National Coordinating Center in Solidarity with Chile

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National Coordinating Center in Solidarity with Chile was a United States organization that supported Chile.

"Less than two weeks before his assassination, Orlando Letelier was speaking at an event organized by the National Coordinating Center in Solidarity with Chile, Chile Democratico and the Chile Committee for Human Rights, at Madison Square Garden which featured Joan Baez and Pete Seeger. And many of those who have sung in a new musical for honda humanosJackson rights Browne and Sting, among otroscantaron of Chile and Pinochet."[1]

The Chile letter

On August 1 1979 Thirty-five U.S. Congressmen signed a letter[2]to President Jimmy Carter demanding that private bank loans to Chile be barred unless the Chilean government chose to extradite three military officials, including the former director of the Chilean intelligence service. The three had been indicted for complicity in the assassination of marxist Unidad Popular government member and KGB agent Orlando Letelier and the killing of Institute for Policy Studies (IPS) staffer Ronni Moffitt in 1976.

In May 1978 the Chief Justice of the Chilean Supreme Court rejected the U.S. request for extradition.

Chief sponsor of the letter was Rep. Tom Harkin (D-IA), who was joined by Congressmen John Burton (D-CA), John Conyers (D-MI), Robert Kastenmeier (D-WI), Ron Dellums (D-CA), Berkley Bedell (D-IA), Richard Ottinger (D-NY), Fred Richmond (D-NY), Robert Drinan (D-MA), Leon Panetta (D-CA), Don Edwards (D-CA); Norman Mineta (D-CA), Pete Stark (D-CA}, Anthony Beileson (D-CA) George Brown (D-CA), Toby Moffett (D-CT), Dale Kildee (D-MI), Eugene Atkinson (D-PA), Michael Barnes (D-MD), David Bonior (D-MI), Adam Benjamin (D-IN), William Brodhead (D-MI), Robert Carr (D-MI), Tom Daschle (D-SD), Tom Downey (D-NY), Harold Hollenbeck (R-NJ), Pete Kostmayer (D-PA), Stewart McKinney (R-CT), Edward Markey (D-MA), Andrew Maguire (D-NJ) Richard Nolan (DFL-MN), Gerry Studds (D-MA), Bruce Vento (DFL-MN) and Howard Wolpe (D-MI).

The Harkin letter characterized the Chilean government as "an enemy of the American people" and urged the President to "take strong action against this terrorist government." The letter was released (9 A.M. on August 1 1979) at the same time a press statement from the Washington, DC, Chile Legislative Center of the National Coordinating Center in Solidarity with Chile, staffed by veterans of the Venceremos Brigade and the Communist Party USA, supported the Congressional letter and urged pressure so that the State Department does not accept a military trial of the three Chileans in Chile as a substitute for extradition and trial in the US

Second National Conference in Solidarity with Chile

On February 8 and 9, 1975, the Second National Conference in Solidarity with Chile was held at Concordia Teachers College in the Chicago suburb of River Forest. Known Communist Party USA members sponsoring the event included Bert Corona [3]

"In February of 1975, an ITT spy boarded a bus in New York with 18 other persons headed for the Second National Conference in Solidarity with Chile, which was going to be held at Concordia College in River Forest, Illinois. An ITT surveillance photographer had snapped 11 photographs of the delegation as they boarded the bus. The photographs, a memo identifying the people photographed, and an eight page report on the conference itself eventually turned up in the files of the Chicago Police Red Squad...

The 12-member mission went to Chile in February of 1974 and returned to write a report that charged "flagrant violations of human rights, systematic use of terror and torture, economic chaos and strong evidence of U.S. involvement in the coup." Upon her return, Doris Strieter joined the Chicago Committee to Save Lives in Chile. "After going down there, there was no way I could remain uninvolved," she said. As chairwoman of the Chicago Committee, Doris Strieter co-sponsored the Second National Conference in Solidarity with Chile. Other organizers included Congressman Andrew Young, Gloria Steinem, and scores of religious, trade union and community leaders."[4]

External links

References

  1. ↑ The Pinochet case: Lessons from 30 years of a transnational fight against impunity, Institute for Policy Studies, Virginia M. Bouvier
  2. ↑ Information Digest August 10 1979 p 244
  3. ↑ Hearings before the Subcommittee to investigate the administration of the Internal Security Act, U.S. Senate, 94th congress part 2 July, 1975 (page 182)
  4. ↑ The Hunt for Red Menace
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