Chilean Rebels Seize 4 Radio Stations and News Office, Announce End of Papal Truce
Armed rebels seized the offices of the Associated Press and four radio stations here to announce the end of a truce proclaimed for Pope John Paul II’s visit to Chile.
Three men with pistols broke into the AP offices Monday night and scrawled on the walls slogans of the Manuel Rodriguez Patriotic Front, the guerrilla group that claimed responsibility for an attempt on the life of President Augusto Pinochet last September.
They locked a reporter and a photographer in the bathroom and left a message announcing an end to the truce for the Pope’s tour, which ended April 6.
Four armed men forced their way into Radio Beethoven and forced an announcer to read a two-minute statement, police sources said.
They said that a radio station in Santiago and two in Valparaiso, 75 miles west of the capital, also were raided.
A number of self-proclaimed members of the guerrilla front have been arrested in connection with the assassination attempt, in which five of Pinochet’s bodyguards died, and with the discovery of large caches of weapons and ammunition in the northern part of the country.
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