Pinochet bars Jesuit

Press, 9 November 1984, Page 8

Pinochet bars Jesuit

NZPA-Reuter Santiago Chile’s military Government, cracking down hard on political dissent and guerrilla violence, has barred a priest who heads the Catholic Church’s human rights organisation in Chile from returning to the country. The measure, made public in a statement yesterday from the office of the Archbishop of Santiago, the Most Rev. Juan Francisco Fresno, was one of the first taken by General Augusto Pinochet since he declared a “state ,of siege” throughout Chile on Wednesday. General Pinochet also ordered a midnight-to-5 a.m. curfew on Santiago and the port of Valparaiso.

Security forces raided the offices of the Leftist Popular Democratic Movement coalition and arrested nine people. Five officials of the Socialist Bloc, a less radical coalition, were also picked

up. The statement from Archbishop Fresno said that the Government had informed him that it had barred Father Ignacio Gutierrez, a Spanish-born Jesuit, from returning to Chile from a trip abroad. “The archbishop has made known the seriousness of this measure, which he cannot accept, especially when it concerns an episcopal vicar to whom he has entrusted such a delicate task,” it said. The Foreign Minister, Mr

Jaime del Valle, asked about the barring of Father Gutierrez, who has lived in Chile for more than a decade, said that it had been because of comments he made during a meeting between Chilean bishops and exiles in Rome last week. “He intervened in an obvious way in certain internal Chilean affairs,” Mr del Valle said. “This is a man who has repeatedly been engaged in politics inside the country.”

Father Gutierrez, aged 43, was quoted as having said in Rome that “extremely cruel people” had drawn up a list of some 5000 Chilean exiles who could not return home. . <. .