Violence erupts in Chile as campaigning quickens

Press, 14 September 1988, Page 12

Violence erupts in Chile as campaigning quickens

NZPA-Reuter Santiago Political violence has erupted in Chile, with 10 people shot and wounded and hundreds arrested, as campaigning quickens for next month’s Presidential plebiscite on whether the military ruUr, Augusto Pinochet, is to remain in power for another eight years.

General Pinochet’s bodyguards opened fire on stone-throwing protesters during a campaign visit to a Santiago slum on the fifteenth anniversary of the bloody coup that brought General Pinochet to power. The police said six people were shot in the incident, and hospital sources said another four people were wounded by gunfire as the disturbances continued into the

night. Over 350 opponents of the military Government were arrested during clashes with the security forces in Santiago and other cities in protests marking the date General Pinochet toppled the elected . Marxist Government of Salvador Allende.

The 72-year-old general, sole candidate in the October 5 yes-or-no poll, has sought in campaign speeches to brand his

opponents as harbingers of violence and political chaos. Opinion polls show General Pinochet and his opponents, who range from former military supporters to the Marxist Left, virtually tied, with many Chileans still .undecided. Shortly before an official anniversary ceremony, security forces defused a car bomb containing 60kg of explosives parked near where Gen-

eral Pinochet was due to speak. “This is the face of the ‘No’,” he told journalists during a visit to the port town of Valparaiso, 120 km north-west of Santiago. For his opponents the protest of the slumdwellers was a response to an increasing sense of political freedom in the run-up to the poll, which will give Chileans their first chance to issue a verdict on General Pino-

chet’s long rule. “People are beginning to lose their fear,” said Sergio Molina of the Centrist Christian Democrats and president of the Campaign for Free Elections. The Government recently lifted restrictions on civil liberties, including the right to hold public meetings, which had been in force throughout the military’s 15-year rule.