Quilapayun and Government Red Scare Tactics

THERE IS LITTLE justification for the United States government's attempts last week to stop the Chilean singing group from coming to the United States because of alleged Communist Party affiliation.

That the government should even care what a singing group's politics are is typical of its small-mindedness. And for the Parts embassy to assert at the last minute that the group's association with the Communist Youth Organization Party of Chile made the singers members of the Communist Party shows that the old Red Scare tactics are still thriving.

The Paris embassy officials knew for weeks that Quilapayun's members belonged to the Communist Youth Organization in Chile and were avid supporters of the Allende regime. But in a deliberate move to harass the group, the embassy waited until the last minute to declare them members of the Communist Party, necessitating State Department intervention before the group could enter the United States.

It would not have taken much for the State Department to overrule the fanatics at the Paris Embassy--a simple clearance, for cultural exchange, would have erased the embassy's efforts. But with all the information at hand, the State Department stalled--citing bureaucratic red tape as the reason--and caused the group to cancel its initial tour.

This attempt to block the group's entrance is typical of the State Department's attitude toward Chile since Allende took power in 1970. We can only view the department's harassment of these exiled supporters of Allende as a posthumous criticism of Allende and a continued support for the repressive Pinochet government.

Only with prodding from the office of Sen. Edward M. Kennedy '54 was the State Department's silence on the issue broken and the clearance allowed. Even after the belated okay, the Immigration Services stalled for a few more hours before issuing its telegram approving Quilapayun's entrance.

Those State Department and Immigration officials who tried to block Quilapayun's entrance, because of the group's political affiliation or its association with a government that the United States helped to overthrow, should be excoriated for their needless obstructionist tactics.