Left planning war—Pinochet

Press, 12 September 1986, Page 10

Left planning war —Pinochet

NZPA-Reuter Lima Chile marks the thirteenth anniversary of military rule today under a state of siege, and the President, General Augusto Pinochet, says that Leftist guerrillas are planning a revolutionary war. General Pinochet, who survived an assassination attempt on Monday, in which five of his bodyguards were killed, was quoted by Radio Nacional as saying that there would be other attacks. The radio quoted him as saying a plan had been uncovered “to unleash a revolutionary war to finish with not only the Government... but also the mountain of naive people who continue believing that democracy is

the only way out for the country.”

Radio Nacional said General Pinochet had made the remarks in a speech to Air Force generals who went to congratulate him on the thirteenth anniversary of the coup, in which he ousted the socialist President, Salvador Allende, who died in the take-over. The military junta clamped Chile under a state of siege on Monday only hours after the sub-machine-gun, ' grenade, and rocket attack on General Pinochet’s motorcade by Leftist guerrillas just outside Santiago. He escaped with a minor hand wound. Authorities arrested opposition politicians under the state of siege and

closed six opposition magazines.

Radio Portales said the Government had decided to expel three French priests. Three people have been killed in mysterious circumstances since the state of siege was declared. The estranged wife of one of them, Jose Carrasco Tapia, a journalist, said in Mexico City that he had received repeated death-threats, many of them bearing “the hallmark of the military.”

Carrasco, the foreign editor of “Analisis,” one of the magazines closed by the Government, was taken from his home by a group of armed men in civilian clothes on Tuesday. He was later found

shot dead with two bullets in the head.

Olivia Mora, a journalist based in Mexico City, said, “In 1984, during a press conference, an Army colonel in the capital publicly threatened to have Pepe (a common nickname for Jose) shot. “Two weeks ago, he received new threats, written and by phone, to the magazine (where he worked). The threats were made in a way typical of the military.” Riot police used teargas and water-cannon to break up a funeral procession of about 1000 mourners behind Carrasco’s casket.

The Chilean Bishops’ Conference and the country’s independent Human Rights Commission urged

the Government yesterday to limit the 90-day siege to legal police methods in search of General Pinochet's would-be assassins, identified by officials as communist-led guerrillas. Jaime Castillo, the rights commission’s president, said he and five of its other officers asked a judge to order police protection for them after detectives raided two of their homes with presumed arrest warrants. Mr Castillo said, “It is clear that the Government is using the state of siege measures to silence all criticism by threatening opposition and rights groups that have no relation to the attempt on his life.”