Those of you who know little of her story will be impressed with the rigor in the determination with which she continues her work and out of her husband's Orlando to tell ye she and her four Sons continue to live in Washington DC which was their home for many years. Before the overthrow of the Allende Administration for what your husband Orlando was the ambassador to the United States and then again as Exiles after his release from one year's imprisonment under the military dictatorship.Orlando letelier was assassinated one year ago in Washington DC by a bomb placed in his car. He was driving to work with his young American assistant. Ronnie Moffett who was also killed the Assassins has still not been brought to Justice. Isabel to tell ye works on courageously as a fellow at The Institute for policy studies, she continues her work to restore democracy and chili. She's president of the chili human rights committee accomplished sculptress has taught Spanish at Georgetown University. Now, I'm sure the nights and days run together for her with her added family responsibilities, but her love for chili has an able to carry on without bitterness and I'm especially happy to present to you. My friends are most remarkable woman Isabel the today Thank you very much. Thank you very much. And I want to thank Reverend Pew for his warm. Welcome and the Mayflower Congregational Church for having us together tonight. Also, I want to thank specially my dear friends from clergy and laity concerned who have invited me for the second time to Minneapolis. I was here doing the summer also. They have done such a consistent work on human rights issues for the past years that they deserve all your appreciation. A year has gone by. since my husband Orlando letelier on my very dear friend Ronnie karpen Moffitt were assassinated in the streets of the capital of this big big country. A terrible year in some ways. a wonderful year and some others I have experience grief and pain and loneliness and also so much support from the most unexpected places and people. I have gained a strength I never had before. And sometimes I feel so young. Filled with determination and I thank God for that. It's been a year of bitterness also. sometimes Michael Moffett and I Have had to witness unbelievable events in front of our eyes like the day when we saw Pinochet the dictator of Chile. threading in the streets of Washington coming into the Chilean Embassy. That was our home. Doing 1970 to 1973. And then Pinochet invited to the White House by President Carter the champion of Human Rights together with so many other dictators of Latin America. It was as so realistic View. for Michael Moffitt and I We have seen other. things that are much rewarding and encouraging in February with sobriety Tyson's United States delegate in Geneva the violations of human rights in Chile. And that was a beautiful thing to witnessed when he said that United States with the new Administration was not only going to sponsor the resolution. That condemned the violations of human rights of the military coup in Chile, but also he wanted to apologize for the US intervention in the school that we had in 1973. Orlando said the night before he was assassinated. Pinochet killed in September Michael Moffett and Ronnie karpen Moffitt that where his colleagues at The Institute for policy studies. We're having dinner that night with us. Anor Londo brought a copy of the decree in which his nationality has been deprived. He said this document saves my life for a year. And Michael Moffett and Ronnie. We're very surprised to hear that and they wanted an explanation. Anor Londo proceeded to say that he had received a letter. from a person close to the Punta in which They told him that they had been a discussion within the Kunta a long discussion for 6 months. A group wanted to deprive him of his nationality another group headed by General Pinochet. Wanted to kill him. On with sadness in his eyes by trying to laugh. He said this decree that deprives me of my nationality gives me another year of life because fortunately the dogs one. And Michael said why another year on Orlando reminded him that the coup in which our president was killed and in which so many many Chileans were killed in September 73 and in September 74 general practice lawyer constitutional Democratic General that had been expelled from the country and was living in Argentina was machine gun and a bomb was put in his car. And he was killed together with his wife Sophia and in 1975 and his wife were shot. They were not cute fortunately, but the wife is paralyzed. God will never recover and he is in a very weak condition because he was shot in his head. Orlando said that September was almost over on the 20th of September last year, but next day he was killed also. How come Orlando Latin are a refugee in this country? was killed there is an investigation and I will tell you later about it. 4 Chilean inside and outside of Chili's has been another year of Life under the barbaric rule of a rooster peanut Jay and his hundt of provincial despots. the murders Have abated somewhat. Through all the solidarity that we have received around the world. The international pressure on International organizations that constant annunciations you have heard our companero Kenny saying that in order they have a solidarity committee with chili and everywhere you go. You will find the Chileans that works at the work spell from the country and the solidarity that has grown around them. It's like that for us is like feeling that the Earth has grown like a big heart and we find the solidarity everywhere. You will hear. We sang many times the word solidarity tonight. The illegal imprisonment also have decreased. But let us not forget that more than 100,000 Patriots 1% of Chile's population and do the electric shocks and other tortures that have become routine in the contest prisons that more than 20,000 Chileans have been forced into exile to escape the torture and imprisonment. Let us also be aware of the thousands and thousands that leave the country constantly not only for political reasons, but for economic reasons due to the tremendous and horrible economic policy that the hunter has implanted in our country and Lance waiting hoping and struggling and we have taken a determination and we are going to be loud. We have democracy for too long in our country. I don't know if you are aware of the differences between the history of different countries in Latin America, but she was one of those fortunate countries that never had dictators and whoever and wherever we were able to exercise democracy for so long. We never had over Thrones. We never killed President and we were extremely cloud and perhaps too arrogant. But when you have had something for so long. You don't forget overnight and you don't forget it because you are tortured or because you are arrested or because you are expelled from your country on the country that makes you feel even more sure that's what's going on. It's absolutely bad and wrong and has to be corrected. Intersection of only has killed torture and it raised his opponents, but also has created a vile. Commercial system with a political prisoners he uses them as political hostages at every time he releases a group he declares that he has released all political prisoners. He has released all political prisoners several times to doing this for years and every time he makes his announcement is because he wants alone. From a bank from International Bank or because there's going to be an international meeting someplace in the world. We repudiate this procedure and we ask the immediate release of the 300 prisoners that they acknowledge. We know that I'm more than that and we demand the immediate release of Carlos lasso and Eric's naked and Raul Vergara and a smile all these people have visas in this country. All these people have had sentences given to them and the Honda has promised that a person that has a sentence can apply for expulsion provided. They have a Visa in a foreign country and these people have visas for 1 year and a half and they are not released. But it is not new to most of you hear that the Chilean Kunta is repressive. The name of Pinochet has became a symbol of repression. That finishes rule is based on murder and torture is not news that every year the Kunta rule is the worst of years and that each terrible year of Pinochet. Forces our memories to become even more Lucid to those beautiful years on Navarre Road to socialism. It's also a truth. I wish it were possible for me. To convey here the image of the Chilean people those first months. Of the agenda government when they felt that for the first time in their lives, they had a government of Their Own. I am the most collected after many. unsuccessful campaigns to be a president He was seconded a three times before. And in 1970 when he was elected, he was not a new person in the Chilean political reality and he was very well known by the American companies who owned our wealth in Chile our cover mining. Arianda nationalized our national wealth and we became the owners of our country. the nationalization of copper Was one of the few issues in which all the political groups and all the inhabitants of the country agreed upon. We had been working to rid ourselves of for international monopolies to control our International Trade to nationalised Banks to bring about a real Land Reform an above all that is what we wanted to recover our national resources the vast mineral wealth within our territory that I've never belonged to us before. We wanted to put an end within the borders of our country today in equality. We wanted to have a more just for distribution of the wealth in our country. Is that a crime? Is that a crime that deserves? criticism abroad Easter egg crime when you know that 60% of the people in Latin America are practically starving for your standards. We thought it was a legitimate. cost and we elected again. Because that is what we wanted. We had been potentially Rich for so long. And so so poor an hour pools were told that they were poor because they were lazy. And no matter how much they worth. they were each day more for president Allende at the first step. started many health programs like the milk program each child in the country was to receive a half liter of milk everyday. And every woman that was pregnant was to receive half liter of milk everyday free, of course. I'm facing Radical Face with a gun to carry all these programs and the workers led the process of transformation the poor people of the country and of the city the Forgotten and exploited regain their dignity and began to direct the government of their country. and the churches that traditionally in other places have left when they see that social changes are going to take place. decided to remain and they remain together with a pool. And they witnessed first-hand all the social changes that were taken by this new government. They were there a little bit us judges. To see what was going to happen. They were reluctant at first to cooperate with many of the programs the milk program and health clinics. And the marble schools and the train of Health explain that we are very poor. So we used a train to bring health and Doctor along the country. and the church Likes all those problems I would say the churches. And they cooperate with us. On the first anniversary. I mean the first 1st of May that is Labor Day for us in Chile. We had all the churches together with the workers. and the Cardinal said Here we are the Church of the carpenter together with the other workers. I want to quote some words from president Allende. He said those who live by their work having their hands today, the political direction of the state. It is a supreme responsibility. The building of the new Society is based on the people who are its protagonist and it's charged. It is up to the state to guide organize and direct but never replace the wheel of the work. Either you can or make as well as in the political field the workers must retained the right to decide to attend. This means the trials of the revolution and rotation. And the people of Chile will never forget the feeling of power of dignity and self-respect. They will never forget their for the resistance exist. It expresses itself although in nonviolent. but persistent Act of defiance we had been criticized. Because we did not arm the people in Chile during the government. We have been criticized by other groups that I ended went too fast. That if he hadn't done things too fast, perhaps you wouldn't have been overthrown. But I am the dealer for the people had asked him to do. And that's why they had voted him. An hour resistance is the same as our government. We wanted to prove that you can make social changes by a non violent. Buy a democratic way. We sailed. Unfortunately for an intervention made it possible for people to say that it is impossible to attain social changes through a democratic way, but we are stubborn and now we are resistant in a nonviolent way. Are we want ounces everywhere? What constant? exercise of our Democratic spirit keeping alert been informed inside and outside the country. to restore democracy again in Chile, and we hope that this time No, foreign intervention would prevent us of doing it on the contrary. We hope that all the Democratic forces in the world will help us Democratic people to rest our dignity. The burning of books with author dated back to the sixteenth Century true that the reaction had to attack and try to erase from records. Not only contemporary socialist ideas that date back to Marx and Engels and they were top bands of the 18th and 19th century, but that had to erase The enlightenment itself because the very notion of Liberty equality and fraternity makes Pinochet and his Apes. shutter in place of the people's government duly elected and re-elected in by-elections game. It's an physicist once again and shroud. It is happening in Chile. Is New Breed of generous however does not represent ignorant feudal monarchs. most of our military including all four members of the Kunta I'm also the director of our evil secret police. Call Dina and the name of the man is Coronel Manuel Contreras all these people. Play so many generals and Colonels. They were all trained in US military academies. But behind the generals and Admirals with cynical Smiles direct beneficiary of the coup. flooring companies when the 20 Century alone at Saks from Chile more than the total accumulation of national wealth angry businessman from our country and landowners from our country. Was hunting grounds had become face and farmland Union day. You have all heard how TI TNT offered the million dollars to the CIA. To get rid of high-end. Do you know as much as I do of the details of US Government participation in the cool and of the disability station effort and if you want to know more about it, Senator Church undertook an investigation and you can write to the Senate and ask for the report. in order to destabilize you must resume a stable government and indeed president Allende in spite of all the problems and all the mistakes because perhaps we were too fast in increasing the salaries of the people and to fasten having Food available to them but they wanted to eat and they age for the first time. Meat for instance and they like it very much and they wanted to eat everyday. Indeed Chile was and remains a stabilized through for an intervention. Doors has been very open to foreign capital. In such a way that Sheila had to Wade through from the Indian pact for many other Latin American countries along because the other countries did not agree with the generous offers that the Kunta we're doing to foreign capital. Trade unions were abolished political parties Outlaw. Wages Frozen or reduced price controls abandoned. And the military government following the prescription of the Milton Friedman School. Retreated to Elizabethton English economics combined with a nineteenth-century economic Darwinism. indeed Pinochet favored the wealthiest Apes The pool and the workers were most affected by this new economic model and in the first year of military rule the low-income group lost 75% of their purchasing power. The churches have witnessed all days. And they had been the most extraordinary instrument in keeping the Spirit Alive in our country. The amount of mail distributed to Children between ages 9 to 15 degrees from 40000 tons in 1972 to 25 tons in 1975. And religious groups how to organize more than 30,000 children suit cafeterias. As soon as the coup took place. We read in the papers incredible news. And we heard in the radio or friends would call and we learned that priests were being killed. And we couldn't understand why I thought it was just in the chaos of those first days that that was happening. But very soon it became clear that was going to be a pattern. Got a dictatorship, like the one that rules in Chile could not allow people that would stand up and speak on behalf of the poor of the unemployed of Arrested of the tortured of the dispossessed. They could not stand people denouncing violations of human rights. The churches were very efficient and they organized at committee for peace and acumenical committee formed by the Jewish the Protestants and the Catholics. And they began to keep the records of all the political prisoners that were in the country, but they did not do a bureaucratic job because at the same time they were visiting and risking their lives visiting the families of the arrested people or visiting the concentration camps and sometimes being badly hurt. By the guards at the entrances of this place. Orlando was sent to a prisoner's camp in the southern part of Chilli together with other cabinet members. He was sent to Dawson Island any famous island on the mega last race for the phone to organize and underdeveloped concentration camp. Over there they were Bound to Die. if it wasn't for international solidarity that sent people from the Red Cross International and went there and visited the place and announce it and international meetings. August group would have died over there. but at the same time the community for peace specially the Cardinal Sylvan Rodriguez realize that these people were being treated as animals through the reports. We received from Red Cross International. And he managed to send a young priest there. Anor Londo told me many times after he was released the meaning of the stay of this young priest. She told us many many times that these trees arrive in the island scared to death. He was a priest from a province. And there he was in front of these dangerous marxists. And he only had his gospel. understand your smartest decided they were going to rebuild a little church. That existed in that Island since the 18th century because the island had belong in the past to a congregate religious congregation. And then they are they where the prisoners. But we're under forced labor and got permission to work two hours daily in the Reconstruction of his church. And this little priest was working with them. And they were talking. About their families and he was treating them like people. And that meant so much for them. They were not allowed to use their names in that concentration camp. They could only use their numbers and they wear treated by the military with the most horrible and dirty words and this man this priest. Was talking to them like persons. Very soon the military authorities realized all the strengths that the prisoners were regaining through the contact with this priest and they put the screws out of the island and they never sent anybody again to any concentration camp. They never allowed any religious person to visit the camps. It is a trend in Latin America. It is the same pattern so many places. The church is being persecuted my brothers and sisters. And we don't hear and United States prayers said for them. In Argentina Bishop was killed Monsignor. Angelelli. He was killed in a back road. I need to know why. Two priests were killed in front of their Bishop. I'm Boris naked bodies of seminaries have appeared in the La Plata River in Central America so many priests and nuns have been killed and tortured. onion chili American priest Holy Cross priests have been tortured and have been expelled from the country. I'm churches of all denominations have had mercies of their members in Chile. I would like to have more people praying for that marvelous tasks that they are doing. They have decided to remain. at the side of the workers and I think that's for the first time they feel very very fulfilled in the mission. There's so much you could do for them. They need your prayers and they need your economic help. There's some congregations here who have been extremely helpful. I spoke recently to the sisters of Loretto. in their unwanted meeting and they decided to send $18,000 to the work of a church there to the Baker Act of solidarity. Because the committee for peace became so important and so effective at the hunter closed it and the lawyers that were working in that committee were sent to jail. And the fries were also imprisoned there for the Catholic church. That is the largest church in Chile decided to do all the work. All the churches within the Catholic church, and they created a vehicle yet Especial bakery called the recreator solidarity. And they have followed up the same kind of work, but they are doing each day more. They have created workshops and they have Little Farms when they can provide with food and with work to the unemployed because anybody that has been in a concentration camp anybody that has been a political prisoner cannot find work afterwards and unemployment rate is such that in the construction field. For instance. It reaches a 40% of unemployment. Those are the conditions existing in Chile now. Orlando dedicated his life to building socialist democracy in Chile 1 with reflected aspiration of the working people. On September 11th 1973. He was arrested tortured and imprisoned on Thousand Island. But he was released Winter National Treasure in Orlando came to the United States for us director of the transnational Institute of the institute for policy studies. He wrote spoke unhealthy from the American people about the links between political repression. torture and the economic model imposed by the Hunter an economy that fattens the reach and leave the hungry to Star must create a repressive apparatus at his only means of governing. Orlando explain this to State Department officials to legislators to people and Banks and institutions. That belong to the International Community. And he was fighting. I'm trying to explain how important was to isolate the military junta. isolated economically and Military not to give them economic North Military Aid if people wanted to help the people in Chile if they think their foreign aid helps the people of Chile they are wrong. Tina has never received so much money since the coup. And we have never had this cases of starvation and of irreversible my location. If people want to help the people in Chile, they should do it. So the only organization that gives help to the people and that is the churches. Orlando wrote an article which was printed 3 weeks before his assassination and in which he demonstrated that peanuts are Economic Policy required repression and torture in order to be viable. political repression On an economic model are two faces of the same coin. He said only systematic persecution of the worker movement can allow the small of exploitation function and there is no point in listen atrocities. It has restored peace in Chile. Chilean Garden around Sylvan Rodriguez has said that it resembles the Peace of the graveyard. the organization of American states United Nations international organization of juries have all condemned the atrocities of the military junta And I want to emphasize the new method / Pinochet. I'm just method is causing people to disappear. a squad of man of man arrived in a house After the curfew hours, they knock on your door. They come in they refused to identify themselves and they take somebody from that family. And that person is never seen again. And the military authorities deny having detained that person and sometime they erase their name, even from the records that cases for mothers have gone to get a birth certificate and they have been told that no such person has ever existed. The squats that are raised Chileans have all been identified as Dennis quotes the secret police. the domestic estoppel bowing to pressure for cosmetic change General Pinochet has proclaimed now the dissolution of dinner the secret police and the creation in its place of the center for National Intelligence. The same organization with a different name. We don't know what name it will have tomorrow, but it is an organization that has more than 20,000 members and are not doing their job on volunteer basis that being paid very high salaries. That's why we request about economic boycott to the military Junta because that's the only way that this replacing a metal stand for On December 14th 1976 families of more than 480 trillion citizens who disappeared between September 73 and 76 Road in desperation to President Carter pleading for help on June 15th, 7724 women and two men went into a hunger strike in Santiago in the offices of United Nation. They have been waiting for news of their relatives for so long. the most basic right to bury your death 59 to them. They don't know if the relatives alive or dead. And their dramatic cases and I don't want to extend myself, but there's the case of the recovering family. And I have it to you as it has been percent at the United Nations to the general assembly this year. It says that none of your rosamunde Alvarado 22 years old the wife of Reese Emilio Gonzalez together with with Emilio Gonzalez and with Manuel Segundo Rec has a brother. Flash the father of these two brothers disappeared one day a nobody has heard from them again. the mother of the old record Baron has been searching in the morgue in hospitals in police stations. She has presented habeas corpus. She has sent letters to President Carter to the Queen of England to the Pope. Because it is impossible that her husband her two sons and her daughter-in-law pregnant 3 months pregnant, they all disappeared overnight. On cases like this. Are so many the most conservative figures. the cases reported by the Vickery Act of solidarity people that have been detained in front of witnesses amount to more than 900. We know that in all we may have 2,500 cases of disappeared people in Chile for a country of 10 million people. It is an incredible number. The wives of three of these disappeared persons have come to the United States. And they have brought their plea to the general assembly of United Nations. And they are going back to Chile next week. And that is an act of resistance that is our kind of resistance of defiance and the more things like this. We do the more we speak the more we do now. the more difficult for the Kunta to replace us that is Our decision it is a dangerous decision. I have to confess because sometimes you may be assassinated in the capital of United States. But for each person that falls the many many others that will keep on the same task. We are at this moment extremely helpful because we are leaving a different and new state in our struggle. It's true that Tinashe has been invited to have lobster at the White House, but it's true also that it will be very difficult for him to arrest his three women when she when they go back. And there are 800 union leaders that are sending letters to Pinochet and telling him that they are not going to accept his conditions in his promises of having elections in 1985. They're not willing to help and they are stating so in a document with their number that with their names. Under 350 students who have sent letters to Pinochet also saying that they are not willing to grow in a country without freedom. All this gestures might be supported more than ever. They are very tender Sprouts of the spirit that is alive in Chile. No matter what, but they are tender Sprout and must be supported more than ever by your solidarity. We have 90% of the Chilean people opposed. Twitter title ship a Christian democracy with a center party and who has always been decisive. It was the size of the sea Savannah cool. I know we wanted and we're waiting to hear their voices. And they have come up with a document on October 6th. They have issue a document saying they want restoration of democracy right away. And they are not willing to accept this military regime anymore. So when we say that 90% of the population is opposed to the military Kunta it's because we know how to add all our forces. In some countries of the world the masses of people are experiencing the best of time in the newly freed nations of Africa and Asia that people are states think some of the benefits of years of struggle. Animals of Latin America countries are suffering the worst of years. Names like Tinashe from Argentina Mendez of Uruguay Samosa from Nicaragua duvalier from Haiti will be remembered in the history books by Philip and most brutal. figures in the centuries of colonial and Imperial rule I don't think the American people want to be remembered as the supporters of those evil regimes. The names of iron Durant and Victor Carter and Enrique is another equivalent. In other countries will be remembered as Martyrs a scary little flight Andresen. and the American Martyrs the Americans that the hunter killed in Chilean in Washington will have a special place also and let me remind you. That's filmmaker Charles Horman. An American citizen was murdered by the Chilean Kunta because he had accidentally discovered us complicity in the murder of Chile's loyalists General Schneider. That was assassination of General Schneider took place in 1972 days after election. Foreman and another American France and Russia were pick up tortured and executed in Chile's National Stadium immediately following the coup. Yet American officials refuse to report a death to their families long after they had learned about it. That was a very different way of acting than what the British government. What the British did when they learn that a novice a British novelist resided in Chile a medical doctor call Sheila Cassidy. Was arrested and tortured and when her government knew about it they record. The British Ambassador and to my knowledge. It has not been replaced. Ronnie karpen Moffitt will be with our dads in a very special place when we restore democracy and dignity in our country. and there's a long list of Americans who have been committed to our cause The year that began in September 21st 1976 has ended. unexplained the worst of years for me and my family But I have I have traveled and I have met. So many people that have been supportive and understanding. And I have accumulated an incredible energy that has replenished my determination. And that energy sort of expands my heart. I have tried to share all days. with you tonight I want you to know that the spirit of the people in Chile. It is a flame that will never be put off. We had a glimpse of Liberty on freedom and dignity. And God Will Keep Us Alive, but we need your support. I have brought here the grief of my people. and the love of solidarity and I want to thank you for your solidarity. Thank you very much.