Ambassador of Chile Replies to Sen. Kennedy

I would like to make three brief points with respect to the article (Editorial Pages, Jan. 2), “America Sides with Pinochet’s Atrocities,” by Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.)

In reference to the senator’s criticism of the United States’ negative vote at the United Nations General Assembly on the resolution on human rights in Chile, the senator forgets that said proposal was not a human rights resolution. It was purely an ideological statement against the government of my country, alien to human rights concerns and drafted, ironically--to say the least--by the delegations of Mexico and Cuba to the United Nations.

I ask the senator: Can the Mexicans lead the world in human rights teaching? Can the representatives of Fidel Castro, the Soviet puppet who has turned Cuba into one big jail, speak about democracy in Chile? And most of all, sir, is it decent for Western democracies to go along with this charade and let Cuba and the U.S.S.R. speak for them on their human rights concerns?

The second point refers to the senator’s position with respect to two loans to Chile from the IDB and the World Bank. He contends that he supported a negative U.S. vote as a means to “dissociate ourselves from the repressive Chilean regime.” In this respect allow me simply to remind the senator of his own words in a speech to the Chicago Council on Foreign Relations in October, 1971, complaining about the U.S. position toward the Communist Allende regime in Chile: “Similar heavy-handed policies have been used by this country in the Inter-American Development Bank and other multilateral lending organizations. The multilateral aim is to depoliticize development assistance and it is perversion to twist those institutions into being exponents of U.S. foreign policies.” (Congressional Record, Sept. 17, 1973, Page 29862)

One last point: how objective can the senator be when he takes such incongruous positions in Congress with respect to the issue of international financial institutions when he fails to mention the threat of Cuban-trained terrorists, the attempt to kill the president of Chile, the discovery in Chile of the largest arms caches ever smuggled into Latin America, as well as positive measures like the recent lifting of the state of siege, the step toward solving the problem of exiles, and the fact that electoral registration and the legalization of political parties will take place before March of this year?

Why isn’t it recognized that Chile, a responsible nation, pays its debts and does not play politics with its financial commitments, or that Chile’s social policies have been recently praised in a World Bank report as one of the two most successful in Latin America?

I have the sad feeling that some people would answer, let Chile achieve democracy on her own and will continue to wrongfully interfere in her affairs despite the fact that she fights alone against a superpower whose treachery is well-known to the United States.

HERNAN FELIPE ERRAZURIZ

Ambassador of Chile

Washington