CHILEAN GOVERNMENT PETITIONED TO: RELEASE LUIS VITALE
SANTIAGO DE CHILE -- Chile's new ‘government has been pebix: tioned to end the exile of Luis Vitale, the well-known Trotskyist and former leader of the cUT [Central. Unica de Trabajadores]. The “government : has: also been asked to restore his citizenship.
Vitale was found guilty of organizing demoristrations in sup- - port of Cuba at the time of the crisis in the Caribbean.in 1962, ©" Leaflets that were pasted up were held by the Alessandri government to be of an inflammatory character because they advocated Marxist+ Leninist positions. Vitale was sentenced to 541 days in exile at the small town of Curepto in the south of Chile, The government also revoked the citizenship of the Argentine-born socialist.
Clotario Blest, the former. head of the Chilean labor movement, who has been called the "John L, Lewis" of Chile, is in the forefront of the petition movement. He was arrested at the same time as Vitale, but was released ' by. the government. -
Blest sent a letter to Bernardo Leighton, the new Minister of the Interior, The November 5 Clarin quoted Blest as saying in his letter that Vitale is a "valiant fighter in the cause of the poor and humble of this earth, with whom I have worked on innumerable occasions! in the ‘trade unions." :
The November 4 Clarin published an open letter to . Leighton from Oscar Waiss, the well-known Socialist leader. A personal friend of Leighton for more than thirty years, Waiss appealed for "immediate amnesty" for Iuis Vitale. He cited Vitale as an “adversary of the Christian Democracy" [which won the elections in Chile and is now in power].
"Vitale," continued Waiss, “is a workers! leader, born in Argentina, with a Chilean wife and children. . . and he is the author of a book called Esencia Apariencia de la Democracia Cristiana in which he criticizes your party firmly and implacably." .
Vitale's: ‘book, mentioned by Oscar Waiss, was published last December. The first. edition sold out in three months, [See World Outlook April 10.]
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