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From: grunwald@uiuccsb.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.politics
Subject: Re: Chile - (nf)
Message-ID: <2902@uiucdcs.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 20-Sep-83 23:51:10 EDT
Article-I.D.: uiucdcs.2902
Posted: Tue Sep 20 23:51:10 1983
Date-Received: Thu, 22-Sep-83 02:47:02 EDT
Lines: 33

#R:uiuccsb:11000021:uiuccsb:11000025:000:1608
uiuccsb!grunwald    Sep 20 17:44:00 1983

  How very odd. Last evening, after writing that note, I happened to
meet a friend who introduced me to a Chilean student here. He was
going to college in Chile after the Allende government was overthrown.
  From my understanding, he felt that the Pinochet government actually
had a certain amount of broad support before the recent bust years.
Prior to the last couple of years, Chile was undergoing the biggest
boon years it ever had. Unfortunetly, "the economic miricles were
sandcastles" -- the boon didn't last. This led to dissatisfaction with
the Pinochet regime.
  This bust apparently affected the upper middle class and the upper
class much more than the farmers. "The poor have always been poor and
were used to it." The wealthy had to find some way to pay back the
millions and millions of dollars in loans that they had secured. Part
of this collapse was caused by the drop in copper prices from
$1.10/pound to $.60/pound. Copper is Chiles major export, of course.

  The thing that irked him the most is the stigma that is attched to
the Allende/Pinochet/CIA affair. No western country, and in
particular, the U.S.  can offer aid to Chile. To do so would be very
bad for the public image of the country giving the aid. There is so
much bad feeling about the coup and the U.S. involvement in it that the
is just taboo to aid the current government

  It was very interesting to hear this view, particularly from someone
who does not currently support the Pinochet government.

Spoken	: Dirk Grunwald
	  University of Illinois
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