SOUTH AMERICA

The new ideological battleground?

ALISTAIR HORNE

When I left Bogota, my last port of call in South America, the city was in the process of being taken apart by red students. Only a freak hailstorm of quite astonishing pot- ency, which took the stuffing out of the demonstrators, probably averted serious bloodshed and havoc. As it was, during a week of rioting which brought down a 'state of siege' throughout Colombia, over a dozen students were killed and several scores injured; one wretched policeman was captured and purportedly tortured by fire by his captors. Barely a line of all this appeared in any British newspaper.

Of course, in itself, mayhem in a country where traditionally there flows a stronger than average undercurrent of violence may not be news in itself. But what is news is the profound ideological struggle of which the troubles in Colombia represent just the smoke of the volcano. It is not in Southeast Asia, the Middle East or Africa that the bat- tle of the 'seventies seems likely to be waged, but in South America. The contest is now no longer primarily between the knights of the CIA and the MVD, or between the church and the oligarchs and commu- nism. Things have moved on. The line-up is now more between the rival factions of Marxists, and between the conservative church and the revolutionary priests. Here, one feels, may well be the battleground where the orthodoxy of Soviet 'communism will triumph definitively over Maoism, or vice versa.

Of the four principal Andean countries, over the past two years three—Chile. Peru and Bolivia—have had more drastically left- wing revolutions than anything -in the past hundred and fifty years of their stormy existence. Only Colombia remains the odd man out, one of the handful of democracies still surviving in South America; but pro- foundly uncertain of itself, and with inter- nal stresses quite likely to blow it apart with-, in the next four years.

Chile is, of course, the most interesting and in its own way the most attractive— and now the saddest—of the four. In the past it was always traditionally pointed to as the exemplary democratic, intelligent and stable one among all the Latin American nations. (It was also perhaps the most bureaucratic—the only country I know where street urchins ply you, not with porn- ography, but with copies of the latest law.) Over the past years the us, in the hopes of enlightened Chile leading the procession to paradise, has poured in more aid money than anywhere else.

Then, as everybody now knows, last autumn Chile became the first country ever to elect a Marxist president in a free poll. The astonished right wing assumed at first that, inevitably, Dr Allende would have to consolidate his slender majority by resorting to unconstitutional practices; which would, equally inevitably, bring about intervention by Chile's constitution-minded artily. But the army has not acted, and shows no signs of doing so; Allende has surprised every- body by moving far more rapidly and ruth- lessly towards the total socialisation of Chile, and—so far—without in any way offend- ing the constitution. The dense framework

of laws inherited from past bureaucratic governments has already enabled him (and here is a lesson that smug Britons could well study), in less than five months, to go far towards breaking the power of the oppo- sition press—especially that of El Mercurio, formerly one of the most redoubtable papers in South America. It is reckoned, too, that shortly only three or four out of Santiago's twenty-nine radio stations will remain inde- pendent of the ruling Unidad Popular. Al- lende seems about to achieve a strangle- hold on private banking; virtual expropria- tion of the us-owned copper companies is now accepted as a matter of course; take- overs of farms under land reform are being vastly accelerated, and incursions against other forms of private property are expected momentarily.

But it is below and beyond the level of government activity that things are really happening in Chile Dr Allende's junior partner in the coalition, the Communist party, perhaps the most orthodoxly Musco- vite in the western world, is behaving if any- thing even more properly that he and his left- wing Socialists. One good reason for this is that Moscow has its eyes on Italy and France, particularly the former, where the formation of a new 'Popular Front' govern- ment would obviously draw encouragement from the success of the UP in Chile, through the good democratic conduct of the Commu- nist component within it. But, at lower levels, the party is vigorously and effectively infiltrating its functionaries into every seg- ment of Chilean bureaucracy. At this rate, a Moscow Communist takeover from below is a distinct possibility before the next presiden- tial elections are held (if they are) in just under six years' time.

On the extreme flank of the 'official' Com- munist party and playing their separate way- out game are the various Peking and Havana-orientated bodies, headed by the MIR (Movement of the Revolutionary Left Wing). The Chilean counterpart of the Tuna- maros, MIR was conceived (the pun is unin- tentional) at Concepcion University, Chile's biggest revolutionary hotbed, some five years ago. Worshipping Mao and Che, their dedi- cation to violent_ revolution as the only solution for South America has brought them in the past to armed clashes with the Soviet Communists. The Muscovites con- demn Che:type guerrilla ops as 'infantile disorders', while the MIR regard them—in their current policy of non-violent penetra- tion—as crypto-bourgeois and craven traitors to the revolution.

The MIR bestows on Allende a mixture of tolerance and impatience; in turn, the gov- ernment have been directing a blind eye on the MIR'S activities, pretending to outsiders that they do not exist. True to the teachings of Che, the MIR is concentrating on the pea- sants, the campesinos, and in the state of nigh-anarchy existing in the Chilean country- side since Allende took over it has been having a heyday. The mia technique is to stir up the cam pesinos, then to grab farms and evict the owners before the slower- moving machinery of Chonchol's legal land reform can get there. On the seized proper- ties, the wit sets up its own 'revolutionary' administrations. So far Allende and Choni chol have seen fit to ride the back of the tiger, ordering the carabineros on no account to .intervene in the MIR'S doings; apparently in the risky belief that this 'agita- tion', by demoralising landowners, will assist their own programmes.

In his recent interview with Allende, given great prominence by the Sunday Times, Regis Debray declared that the farm owners of southern Chile 'are armed and are pro- voking violent confrontations with the wor- kers on the land.' Allende did not demur at this interpretation of events, and it seems clear that his government is now accepting this typically Marxist excuse of 'provoca- tion' to allow the MIR to continue to go its own way (perhaps even more ominous was Allende's ensuing reply to Debray: 'We shall meet reactionary violence with revolutionary violence, because we know that they are going to break the rules').

Having just visited a dozen or so farms in southern Chile, I would say that the Debray-Allende thesis is complete fantasy; most farmers have little more than a rusty shotgun or sporting rifle which they are far too frightened to use.

mut's long-term aims are twofold; to effect the political concientizacion of the peasants, and to prepare a pre-guerrilla base, a kind of 'Free Chile', in the event of a right-wing counter-revolution against All- ende—which they regard as an historic cer- tainty. 'Civil war in Chile is inevitable.' one miaista leader assured me in southern Chile. ht this particular district the MIR claims al- ready to have established itself over a vast area of roughly a million acres; high up in dense Andean rain-forests near the sensitive Argentina frontier, the most ideal guerrilla territory I have ever seen. At the same time, there was no mistaking how effectively the fervid-eyed, highly articulate young men (and women) are 'getting at' the simple cam- pesinos in this especially backward part of Chile.

For the time being, it is in Chile that the doctrines of Mao and Che are perceptibly succeeding, after their disastrous setbacks in Bolivia and other parts of rural South America. But Allende's permissive society is, at present, uniquely favourable to them.

The other Andean countries are of course profoundly influenced by events in Chile, and certain trends are similar. In Peru, Col- ombia and Bolivia the pro-Chinese and Cast- roist guerrillas have all been roundly defeat- ed by the national armies, having failed—as Che did—to arouse support among the camp- &nos. In Bolivia T met one of the survivors of the seventy students who went into the jungle last summer, out of sheer 'lyricism' in the memory of Che; only a handful came back.

Of the three separate guerrilla networks operating in Colombia, the most effective has been the Soviet-controlled FARC. This has now evidently received orders from Moscow to disengage from the rural areas, and concentrate on peacefully building up cells in the cities for the coming political struggle. The same trends are detectable in both Peru and Bolivia, where guerrilla acti- vity is also temporarily at a standstill.

Perhaps the greatest long-term hope for the Maoists emanates from Colombia where a group of revolutionary Catholic priests, the `Golcondas', maddened by the slow tempo of social reform, have thrown in their lot with the guerrillas. The current national hero among the Colombian students is a young priest called Camilo Torres who was

killed in guerrilla operations (some Colom- bians reckon he was in fact knocked off by the communists themselves, as a convenient martyr). There are similar revolutionary groups within the church in most South American countries, and success here could well provide the Maoists with the 'base' which Ch6 failed to find among the Bolivian peasants—and obviously a far more impos- ing one.

But by and large the Maoist-Castroist the- sis continues to lose ground throughout the continent. If the Moscow-line faithfuls, en- couraged by their constitutional triumph last autumn in Chile. are moving to the towns to pursue the non-violent erosion of 'bourgeois' regimes, it seems too that—by merit of the outstanding successes of the Tupamaros in urban Uruguay—in course of time the 'Pekingese' (as they are dubbed in La Paz) may everywhere move their more violent operations towards the urban centres. The probability is that the cities will be the stage for the next phase in the ideological battle for South America.

Meanwhile, what is the non-Marxist op- position up to? In Chile, it is getting out. It is certainly not aiming `to break the rules', as Allende alleged to Debray. As a heartless wit in Bogota remarked: 'The cowards are leaving, the idiots staying.' Chileans have been queueing up at a rate of 500 a day outside the Australian consulate alone. And of those prepared to risk being 'idiots', the Christian Democrats and the National party Will still not speak to each other. Despite the dreadful lesson of last autumn, there is no prospect in sight of any anti-Allende coalition. The story is the same elsewhere; When I remarked on the divisiveness of the Chileans to the editor of a leading Colom- bian newspaper he threw up his hands and exclaimed, 'How unbelievable!' Yet that same day his own columns were full Of iden- tical non-speaks between the Colombian Conservatives and Liberals—and they too are confronted with the spectre of a powerful left-wing coalition abuilcling which, in the 1974 elections, might easily sweep through in the breach between the two 'bourgeois' Parties, as did Allende.

As if this were not enough in these dan- gerous times, Colombia is crazily hotting up an international petroleum dispute against her one and only democratic neighbour, Venezuela; squandering to this purpose her limited foreign reserves on two untried Ger- man submarines and a score of exorbitant French Mirages, which she can hardly hope to use against students or turbulent priests.

As for the United States, bruised and baffled by Allende's victory and the universal deepening of anti-Yanquismo in return for all the king's ransom of misplaced dollars and goodwill that has been poured into South America, Nixon in his low profile' Policy is doing the only thing he possibly can do—keeping his head down. The cancel- lation of the uss 'Enterprise' visit to Val- Paraiso was a misguided piece of petulance, about as effective as Princess Margaret stam- P!ng her foot at .de Gaulle when the Gen., eral first said 'non' to Britain. On balance, however, it seems likely that the us will countenance the copper companies being swallowed up with a few growls, and will Permit Allende to marxify Chile without sending him to a Cuban limbo.

Alistair Home, former Guards officer and foreign correspondent of the 'Daily Tele- graph' is a prolific author who won the Haw- thornden Prize in 1963