3 Chilean Rebels Die During Police Raid

Three urban guerrillas died in a police raid here Tuesday on the eve of a two-day general strike by opponents of President Augusto Pinochet.

A government statement said the guerrillas, two women and a man, committed suicide early Tuesday as the police prepared to break into a house where they were hiding in the working-class district of San Miguel.

According to the statement, policemen outside the house heard shots inside. When they burst in, the government said, the man and one of the women were dead of self-inflicted wounds and the other woman was fatally wounded.

Numerous Arms Found

The police said they found hand grenades, explosives, ammunition, guns, a hand-held rocket launcher, surgical equipment and a workshop for the manufacture of bombs. The three dead guerrillas were identified as members of the Manuel Rodriguez Patriotic Front, a guerrilla movement that is the armed wing of the outlawed Communist Party of Chile.

The police reported 16 bombings and minor terrorist attacks before dawn Tuesday against power lines, railroads, buses, two banks and a school. This activity raised fears of further violence as an assembly of professional organizations rallied support for today’s strike.

“We are asking people to stay home. That’s all,” said strike leader Juan Luis Gonzalez, a surgeon who is president of the Chilean doctors’ association and of the umbrella group of workers’ associations called the Assembly of Civility. “This is a little test to show how many we are--not the climax of our protest, but just the beginning.”

A Veiled Reference

The Assembly of Civility warned, “If there are excesses, they will be the work of those who exercise institutional power or ‘unknown groups’ “--a veiled reference to plainclothes security forces.

Violence, particularly in the slum areas that ring Santiago, has invariably accompanied the civic protests against Gen. Pinochet that began in 1983.

The military government led by the 70-year-old strongman has predicted that the new strike will fail. On Tuesday, Interior Minister Ricardo Garcia called the labor action “incomprehensible.”

Gonzalez’s grouping of 22 associations includes doctors and lawyers, teachers and students, shop owners, teamsters, labor unions and slum dwellers. Together, the associations claim to represent nearly a third of Chile’s 12 million people.

Rejection by Pinochet

The workers’ umbrella group scheduled today’s strike after Pinochet rejected a list of demands urging restoration of democratic rule.

“We want dialogue with the armed forces,” Gonzalez said. “As part of national reconstruction, we want the armed forces to meet with their fellow citizens.”

He said a letter inviting a dialogue was submitted to vice commanders of the armed forces and the national police last week rather than to their superiors, who he said have a political role.

In their fourth year of so far futile protests, Pinochet’s opponents now seek to drive a wedge between him and the armed forces he commands. Thus far, there is little evidence of success.

Under a disputed 1980 constitution, Pinochet’s term runs until 1989, when the armed forces commanders and the head of the militarized national police are to name a single candidate for a new eight-year presidential term. Pinochet is known to want to stay on to continue fighting what he calls “the Communist menace.”