Protest in Chile not successful

Press, Volume CXII, Issue 33058, 27 October 1972, Page 19

Protest in Chile not successful

(N.Z.P.A.-Reuter—Copyright)

SANTIAGO, October 25.

Leaders of Chile’s striking lorry owners will meet today for the first time since they took their vehicles off the roads, starting a nation-wide “bosses strike,” against the Socialist Government of President Salvador Allende.

There was optimism they might decide to end the stoppage, after the comparative failure yesterday of a “day of silence” protest called by opposition leaders. Opponents of the Government were asked to stay at home for 24 hours, leaving city centre streets empty to prove mass public support for lorry owners, shopkeepers and other business and professional men who have closed their doors in sympathy. But the plan misfired, observers said. While middle class families in the Barrio Alto suburb, a stronghold of anti-Allende feeling, observed the “day of silence,” city centre streets were as lively and crowded as they have been on any day since the stoppage began on October 11.

Owners of private bus companies, which provide about 90 per cent of the capital’s public transport, kept their vehicles running, even though they stopped for 24 hours last week in support of the lorry men.

Withdrawal.—The Liberal Reform candidate for the Clutha electorate for the General Election, Mr W. R. Thayer, of Merino Downs, has withdrawn his nomination “because the Government has guaranteed that there must be a woolgrowers’ referendum before the wool marketing corporation can bring in compulsory acquisition.” —(P.A.)