Allende visit to Moscow

Press, Volume CXII, Issue 33093, 7 December 1972, Page 17

Allende visit to Moscow

(N.Z.P.A.-Reuter—Copyright) MOSCOW, December 6. President Salvador Allende of Chile will arrive in Moscow today to enlist the Kremlin’s support for major industrial projects and to gain moral backing for his fight against foreign corporations.

Dr Allende will be arriving from Algiers, where last night he attacked what he called the insolent attitude of multi-national companies in waging aggression against his country. Speaking at a press conference after a two-hour meeting with President Houari Boumedienen of Algeria, Dr

Allende thanked Algeria for its support of Chile’s tough stand in its dispute with multi-national mining companies. He likened Chile’s dispute over copper mining to Algeria’s “oil war” with France last year.

Dr Allende’s Moscow visit is the main event of two weeks of state visits which began in Mexico a week ago and which also included an address to the United Nations in New York.

The 64-year-old Chilean Marxist expects to meet all three top Kremlin leaders — the party leader, Mr Leonid Brezhnev, President Nikolai Podgomy, and the Prime Minister, Mr Alexei Kosygin, before leaving for Kiev on Friday night. On Saturday he will go to Cuba.

The Soviet Union has already ploughed an estimated SUSIOO to SUS 150 million into Chile since Dr Allende’s Left-wing coalition took over two years ago. Chile hopes for more Soviet investment in a number of big new projects.

Chile is an example of Marxist rule being achieved by constitutional means and the Soviet leadership will doubtless seek to assess the strength of the Allende regime and exchange views on his relations with other South American states.

Dr Allende is staunchly pro-Moscow but the country has recently been gripped by a series of strikes, inflation, food shortages, and other economic problems. Recently the Chilean Communist leader, Luis Corvalan, visited Moscow, presumably to report on events in Chile after the last wave of industrial unrest.

China has also been providing aid to Chile and despite his pro-Moscow leaning, President Allende has kept in touch with Peking through delegations.