es WORLD

| By A. ALARD
: x 1986 is a decisive year in the
: sie struggle of the Chilean people
against the Pinochet dictatorship.
So say the political parties which
make up the Popular Democratic
Movement (MDP) and the Demo-
cratic Alliance, and so say the Na-
{ tional Workers’ Command,
a. women’s organizations, univer-
ae sities and high school students,
a} community groups, trade unions,
> the copper workers; coal miners,
Ci eee) oil drillers, professional school
3 workers, truckers, peasants and
cultural workers. In other words,
the great majority of Chileans
; want, ask for and demand that
4 ey Pinochet must go and must go
at | now! All political and_ social
i Gewa organizations including the
mE Catholic Church demand this and
it is this huge mass which has cal-

’ mt wees

i led this new year ‘‘the decisive
7 year’.
: The Pinochet regime is

exhausted. Its base of support is
feeble, precarious. It has lost al-
most all civil support and every
day there is an increase in dissent
among members of the Armed
Forces who favor the transfer of
power to civilian hands. Every
new situation aggravates the
crisis and reveals significant
changes in the balance of forces.
This past January the public
was given the chance to read
“The Manifesto of the Commu-
nist Party to the Chilean People”
ee in some of the opposition publica-
tions. Communist members of the
MDP urged, ‘‘Chile says enough!
Re. Forward for the people’s rebel-
% lion!”

“The Communist Party resol-
utely has adopted the proposal to
end the dictatorship in 1986 and
undertakes a pledge for the suc-
cess of this objective. It is not cor-
rect that our Party draw a rosy
picture of the prospects for this.
Therefore it tries not to use
disillusioning words. It is not
merely a matter of sounding an
alarm for the dictatorship to end.
We reaffirm the principle that
freedom will win but that it is not
going to be gotten like a gift. In
order to put an end to this tyranny
in 1986, we have to face with
courage the necessity.of using all
forms of struggle which will lead
to such an objective. Revolu-
tionary strength and action will
elevate the morale of the masses,
and bring doubt, confusion and
panic to the enemy camp and that
will bring us closer to the over-
throw of the dictatorship and the
attainment of democracy,”’ the
manifesto said.

‘‘We always tell the people the
truth. The last phases of the
struggle against fascism will be
hard and perhaps even more dif-
ficult than you can imagine. This
typranny is prepared to do any-
thing. It could apply state terror-
ism in a form even more bestial
than what we have known al-
ready. It could resort to plesbis-
cites or rigged elections or to a
Parliament with specially chosen
people or any other manoeuvre
which allows it to keep power in
its hands.”

Regarding the United States,
the Communist Party of Chile
document adds: ‘On the other

1986 —a decisive year
in struggle for free Chile

hand, the intervention of Yankee
imperialism is absolutely clear. It
continues to support Pinochet ina
time of great pressure. U.S. am-
bassador Harry Barnes is work-
ing night and day for a behind-
the-back agreement with the re-
gime and part of the opposition
which will keep the dictatorship in
power until 1989, look after
American interests and, if abso-
lutely necesary, move toa limited
democracy.

But the people can and must
overcome the manoeuvres of im-
perialism. With such a goal in
mind, we are attempting to move
into action all people’s abilities,
their well-known strengths and
reserves, to resolutely develop
social action and civil dis-
obedience, to create a state of un-
governability in the country and
to organize the uprising of the en-
tire nation in the struggle for free-
dom and democracy.

As Communists we do not hide_
our final objectives nor our more
immediate goals. We are strug-
gling because we want this
tyranny to be succeeded by an
advanced democratic govern-
ment which will be a transition to
socialism. But if it is only possible
to have a democratic system with
a bourgeois orientation, we would
at least have an opening without
having to give up the defense of
people’s rights in the struggle for
full democracy.”

‘*But first and foremost, it is
necessary to put an end to this
tyranny. Pinochet is a dead
weight which must be removed in
order to make way for democra-

November.

cy. He must be tried and
punished, and his fascist constitu-
tion must be thrown into the gar-
bage. We permanently reject all
forms of negotiations with this
dictatorship. Nevertheless, we
are not opposed to working out an
agreement with military institu-
tions if they are agreeable to get-
ting rid of the dictatorship and re-
placing it with a democratic form
of government. The Armed
Forces have a great responsibili-
ty. The form in which the inevita-
ble transition to democracy will
develop depends in no small way
on their behaviour.”

‘‘This dictatorship can be

brought down as a result of the concludes.

On March 8, 200 Chilean women’s organizations kicked off a natio
mobilization against the Pinochet regime and were met with tear
and arrests. Photo: half-a-million demonstrate in Santiago

constant growing struggle of
masses. The key to victory i
the united action of the peopl
all regions of the country, in
development of self-defense 0
the masses, in the common at
tions of Marxists and Christi
and in the cooperation in th
struggle of all opposing forces, b
they of the left, centre or right.”
‘‘We are marching decisi
with a myriad of mass activi
towards the upcoming Nati
Strike which will go on for as
as necessary and we are con
ing courageously the dictators
Pinochet Out! Democracy now
1986 and no later!’’, the Mani ’

Democracy if necessary, but not...

is set when the people are permitted, even under ¢
trolled circumstances, to depose sucht

‘“‘pro-American’”’ tyrant. ‘

Bill Buckley is particularly blunt about this. There
only two things in this world that matter, he says,
one of them is not democracy.

The first is keeping countries like the Philipp
firmly in the U.S. sphere of influence: ‘‘We hope
ordered self-government will come to the Philippi
but whether or not it does, we have imperial responsi
ties in the Western Pacific that have nothing to do \ itl
civic progress in that country.”

The second is what is euphemistically ce
‘economic freedom’’. So, says Buckley, *‘ Ask not
many people voted for the incumbent governor;
what kind of life the people are permitted to live.
they free? Are they protected from arbitrary rule?
their holdings safe from inflation and theft? Can t |
leave the country with their savings?”

Wealth and power, that’s the bottom line. The
difference between Buckley and Reagan is that Bue
prefers not only to speak the ugly truth, but to emb
it. The Reagan administration has. followed the
duplicitous path of manipulation, treachery and pious
hypocritical propaganda. %

Many years ago, the premier poet of the 20th Centur
Bertolt Brecht, nailed down these people with a
uncompromising verse which I hope to see one
chiseled on Ronald Reagan’s tombstone:
Those who take the most from the table
Preach contentment
Those for whom the taxes are destined
Demand sacrifice
Those who eat their fill speak to the hungry
Of wonderful times to come
Those who lead the country into the abyss
Call ruling difficult.

For ordinary folk.

The aftermath of cosmetic power-shifts in Haiti and
the Philippines have brought some curious reverbera-
tions in the North American. Right. Neo-conservatives
are restless and upset. Despite the apparent success that
Washington has enjoyed in re-filling the wine. bottles,
there is the nagging fear that a political pandora’s box has
been pried open, and that genuine changes may result.

Events in the Philippines have been particularly hard
on neo-conservative grand-daddy William F. Buckley, a

- long-time Marcos friend and Aelonsts who writes that if
this is democracy, “It is time ... to say some unkind
things about democracy.”

**The first of these,’ he writes, “‘is that democracy
does not necessarily usher in virtuous governments or
tolerable human conditions. The second is that democ-
racy, particularly in its currently accepted, fanatical ap-
plication (one-man, one- -vote) is nothing more than a
Western superstition” .

Now this is a remarkable thing for a true defender of

‘*American values”’ to say, but the point is, he is very
agitated. Peoples of the Third World, Buckley argues —
in profoundly racist terms — are simply not capable of
comprehending politics or acting democratically, so why
do bleeding-heart liberals insist upon putting them
through it? These poor folk have their own traditions,
which they are content to live by, such as *‘‘a blind
allegiance to authority”

The Reagan administration has divded the Third
World up into two types of regimes: there are the

‘‘authoritarian’’ states, sometimes referred to as
‘*flawed democracies’ ’, who are our friends, and whose
repression of their people is -understandable oy

‘benign’. Then there are the nasty * ‘totalitarians’’;
socialists, ex-proprietors of private property, whose
every word and deed is to be reviled.

It is a propaganda system worthy of Goebbels. Bill
Buckley and others, such as his Canadian clone, Barbara
Amiel, have labored long and hard to sell it to the public.

News
Analysis

Fred Weir

But events, aggravated by ‘‘the tendency of the West-
ern press to over-romanticize those opposing despots,”
are conspiring against this neat, pro-fascist view of the
world. This is the heart of the neo-conservative
consternation with recent developments. It is not that
Buckley or Amiel refuse to endorse a charade of democ-
racy if it works to Western advantage, it is that they fear
giving the people of these countries even the faintest
whiff of freedom which is apt to set them into motion.

‘Anyone with an understanding of history,” writes
Amiel, apparently without irony, ““knows that by sup-
porting Aquino, misguided and most likely ineffectual
against totalitarians of the left, we will allow her country
to end up in the hands of Communists—a worse tyranny
than that of Marcos and one that would be hostile to the
West’.

So there it is. The neo-conservatives are furious with
those ‘‘foolish” liberals who, in the native belief that
America should stand for some modicum of democracy
and human rights, are opening the door to popular rev-
olution in the Third World.

That also explains why President Reagan, no liberal
himself, hesitated so long and painfully before taking the
simple and practical step of disposing with Marcos. It is
the primary dilemma of U.S. imperialism that it steals
the resources, independence and lifeblood of the Third
World, and offers only empty rhetoric and the occasional
sham election in return. It requires authoritarian strong-
men to enforce that system, and a very uneasy precedent

8 e PACIFIC TRIBUNE, MARCH 19, 1986