists.'" 

Colby's predecessor, Richard Helms, had earlier disclosed in testimony that the CIA had sent about $400,000 to Chile to support anti-Allende newspapers and radio stations before the 1970 elections. This had been authorized by a high-level meeting of the Committee of Forty, a special crisis management team headed by Henry Kissinger. Colby refused to say if these subsidies were continued to the present. Several Congress members at the hearings said some US money had been sent into Chile via Latin American subsidiaries of US corporations, particularly from Brazil. 

Colby said, "Armed opposition now appears to be confined to sporadic, isolated attacks on security forces, but the regime believes that the left is regrouping for coordinated sabotage and guerrilla activity. The government probably is right in believing that its opponents have not been fully neutralized. Our reports indicate that the extremist movement of the revolutionary left, the MIR, believes its assets have not been damaged beyond repair. It wants to launch anti-government activity as soon as practical and is working to form a united front of leftist opposition parties. Other leftist groups, including the Communist and Socialist parties, are in disarray, but they have not been destroyed." 

Colby also noted, "Armed resistors continue to be executed where they are found, and a number of prisoners have been shot, supposedly while trying to escape." This report from The Washington Post. 

The junta is continuing with its efforts to stamp politics out of the Chilean consciousness until the country is back on its feet again. El Mercurio, one of the few newspapers still allowed to publish in Chile, carried on the front page of a recent issue, a decree by the junta outlying all Marxist political parties and declaring all others in recess. The Marxist parties now illegal include the Socialist, Communist, Radical, Christian left, Movement of the United Popular Action and Independent Popular Action Party. 

El Mercurio of Chile continues that the major non-Marxist parties now in recess include the Christian Democrats, the National Party, the Radical Left, the Radical Democratic Party, the Democratic National Party. The junta is also depoliticizing the universities, according to El Mercurio. 8,000 of the 19,000 students at the University of Concepción were expelled for leftist activities, including every student enrolled in the School of Journalism and the Institute of Sociology. Those expelled cannot enroll in any other college in Chile, according to El Mercurio of Chile. 

The Chilean ex-ambassador to Mexico, Hugo Vigorena, claims that 60 people have taken refuge in the Mexican Embassy in Santiago, and are awaiting safe passage out of the country. Vigorena says that their situation is desperate, but that negotiations for their safe conduct do not look hopeful. Troops remain stationed around the embassy to prevent Chileans from seeking asylum there. 

Excélsior notes that meanwhile the Junta is working to establish beneficial foreign relations, Brazil has announced the extension of a $12 million worth of credit to Chile. A delegate from the International Monetary Fund is scheduled to arrive in Chile to discuss the resumption of important loans and credit denied Chile under Allende's regime. General Pinochet, the head of the Junta, has announced plans to meet with the Bolivian president, Hugo Banzer. That report on Chile from the Mexico City daily, Excélsior, and from the Chilean daily, El Mercurio. 

One of the international effects of the military coup in Chile is the subject of a recent article in the Christian Science Monitor. Chile's military leaders have dealt a serious blow to efforts at bringing Cuba back into the hemisphere fold. In fact, it now becomes apparent that the movement toward renewing diplomatic and commercial ties with Cuba, that was gaining momentum during the first part of the year, has been sidetracked and has lost considerable steam.

Based on surveys of Latin American attitudes, there is a broad consensus that Cuba's return to good graces in the hemisphere will be delayed because the Chilean coup eliminated one of Cuba's strongest supporters in the hemisphere. 

In seizing power, says the Christian Science Monitor, the Chilean military quickly broke off diplomatic and commercial relations with the government of Prime Minister Fidel Castro, relations that had been established by the late President Allende in 1970. 

In breaking ties with Cuba, the Chilean military leaders claimed that Cuba had involved itself in internal Chilean affairs and had been supplying the Allende government with large quantities of arms and ammunition, which were being distributed to a vast illegal paramilitary apparatus aimed at undermining traditional authority in Chile. 

According to the Christian Science Monitor, under Dr. Allende, Chile had been a leader in the movement toward reincorporating Cuba into the hemisphere system. Chile had become the driving wedge in the movement is how one Latin American diplomat put it. Now, the drive has been blunted and the pro-Cuba forces are temporarily stalled and re-gearing. 

Christian Science Monitor continues, saying that most Latin American observers are convinced that Cuba will, within time, return to the hemisphere fold and that the island nation will be accorded diplomatic recognition by the more than 20 other nations in the hemisphere, but there is still a strong feeling of antagonism toward Cuba on the part of quite a few nations, including Brazil, the largest of all. 

Before the Chilean coup, however, there was a clear indication that enough nations supported a Venezuelan initiative to end the mandatory embargo on relations with Cuba, in effect since 1964, to bring about a change in official hemisphere policy. 

At least 11 nations supported the move, just one short of a majority in the 23-nation Organization of American States, or OAS. It had generally been felt in OAS circles that Venezuela, which had been largely responsible for getting the embargo in the first place, would be able to find one more vote to support its proposal. 

Now, says the Christian Science Monitor, with Chile clearly in opposition, Venezuela's task is more difficult, and the general feeling is that Venezuela will not bring the issue before the OAS General Assembly when it meets in Atlanta next April, unless circumstances change. This from the Christian Science Monitor. 

Concerning the situation in Chile, and especially the relation between the church and state in Chile, the British Newsweekly Latin America reports that Cardinal Silva Henríquez's cautious handling of church state relations since the coup reflects the extremely difficult situation in which he and his clergy find themselves. The church is now almost the only permitted political organization. Latin America continues that in the current atmosphere of terror and repression, the Chilean cardinal has pursued an agile policy of riding several horses at once. Nevertheless, the sunny relationship that the church enjoyed with the state during the Allende government has ended. 

Always a clever and sophisticated politician, and by no means reactionary, Cardinal Silva has become an increasingly important figure in the final year of the popular unity government. He obviously took pleasure in his role as promoter of the concept of dialogue between the government and its Christian Democrat opposition. Quite apart from his own fairly progressive personal views, the Cardinal was obliged to take a friendly attitude towards the Popular Unity movement.

As a result of the general radicalization of the Chilean church, which has long since cut its links with the most conservative strata of Chilean society. The Cardinal had to take into account the fact that his younger priests, working in the slums and shanty towns, were becoming increasingly revolutionary.

According to Latin America, two days after the coup, the Cardinal drafted a strong statement in the name of the standing committee of Chilean bishops deploring the bloodshed. He also demanded respect for those who fell in the struggle and expressed the hope that the gains of the workers and peasants under previous governments would be respected and consolidated, and that Chile would return to institutional normalcy very soon. The newsweekly Latin America continues that the statement appalled the junta.

It appeared at a time when the official line was that less than 100 people had been killed, so why was the Cardinal emphasizing the bloodshed? Respect for Allende was the last thing the junta was prepared to offer at a time when it was launching a major campaign to publicize details of the ex-president's sex life and sumptuous lifestyles. And although the junta itself had promised a reasonable deal for workers and peasants, in practice it was soon swiftly reversing what had been thought irreversible changes.

If the cardinal were to have any influence with the junta, he would clearly have to change his language, which he has subsequently done. No more strong statements have emanated from the Archbishop's palace. A test case of the Cardinal's policy of maintaining silence to secure a certain freedom of action will be the fate of the Chilean official church newspaper, Mensaje. Its October issue revealed it to be the first and only magazine of opposition in Chile. A sizeable chunk of its two-page editorial was printed blank, the censor having been at work.

A second editorial entitled "A Cry of Warning" survived intact. Dedicated entirely to the question of torture in Brazil, the immediacy of the topic may have escaped the censor, but would not have been lost on the reader. The editors are planning a double number of the magazine to be published early in December and have promised to go into liquidation rather than indulge in self-censorship, that from the newsweekly, Latin America.

Excélsior of Mexico City reports that opinion in Latin America is divided on the effects of the reduction of Arab oil production. For 48 hours after the announced reduction of oil production in international economic circles, it was considered very unlikely that Latin America would suffer effects of the energy crisis. It was noted that the countries developed industrially in the region, such as Mexico and Argentina, are almost self-sufficient in petroleum. The only exception would be Brazil, the principal importer of hydrocarbons in the Latin American region. 

However, according to Excélsior, the director of the Mexican oil concern affirmed that Mexico cannot withstand a world energy crisis, although it would not be affected in the same manner as other countries. In Venezuela, with less optimism than the international economic circles of Buenos Aires, authorities of the Ministry of Mines and Hydrocarbons are studying the shortages in countries such as Brazil and Colombia. It was indicated that there are cases in Central America in which electric plants and hospitals could be closed for lack of fuel. 

According to Excélsior, in Argentina, the State petroleum monopoly assured that the country can be self-sufficient in fuel for 15 more years, although the volume of reserves necessitates the search for substitutes already. Venezuela, the principal producer and exporter of petroleum in the region, is being pressured by its regular customers, the United States and Europe, to not reduce its normal deliveries, which reach the neighborhood of 3 million barrels daily. The United States is the principal purchaser of Venezuelan petroleum. 

The Venezuelan minister of Mines and Hydrocarbons noted that his country is actually almost at the limit of its extractive capacity. That is, there is no possibility that Venezuela can increase its production. The reserves of the country decrease at the rate of 1,200 million barrels annually. 

According to Expreso of Lima, Peru, in Peru the possibility is now under study of reducing the consumption of petroleum used in the industrialization of sugarcane production. Also, the price of gasoline will be increased. The Lima paper Expreso, which is the voice of the Peruvian government, recently accused monopoly producers in the capitalist system for the actual crisis in petroleum. 

Expreso emphasized that the United States has calculated reserves for 60 years and can at this moment satisfy its internal demands, but the monopolies live at the expense of resources from other countries and prefer to unleash a crisis now in order to later obtain more profits, according to Expresso. The world petroleum crisis should be thus more a political emergency than an economic one. According to Expreso of Lima, Peru, and Excélsior of Mexico City. 

The Miami Herald reports an special from Montevideo, Uruguay, that following the recent military government's seizure of the university there, the government appears to have removed almost all opposition. In mid September, the generals permitted student selections at the university. The result was a victory for the Frente Amplio, a leftist coalition of parties whose leader in the presidential elections of 1970 is now under house arrest in rural Uruguay. 

Informed sources here in Montevideo note that there had been more or less a tacit accord between the new student leadership and the government that barring violent demonstrations, the 120-year-old autonomy of the campus would be respected. In sending troops into the campus and in rounding up leftist student leaders and faculty, Uruguay's military leaders seem to have broken their side of the bargain. 

The Miami Herald special continues that, furthermore, this year inflation in Uruguay will reach about 80%, and owing to the economic stagnation of the past decade, Uruguay now has a foreign debt hovering near the $1 billion mark. Production on the nation's fertile pasture lands of cattle and sheep is still stagnant, though recent sharp increases in prices paid for beef overseas have added dramatically to Uruguay's earnings. Still many of the nation's most highly-skilled workers are migrating to the cities of southern Brazil and to Buenos Aires across the river in search of opportunity. That from The Miami Herald. 

Updating the previous article and indicating that the military seizure of the university failed to summon opposition, Excélsior on December 2nd reports from Montevideo, Uruguay, that the government outlawed all political parties, except the Christian Democrats, and outlawed labor unions and student federations, proscribed their newspapers and seized their offices. 

According to Excélsior, hundreds of soldiers and police, other combined forces, were deployed on the highways and were searching all vehicles to prevent the escape from the country of the leaders of the outlawed organizations, but officially only one arrest was reported, that of the editor of the newspaper El Popular, which is the organ of the Communist Party. The editor was detained when security forces occupied the newspaper's offices. 

Uruguay remained without media outlets for the left. Of the four papers still being published in the country, only El Día could be considered an opposition periodical, although very moderate. The ban was signed by president Bordaberry. The official statement accused leftist organizations of following a policy contrary to the representative, republican, democratic system. 

The communist and socialist parties were accused of being for a number of years inspiration and instruments of subversion, and sustained that Marxist ideologies created an artificial class struggle to destroy national unity and the economy. The Communist Party, founded in 1920 and declared legal three years later, was one of the most important in Latin America and had 70,000 members. Its organ, El Popular, began publication in 1958. 

After the military takeover of the government last June, the paper was suspended on various occasions for up to 60 days. The Communist Party began recently to publish under another name, Crónica. Both papers have been suspended. 

According to Excélsior, now only Última Hora and Ahora of the Christian democrats are appearing. The government has declared illegal the National Confederation of Workers and arrested the president of the opposition party Frente Amplio. That from Excélsior.