Truckers in Revolt

CHILE

"We are on the verge of a civil war and we must prevent ..." Salvador Allende Gossens managed to warn his audience on nationwide television last week before the lights flickered twice and the screen went dead. Saboteurs had blown up the tower supporting a main electric circuit in Santiago, leaving the Chilean President without a live camera and 60% of the population in the dark. An hour later, thanks to some fast splicing, Allende was back on the air, his voice strained, blaming right-wing elements for this latest terrorist act.

Allende's problems are considerably more serious than a blackout. For the past three weeks 40,000 truck owner-drivers across the country have been on strike, ostensibly in protest against the Marxist government's inability to provide them with spare parts. The revolt has paralyzed the nation's transportation system, causing severe shortages of fuel, food and other essential goods. Movement in three southern provinces has all but ceased, public transportation in the capital has been cut in half, and taxi owners have staged a sympathy strike for the truckers.

Last week TIME Correspondent Rudolph Rauch visited one group of truckers near Santiago. His report:

The men clustered around the transistor radio are almost all outsize and beefy, wearing pea jackets and hard hats. One of them sports a silk foulard tucked into the front of his V-necked cardigan. A white Mercedes is parked near by, surrounded by less regal vehicles--Peugeots, Fiats, a few pickups.

All around are rows of trucks: huge trailers, big vans and ancient wooden five-tons and, most important, about 60 big tankers used for taking fuel to the capital. All have been disabled by their owners, who have removed the wheels and hidden the carburetors or the distributors. The men are listening to a news report describing how their wives are being tear-gassed and hosed down by water cannons in front of the presidential palace, where they had gone to demonstrate for their husbands' cause.

The truckers could be Chile's Archie Bunkers, characterized by having a low level of tolerance for people who try to tell them what to do with their money. Some of them, however, are civil engineers forced into trucking because of the lack of jobs. Others, like Manuel Alvarez, have been journalists abroad who returned because they were homesick. "This is a battle for the future," says Alvarez, the owner of an old truck so lacking in engine parts that it had to be towed onto the field. "I am fighting so my children won't have to be Marxist. Marxism annuls personality and takes away initiative."

Military Puzzle. Officially the truckers have been on strike to protest the lack of spare parts; in reality, they hope to bring down the government, which, they claim, wants to put them out of business. When the military joined the government to back Allende, the truckers admit they were baffled. "The generals were bought by the government," one complained.

Despite a series of government ultimatums to return to work, the truckers have refused. Allende had repeatedly warned that if the strike was not called off he would send troops in to confiscate the trucks. But as each deadline arrived and the truckers stood firm, Allende relented, setting a new deadline. Meanwhile other professional workers throughout the country, including doctors, dentists and pilots, have warned that they would support the truckers' strike if the army acts. By week's end, Allende had alerted army troops in all of Chile's 25 provinces to be ready to move against the strikers. The truckers remained defiant. Said one owner of a fleet of three trucks: "If the army comes, we will burn our trucks and run. Then we will start a Maquis."

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