AND SHADOWS
ONTH

By Stanley Ryerson

AND, copper and poverty, struggle,
independence, democracy: these
six terms make up the equation.

of contemporary Chile.

The present jottings are drawn from
news and encounters and discussions
during three weeks of the spring

month of October, spent in sight of .

the. snow-topped Cordillera of the
Andes.

October 18

Before dawn this Monday morning,
at Melipillas, 50 miles west of Santia-
go, the 321 peasant-tenants of the huge
Larrain latifundia occupied and took
possession of the estate. Barricaded,
Supplied from the surrounding villages
with food for their “common pot”, the
peasants issue their challenge to land-
owners and government alike: “Here
. we stay till they give us the land!”

Heritage of feudal Spain, of the
plundering conquistadores, the system
of great landed estates weighs down
and stifles the Chilean farm economy.
Slightly over 1 percent of all proprie-
tors possess 60 percent of the agricul-
tural land. Half the land in the fertile
Central Valley is in the hands of 400
families, some with estates of over a
quarter of a million acres.

The aged grandee of Melipillas
(whose refusal to abide by the work-
agreement with the Federation of Pea-
sants and Indians had provoked the
takeover of his estate) appeals to the
authorities to send in troops. His cron-
ies of the landowners’ association step
up their conspiracy for a rightist coup.

Stanley Ryerson attended the 13th National Congress of the
Communist Party of Chile, Oct. 10-17. He extended greetings
on behalf of Canadian Communists “from the northernmost
country of the Americas, to the fighters for revolutionary —
change in the southernmost land of the Hemisphere.”

Referring to the common cause of the Chilean and Cana-
dian working people, Ryerson cited the “long and hard-fought
struggle of the Murdochville copper miners, pitted against a
great monopoly that is linked with the same interests as domin-
ate the copper mines of El Teniente and Chuquicamata.” ~

Ryerson described the proposal that Canada join the Or-
ganization of American States as an “attempt to bolster the
OAS by the addition of the vote of a country that Washington

considers a satellite.

“In the light of this our party stands opposed to Canada’s
joining the OAS. We trust that you will agree with our position,
understanding that it means, not that we are in favor of isola-
tion, but on the contrary, are for rapprochement, for a true
unity of the peoples of the Americans in their struggle against

imperialism.”

Warm applause registered agreement with this position.
The 10-minute address, delivered in Spanish by the Canadian
visitor, was said to have “won the hearts of the delegates”: it
was the first occasion on which ‘the Canadian party had been
represented at a Communist congress in South America.

But the Christian-Democrat govern-
ment, under popular pressure, declines
to intervene with force. The peasants
will remain in possession of the land,
and negotiations drag on concerning a

' reluctant, piecemeal agrarian reform.

October 25

The copper miners launch a general
strike in protest against the scandalous
Convenios del Cobre—the agreements
entered into by the Frei government

_ with the U.S. copper trusts. From the
huge open-pit mine at Chuquicamata
in the North, from the mile-high moun-

tain of metal at El Teniente, near Con-

cepcion in the south, and other proper-
ties along the Cordillera, The Anaconda
and Kennecott companies and related
firms extract 40 percent of the “free
world’s” copper.

U.S. industrialists’ rate of profit on
investment at home is 15 percent, in
Latin America, 23 percent; but Ana-
conda’s rate of profit here is 60 percent!

The wage of the Chilean copper
miner is one-eight that of his American

counterpart (whose output is lower)..

Of what Chile receives from the export
of copper the workers get one-third,
the government two-thirds (the bulk

of its budget, most sensitive to price

manipulations by the House of

Morgan).

The current agreements enhance the
advantageous position of the monopo-
lies and encroach on Chilean sovereign-
ty. According to the Copper Workers’
Federation, in 50 years of operation
Anaconda and Kennecott and their sub-
sidiaries have taken $4 billion worth

4

of copper—net—out of Chile, and under:
the agreements, in the next 20 years
(with the help of a philanthropic tax
freeze), will take out another $4.4
billion worth: altogether, an amount
equal to the entire national wealth of
Chile, all that has been created in 400
years!

“They take the copper—and leave us
the holes,” say the miners.

Oe &

Fifty cents a day for a farm-laborer’s
pay. Seventy-five cents a day for an
iron worker in the northern industrial
city of Atacama. Seven dollars a week
for a worker in the German-owned
clothing factory in Santiago where 850
are on strike against starvation wages
and a 14-hour working day.

A life-expectancy of just over 40

‘(compared with 70 in Canada); an in-

fant mortality rate six times. as high

as ours. Thirty thousand children dead .

each year from hunger.

The nightmare horror of utter desti-
tution in the callampas, the mushroom-
settlements that spring up around the
edges of Santiago—one of them within
a stone’s throw of the posh Polo Club
of the Chilean millionaires... ;

Kak ok

Such are some of the ingredients of
the deepgoing ferment, of the mounting
potential of a struggle aimed at “revo-
lutionary changes”—the watch-word of
the Communist Party congress. With

18 deputies in Parliament and five sen-

ators, and allied with the Socialist
Party (whose leaders visited and greet-

opened in th

._ lands, Mapuches of the Indian villag@
“a Chilean novelist and statesman,

- of the world through revolution.

LIGHT

ANDE

ed the congress) in the Front of Pop
lar Action (FRAP) which secured
percent of the popular vote in the pli
sidential election of 1964—the Chileé
Communists are a vital force in thé
country’s economic, political and ¢
tural life.

Their 13th National Congress P'
jected a policy of unity against é
foreign monopolies and native oligat
chy, against the double threat of #
rightist coup and U.S. military intel
vention. :

As throughout Latin America thé
U.S. congressional resolution of Jast
September, upholding the right of “an”
Communist” . intervention anywher®
aroused a storm of indignant protest
The Chilean government, which c0
demned the U.S. intervention in Sa?
Domingo, rejected the _ proposal
Argentine: and Brazilian militarists.
a combined military force in the servi
of such interventions. ;

The shadow of reaction and US
threats to engineer still more Sat
Domingos darken the Andes. But chal:
lenging the darkness is the radiance
a proud and courageous people,
serene and dedicated commitment
its foremost patriots: Communists 4
Socialists and Left Christian-Dem?”
crats, copper miners and. workers ip
the nitrate fields, huasos of the ran

1e
f

workers and intellectuals of the citi@
who have undertaken, in the wordsit
tarea de renovar el mundo a traves ae
la revolucion”: the task of renovati0®

The Chilean Communist Party Congré
e Salon of Honor of Chilean Parliame™
on Oct. 11 in Santiago de Chi