Reagan Aide Spurns Helms Criticism of Envoy to Chile

The Reagan Administration today brushed aside Sen. Jesse Helms’ criticism of the American ambassador in Chile for having attended the funeral of a young man who was killed during anti-government protests.

The ambassador, Harry G. Barnes Jr. “is carrying out the President’s policies toward Chile . . . (and) continues to have the President’s full confidence,” White House deputy press secretary Edward Djerejian said.

Helms, a Republican from North Carolina, said in an interview on the state-run television network in Chile that “if President Reagan were here, I believe he would send this ambassador home.”

The senator accused the ambassador of having “planted the American flag in the midst of a Communist activity” when he went to the funeral Wednesday of Rodrigo Rojas de Negri, a 19-year-old Chilean who lived in Washington with his mother, a political exile.

Rojas was visiting Chile when he and a woman were set afire at the start of a 48-hour strike called by opponents of the government of Augusto Pinochet. Witnesses were quoted as saying that men in uniform set the two afire after pouring or spraying a flammable substance on them.

Djerejian, saying that the United States is trying to encourage movement toward democracy in Chile, said Barnes “went to the Rojas funeral in a humanitarian gesture, just as the United States has provided assistance to the Rojas family as a humanitarian gesture in the face of tragedy.”

As for Helms’ criticism, Djerejian said: “Sen. Helms is expressing his opinions. I’ve given you our position.”