Inflation of Violence

At exactly 10 o'clock each night Santiago's middle-class housewives emerge from their homes armed with empty pots and ladles. For 15 minutes they set up a metallic din that can be heard for blocks around--their way of protesting steadily worsening food shortages. Some mornings, people gather outside the Bernardo O'Higgins Military School and pelt cadets with wheat and rice, amid shouts of "Gallinas, gallinas!" (chickens, chickens), a gibe at the army's staunch refusal to oust President Salvador Allende Gossens.

After almost two years in power --the anniversary will be on Nov. 3 --Allende presides over an increasingly angry country that is sinking ever deeper into economic quicksand. Everything from beef to butter and matches to auto parts is in short supply. Inflation has spiraled 63.5% during the past eight months; in August alone, the inflation rate was 22.7%, and the price of food soared an estimated 60%. The reason: in an effort to buy political support, the government increased the money supply by 115% last year, and is doing the same in 1972. The black-market rate for escudos has now reached 300 to the dollar, more than six times the official rate. Chile's foreign exchange reserves have been used up, and its nationalized copper mines have been cut off from traditional lines of international bank credit. The economy limps along through deficit financing and aid from Communist countries.

Allende blames the U.S. for many of Chile's problems, particularly the drying up of Santiago's credit lines. But most international banks consider Chile a poor risk. To help keep its economy afloat, Chile has deferred payment on its foreign debt of some $2.5 billion, including more than $1 billion to the U.S.

At the same time Chileans have been hit by an inflation of violence. A carabinero (national policeman) was killed in a clash between pro-and anti-Allende forces in Conception in August, and a 17-year-old student died when a tear-gas grenade exploded in his face during a Santiago street brawl last month. As the violence increases, political parties have begun to organize for street warfare. The Communist Party has set up "self-defense committees" throughout Santiago. The Socialists talk of establishing "antifascist brigades." On the other side, a youthful group of extreme rightists called Patria y Libertad talks vaguely of an organization of "shock troops" to combat leftists.

Patria y Libertad has joined the right-wing National Party in something called Proteco (community protection). Their handbook reads like a guide, if not an outright incitement, to civil war. It provides for block chiefs, first aid and surgical facilities, alarm systems and arms caches. "Neither waste nor unduly save your ammunition," the handbook advises. "Concentrate your fire on whoever seems in command or carries the most dangerous weapons. Try to surround your enemies, firing without pity."

Allende has ignored the advice given him by visiting Cuban Premier Fidel Castro last fall that he ought to "eliminate" his opposition. As Allende has publicly warned, civil war would mean "the destruction of our tranquillity for several generations." Even so, there are daily rumors of uprisings. Allende last month announced that he had discovered a plot to overthrow the government. The rebels, he said on television, planned to split the country into eight isolated zones, paralyzing movement in Chile through a transport strike, which would also prevent food supplies from reaching major cities.

Right-wing extremists have not been above hiring street rioters--at 300 escudos a day, or $1 at the black-market rate--to stir up trouble, obviously in the hope of forcing the military to intervene. But Army Chief General Carlos Prats has made it clear that the army is determined to stay out of politics so long as Allende obeys the constitution, as he has done. Two weeks ago, Prats requested the retirement of General Alfredo Canales Marques, who had been accused of plotting a coup, a charge that Canales vigorously denied.

For all of Chile's woes, Allende still has the hard-core working-class support that boosted him to the presidency. According to a recent poll, he would again capture 36% of the vote, enough to win so long as his opposition is split as it was two years ago (though against a single opponent, former President Eduardo Frei, Allende would lose, 39% to 51%; Frei has not yet decided whether to run in the presidential elections of 1976). Both Allende and the opposition Christian Democrats are trying to stave off a political explosion until the congressional elections next March, when Chileans can settle their arguments at the polls. Until then, the prospect is for a worsening economy and more and bloodier street clashes.

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