Chile boycott backed to hilt

Press, 21 April 1979, Page 22

Chile boycott backed to hilt

PA Wellington The "immense importance” of the New Zealand trade-union boycott of Chile would be seen when General Augusto Pinochet's regime fell, said a former Chilean senator visiting Wellington. “The boycott by New Zealand arid Australia is important. It has helped the people of Chile immensely,” Dr Maria Elena Carrera said. “When Pinochet falls, when we take account of what has been done, and we could perhaps measure it, we will be able to see the immense importance of the permanent boycott New Zealand has had,” she said. ‘ “The workers of Chile ask that New Zealand has this boycott against Chile.” Dr Carrera, a member of the Socialist Party, was a senator in the Chilean Parliament from 1967 until the military coup in 1973. She was president of the women’s movement supporting the Popular Unity Government of President Salvador Allende. Evading arrest, she

escaped from Chile on a special plane Peru sent to take out refugees, and is now living in Germany. Dr Carrera said it was not true that General Pinochet's Government had recently granted freedom to the trade-union movement in Chile after threats of a trade boycott by Latin-American ' and United States union organisations.

“The only thing the junta fears is a boycott, a trade embargo.” she said. “With this fear of a trade embargo, they made a labour programme to give an image to foreign countries. They said it is possible to strike. The law says you can have a strike as long as you don’t stop production. You are not allowed to have strikes in Government departments, or in any sector considered strategic. So when can vou have a strike? “They said they were going to have elections for trade-union leaders, but before they called for elections they made illegal seven federations of workers — the most powerful trade union.”