Chile: The Struggle in the Copper Mines

Chile is now the owner of its mines, and the workers must know that copper is the wage of Chile, its principal wealth. Copper earns 83 percent of Chile’s foreign exchange income. Of Chile’s total exports of $1.15 billion, copper produces $800 million, and provides 25 percent of the government budget. So copper is fundamental. —President Salvador Allende, speech to the workers at the Chuquicamata copper mine, October 1971

Chuquicamata, the world’s largest and richest open-pit copper mine, forms an enclave 10,000 feet high in the Atacama desert of northern Chile. Chuqui alone earns one-third of Chile’s desperately needed foreign exchange income each year. The pit forms a gray-green elliptical amphitheater, ...