Secondly, the junta is "almost obsessed with the fact that there are people walking around--Chileans--who know how they operate," Moffitt says, adding that every other defense minister under Allende "who knew these guys (the junta) intimately is dead, Jose Toha, Carlos Pratts, and the others."

The third reason Moffitt offers is that Letelier was one of the principal movers in getting a dialogue-in-exile going with the Christian Democrats following the military coup that overthrew the Allende government. Letelier apparently united the Christian Democrats and the remnants of the Popular Unity Party to draw up concrete plans for a transitional government in Chile. Moffitt claims the Christian Democrats trusted Letelier because he was a graduate of the military academy in Chile, a lawyer at the Inter-American Development Bank, and "he was never identified with the far left of the Socialist Party."

Moffitt has toured the country, talking to different groups to try to put pressure on the U.S. government to solve the "murders" of his wife and Letelier. In addition, he and Isabel Letelier published a report last month through the Transnational Institute, an adjunct of IPS, detailing the "relationship between foreign economic assistance, private capital flows and the state of human rights in Chile since September 11, 1973, when the military junta led by General Augusto Pinochet overthrew the democratically-elected government of President Salvador Allende." One of the purposes of the report is to air "the conflicts between the officially stated human rights policy of the U.S. government and the behavior of private U.S.-based corporations and banks." Moffitt and Isabel Letelier assert that without private bank assistance Pinochet could never have turned down a 1977 U.S. government offer of $27.5 million in economic assistance, a loan with attached human rights concessions. In 1976, the U.S. Congress, over the opposition of former President Gerald R. Ford, voted to stop all military assistance to Chile and curtailed economic assistance to a maximum of $27.5 million for the fiscal year 1977. In May of the same year, William Simon, then secretary of the Treasury, visited Chile and "congratulated Pinochet for bringing 'economic freedom' to Chile," Isabel Letelier and Moffitt write in their report. They add, "This positive assessment by a prominent Wall Street figure buoyed Chile's reputation in the financial community." With bilateral agreements to Chile declining and loan obligations coming due, Chile received a 500 per cent increase in private multinational bank lending between 1975 and 1976. And, the report continues, the total amount "soared over $800 million in 1977." The report states that in 1977 alone, Chile received $514 million in loans and credits from private U.S.-based multinational banks--with the total lending from U.S. banks since the coup in 1973 surpassing $900 million. The report identifies the major U.S. banks who have "buoyed" the Chilean government. They are the Bankers Trust of New York, the Chemical Bank of New York, Wells Fargo Bank of San Fransisco, Citicorp of New York, First Chicago Bank, and Morgan Guarantee Trust.

Moffitt explains that if Pinochet had to answer to President Carter, he would not have outlawed the PDC in March of 1977. Instead, the report states, the same month the party was outlawed, U.S. banks loaned him $51 million. In January, 1978, Pinochet exiled 12 Christian Democrats for participating in illegal political activities and the same month, the report indicates, "the bank consortium headed by Wells Fargo lent the government $125 million and Exxon purchased approximately $100 million worth of shares of the La Disputada (copper) mines."

"Clearly," the report concludes, "private multinational bank loans and suppliers' credits to Chile have not only replaced official bilateral and multilateral loans as Chile's principal sources of external financing, but far surpassed them in importance to the military junta. The tremendous influx of private bank loans since 1976 gave the Pinochet regime a green light to thumb its nose at international pressure designed to improve the human rights situation in Chile."

Following the release of the report, Rep. Henry S. Reuss (D-Wisc.), chairman of the House Banking Committee, sent telegrams to the six major banks lending to Chile, expressing concern that their actions did not "appear consistent" with standards aimed at keeping banking practices from interfering with the public interest, and that they were not "helpful" to the U.S. human rights policy. At the same time Rep. Thomas R. Harkin (D-Iowa) is drawing up legislation to force disclosure of private bank loans to governments the U.S. Congress has tagged as human rights violators, and is exploring a way to bring private policies more in conformity with public policies through legislation. Moffitt and Isabel Letelier also sent letters to the heads of all the banks loaning money to Chile saying, "We don't think it's appropriate for banks which are based and chartered through the U.S. to be lending to the Pinochet government at the same time as leading members of his government are implicated in a terrorist murder here." Moffitt added, "We don't believe that there should be lending to governments who the U.S. Congress and a dozen other countries have condemned as the worst of the human rights violators." To pressure the banks, Moffitt has encouraged the initiation of shareholder resolutions by groups around the country. His efforts evoke the recent student attempts to pressure the Harvard Corporation to prevent U.S. banks from loaning money to South Africa. Deja vu?