CHILE SI. JUNTA NO

To the Editors of The Crimson:

As a Chilean, I and most of the Chileans living and studying in Massachusetts, together with such wide and representative organizations as. The World Council of Churches. The Organization of American States. The Catholic Church of Santiago. The World Bank Review The United Nations, Amnesty International, and the Governments of Mexico, Sweden, Germany, England, Costa Rica, Venezuela and Italy (among others) have a very different view of contemporary Chile from the one held by Nicolas Bilbikopf (The Mail, January 20).

The impression that we "should be proud" of the junta takeover, and that the country has benefited in very large measure from the actions of the junta has somehow not been formed by anyone of the above-mentioned. This may be because of the irrefutable evidence of continuing torture, solitary confinement with trial, assassination, exile, abolition of political and civil rights, and other totalitarian tricks which even the junta does not deny. Or it may be because of the 600 per cent inflation rate, the 20 per cent unemployment rate, the militarization of universities and the destitution of thousands of Chileans.

Of course, Mr. Bilbikopf as an individual has perfect right to be proud of whatever he wants, from Hitler to his grandmother. As for me and the majority of Chilean people, we are confident that in the long run "General Pinochet" and the junta will be considered just like another sad example of what has been called "the Latin American Gorilla," certainly a sorrowful stain for a country like Chile that has earned in 160 uninterrupted years the most solid democratic reputation of the continent. Juan L. Sepulveda