Pinochet Allowing Exiles to Return : Lifting of Orders on 300 Chileans Includes Allende Chiefs

SANTIAGO, Chile — President Augusto Pinochet announced today that he is allowing all Chile’s exiles, officially numbered at around 300, to return home.

The lifting of the exile orders would cover leaders of the Marxist government of Salvador Allende, toppled in the 1973 coup, including Allende’s widow, Hortensia Bussi, and the head of the Chilean Communist Party, Luis Corvalan.

“The problem has been totally solved. All prohibitions (on entry) have been lifted, all of them,” Pinochet told journalists.

Interior Minister Sergio Fernandez said that the lifting of the bans, many of which have been in force since the military took power in the coup, was effective immediately.

Fernandez did not give a figure for the number of exiles, but the government has previously said there were 364 Chileans barred from returning to the country.

The decision to lift the exile bans followed Pinochet’s nomination on Tuesday as sole candidate for an Oct. 5 plebiscite, which the military sees as marking an end to armed forces rule.

The first exile to arrive home could be Isabel Allende, daughter of the former president who died in the military coup. She had already announced plans to fly to Santiago on Wednesday from Argentina to demand the right to live in the country.

Hortensia Bussi, her mother, lives in Mexico. Corvalan has been living in Moscow since being freed from prison in Chile in 1976 in an exchange deal involving Soviet dissident writer Vladimir Bukovsky.

An end to exile has long been demanded by the Catholic Church and military opponents, and the lifting of the bans had been expected ahead of the October election.

Last week, the military also announced that it is ending a series of emergency decrees restricting civil liberties.

Pinochet’s power to send opponents into exile without trial was one of the elements contained in the emergency decrees, along with curbs on the freedom of the press and the right of assembly.