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WEEKLY NEWSLETTER
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Chile
Index
Chile has for many years produced its own small arms,
ammunition, and explosives, but it did not have a real
defense
industry until the 1970s. The almost universal boycott
after the
armed forces overthrew the Allende administration in 1973,
and in
particular the 1974 Kennedy Amendment, which deprived
Chile of
maintenance support for its large inventory of United
Statesmanufactured defense equipment, threw the Chileans back on
their
own resources. At the time, war with Argentina over the
Beagle
Channel seemed likely, and local industrial potential was
expanding
dramatically. Thus, Chile became a major producer of
defense
equipment, the third largest in Latin America after Brazil
and
Argentina. In addition to small arms and ammunition, Chile
manufactured infantry-support weapons, both armored and
softskinned vehicles, artillery pieces, ballistic rocket
systems,
antiaircraft artillery weapons, naval vessels, military
aircraft,
aerial bombs and rockets, and radar and electronic warfare
equipment. Nevertheless, according to defense analyst
Daniel Prieto
Vial, by 1991 Chile supplied no more than 3 percent of its
own
defense needs and purchased the remaining 97 percent
elsewhere.
As Chile became a successful exporter, the biennial
International Air and Space Fair (Feria Internacional del
Aire y
del Espacio--FIDAE) became its principal marketing event.
First
held in March 1980 as a modest flying display and
exhibition of air
defense products to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of
the
FACh's formation, what was then called the International
Air Fair
(Feria Internacional del Aire--FIDA) was an unexpected
success. It
was decided to repeat what was originally conceived of as
a onetime event every second year. In 1990 the name was changed
to FIDAE
to reflect the aerospace dimension. FIDAE continued to
grow
steadily both in size and in international importance and
by 1992
was the major forum for the display of military equipment
in the
Southern Hemisphere, attracting more than 300 exhibitors
from
twenty-seven countries to Los Cerrillos Air Base. These
included
not only other arms-producing nations in the developing
world but
also the major manufacturers of defense equipment in the
leading
industrialized nations.
Data as of March 1994
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