Annotations for Countries: China

Excélsior reports that the People's Republic of China and Mexico have signed a commercial agreement, the first in history between the two countries. The agreement involves immediate sales to China of more than $370 million dollars in Mexican products and was reached during President Echeverria's recent trip to China.

The Miami Herald reports another result of Echeverria's trip. President Luis Echeverria of Mexico gained a diplomatic success today with the announcement by his government that China will sign a treaty assuring Latin America of freedom from nuclear weapons. A spokesman for the Echeverria government in China said, Chairman Mao of China will sign the Treaty of Tlatelolco in all its meanings. The pact, signed by Latin American nations in 1967, bans nuclear arms from all of Latin America. This is the first time one of the five nuclear powers has said it would sign all of the treaty. Until now, China has refused to sign the agreement if their other powers did not approve it without restrictions. The United States and Great Britain have signed only parts of the pact, while France and Russia have agreed to none of it as yet.

La Nación from Buenos Aires reported that among Campora's first acts upon becoming president and taking control away from the right wing military, was the releasing of political prisoners, the decriminalization of the Communist party, and the reestablishment of diplomatic relations with Cuba, relations, which have been broken since 1964 when the US government insisted upon a policy of isolating Cuba. 

The French press service Agence France reports from Havana that, "It is considered here that Argentina's recognition of Cuba will probably considerably strengthen the pro Cuban movement in Latin America. Cuban officials hope this diplomatic gesture will deliver the coup de grâce to the anti-Cuban blockade decreed in 1964 when the US insisted that a sugar cane curtain be constructed around Cuba, similar to the bamboo curtain constructed around China and the iron curtain around the Soviet Union." This from Agence France. 

On June 21st, 1955, Juan Perón was deposed by the military in Argentina and sent into exile. For this reason, he chose June 21st, 1973 as the date of his triumphant return to Argentina. Opinião of Rio de Janeiro comments on what Perón's role will be in the new Peronist administration. On the domestic front, Perón will play the father figure trying to keep peace in the movement and balancing the demands of the older technocrats in the established labor bureaucracy against those of the younger radicals who want to mobilize the population for deep social change immediately. Opinião quotes Perón as saying, "I have to reconcile the two groups. I cannot favor one or the other, even if one of them is correct." Perón will be the final arbitrator of domestic issues when conflicts arise between factions. 

Opinião continues by noting that in foreign affairs, Perón will also have a crucial role as a super diplomat. In a few weeks, he will visit China to sign a trade agreement. He also intends to travel throughout Latin America to capture the leadership position for Argentina in the new wave of nationalism sweeping the continent. Finally, it is expected that he will appear at the coming UN General Assembly. Opinião concludes that the new administration in Argentina is making Perón the indispensable man in the government. This is dangerous, however, since Perón is 78 years old. This from Opinião of Rio de Janeiro. 

Despite the careful formulations of the new Peronist government's economic team in Argentina, the continuing effective agitation by leftist organizations suggest serious confrontations for Perón to deal with after his return to Buenos Aires this month. Latin America Newsletter comments on the strategies of some of the Argentine guerrilla groups. In open press conferences last week, leaders of the Ejército Revolucionario del Pueblo, ERP, the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias, FAR, and the Montoneros described to reporters their policies with regard to the new government.

Despite their differences, the Marxist ERP, which now rejects the label Trotskyist, and the various Peronist organizations, seem likely to follow similar tactics. The ERP will need to fund itself by further kidnappings of foreign businessmen, but both groups are likely to concentrate on building support at a base level in factories and the working class districts of the large cities.

According to Latin America, both the ERP and the Peronist guerrilla leaders described foreign monopolists, local oligarchs, and the armed forces as the principal enemies of the change in Argentina. The ERP, which split shortly before the March elections over the attitude the movement should adopt towards Héctor Cámpora's electoral campaign seems to have modified its position. The movement's best-known leader told reporters that the ERP would not attack the government directly, and last week it released its two political prisoners, both of whom were military officers. 

Pressure on the government is being brought in a number of ways, according to Latin America. Government buildings and hospitals are occupied by militants demanding better working conditions and pay for nurses and cleaners. Butchers' shops are invaded by housewives determined to enforce official price controls. Student mobilization led to the appointment of new university authorities. The release of 400 guerrillas has led to a widespread movement for an improvement in prison conditions. 

At some point, there will be a military reaction to the present popular triumph, but when that moment comes, the army will face far more determined, popular opposition than has been possible during the past six years, even though the present atmosphere of revolutionary carnival will not persist. 

Of course, very much depends on Perón, says Latin America, who returned last week and doubtless feels his well-proven political skills will enable him to handle turbulence from any quarter, left or right. 

But Argentina is not the same as it was when he left involuntarily 18 years ago. And although he may be counting on the popular mobilization by young revolutionaries to avoid any recurrence of the disaster that occurred in 1955, it remains to be seen whether he can hold them in check today. This analysis is from the London Weekly Latin America. 

From Chile itself comes the word of the death of Nobel Prize-winning poet Pablo Neruda on September 23rd. Neruda's death came just 12 days after the coup, which resulted in the death of Neruda's close friend, Salvador Allende. Neruda had been suffering from cancer. 

At Neruda's funeral on Tuesday in Santiago, a crowd of almost 2000 cheered the Chilean Communist Party, sang "The Internationale", and chanted, "With Neruda, we bury Salvador Allende". The daring left-wing demonstration was in direct defiance of the military junta. Yet even the risk of arrest could not stop the crowd from chanting, despite the heavy contingent of soldiers stationed around the mausoleum. 

Meanwhile, the New York publishing house of Farrar, Straus, and Giroux announced Thursday that the manuscripts of the poet's memoirs, as well as a number of unpublished poems written before Neruda's death, are missing. Neruda's home in Santiago has been ransacked and all his books seized. The military junta has denied responsibility and called the incident regrettable. Yet it is popularly believed that military police sacked the house in search of leftist literature and arms. 

Pablo Neruda's activism was as stronger as his lifelong commitment to poetry. Neruda's career as a poet officially began in 1924, when he published "Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair" at the age of 20. Following a tradition of long-standing, the Chilean government sent the young poet on a series of consular missions. In 1934, he was appointed counsel to Madrid. There he published the first and second series of his enormously successful work, "Residents on Earth". 

When civil war broke out in Spain in 1936, Neruda made no secret of his antifascist convictions. He used his post as counsel in Madrid to aid the Spanish loyalists. Finally, the Chilean government recalled him when his partisan behavior became simply too embarrassing. 

From then on, Neruda became progressively involved in politics. His poetry reflected the direction in which his entire life was moving, and he became a very controversial figure. Neruda later wrote of this time in his life, "Since then, I have been convinced that it is the poet's duty to take his stand along with the people in their struggle to transform society, the trading to chaos by its rulers into an orderly existence based upon political, social and economic democracy." 

After serving as counsel on Mexico for several years Neruda returned to Chile in 1943, he joined the Communist Party and decided to run for a seat in the National Senate. He was elected to the Senate in 1944 and served for five years until the conflict between the Chilean government and the Communist Party reached its peak. The party was declared illegal by an act of Congress, and Neruda was expelled from his seat. 

He made his way secretly through the country and managed to slip across the border. He lived in exile for several years traveling through Mexico, Europe, the Soviet Union, and China. In 1950, he published his "General Song". 

Neruda returned to Chile in 1953 and in that same year was awarded the Stalin Prize. He became the leading spokesman of Chile's left while continuing to write poetry prolifically. He also wrote exposes of Chilean political figures, and articles condemning US foreign policy in Latin America. In 1954, he published "The Grapes and the Wind", which contained a great deal of political verse. 

In 1971, he was awarded the Nobel Prize for poetry. Neruda strongly condemned US economic policies in Latin America. He felt that the United States used its dominance over the Latin American countries to finance US national security ventures and to supply US industrial needs, all at great cost to the Latin American countries themselves. 

In anticipation of Henry Kissinger's upcoming visit to Latin America, several Latin American political figures and diplomats have been speaking out on US-Latin American relations, especially economic ties. One thing which has sparked commentary is newly released figures on Mexican trade in the first 11 months of 1973. The Mexico City daily, Excélsior, reports that the bright side of the story is that Mexican exports increased by more than 6 billion pesos to a high of 27 billion pesos. However, overall, the trade picture worsened.

While money coming into the country from these exports increased by that same 6 billion pesos, money going out of the country for imports increased by some 13 billion pesos, leaving an increase in the country's trade deficit by 7 billion pesos. Excélsior concludes that if Mexico's foreign commerce did grow in 1973, its commercial imbalance grew even more. 

While from Caracas, Excélsior reports that Venezuelan president-elect Carlos Andres Perez recently revealed that his coming administration will propose a conference of Latin American countries to plan a protectionist strategy for the continent's raw materials. Perez noted, while meeting with Central American economic ministers, that, "The developed countries have been exercising an economic totalitarianism that more and more oppresses our economies and our development possibilities." The Venezuelan president-elect added that it is imperative that the developed countries pay a just price for their natural resources. That will be the only way of compensating for the prices which the underdeveloped countries have to pay for the manufactured goods and the costly technology which they are sold. 

And on the same subject, the Mexican ambassador to the United States, speaking at Johns Hopkins University near Baltimore, reported that the Latin American trade deficit in 1973 paid for some two thirds of the US balance of payment surplus. The ambassador, after pointing out that he was working with data supplied by the US Department of Commerce, noted that in 1973, the US exported to Latin America goods valued at eight million and one quarter dollars, while it imported from that region less than $7 billion worth of products. These figures indicate that Latin America contributed at least $1 billion to the US trade surplus, which was 1.7 billion in 1973. 

The ambassador went on to say that the situation is worsening. In 1960, Latin America had a deficit of $49 million. But while the price of raw materials only rose 8% in the last decade, that of North American finished goods climbed 22%. He condemned the monopoly or virtual monopoly position of capital and technology that the industrialized countries enjoy. The ambassador warned that economic coercion can produce an opposite reaction from that intended, giving as an example the disruption caused by the increase in petroleum prices. In the same statement, the ambassador analyzed in general terms North American aid to Latin America, and he emphasized that 60% of US aid must be repaid. That is, it is called aid, but actually amounts to loans of money at commercial interest rates. 

The Mexican ambassador concluded by commenting that the coming visit of Latin American ministers with Henry Kissinger, "Will be an excellent opportunity to open a continuing dialogue on the problems that the Latin American countries face." The meeting with Kissinger to which the Mexican ambassador referred is the Conference of Ministers of the Organization of American States, scheduled to be held in Mexico City at the end of the month. On its agenda will be included cooperation for development, protection and trade embargoes, solution to the Panama Canal question, restructuring of the inter-American system, international trade, the world monetary system, and the operations of multinational corporations. 

According to Latin America, Kissinger's aim is to stabilize the situation in Latin America, as he has attempted to do in other parts of the world. Traditionally, the continent has provided the United States with primary products and raw materials at relatively low cost. Now, prices on the world market are soaring, to the extent that the United States is thinking officially of endorsing long-term agreements between producer and consumer organizations. Since Kissinger took over at the State Department, Venezuela has begun to develop a petroleum policy which makes a distinction and a difference in price between the industrialized countries and the countries of Latin America. In 1973, the world price of sugar and coffee, let alone other products, broke all previous records. 

Latin America says that in spite of regional rivalries and local crises, there does exist a common philosophy among political leaders in Latin America toward the United States. However wide the political gulf that has separated past and present Latin American leaders, all agreed on a number of fundamental points. First, that the problem of US intervention, call it imperialist or paternalist, is perennial. Secondly, that Washington's policy towards Latin America has generally been aimed at securing the interests of US business. 

Thirdly, the countries of Latin America ought to take protectionist measures, regulating the repatriation of profits, taxing luxury imports, selecting the areas for foreign investment, and increasing in volume and price the export of primary products and manufactured goods. Finally, local armed forces, or part of them, have been systematically used as instruments of the foreign policy of the United States in Latin America ever since the beginning of the Cold War. Military assistance, the conferences and exchange programs and the training programs have all helped to overthrow constitutional parliamentary governments and to replace them by militarist or Bonapartist regimes. 

In diplomatic and political circles in Latin America, there is a sense of considerable expectation with regard to Kissinger. The impression of Latin American diplomats is that Kissinger now speaks for a consensus of Congress, Vice President Gerald Ford and of President Nixon himself. Add to this the fact that Kissinger can count on the support of the Soviet Union, the Chinese, and is respected, if not loved, by Europe and Japan, and it is not surprising that, in the words of a Brazilian diplomat, he should now be seen in the role of a planetary [inaudible 00:07:06]. This report has been compiled from Excélsior, The Mexico City Daily, and the British weekly and economic and political journal, Latin America. 

Our feature this week is an analysis of the recent turbulent events in Argentina taken from the Cuban, Prensa Latina and the Mexico City daily, Excélsior. 

Juan Perón is probably the best known political figure in Latin America since his appearance on the Argentine political scene in 1943 when he came to power in a military coup. He solidified his power base by building a huge political party whose main program was the support of this one man. At the same time, he took advantage of workers' unrest and constructed a huge trade union bureaucracy, also under his control. 

But these institutions were not the only factors which kept Perón in power. Immediately after World War II, world beef prices were high in a booming world economy and Argentine beef was bringing big export earnings for that country. Perón forced cattle raisers to sell their beef to a state corporation at a low price, and the government used the export earnings to begin industrializing the country and also to construct a welfare state apparatus to maintain Perón's political base. By the early fifties, though, world beef prices had begun to fall from the post-war boom. Also, Perón's manipulation of the cattle-raising industry had seriously damaged this important sector of the economy. As a result, Perón's almost hysterical support among Argentine masses fell off slightly. 

There was still another factor which undermined Perón. Perón had always maintained a nationalistic foreign policy and was particularly unfriendly to the United States. By the early fifties, many United States investors were interested in establishing operations in Argentina and no doubt would not have objected to a change in government. 

Finally, in 1955, Perón was overthrown in a right-wing military coup. In the following years, the military allowed some elections to take place, but the Peronist party was always banned from participating. The Peronists, however, always managed to show their strength by casting blank votes in the elections. 

These elections always showed that, whether in Argentina or not, Perón was still the strongest political figure in Argentine politics. Throughout the long years of Perón's absence, the Peronist party came to include many diverse political tendencies. The trade union movement came under the control of the more conservative wing of the party, and as a result has been somewhat passive and pressing for workers' demands. Meanwhile, the more leftist elements of the party, led primarily by the Peronist Youth Group, agitated strongly for Perón's return, and early this year, the military consented. After 17 years of exile, Perón was once again allowed to return to Argentina. 

Last September, Perón ran for president and won by a landslide. Yet his return has not turned Argentina into a sunny paradise. Social conflict has sharpened tremendously. Nor has Perón been able to maintain his position as the unchallenged leader of the Argentine masses. While most of the older trade union officials remain loyal to Perón's dictates, the sharpening economic and political crisis of the past few years has produced new political forces, rooted in an important section of the industrial working class who owe Perón little and put worker demands ahead of the aging politician's almost mystical personal appeal. 

When the military dictatorship headed by general Alejandro Lanusse last year invited Perón to return to the helm of Argentine politics after 17 years of Spanish exile, they were confessing their inability to cope with an increasingly revolutionary situation. The worsening economic crisis together with the junta's brutal and ineffective repression gave rise to over 500 strikes involving more than 5 million workers, a high tide in workers' struggle. While urban guerrilla organizations continued raids and kidnappings with virtual impunity. The Lanusse regime viewed Perón as the only political figure who, they hoped, could stabilize the situation. 

In terms of the class forces within Argentina today, says Cuban Prensa Latina, the invitation extended to Perón represented an attempt at a compromise by big property owners whose careers and fortunes are tied to the United States. About a third of Argentina's foreign debt, the largest single portion, is owed to US banks, while nearly another fifth is held by international institutions and banking syndicates such as the World Bank and the Paris Club, in which the US plays a dominant role. The pro-US group, while it makes up probably the biggest sector of the Argentine business community as a whole, is probably also the one with the narrowest popular base, due to the general unpopularity of US business interest in Argentina. 

Unable under Lanusse to keep its grip on the Argentine situation, this section of the business and industrial community, by inviting Perón to return, offered to share power with other sectors of the Argentine business community who have a Yankee nationalist orientation. There are actually two main sections of this community in Argentina today. The first, led by Perón, prefers to build economic relations with Western Europe and Japan as well as China, while restricting relations with the United States.

It sees both the US and the USSR as superpowers threatening to Argentina's independence, also influential, but still weaker than the first is a pro-Soviet sector of businessmen centering around a number of Argentine corporations with Soviet affinities and controlling the newspaper El Mundo and a television channel in Buenos Aires. The current economics minister, José Gelbard, is a representative of this group.

While the precise concessions to be made by the pro-US elements to other interests are the objects of a continuing struggle, the role and vision for Perón has been made amply clear. While attacking Yankee imperialism, he is to engineer a social truth to bring the workers' movement under control so as to raise the profits and rescue the power of Argentine industrialists as a whole. 

Has Perón kept his part of the bargain? A series of purges directed against the left-wing of the Peronist movement soon after Perón's return, using the assassination of a rightist leader by an urban guerrilla group as provocation, together with a series of anti-democratic regulations within the trade union machinery have identified Perón as allied with the right-wing faction in the party. The right-Peronist trade union hierarchy appears to have the green light to control or suppress the left. 

Nevertheless, despite measures of repression bearing Perón's signature, the aged leader's image is so tied up in Argentine eyes with popular and national aspirations that his return has been taken by the majority of the employed workers, the semi-employed poor, and peasants as a signal to redouble their struggle. The focus has turned from urban terrorism to mass organization in the factories. 

While the 62 national unions and the General Confederation of Workers are still controlled by the old line rightist Peronist hierarchy, millions of workers within these organizations have become involved in a struggle to democratize them and make them responsive to the rank and file. Agitation among agricultural proletarians in the plantations and of poor peasants has also accelerated. In the enormous ghettos of misery of the cities, the fight for a better life and decent conditions has grown into an important mass movement. Not least the students have been reorganizing and their movement expanding. 

Since his return to the helm of Argentine politics last year, Perón has been repeatedly threatened by the Argentine rightists whose inclinations toward a military coup are well-known. Whether or not Perón and more generally Perónism can stay in power, depends greatly on his ability to convince these men that he alone retains the overwhelming support of the masses of Argentine people. 

Crucial in this endeavor is the Peronist trade union hierarchy, which constitutes Perón's most important permanent organizational underpinning. This machinery, however, long ago forfeited claims to representing the material demands of the massive workers, which it once could boast of. It is an increasingly goon-ridden apparatus whose operations alienate the rank and file of the unions more than they attract them. It is no wonder, therefore, that the new left-wing organizations which arose during the military dictatorships prior to Perón have not merged themselves unconditionally into the Peronist movement since Perón's return, but have rather maintained their independence. 

The most important of the relatively new forces on the scene is the Revolutionary Communist Party, CPR, created in a split from the Communist Party in 1967. The CPR spent its first five years in illegality and has grown considerably in the past year. In the student movement in Cordoba to cite one example, they grew in a year from 40 members to 300. Their newspaper, New Hour, has been appearing regularly for six years. 

There are also at least five urban guerrilla groups in Argentina. Despite the fact that guerrilla groups made a temporary peace with Perón, recent events may bring about drastic changes in the situation. Excélsior of Mexico City recently reported that a strong guerrilla attack on the Army has brought relations between Juan Perón and much of the Argentine left to the breaking point this month. About 70 members of the People's Revolutionary Army, ERP, dressed in government military uniforms, and traveling in stolen army trucks entered the garrison at Azul, 125 miles south of Buenos Aires, January 20th, and held the command post for seven hours.

The attackers killed the commander of the 2000 man tank regiment, his wife, and a sentry before fleeing, taking the deputy commander as hostage, two guerrillas were killed. Thirteen suspected participants in the raid were arrested a few days later for questioning. It was the first large scale attack by a guerrilla group on elements of the Argentine government as distinct from targets belonging to foreign corporations, which have been frequent targets for several armed groups.

The raid provoked an immediate and furious reply by President Perón appearing on nationwide television in his general's uniform. Perón equated the attack on the garrison with an attack on himself. He appealed to the trade unions, the youth movement, and all other organizations to cooperate with police and army forces in the fight against the guerrillas. To annihilate as soon as possible this criminal terrorism is a task to which everyone must commit himself, he said. It is time to stop shouting Perón and to defend him. 

One of Perón's first steps in the anti-guerrilla campaign was to sack the governor of Buenos Aires province, Oscar Bidegain, who was considered a progressive by the Peronist left wing. Three or four other provincial governors of a similar character are also expected to be fired. It has become evident from the purges that the raid on the Azul garrison is being used by the Perón government as a provocation to further suppress the Argentine left, whether sympathetic to the ERP or not.

Another step in the repression was the police confiscation and burning of an edition of El Mundo, the left Peronist newspaper in Buenos Aires. Perón, reversing the liberalization moves enacted when he first returned to power, has also pushed through the Argentine parliament a stiff anti-terrorist law, which would virtually suspend civil liberties. This action aroused the opposition of nearly the entire left, Peronist or not.

It is quite possible that the guerrillas hoped to drive Perón into the arms of the hard line military, thus exposing him as the right-winger they have always said he is, leaving no room for leftists within Perónism. Such a situation would seriously alter the balance of power in Argentina. 

This report on Argentina was taken from the Cuban, Prensa Latina, and the Mexico City daily, Excelsior. 

Our feature this week, taken from Excélsior of Mexico City and from a United Nations speech of Mrs. Hortensia Allende deals with international reaction to the policies of the military Junta of Chile. This government headed by General Augusto Pinochet came to power in a coup on September 11th, 1973. At this time, the democratically elected Marxist government of Salvador Allende was overthrown. Governments throughout the world are voicing opposition to the brutal repression, which has taken place in Chile since that time. 

Mexico City's Excélsior reports that the Mexican government, for example, has announced that it will withdraw its ambassador from Santiago. The Argentine government is also considerably annoyed with the Junta. After protests at the torture and execution of several Argentine citizens in Chile, there was an awkward border incident when Chilean Air Force planes machine-gunned a Jeep 12 miles inside Argentina. Next, a Chilean refugee was shot dead while in the garden of the Argentine embassy in Santiago; only hours later, the house of the Argentine cultural attache in Santiago was sprayed by gunfire. Nevertheless, the Argentine government continues trade with Chile, including arms, and has afforded some credits to the Junta. 

The Indian ambassador in Chile issued a protest at the treatment of refugees in the Soviet Embassy in Santiago, which is now under Indian protection since the Soviet Union broke off diplomatic relations with the Junta. Cuba has frozen all Chilean credits and stocks in retaliation for the attempt by the Junta to lay its hands upon $10 million deposited in London by the Cuban government for the Popular Unity Government. The Prime minister of Holland, Excélsior reports, made a radio speech severely criticizing the Chilean Junta and praising the Popular Unity Government. He suggested possible forms of aid to the resistance in Chile. Although the People's Republic of China has maintained relations with the Junta, there seems to have been some break in communication. The Chinese ambassador was recalled at the end of October and requests for the acceptance of the new Chilean ambassador to Peking have so far met with no response. Surprisingly, reports Excélsior, there have even been criticisms of the Chilean Junta in Brazil, and these have not been censored in the Brazilian press. 

The event which has drawn the most international attention to Chile recently was a speech made by Mrs. Hortensia Allende, a widow of Dr. Salvador Allende, who spoke before the United Nations Human Rights Commission in late February. It was the first time in the history of the United Nations that a representative of an opposition movement within a member state was permitted to address an official meeting of the UN. United Nations is restricted by law from discussing the internal affairs of its member nations, but the circumstances of the coup and the subsequent actions of the Junta have increasingly isolated it in the world and made the issue of Chile an international one. The following is an excerpt from the translation of the speech delivered at the UN Human Rights Commission. 

"I have not come to this tribunal distinguished delegates as the widow of the murdered President. I come before you as a representative of the International Democratic Federation of Women and above all, as a wife and mother of a destroyed Chilean home as has happened with so many others. I come before you representing hundreds of widows, thousands of orphans of a people robbed of their fundamental rights, of a nation's suffering from a state of war imposed by Pinochet's own troops, obedient servants of fascism that represents violations of each and every right, which according to the Declaration of Human Rights, all people should follow as common standards for their progress and whose compliance this commission is charged with safeguarding."

Mrs. Allende continues to describe how she feels. Each article of the UN Declaration of Human Rights is being violated in her country. According to these postulates universally accepted throughout the civilized world she says, all human beings are born free, equal in dignity and rights. In my country, whose whole tradition was dedicated not only to establishing but practicing these principles, such conditions are no longer being observed. There is discrimination against the rights and dignity of individuals because of their ideology. Liberty does not exist where man is subjected to the dictates of an ignorant armed minority. 

The declaration establishes that every man has the right to life, liberty and security continues, Mrs. Allende. Distinguished delegates, I could spend days addressing you on the subject of how the fascist dictatorship in my country has outdone the worst of Hitler's Nazism. Summary executions, real or staged executions for the purpose of terrifying the victim. Executions of prisoners allegedly attempting to escape, slow death through lack of medical attention. Victims tortured to death are the order of the day under the military Junta. Genocide has been practiced in Chile. The exact figures will not be known until with the restoration of democracy in my country, the murderers are called to account. There will be another Nuremberg for them. According to numerous documented reports, the death toll is between 15 and 80,000. Within this framework, it seems unnecessary to refer to the other two rights enunciated in the Declaration of Human Rights, liberty and security do not exist in Chile. 

Mrs. Allende continues, "I would like to devote a special paragraph to the women of my country, who in different circumstances are today suffering the most humiliating and degrading oppression. Held in jails, concentration camps, or in women's houses of detention are the wives of the government ministers who, besides having their husbands imprisoned on Dawson Island, have had to spend long periods of time under house arrest, are the women members of parliament from the Popular Unity Government who have had to seek asylum and have been denied safe conduct passes. The most humble proletarian woman's husband has been fired from his job or is being persecuted, and she must wage a daily struggle for the survival of her family." 

"The Declaration of Human Rights states that slavery is prohibited, as are cruel punishment and degrading treatment. Is there any worse slavery than that which forces man to be alienated from his thoughts? Today in Chile, we suffer that form of slavery imposed by ignorant and sectarian individuals who, when they could not conquer the spiritual strength of their victims, did not hesitate to cruelly and ferociously violate those rights."

Mrs. Allende continues, "The declaration assures for all mankind equal treatment before the law and respect for the privacy of their home. Without competent orders or formal accusation, many Chileans have been and are being dragged to military prisons, their homes broken into to be submitted to trials whose procedures appear in no law, not even in the military code. Countless Chileans, after five months of illegal procedures, remain in jail or in concentration camps without benefit of trial. The concept of equal protection before the law does not exist in Chile. The jurisdiction of the court is not determined by the law these days but according to the whim of the witch hunters. I wish to stress that if the 200 Dawson Island prisoners are kept there during the Antarctic winter, we will find no more than corpses come spring as the climatic conditions are intolerable to human life and four of the prisoners are already in the military hospital in Santiago." 

Mrs. Allende said, "The Junta has also violated the international law of asylum, turning the embassies into virtual prisons for all those to whom the Junta denies a safe conduct pass for having had some length with the Popular Unity Government. They have not respected diplomatic immunity, even daring to shoot those who have sought refuge in various embassies. Concrete cases involve the embassies of Cuba, Argentina, Honduras, and Sweden. Mail and telephone calls are monitored. Members of families are held as hostages. Moreover, the military Junta has taken official possession of all the goods of the parties of the Popular Unity Coalition, as well as the property of its leaders." 

Mrs. Allende continues, reminding the delegates, "the Declaration of Human Rights establishes that all those accused of having committed a crime should be considered innocent until proven otherwise before a court. The murder of folk artist Victor Jara, the murders of various political and trade union leaders and thousands of others, the imprisonment of innumerable citizens arrested without charges, the ferocious persecution of members of the left, many of them having disappeared or executed, show that my country is not governed by law, but on the contrary, by the hollow will of sectors at the service of imperialism." 

The declaration assures to all, freedom of thought, conscience, expression, religion and association. In Chile, the political parties of the left have been declared illegal. This even includes the moderate and right-wing parties, which are in recess and under control to such extent that the leaders of the Christian Democratic Party have expressed their total inconformity with the policies of the Junta. Freedom of the press has also been eliminated. The media opposed to the Junta has been closed, and only the right wing is permitted to operate, but not without censorship. Honest men who serve the press are in concentration camps or have disappeared under the barrages of the execution squads. 

Books have been burned publicly recalling the days of the Inquisition and Nazi fascism. These incidents have been reported by the world press. The comical errors of those who have read only the titles have resulted in ignorant generals reducing scientific books to ashes. Many ministers sympathetic to the sufferings of their people have been accused of being Marxist in spite of their orthodox militancy following Jesus' example. Masons and layman alike have been tortured simply for their beliefs. It is prohibited to think, free expression is forbidden. 

Mrs. Allende said the right to free education has also been wiped away. Thousands of students have been expelled for simply having belonged to a leftist party. Young people just a few months away from obtaining their degrees have been deprived of five or more years of higher education. University rectors have been replaced by generals, non-graduates themselves. Deans of faculties respond to orders of ballistics experts. These are not gratuitous accusations, but are all of them based on ethics issued by the military Junta itself. 

"In conclusion", says Mrs. Allende, "the Declaration of Human Rights recognizes the right of all men to free choice of employment, favorable working conditions, fair pay and job security. Workers must be permitted to organize freely in trade unions. Moreover, the Declaration of Human Rights states that people have the right to expect an adequate standard of living, health and wellbeing for themselves and their families. In Chile, the Central Workers Trade Union confederation, the CUT with 2,400,000 members, which on February 12th, 1974 marked 21 years of existence, has been outlawed. Trade unions have been dissolved except for the company unions. Unemployment, which under the Popular Unity Administration had shrunk to its lowest level, 3.2% is now more than 13%. In my country, the rights of the workers respected in the Declaration of Human Rights have ceased to exist." These excerpts were taken from the United Nations speech of Hortensia Allende, widow of Dr. Salvador Allende, leader of the former Popular Unity Government of Chile.