Chilean Prisoners

Scan page 8

3,800 Dentists belong to the Fluoridation Society. attenders at dentists' surgeries are taught how to prevent disease. Even regular attenders keep their Most of your readers will be aware of the terrible repression onleashed by the Chilean Military Junta since their right wing military coup that toppled the government of Salvador Allende Gossens on September 11, 1973. Thousands ¡ were shot or subjected to a torture routine at the hands of the different branches of military intel(ligence.

Also many met their deaths in I concentration camps. The dull thud Inf General Pinochet's meat cleaver continued until 1974 when torture and other forms of repression became more systematic with the formation of DINA (National Intelligence Directorate).

GESTAPO

DINA's task was the coordinUaf tha marinno military intelanon ol lne yanous mulasy LILVAligence branches into a text-book Gestapo.

DINA drew on the most competent and "proved" tortures of the military plus the Fatria y • Libertad (Fatherland and Freedom) a fascist para-military organisation.

There are also a few primadonnas like H. Tuane a psychologist and "academic" doing research into psychological torture, plus a few practical Brazilians who came to fame with their use of dentists' drills people's teeth in to people's teeth Brazil.

The CIA is also believed to have acted in an advisory capacity, with Walter Rauff, an old German Nazi leader to complete the spectrum.

SOLIDARITY

1976 saw a shift in the Junta's tactics of repression thanks to international solidarity actions which exposed the regime's barbarism, and some of the Junta's friends became increasingly embarassed, notably the President of the United States.

Thus in January 1976 the Junta passed a decree, "protecting human rights"; it received its reward in May of that year when US treasury secretary Simon granted it $90 million economic aid. Further indirect aid was received through US financial institutions making a grand total of $1.8 billion.

From then on, the Junta developed a tendency towards a two-pronged method of repression: first, secret prisoners, and second prisoners on trumped up charges of being common criminals, thus reducing the official statistics for political prisoners.

Chile's secret prisoners have become the norm rather than isolated cases. In January 1974, 37% of prisoners who were arrested Butcher Pinochet. then disappeared.

By August of the same year over 50% had "disappeared" Readers who would like more detailed information about this should obtain the recent pamphlet, "Chile's Secret Prisoners" from the Chile Committee for Human Rights: Cambridge Terrace, London NW1.

In March this year eight young Chilean workers were arrested in Santiago. Their •names are: Fernando Espinosa, Ulises Galardo A., Eliseo Abally G, Eugenio Bizama C, Luis Quilodran M, Roberto Vazquez D, Raul Jimenez R, and Mario Victor Leivo Castro.

They were handed over to the DINA and savagely tortured for year.

Hartlepool has has no control six years longer than non-attenders.

for this reason, they have tended to take a back seat on the fight for even the most basic preventative measures.

Tooth decay, which particularly affects sweet eating children could be prevented by establishing sensible eating habits and by fluoridation of water. Yet while doctors have been extensively involved in fighting to cut cigarette advertising, most dentists seem happy to tolerate the damage done to children's teeth by advertising from Mars. Rowntree. Cadbury and four days, at half hourly intervals throughout 24 hours. The wives of the prisoners who were also incarcerated, were threatened with being raped by the torturers in front of their husbands.

Inspite of these young • men being accused by a major Chilean newspaper of being political prisoners, the Military Fiscal handed them over to the anonymity of Santiago's civil prison.

As yout paper has had a much more consistant position on defending human rights than many papers with many times your resources we hope that you will once again give practical assistance in publishing the names of these eight young men.

Hackney Branch of the National Union of Public Employees has acted swiftly in attempting to gain further information as to their treatment.

We hope all your readers in the labour movement, through their trade unions, political parties, Students Unions or Solidarity Committees where they exist will Pubta wit know that to that the world is aware of their barbarism and that one day they must account for their crimes in full.

Nick Beeton Hackney and Stoke Newington Labour Party.

And only 200 dentists have even bothered to join the Fluoridation Society-while even less are actively fighting for fluoridation.

Figures show that most dentists are also allowing gum disease to rob adult patients of their teeth.

Only one patient in eight who attends a dentist is given instructions as to how to brush their teeth to prevent gum disease-there is no fee payable for such elementary preventative measures.

What is needed to ensure that the dental service is made available to those in need of treatment is a full-scale attack on the professional monopoly of the BDA. This requires a programme that will:

1)End all cuts in health and education. Massively expand the force of trained dentists and those able to carry out the basic educational work needed for preventive medicine. 2) Eliminate the piecework system and substitute a salaried service for dentists with the NHS, administered under the control of elected trade union committees. 3) An end to private practice

GANG

It's been a long time since Fleet Street has been so free with its venom.

Unabashed by doubts that the cast at the National Theatre might not fit the roles assigned them, the national press waded in to the strike there last week with enthusiasm.

The strike was straightforward. Management wanted to remove a plumber who was standing by union demarcation procedures, in the hope that they could allow union agreements to sink to the same level as the appailing back stage conditions at the theatre.

The Daily Telegraph in a long, sarcastic piece, ignored all this. Under a heading 'A Lean and Angry Look, it preferred to concentrate on the real issues-the fact that the plumber (Ralph Cooper) is fat, and that the shop steward (Konrad Fredericks) is thin.

*AS he strides about the concrete complex on the South Bank, the words Junus Caesars, ne of the current productions) the "Jean and hungry look» of a Cassius of whom Caesar said "such men are dangerous".

Fredericks gets the full treatment "former understudy in nude review. confirmed Trotskyist" and even his attempts to avoid speaking to the Telegraph are seized on as evidence of his evil intent.

Under pressure form the press to produce some kind of statement the strike committee went to nearby cafe and drew one up. They needn't have bothered The statement the Telegraph had clamoured for is described thus:

"It was signed NT Strike Committee, and headed National Association of Theatrical, Tele. vision and Kine Employees, the men's union which has incidentally condemned the unofficial dispute.

Part of the statement was couched in traditional lett wing jargon, describing the management's action as "a campaign of harassment'.

Other papers dealt with it more briefly but no less viciously. In the Daily Express it was «Theatre of the Absurd"-"Enter far left, Trotskyist union boss Kon Fredericks On the day the strike ended the Express headed its piece "Curtain Down on the Strike Farce".

"The National Theatre's long running farce Washbasins will finally close today."

The piece quoted GLC Arts Committee Chairman Bernard Brook Partridge, as saying "I was not elected to be a bottomless purse for anarchy.

The Mail and the Guardian also ran vicious 'funnies' about the strike.

This campaign was unusual in one respect. It was partly as a result of the press mauling-and the appeals to dollars and marks that were being forfeit-that the union officials felt able to move against the strikers, threatening to sack them from the union (a move which would have been followed presumably by them being sacked from their jobs).

John Wilson, General Secretary of NATTKE said:

"The strikers wanted nothing short of unconditional surrender. No management is going to tolerate that."

The National Theatre gang with its pseudo liberal management, headed by £26,000 a year director Peter Hall, big name scabs and a seemingly determined strike leadership provided the right conditions for Fleet Street to find themselves a pantomime demon king.

Perhaps the saddest quote came from Michael Bryant, the actor who plays Lenin in State and Revolution at the National. From the back of the crowd he meekly remarked: There doesn't seem much we can

----- pull-quotes -----

Letter: | Dear Comrades,