Annotations for Countries: France

This week's feature deals with the recent discovery of the Nixon administration's collusion with the International Telephone and Telegraph Company, IT&T, to overthrow the government of Chilean President Salvador Allende. But surfacing also is the discovery that the US State Department and the Central Intelligence Agency massively financed efforts, which led to the defeat of Allende's bid for the presidency in 1964.

Further discoveries have shown that the US government is presently working in collusion with the US-based corporation, Kennecott Copper Company, to affect a worldwide embargo on nationalized Chilean copper in an attempt to ruin the Chilean economy and topple the Allende government. The Guardian reports that US Senate hearings on efforts by the Nixon administration and US corporations to sabotage the Chilean government of Salvador Allende have begun to have repercussions. Two weeks ago, Allende announced the suspension of economic talks between Chile and the US In light of revelations during the Senate hearings on the Nixon administration's collusion with IT&T to overthrow Allende's popular Unity government.

The most important new development has been the report that the top level National Security Council allocated $400,000 to the Central Intelligence Agency for propaganda to be used against Allende during the 1970 Chilean presidential election campaign. Other testimony has revealed that IT&T offered a $1 million fund to help defeat Allende. Edward Gerrity IT&T Vice President for Corporate Relations offered the excuse that the fund was to promote housing and agricultural grants to improve Chile's economy, but former CIA director John McCone testified that he had transmitted an IT&T offer of the money to block Allende's victory to the CIA and the White House. Former US ambassador to Chile, Edward Korry refused to comment on this or other questions at the hearings, including IT&T memos, which claimed Korry was instructed by the White House to do all short of military action to prevent Allende from taking office.

The most important new development has been the report that the top level National Security Council allocated $400,000 to the Central Intelligence Agency for propaganda to be used against Allende during the 1970 Chilean presidential election campaign. Other testimony has revealed that IT&T offered a $1 million fund to help defeat Allende. Edward Gerrity IT&T Vice President for Corporate Relations offered the excuse that the fund was to promote housing and agricultural grants to improve Chile's economy, but former CIA director John McCone testified that he had transmitted an IT&T offer of the money to block Allende's victory to the CIA and the White House. Former US ambassador to Chile, Edward Korry refused to comment on this or other questions at the hearings, including IT&T memos, which claimed Korry was instructed by the White House to do all short of military action to prevent Allende from taking office.

The Guardian further states that IT&T is now trying to collect a $92 million claim with the Overseas Private Investment Corporation, OPIC, a US government-sponsored institution designed to reimburse companies which have overseas assets nationalized, but at the subcommittee hearings show that IT&T helped provoke the nationalization. OPIC will not have to pay on the claim. The details of IT&T's 18-point plan designed to ensure that the Allende government does not get through the crucial next six months were exposed in IT&T memos uncovered and released in March, 1972 by columnist Jack Anderson.

At that time, according to both IT&T and the Chilean government, both sides were near agreement on compensation, but the Anderson revelations of IT&T's attempts to overthrow the UP led the Chilean government to break off the talks. The UP government is now preparing to nationalize the Chilean telephone company, in which IT&T owns a major share worth about $150 million dollars. A constitutional amendment allowing for the nationalization is now going through the legislative process, although the government has been operating the company since 1971. In addition to its share in the phone company, IT&T owns two hotels, a Avis car rental company, a small telex service, and a phone equipment plant in Chile.

Talks on renegotiations of the Chilean debt to the US and on the resumption of purchased credits to Chile began last December and resumed in March. The next day the talks were suspended by the Chilean government in response to the latest revelations. Chile owes the US about $60 million for repayments of debt from November 1971 to the end of 1972, out of a total debt of $900 million dollars. Another controversial question, which the Chilean foreign minister says is now holding up an agreement, is the question of compensation for US copper companies whose holdings have been nationalized. Under a 1914 treaty between Chile and the US, the disagreement on copper compensation could be submitted to the international panel for non-binding arbitration. Chile has offered to use this means for arriving at an agreement, but the US refuses. This report is from The Guardian.

But US efforts to thwart the development of socialism in Chile are not a recent phenomenon. In a Washington Post news service feature, the post claims that massive intervention by the Central Intelligence Agency and State Department helped to defeat Socialist Salvador Allende in the 1964 election for president of Chile. American corporate and governmental involvement against Allende's successful candidacy in 1970 has been the controversial focus of a Senate foreign relations subcommittee investigation into the activities of US multinational companies abroad.

But the previously undisclosed scale of American support for Christian Democrat, Eduardo Frei against Allende six years early makes the events of 1970 seem like a tea party according to one former intelligence official, deeply involved in the 1964 effort. The story of the American campaign, early in the Johnson administration, to prevent the first Marxist government from coming to power in the Western hemisphere by constitutional means was pieced together from the accounts of officials who participated in the actions and policies of that period.

The Washington Post concludes, "Cold War ideology lingered, and the shock of Fidel Castro's seizure of power in Cuba still was reverberating in Washington. 'No More Fidels' was the guidepost of American foreign policy in Latin America under the Alliance for Progress. Washington's romantic zest for political engagement in the Third World had not yet been dimmed by the inconclusive agonies of the Vietnam War. 'US government intervention in Chile in 1964 was blatant and almost obscene,' said one strategically-placed intelligence officer at the time. 'We were shipping people off right and left.

Mainly State Department, but also CIA, with all sorts of covers.' A former US ambassador to Chile has privately estimated that the far-flung covert program in Frei's behalf cost about $20 million. In contrast, the figure that emerged in Senate hearings as the amount IT&T was willing to spend in 1970 to defeat Allende was $1 million." This from the Washington Post News Service.

The most recent tactic used against the Allende government by the Nixon administration and the US corporations has been an attempt to impose an economic embargo against Chilean copper. The North American Congress on Latin America, NACLA, reports that, "Since the Kennecott Copper company learned of the Allende government's decision to deduct from its indemnification the excess profits Kennecott earned since 1955, the company's position has been that Chile acted in violation of international law. The Allende government determined the amount of excess profits by comparing the rate of profit the nationalized companies earned in Chile to the return on capital invested elsewhere."

NACLA reports that Kennecott first tried to get satisfactory compensation by litigating in Chilean courts. When this failed, it threatened actions abroad in a letter directed to the customers of El Teniente Copper. In essence, Kennecott resolved unilaterally to try to coerce Chile to pay Kennecott for its properties. Kennecott's strategy has transformed a legal issue into a political and economic struggle. The loss of its Chilean holdings inflicted a heavy loss on Kennecott. In 1970, Kennecott held 13% of its worldwide investments in Chile, but received 21% of its total profits from those holdings. The corporation earned enormously high profits from its El Teniente mine. According to President Allende, Braden's, Kennecott subsidiaries, profits on invested capital averaged 52% per year since 1955, reaching the incredible rates of 106% in '67, 113% in '68 and 205% in '69. Also, though Kennecott had not invested any new capital, it looked forward to augmented profits from the expansion of production in its facilities due to the Chileanization program undertaken by the Frei government.

Although Kennecott was hurt a great deal in losing the Chilean properties, it did not lose all. In February '72, Chile agreed to pay $84 million, which represented payment for the 51% of the mines bought under the Chileanization plan. Chile also agreed to pay off the loans to private banks and to the export import bank that Kennecott had negotiated to expand production in the mines. Further, Kennecott has written off, for income tax purposes, its equity interest of $50 million in its Chilean holdings. Generally, such deductions not only mean that the US taxpayer will absorb the company's losses, but also that attractive merger possibilities are created with firms seeking easy tax write-offs.

Nevertheless, the Chilean expropriations came at a particularly bad moment for Kennecott because the corporation was under attack in other parts of the world. Environmentalist questioned Kennecott's right to pollute the air in Arizona and Utah, and other groups attempted to block Kennecott's plans to open new mining operations in Black Mesa, Arizona and Puerto Rico. On the legal front, Kennecott is contesting the Federal Trade Commission's order to divest itself with a multimillion dollar acquisition of the Peabody Coal Company. In all of these cases, Kennecott has taken an aggressive position to protect its interest at home and around the world. In September, 1972, Kennecott's threats materialized into legal action, asking a French court to block payments to Chile for El Teniente copper sold in France.

In essence, Kennecott claimed that the expropriation was not valid because there had been no compensation. Therefore, Braden was still the rightful owner of its 49% share of the copper. The court was requested to embargo the proceeds of the sales until it could decide on the Braden claim of ownership.

The NACLA report continues, "To avoid having the 1.3 million payment embargoed, French dock workers in Le Havre, in a demonstration of solidarity with Chile, refused to unload the freighter. The ship sailed to Holland where it immediately became embroiled in a new set of legal controversies, which were ultimately resolved. Finally, the odyssey ended on October 21st, '72 when the ship returned to Le Havre to unload the contested cargo. Copper payments to Chile were impounded until the court rendered a decision on its competence to judge the legality of the expropriation. Chile was forced to suspend copper shipments to France temporarily. The legal battle spread across Europe when Kennecott took similar action in a Swedish court on October 30th. Most recently, in mid-January 1973, Kennecott took its case to German courts.

NACLA states that, "It is not easy to ascertain the degree of coordination between Kennecott and the US government on their policy toward Chile." The State Department told us in interviews that Kennecott is exercising its legal rights as any citizen may do under the Constitution, but a reporter for Forbes Magazine exacted a more telling quote. When asked if there had been any consultation between Kennecott and the State Department, the State Department spokesman said, "Sure, we're in touch from time to time. They know our position." The Forbes reporter asked, "Which is?" The spokesman replied, "We're interested in solutions to problems, and you don't get solutions by sitting on your hands."

In fact, US government policies and Kennecott's actions fully compliment each other. They share the same objectives and function on the same premises of punitive sanctions and coercive pressures guised in the garb of legitimate legal and financial operations. Kennecott's embargoes will necessarily serve as a factor in the current negotiations between Chile and the US government. Whether or not the government was instrumental in Kennecott's actions, the United States now has an additional powerful bargaining tool. The Kennecott moves were denounced by all sectors of Chilean political life as economic aggression violating national sovereignty.

Other Latin American nations have also condemned Kennecott. Most significantly, CIPEC, the organization of copper exporting nations, Chile, Peru, Zaire, and Zambia, which produced 44% of the world's copper, met in December 1972 and issued a declaration stating they would not deal with Kennecott and that they would refrain from selling copper to markets traditionally serviced by Chilean exports. Such solidarity is important because it undercuts the Kennecott strategy in the present market where the supply is plentiful. Kennecott cannot deter customers from buying Chilean copper if they have nowhere else from which to buy.

Even within the US, the embargo has not proven totally successful. The Guardian reports that there have been some breaks among the US banks, Irving Trust, Bankers Trust, and the Bank of America are carrying on a very limited business with Chile and various companies continue to trade on a cash and carry basis. In a number of respects, US policy has backfired. If the US will not trade with Chile, its Western European competitors will fill the markets formally controlled by US companies. The US pressure has also helped to intensify the anti-imperialist reactions of a number of South American countries within the US and its multinational corporations. The Panama meeting of the UN Security Council is just one example of this.

Every week brings new defeats for the US strategy in South America. At the recent session of the UN Economic Commission for Latin America in Quito, Ecuador, South American countries unanimously condemned US economic policy toward the continent. The resolution was based on a detailed report showing how South America suffers great economic losses because of unequal trade agreements with the US. This report from The Guardian.

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."

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.

Also from Prensa Latina. The Uruguayan government has sent Congress a bill considerably curtailing trade union rights. According to the government, the bill is designed to depoliticize union activities. It enjoys the support of the Junta of Armed Forces Chiefs who described as legitimate any action that the president might undertake in that sphere. The Powerful Trade Union Federation with almost half a million members in a country whose total population is two and a half million oppose this attempt to curtail union rights.

Congress will also vote on the dangerous state law, which includes up to six years imprisonment for sympathizing with the Tupamaro guerrillas and which sets forth a series of offenses that in the view of one opposition lawmaker amounts to the civic death of Uruguay. This report from Prensa Latina.

The British Newsweekly, Latin America continues on the Uruguayan situation. The attempt by military justice to lift the parliamentary privileges of Senator Enrique Erro seemed unlikely to succeed in the Senate this week, and the military were quite unable to resist the Senate committee's demand to interview the guerrilla prisoners who informed against Erro. It remains evident that the military did not win an outright victory last February. The limits of military power and authority have not yet been properly tested, and they may require a new institutional crisis to indicate where the frontier runs.

On Monday, Amodio Perez, a former leader of the Tupamaros who defected last year, was brought before the Senate committee, which is considering the Erro case and repeated his charge that the Senator had sheltered Tupamaros. The appearance of Amodio Perez still evidently in military custody was really more interesting than his evidence, as it had been widely rumored that he was enjoying the fruits of his defection in Paris or some other European capital.

But outside the further uncovering of bureaucratic scandals, the military seemed to be right behind President Juan Maria Bordaberry's hard line on labor and social questions. While nationalists all over Latin America still cherish hopes that the Peruanista faction and the Uruguayan armed forces will emerge victorious, the Cuban News Agency, Prensa Latina this week voiced Cuban disgust with the way things are going, citing continuing arrests, systematic torture of detainees and new repressive legislation. This from Latin America. 

The first of several reports from Argentina comes from the Mexican daily, Excélsior. In a move which surprised most observers, Argentinian President Hector Cámpora, recently resigned his post in order to allow former president Juan Perón to return to power. Two hours after a provisional president was sworn in, Perón announced that he would accept the candidacy for the presidency. With a voice hoarse from a recent cold, the 77-year-old ex-president said it would be a tremendous sacrifice for himself. 

Although Cámpora was elected earlier this year on a slogan of "Cámpora in office, Perón in power," few expected to see Perón take the reins of power directly. This year's elections were the first in which Peronist candidates were allowed to compete in since Perón was ousted in 1955. The Mexican daily, Excélsior, asked some military officials, Peronists, radicals and unionists if Campora's forced resignation was not virtually a coup. Most all replied that, in any case, it was a gradual coup supported by the armed forces and political leaders of the country. Perón will likely be opposed by extremists of all parties as well as many guerrillas who earlier fought for him. 

In a recent editorial, Excélsior points out that conditions in Argentina are very different from the post-war era, when Perón had built a huge popular following. Instead of an economic boom due to high world prices of Argentine exports, as was the case before, there is now a serious economic crisis as well as political and social upheaval. While Perón returns from his long exile to capitalize on nationalist, socialist and populist sentiments in Argentina, Excélsior hints that Argentinians may soon grow disenchanted with a Perón who can no longer give all of them what they expect from him. 

The Santiago weekly, Chile Hoy, made an in-depth attempt to analyze the political content of Peron's ideology known as "Justicialismo". Perón and his followers described their ideal as quote, "national socialism." However, there seems to be a great deal of disagreement over exactly what this means. Even as late as 1970, Perón himself, unfortunately, identified national socialism with "fascism", Hitler's term for a country unified under the leadership of big business and authoritarian government. Campora, the recently-removed president who has just handed over the reins of power to Perón, had expressed interest, in quote, "humanistic capitalism". 

Vice President Lima has always made references to a pluralistic democracy concept of the French philosopher Maritain. The Peronist Youth, on the other hand, see Peronism as the first age of a progressive scientific socialism. In an interview which appeared in the magazine, Nouveau Confirmado, with Vice President Lima, the following dialogue developed. 

What does national socialism mean? It seems to be a mysterious expression of Peronist propaganda. Is it really socialism? 

National socialism is what Jacques Maritain calls "pluralists democracy", which he explained by saying that property should not be concentrated, also, within the definition of national socialism, is the definition of what it is not. It is not Marxist socialism. 

How would you, for example, socialize property? How would you give it a social contact? 

Social income, socialized incomes, that is what we will do. 

A shoe factory, should it continue being owned privately or should it become state property, or should it belong to those who work it? 

I think the factory must belong to the workers and owners both. I believe in co-ownership and co-operation. That is what the world is moving towards. 

Chile Hoy concludes by pointing out that Peronism is determined more by its actions than by its words, and that its actions will be determined by the direction that political and class struggles take in Argentina in the future. 

Reaction to current nuclear testings by France was published this week by Mexico's Daily Excélsior. Peru broke diplomatic relations with France in protest of its atomic explosions. It expressed a desire for similar actions by other American countries. The French government protested, announcing that the tests could not be halted. 

Three persons representing 20 French political groups and trade unions delivered a note to President Georges Pompidou asking that an end be put immediately to the series of tests. The daily Le Monde in an editorial maintained that the government cannot ignore that psychologically, its nuclear politics are a failure, provoking indignation from other countries without attaining enthusiasm from the French people. 

In New York, Secretary General of the United Nations, Kurt Waldheim deplored the French explosion at Mururoa and asked all those interested to abide by the UN rules prohibiting nuclear testing in the atmosphere. 

But the rightest French press, Le Figaro, wrote, "It is doubtful that the New Zealanders and Australians can legitimately express an opinion concerning French defense needs because European security is none of their business." 

In Lima, Peruvian officials announced the rupture of diplomatic relations with France. They're confident, however, that relations with France will resume when France ceases the nuclear testing. 

The Santiago weekly, Chile Hoy, further states, "France insists on controlling the zones near Mururoa, which they claim to be an extension of their sea territory, but the action of expelling ships within a radius of 72 miles is beyond the limits of their sovereignty." 

Before the wave of protesting was begun, it was enough for a nuclear country to announce their testing plans so the danger zone could be avoided by ships. Now different foreign ships have decided to stay within this danger zone as a means of protest. 

The major Mexican newspaper, Excélsior, reports that the head of the Chilean military Junta, Augusto Pinochet, announced that the vast majority of Chilean industries nationalized under the Popular Unity government would be returned to their former owners. About 500 large and medium industries had been nationalized or partially nationalized during the Allende administration and placed into the social sector of the economy, in which structures were being set up to allow for workers control. 

Excélsior says that the new minister of the economy for the Junta, who announced that the industries would be returned to the private hands, also admitted that prices, which skyrocketed since September 11th coup, have risen even higher. Gasoline prices have risen more than 1,000% and are expected to rise more next month. Milk and other dairy products have risen between 300 and 900%. The prices of all basic food stocks in Chile has risen. The price rise in different products varying between 300 and 1,900%. 

The military government has also announced the formation of the New Labor Union, which is to replace the recently outlawed United Workers' Confederation. Meanwhile in Paris, an international delegation of journalists returned from Chile and condemned the military Junta for the burning of libraries, the destruction of laboratories, the censorship of the press and the widespread terrorism. This from the Mexico City Daily, Excélsior. 

This week's feature focuses on culture, a Cuban view of Cuban culture, exploring especially the history of efforts in Cuba to support and extend the arts in a country that historically was impoverished. The material and viewpoint of the feature on Cuban culture comes from the Cuban News Agency, Prensa Latina. 

Art in Cuba is not just the Rumba, one of the few forms Yankees visiting pre-revolutionary Cuba got exposed to out of the island's enormous contribution to jazz. Nor is it only films and posters, which are perhaps the best present-day forms of art in Cuba. To appreciate the significance and role of the arts and the artists in Cuba today, it's necessary to briefly review the history of the arts there. Of the many contributors to Cuban culture, the most important were the Spanish colonists and the African peoples brought to the island as slaves.

These two peoples eventually fused their arts, music, folklore, mythologies and literature and ways of thinking into an authentic Cuban national culture. Under colonial rule from the 15th through the 19th centuries, Spanish art and architecture prevailed. Stained-glass windows and integrate wrought iron railings on balconies and gates were familiar decorative elements in upper-class homes in what is now Old Havana. The upper classes furnished their manners with imports from Madrid.

After the Spanish American War, the United States remained in Cuba, directly or indirectly, until 1959. Frustration with American intervention was reflected in the works of early republic literature. By 1910, a younger group founded the magazine, Contemporary Cuba, where possible solutions to problems of the new nation had ample forum. After the revolution, as Cuba began the development of a new society, the role people played as individuals and participants in society began to change.

Responsibilities, priorities, values, and motivations were radically altered. None of these changes were automatically defined, nor did they appear in practice and in people's consciousness all at once. For intellectuals, for writers, painters, artists of all media, this transitional process of redefinition was and can continues to be complex and difficult.

In 1961, continues Prensa Latina, the first official encounter of artists, writers, and representatives of the revolutionary government took place. Various intellectuals expressed their concern over freedom of expression in the arts and asked what the parameters were in a time of change and polarization. "Was the form to be dictated by a government policy?" they asked.

Fidel Castro made a now famous speech in which he said, "With the revolution, everything. Against the revolution, nothing." And expanded and interpreted that to mean that no one was going to impose forms, nor was anyone going to dictate subject matter. But counter-revolution would not be tolerated in the arts or in any other activity.

Intellectuals who found themselves in the midst of the revolution faced adjustment of a lifetime of habits and ways of thinking to new realities and needs. For example, a painter in the 1950s sought some way of making a living rarely through art. He catered to rich patrons, if lucky enough to be recognized at all, and sold his works to individuals, invariably to friends or upper-class collectors. Most artists, as artists, were self-oriented. The very forms of artistic expression were narrowly individualistic.

Artists created canvases which hung in galleries and homes that only a fraction of the population could or would see. How could one put society first in an each man for himself world? There were diverse attempts to make art a vital part of the new society. One of the earliest projects the revolution initiated was the National School of Cuban Art, a gigantic complex of very modern one-level buildings in a luxurious residential area of Havana, for students of dance, sculpture, music, and theater. Young people from all over the country can apply for scholarships to this largest of the arts schools.

Prensa Latina continues that young art students in the search for new media, more accessible to the whole population, went to the factories, the farms, and the schools, and exchanged ideas with workers. Art students and established artists asked themselves and were asked, "What are the obligations of a socially-committed artist, a revolutionary artist? Are there specific forms, say, murals, that best reflect and contribute to the revolution?" Fortunately, says Prensa Latina, Cuban artists and government agencies did not fall into the trap of imposing a simplistic formula, the happy triumphant worker theme à la Norman Rockwell.

Throughout the 1960s, Cuban painters were exposed to the art of many countries. In 1968, the International Salon de Mayo exhibition was held in Havana, and artists from Western Europe, the socialist countries, Latin America, Africa, and Asia, participated. Young Cuban painters and old experimented with pop art, pop up, abstraction, and new expressionism. There were no limitations.

Out of all this experimentation and dialogue came the means of visual expression best known outside Cuba, poster art. Because of massive distribution possibilities and the functional character of poster art, it has become second in importance, only to film, as the visual vehicle of the message of the revolution. 

Art is also architecture. Before the revolution, architects designed residences for the rich, factories, and luxury hotels. Since 1959, construction priorities have shifted to the creation of housing complexes and thousands of schools and living facilities. With a tremendous growth in population, a demographic shift to newly inhabited zones of the island and a drive to get people out of urban slums, housing demands are massive and are met as fast as building materials and labor allow.

Volunteers have been recruited from every industry to put in extra hours on housing construction brigades. In housing and other construction, new functions have required new architecture. Extremely new designs and styles can be seen in the remotest corners of the countryside, as well as in the city.

Another art form much cultivated in Cuba is dance. The National Ballet of Cuba is world-famous, and Alicia Alonso is recognized as one of the greatest contemporary ballet artists. 

Music cannot be left out while reviewing the revolution's cultural activities. Traditional Cuban popular music flourishes. By wave of radio and films, western rock has also become known to Cuban youth. The task is seen to create a consciousness and a demand for genuine Cuban and Latin American music so that Cuban youth won't simply imitate foreign pop music. And at present, there is a big push to encourage amateur musicians in the ranks of workers and students and everyone, so as to maximize music and not leave music only in the hands of a few professionals. 

To speak of Cuban cinema, says Prensa Latina, is to speak of revolutionary Cuban cinema. In the course of the armed struggle against the dictatorship, a few protest documentaries and news reels were made by revolutionaries in the Sierra and the urban underground. Again, these were of the barest cinematic qualities. 

Following the winning of the revolution in 1959, Cuban cinema was aided by the creation of an institute of artistic and industrial cinematography. The institute supports the training of film students, the production of films, and the importing and exporting of films. One of the institute's highest priorities is to extend the availability of cinema to those who, before the revolution, had no access to films. So efforts have been concentrated in the areas where the cinema was once unknown, and there are now some 13 million moviegoers a year and over 500 theaters that dot the island. And other methods have been developed for reaching the more remote areas of the countryside and mountains. 

For instance, redesigned trucks, equipped with 16-millimeter projectors and driven by the projectionists, spread out across the country to show films in those areas where there are not yet theaters. These movable movies are now numbered at more than 100. One of the institute's most engaging short documentaries called "For the First Time" is actually about this part of the institute's operation. The episode photographed shows one evening when a projection crew went to an area in the Sierra Mountains to show a film to people there for the first time. The movie was Charlie Chaplin's "Modern Times".

The attempt to demystify the cinema for an audience of novices is more than a little difficult to understand for a North American, whose sensibilities are bombarded by the electronic media. The institute has set itself the task of bringing young people interested in the cinema into discussion circles at student centers, union halls, and workplaces, and to explain its work.

More important, it seeks to explain the methods of the film to the entire population to work in a way against its own power, according to Guevara, the institute head, to reveal all the tricks, all the recourses of language, to dismantle all the mechanisms of cinematography hypnosis. To this end, the institute has a weekly television program, which explains all the gimmicks used to attract the viewer's attention.

When it began, the institute used the most elementary techniques. Most of the film workers were uneducated in the media, although a handful had studied in European film schools. Today, with a number of fully-developed trained persons, the acquisition of skills is now a secondary concern at best. The head of the institute explains that the priority is to break down the language structure of the film and find new ways to use film, being very careful in the process not to divorce the filmmaker from the audience for the filmmaker's own self gratification. 

He put it this way, "We must not separate ourselves from the rest of the people, from all the tasks of the revolution, especially those that fall into the ideological field. Every time a school is built, every time 100 workers reach the sixth grade, each time someone discovers something by participating in it. As in the field of culture, it becomes easier for us to do our work. Our work is not simply making or showing movies. Everything we do is part of a global process towards developing the possibilities of participation. Not passive, but active. Not as the recipients, but as the protagonists of the public. This is the Cuban definition of socialist democracy in the field of culture." 

In addition to production of films, as many as possible are imported. US films shown in Cuba are, of course, from the pre-revolutionary period: "Gigi", "Singing in the Rain", and "Bad Day at Black Rock". Late night television repeats, from time to time, a Dana Andrews or Ronald Colman melodrama. The economic blockade against Cuba has denied the island access to US movies of the 60s and 70s, though from time to time, a bootleg print gets through. A recent favorite there was "The Chase", with Marlon Brando and Jane Fonda, from the early 60s. Imports are in large part from the European socialist countries: France, Italy, Japan, and, to a degree, Latin America. 

Prensa Latina continues that obviously the shortage of currency is a great burden. To this day, the institute does not own even one eight-millimeter movie camera. There are no color facilities in Cuba, although a lab is now under construction. In this country where there were millions of peasants who never saw movies, the problem arose that many preferred to buy trucks and equipment to help with the work, rather than new camera equipment. 

From the beginning, the institute has faced a bit of a dialectic contradiction. It wants to capture, for posterity and for the moment, the complex reality of these years, but the reality is always changing. Alfredo Guevara, head of the Cuban Film Institute says, "These are surely the most difficult, complicated years, years in which the experiences we have are sometimes not recorded. To reflect them in the cinema means, in some way, we must crystallize them, which is the last thing we want. But every time we film, it is there. Whether or not we want to do so, we are always a testimony." 

Prensa Latina continues that the poster commemorating the 10th anniversary of the founding of the Cinemagraphic Institute shows a camera with gun smoke exuding from the lens. The imagery of filmmaker as cultural guerilla corresponds to the value system throughout revolutionary Cuba. Guevara says, "In the success of the revolution, we have placed, in our hands, a thing, the means of production, whose power we knew very well because it had been in the power of the enemy up to that point."

"When this force fell into our hands, it was clear to all of us that the revolution had given us a very serious job. I'm talking of everyone who has participated in the work of giving birth to the Cuban cinema or, what is really the same thing, the job of giving our people and our revolution a new weapon, a new instrument of work, one that is useful above all in understanding ourselves."

That concludes this week's feature, which has been a Cuban view of Cuban culture taken from the Cuban News Agency, Prensa Latina. 

Also, a group in France has protested the unexplained disappearance of 20 doctors in Chile. Excélsior also reports that a black colonel in the United States Army who had been appointed as the military attaché to the American Embassy in Santiago was suddenly replaced by The Pentagon when it was learned that the Chilean Junta would object to the appointment of a Black to the post. 

According to the Mexico City Daily Excelsior, Mexico's delegate to the OAS foreign minister's meeting proposed expanding the concept of attack, which appears in the Rio Treaty of Reciprocal Assistance to give the word an economic connotation. The Mexican representative denied the charge made by the Peruvian delegate that Mexico did not support the treaty. Peru proposed changing the concept of attack to that of aggression, including economic aggression. Peru also proposed establishing differences between intercontinental and extra continental aggression.

Pointing out that making this distinction was the only way for Latin America to avoid becoming an instrument of the military politics of the United States. Argentina partially supported the Peruvian proposal and Mexico, Brazil, and the United States opposed it. Excelsior goes on to say that a subcommittee on reform of the OAS approved a declaration of principles on the right and sovereignty of the states to control over their riches, natural resources, and maritime resources. A motion of the US stating that the sovereignty of a country over its resources should not affect the sovereignty of other nations was flatly rejected by almost all the delegates.

Excelsior reports that the US State Department revealed today that at next year's Inter-American Conference of Foreign Ministers to be held in Mexico, it is likely to present a program for the development of energy resources in Latin America. Excelsior also states that in Paris, European analysts warned that the oil scarcity could provoke an economic catastrophe in Latin America if the neighboring nations respond by exploiting the continent's oil resources irrationally. 

Excelsior, one of Mexico City's leading dailies, reports that the United Nations General Assembly, by a huge majority December 14th, approved a committee report declaring Puerto Rico was in fact a colony of the United States, not an independent country. The vote was 104 to five, with 19 abstentions. The opposing votes were cast by the United States, Britain, France, Portugal, and South Africa. The vote showed that the great majority of the world's countries were not persuaded by US propaganda that Puerto Rico is a free-associated state, an independent country whose people voluntarily choose to live under US hegemony. 

Ricardo Alarcón, Cuban ambassador to the United Nations, played a leading role in support of the resolution during the more than three months of diplomatic struggle within the world body prior to the final vote. Juan Marie Bras, head of the Puerto Rican Socialist Party, and Rubén Berrios of the Puerto Rican Independence Party spoke to the United Nations Committee on decolonization in late August. The US and its few allies on this question bitterly opposed the campaign at every step. At the last minute, the US succeeded in delaying the general assemblies vote by a few days. But the defeat, when it came, was overwhelming. The vote marks an epic in the struggle by Puerto Rican independence forces for international recognition. 

It signifies that in the view of the world body, Puerto Rico is similar to Angola, Mozambique, and other territories directly ruled and occupied by a foreign power. This according to United Nation principles means the people of the island nation have the same legitimate right to rise up against their foreign rulers, as do the people in Portuguese-occupied Africa and other colonial territories. During the debate, speakers exposed to the whole range of United States domination and exploitation of the island, including manipulation and financing of political parties and governments, military occupation of huge bases, repression of patriots, brutal treatment of prisoners, and wholesale economic pillage by United States Corporation. This story from Excelsior of Mexico City. 

According to the Mexico City daily, Excélsior, more than 10,000 Bolivian peasants blockading a highway near Cochabamba were attacked last week by government tanks and mortar fire. A dozen people were killed and many more were wounded. The peasants, who were rebelling against drastic price increases and food shortages, had taken as hostage General Perez Tapia, who was sent to negotiate with them. The nation's strongman, General Hugo Banzer, announced that the troops were dispatched to rescue the captured general. Perez Tapia himself, however, told a different story. He said that after fruitful dialogue, the peasants released him with a message that they would lift the blockade as soon as Banzer came to negotiate with them. Instead, Banzer sent the troops. 

According to the Christian Science Monitor, some observers in Bolivia say that General Banzer's current troubles are so serious that they could signal the beginning of the end for his government. In chronically unstable Bolivia, governments have a way of coming in and going out in rapid succession. Actually, General Banzer has been in power longer than the average. His government, when he came into office, was the 187th in Bolivia's 148 years of independence.

During his tenure, General Banzer has faced a series of tests, but his rightist-oriented government has managed to stay in office through a combination of military muscle and moderate political support. In recent months, there has been growing evidence of military divisions. Leftist-leaning military officers who supported the government of General Juan Jose Torres, whom General Banzer deposed, have long been unhappy about the conservative political and economic direction of the Banzer government. 

Now they're being supported by a growing political opposition, sparked by the withdrawal of the MNR, a leading political party from the civilian-military coalition supporting General Banzer. MNR leader and former president Victor Paz Estenssoro was exiled in the wake of the MNR's withdrawal, and this in turn has caused further bitterness on the part of many Bolivians. In addition, the MNR has strong ties with elements in the peasantry, including the well-organized peasant forces in the Cochabamba area where the current wave of peasant unrest began. It is presumed that the MNR's troubles with the Banzer government are a factor in the current peasant revolt. At the same time, however, the revolts erupted last week largely because the government imposed 100% increases in the prices of basic foodstuffs. 

The government justified the increases on the basis of a need to keep food from being smuggled out to Bolivia to neighboring countries, where higher prices are being paid. But the peasants, who live an impoverished existence, rejected this argument. They were also supported by industrial workers in La Paz, Cochabamba and Santa Cruz, who staged a series of one-day strikes last week to protest the price hikes. As the strikes, revolts, and unrest mounted, General Banzer imposed a state of siege throughout the country. Just a step short of full martial law, the state of siege permits the government to ban rallies and demonstrations, and allows the police to make arrests and carry out searches without warrants. 

Excélsior reports that Banzer has blamed the recent troubles on communist agitators. He charged that the peasant rebellion was organized in Paris by the noted French Marxist Regis Debray and former Bolivian official Antonio Arguedas, with the support of Fidel Castro. Banzer declared that agitators got 10,000 peasants drunk on chicha, a local whiskey, and paid them huge sums of money to revolt. He called on citizens to kill all extremists and communists, and promised that if the citizens did not do so, the government would. This report on peasant unrest and reprisal is taken from Mexico City's daily Excélsior and the Christian Science Monitor.