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To appear in the Washington Post of Wednesday, September 7:

Dear President Carter,

  Today General Pinochet head of the Chilean Junta is in Washington D.C.
along with a great number of Americans who cherish democracy and human rights.
We condemn the Pinochet visit with the full weight       of our moral
consciousness.

   The destruction of democracy and the police state imposed by Pinochet
in September 1973 and kept in power by his secret police force DINA has
consistently and flagrantly violated the civil, political, social and
economic rights of its victims, the Chilean people.  Such has been the fin-
ding of the UN, the OAS, International Commission of Jurists, the Catholic
Church of Chile..+.- Even your own delegation of the UN Human Rights Commission
in March of this year, Mr. President, cosponsored a resolution vigorously
condeming the Pinochet dictatorship for its "constant and flagrant violation
of human rights";  Now Pinochet has replaced DINA with a National Information
C*ter     whose founding decrees are almost identical in language and pur-
pose with those of its notorious predecessor. Pinochet will endeavor to
appeace world public opinion but such cosmetic changes do not signify the
effective recovery of democracy, nor the restoration of fundamental human
rights.  Our President, the highest representative of our democratic people
cannot shake the hand of a tyrant who closed the National Congress of Chile,
burned all the electoral registers, dismantled the Chile Confedfation of Labor,
militarizdthe universities, incarcerated and slaughtered thousands of his
countrymen anh who suppresses all dissent through censorship and prohibition
against freedom of expression.  In your right hand, Mr. President, you hold
the fate of 1500 people who "disappeared" after being detained by DINA. Do
not extend that hand to General Pinochet asking him instead where are those
1500 people.  Are they alive?.  Why has he not honored his promise to UN
Secreqry Kurt Waldheim to inform him of their whereabouts?.

   It is a tragic irony that General Pinochet comes to Washington D.C. al-
most a year to the day after the brutal assasinations of former Chilean Ambas-
sador Orlando Letelier and Ronni Karpen Moffitt, symbol of the best of our
youth.  We ask-Mr. President that publicly state your views on the human rights
sieuation in Chile, Argentina, Uruguay,  and the other countries of the Americas
where arbitrary rule and repression are the institutions of daily life.
Bestowing on these dictators the same honours reverved for genuine representa-
tives of democratic nations serves only to cast doubt on the true meaning of
your human rights policy and to lessen the moral prestige of our nation in the
world community.

Sincerely,

Some of the signatories are:
- Dr. Eugene L. Stockwell, Division of Overseas Ministries, National Council
of Churches.                  /
- I.F. Stone. 1:'
- Rep. Ton. Dellums
- Bella Azbug "
- Rose Styron
- Bishop James Armstrong, United Methodist Bishop
- Chauncy Alexander, Executive Director National Association of Social Workers
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