Chile's lorry owners are now around the negotiating table with Allende's government after a month-long boycott which has wreaked havoc with an ailing economy.
But Allende's attempts at a 'solution' have dug the grave of the Popular Unity government elected three years ago. At every test he has retreated before the demands of the right wing, and every concession has only given the counter-revolutionaries a taste for more blood. CHRONIC SHORTAGES The lorry owners federation - which controls 90% of goods transportation in Chile - is on 'strike' for higher tariffs, the removal of controls imposed after the October 1972 boycott, and guarantees against the threat of nationalisation. which sparked off the earlier action. Half of industry is reduced to producing at less than a fifth of capacity, and the urban population faces chronic food shortages.
The Christian Democrats and the fascists have used the crisis to demand that more powers be given to the military: and Allende's only actions have been to pave the way for this. After two weeks General Prats, the Army commander-in-chief, and other armed forces leaders were brought into the key government posts. Far from appeasing the right, this has been a signal for the preparation of an all-out military coup. The lorry owners announced that they would stay out, and concentrated all their lorries in encampments (though a partial requisitioning by the army last week was not resisted). The Popular Unity transport union leader Balboa has been assassinated, and fascist sabotage continues. The National Party openly calls for a military takeover of all government departments, while the Air Force General first appointed as Transport Minister, Cesar Ruiz, has resigned because he was not given powers to bring in more military personnel to carry out the job.
Prior to this, Allende had already sacked the Popular Unity junior Minister, Faivovich, after CONNIVING Allende - unswervingly supported only by the Chilean Communist Party - is conniving in a military take-over. On 29 June, thousands of Chilean workers took to the streets ready to defend the Popular Unity government against the threat of a fascist-backed military coup. Since then their leaders have been closeted with the same army which has been invading and searching the factories they occupied at that time While the government refused to act against the right-wing saboteurs, Altamirano, general WORLO secretary of Allende's Socialist Party, was sent out to tell the workers of the militant Santiago industrial belt that they must 'make sacrifices' and 'exercise restraint' on the wages front. Allende's radio and TV broadcasts have talked of the country being plunged into civil war and denounced the right-wing terrorism of the 'Patria y Libertad' group. He has exhorted Chilean workers only to trust the Popular Unity leaders - and of course the army. In the name of 'not provoking the fascists' he has now jailed sailors who tried to mutiny against counterrevolutionary officers, arrested leaders of the left-wing MAPU, and threatened the forcible suppression of violence 'from the left' as well as the right.
NO LEAD Allende and the Communist Party are giving the right wing every chance to mobilise. By refusing to give the working class any lead, they deliberately confuse class relations and ferment the divisions in the working class which the Christian Democrats rely on to gain the support, for example, qf the copper miners, who are determined to press their wage demands. The Chilean bourgeoisie and the imperialists have been preparing for three years for the crisis in the working class to reach the point where they could openly take the offensive. Now Allende and the Stalinists are acting as mud wives in this process.