“No foreigner can be fully pened for the
distressing reality of Chile’s crisis; poor people

scavenging for food in wealthy neighbourhoods;
women and children picking through garbage cans.”

The South American country of Chile
very recently had a literacy rate of 90

percent. Today, most Chileans cannot
afford to buy books.

In fact, most of Chile’s population cannot
afford to buy the food they produce.

The military junta of Augusto Pinochet

is exporting the food.

The people of Chile live under a state of
siege. Here’s how it came about:

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A responsible

government

OR DECADES — and except for a
brief three-year period between 1970
and 1973 — 47 percent of the Chilean
people could not afford to buy food providing
the minimum daily nutritional requirements.

At least 60,000 children have been con-
demned to mental retardation because their
parents were too poor to provide them with
necessary proteins and vitamins during the
first eight months of life.

But this same South American country has
shops with expensive imported goods, large
cars on its streets, lavish rural estates, the
newest in industrial machinery, acres and
acres of fertile farmland and a fortune in
resources below its topsoil.

In the presidential election on September 4,
1970, the Unidad Popular political party’s
Salvadore Allende received 36.2 percent of
the popular vote and was overwhelmingly
confirmed as Chile’s new president by the
congress. Immediately following his in-
auguration, the government set about re-
forming Chilean society. $

Previous administrations had already
begun the work toward reform through
legislation and, with solid congressional
support, the UP accelerated the process.

Before Christmas of that year, all Chilean
infants were receiving adequate nutrition
through the government's ‘half-litre of milk’

Jan.
: A people’s health train roamed the country
with doctors, dentists and pharmacists
giving free health care to those who could not
afford to pay.

The Ministry of Public Works embarked on
a program of construction and by January of

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It costs $150 a month to live marginally
in Chile today.

But the average wage is $30 per month.

And the workers can do nothing because
Chile’s democratic government was vio-
lently overthrown, and the country’s
president murdered, by the military junta
which now rules with an iron fist.

The junta has declared political opposi-
tion illegal. Trade unions are banned.
Strikes are against the law. Those who
disagree ‘disappear’.

Ask your grocer if the apples, grapes,
nectarines, pears and other fruit he’s
selling are from Chile.

‘

1971, the Minister announced the creation of
10,000 new jobs... Sj

The capital city of Santiago was particu-
larly proud of Nueva Havana — a unique
housing scheme which replaced a shanty-
town. Using government-supplied materials
on crown land, enterprising Chileans built
homes for their families.

As well, the new government:

e freed 45 political prisoners;
e disbanded the feared Grupo Mobil —

Chile’s riot police;
© fixed most prices to halt Chile’s runaway

inflation rate; and,

e established a minimum wage.

By May, 1971, inflation was reduced to 7.9
percent and workers had gained 40 percent in
total real wages.

The increase in wages created a tremen-
dous rise in consumer demand for goods and
services. For the first time in many years,
Chilean factories worked at full capacity to
stay abreast of the demand.

The government then turned its attention
to food production. Allende said, before his
election: ‘This country has land which could
feed, not only our 10 million, but 20 or 25
million inhabitants. Nevertheless, Chile has
had to import meat, wheat, butter, oils at a
value of $140 million every year.”

To feed the people of Chile, the government
embarked on extensive agrarian reform.

I.arge landowners — called ‘latisfundistas’
— comprised only 4.4 percent of Chile’s rural
population, but owned 80.9 percent of the
total farmland — most of it in the country’s
fertile Central Valley.

With their personal wealth ensuring them
enough food, the latisfundistas were uncon-
cerned that 60 percent of the fertile land
remained fallow. Their attention was dir-
ected at industrial investments where the
financial harvests far outstripped that in
agriculture.

The UP government demanded an in-
crease in agricultural production to feed the
population. Where fertile land still remained
uncultivated, the government expropriated
the property and put it into food production.

e ea 2 ‘ : A

Please dotite buy ‘thenw.

deserve your support.

If they are, don’t buy them. The fruits
are exported not because Chile has a
surplus, but because the people who
produce them cannot earn enough to buy
fruit for their own families.

The fruits of unfair labour don’t

For more information:
British
Columbia

517 East Broadway

Vancouver, B.C,

V5T 1X4
879-4601

The reaction of the .latisfundistas to
decisions of the Chilean Congress was
similar to that of other large financial
interests who cared little for the plight of
Chile’s working population.

These interests include U.S. transnational
corporations which depended heavily on
high profits from Chilean investments.

Anaconda Copper, for example, had built
worldwide investments on its Chilean hold-
ings. The company reaped 80 percent of its
worldwide profits from Chile — with only 17
percent of its total investments placed there.

The First Act

De-stabilization

HE ALLENDE government’s accom-
plishments were achieved amid un-

precedented attempts to instill mass —
hysteria and overthrow the government.

Despite the widespread need for food, the a

latisfundistas burned what cro were
produced, refused to plant seeds wari slaugh-

tered livestock hoping to a ate the
peasants’ food shortage. oe