New protests in Chile
Chile's military regime in 1982 celebrated its ninth anniversary to the accompaniment of the most widespread and publicly expressed opposition since the coup of 11 September 1973. The collapse of its much-vaunted ‘economic miracle’ … most painfully demonstrated by devastated national industries, an unemployment rate of 25%, and a foreign debt estimated by some economists as the highest per capita in the world … has brought criticism from even the most ardent supporters of General Pinochet. As legal labour representatives became more vocal, leaders of the largest union federation, the National Trade Union Co-ordinating Body (CNS), were jailed, while in February the outspoken President of the Public Servants Union, Tucapel Jimenez, was found dead and mutilated by a roadside near Santiago. In the first six months of this year 837 people were charged with political offences, an increase of more than a third over the same period in 1981, while thousands more were detained on suspicion and reports of torture increased. Relations between the regime and the Church worsened, despite the latter's reining in of some of its human rights activity.