Chile Will Allow 507 More Exiles Back in Country
President Augusto Pinochet’s military government said Tuesday that it will allow 507 more Chilean exiles to return, but it continued a ban on 764 others “for security reasons.”
The new list was issued the day before Pope John Paul II arrives for a tour of Chile. The Roman Catholic Church has repeatedly urged the Pinochet regime to allow all exiles back into the country.
Interior Minister Ricardo Garcia said the cases of the 764 remaining exiles will be considered individually.
Among them are top leaders of left-wing political parties and high officials of the late President Salvador Allende’s leftist government, which Gen. Pinochet overthrew in September, 1973. Thousands of Chileans became political exiles after the coup.
In a message to the nation Dec. 31, Pinochet said that most political exiles would be allowed to return, with only a “minimal group” remaining on the banned list for security reasons.
His government has since published nine lists. They contain the names of 2,728 exiles authorized to return, but immigration police say that only about 40 have done so.
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