Allende Challenged

A pall of tear gas hung over Santiago last week. Soldiers toting submachine guns stood on nearly every street corner, and enforced a midnight-to-dawn curfew. Half the city seemed out on strike --truckers, taxi owners, and even a majority of doctors, dentists, lawyers, engineers, pharmacists and maritime pilots. In a television appeal, beleaguered President Salvador Allende Gossens declared that the country was on "the brink of civil war."

That was probably an exaggeration, though there was no doubt that Allende's regime was facing the gravest crisis since he took power two years ago. What had happened was that Chile's middle classes suddenly coalesced to challenge the government by going out on simultaneous strikes. Allende responded by calling in the army to enforce the law. The military, under growing pressure from Chile's political right to throw Allende out, was so far grimly following orders--at the risk of alienating many Chileans.

The sudden wave of strikes started two weeks ago in the sparsely settled southern province of Aisen. The government had announced plans to set up a mixed government-private highway transport operation there. Angry truck owners--who in Chile are mostly one-or two-vehicle operators--promptly walked off the job, and others, fearful that Aisen was only the first step in a full-scale government takeover, joined the protest. By last week 5,000 truck owners were on strike, severely curtailing shipments of supplies to the capital. Retail store owners quickly shuttered their shops in sympathy with the truckers.

The strikes could not have come at a worse time for Allende or the Chilean economy. Inflation for the first nine months of this year is a staggering 99.8% . The price of sirloin steak, on the rare occasions it has been available, has increased 200% ; stew beef is up 116%, powdered milk 166%. Wheat and bread are in short supply. Butter has disappeared. But real hunger threatened only momentarily when food stores closed in a strike two weeks ago, until the army ordered them to reopen.

Allende replied to the wave of strikes by extending the "state of emergency"--a measure short of martial law --to 21 of Chile's 25 provinces. One thousand trucks were confiscated and five union leaders arrested. Zealous carabineros dispersed strollers on city streets with tear gas or with powerful water cannons that Chileans called guanacos (after a camel-like animal that spits when it is angered).

At the same time, Allende was clearly on the political defensive. He offered to submit the truckers' demands to mediation and they refused. Then he invited the opposition Christian Democrat leaders to meet with him to discuss ways of ending the strike, only to be rebuffed again. Last week Santiago bus owners threatened to strike and Allende hastened to meet their demands with only minor reservations. He agreed to draft a law guaranteeing that bus transport will remain in the private sector, return three nationalized bus companies to their owners, and drop lawsuits against transport leaders brought during the strikes.

The busmen struck anyway, almost paralyzing Santiago. Meanwhile, the truckers, who had started it all, moved to take advantage of Allende's seemingly weakened resolve. They announced that they were joining with other strikers to present a new set of demands to the government, in effect raising the price that Allende must pay for civil peace.

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