WOOTEN

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP88-01070R000301470006-9
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: January 14, 2010
• Sequence Number: 6
• Publication Date: November 27, 1984
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Approved For Release 2010/01/14 :CIA-RDP88-010708000301470006-9
ABC WORLD NEWS TONIGHT
27 November 1984
KOOTEN: Despite the rising sound and. fury, Chile r?ertiains ~
firmly in the grasp of Augusto Pinochet Ugarte, the army
general who seized power"in 1973 with the blessings and
the tielp of the CIA. In a bloody coup, the elected
president, Marxist socialist Salvador Allende, died and
the country's long tradition of open democracy was
replaced by a military regime that's still marching to its
own music under the baton of President Pinochet. The
United States is no longer quite as fond of him, mainly
because his record on human rights is~abysmal. But that
is of no concern to an unelected president whose word is
law, whose power atsolute. There is no national corgr?ess
anym~r?e. It was dissolved years ago and it's been socked
up tight ever since. .There ar?e no legal political
parties.?? They were outlawed years ago. And, of course,
there hasn't been an election for public office in Chile
since well before the coup. And three weeks ago, on the
day Americans xere voting for president, this president
was imposing.a state of siege on Chile. Now all news is
censored, a nighttime curfew is in effect and the national
police have been arresting thousands of young men in
Santiago's slums. All necessary, the president says, to
save Chile from the terrorism of communist
revolutionaries. But few Chilean leftists have escaped
assassination or exile. And the president's critics say
his harsh measures are meant to silence growing public
protest over his one-man rule and the miserable state of
Chile's economy. GABRIEL 4'~ILDEZ (Christian Democrat):
...while this was always what the facists said when there
is__opposition in the country, this happened with Hitler in
Germany and Mussolini in Italy and with Batista and
Somoza.
NOOTEN: G~ibriei Valdez, a centrist politician, has been
Sailed twice. Ricardo Lagos, a socialist, is under secret
police surveillance. RICARDO LAGOS (socialist): I'm
afraid that if this situation continues, this will end up
in a sort of violence increase in Chile and we may end up
very much like in Central America.
WOOTEN: And now, as in Central America, the Catholic
Church has added fts voice to the chorus of government
opposition. Archbishop Juan Francisco Fresno has sternly
criticized the repression and the state of siege. But
President Pinochet says he will run Chile his way for at
least five more years or perhaps longer, until there is no
more opposition. But the roots of Chile's once healthy
politics run deep. And those voices in the street are
saying that five more years is too long to wait for
democracy's return. Jim Wooten, ABC News, Santiago.
Approved For Release 2010/01/14 :CIA-RDP88-010708000301470006-9