SALVADOR ALLENDE never saw himself merely as a Chilean. His concerns, naturally, were primarily with the situation in his own country, but as a true internationalist, his hopes never wavered that all of Latin America, the entire world, in fact, would eventually be liberated from poverty and oppression. Like Simon Bolivar, Benito Juarez and Che Guevara before him, his search for justice did not end at the borders of the country of his birth.

The following speech, given by President Allende in Mexico in December 1972, is an eloquent expression of his lifelong belief in the need for international brotherhood to counter tyranny and exploitation. The speech, delivered at the University of Guadalajara, refers insistently to the common problems faced by Latin American countries and the imperative for those countries to wage common efforts to combat them.

The speech is also useful in another respect: it gives a sense of Salvador Allende's cheerful energy, of his warm personality bubbling constantly from a fire within. He speaks not as a hardened theoretician, but as a friendly doctor, not as a president, but as a companero.

Companero is a difficult word to translate. The American press usually renders it as "comrade," a cold word linked to Stalinism and hardness. Actually, "brother" might have been a better translation, but we have chosen to leave it in Spanish. Suffice it to say that one of the first decrees promulgated by the Chilean military dictatorship outlawed the use of the word, that Allende used it often, and that the Chilean people called him el companero presidente.

This is Part I of President Allende's speech: Part II will appear on Friday. The speech was originally recorded in the Review of the University of Yucatan. It was translated by Juan G. Duran, assistant professor of Romance Languages and Literatures, and Daniel Swanson.

PEOPLE OF the University--I use this phrase to refer to all educational workers, from the President of this University to the most humble companero:

Students:

How difficult it is for me to express how I have felt in this brief yet long time of fellowship with the Mexican people--with your government. How can we express our thanks for what we, the members of the Chilean delegation, have received in support and in expressions of solidarity with our people in the hard struggle that we are fighting?

I, perhaps more than others, know perfectly well that this attitude of the Mexican people grows out of your past. We remember here how Chile was at the side of Juarez, the leader of Mexico's independence who extended the struggle across the whole continent. We understand perfectly well that in addition to these common roots, a common struggle against the conquistadores, Mexico was the first Latin American country, which in 1938, led by a distinguished man of this land and of Latin America, President Lazaro Cardenas, nationalized oil.

Because of that act, you, the Mexican people, learned immediately of the coward's attack, you had cause to feel a deep, profound feeling for your fatherland. Because of that act for a long time you suffered under the attack of the oil interests wounded by the nationalization. Because of that act, you, more than the other peoples of this continent, understand the hour of Chile, that it is the same hour that you experienced in 1938 and in the following years. Because of that the solidarity of Mexico was born out of its own experience and extends itself fraternally to Chile, and Chile is now following the same route to freedom that you followed.

PRESIDENT ECHEVERRIA spoke well when he advised me that in this trip it would be useful for me to visit a province. He told me about Jalisco and he spoke to me of Guadalajara and its University. I thanked him then, and now-- certainly--I thank him more. Because we have received the friendly affection of the Mexican people, of your women and of your men. What can be more important than to be in touch with the young people, and feel how they react strongly and vibrantly, with a clear revolutionary and anti-imperialist conscience?

Since the moment I arrived here, I understood perfectly well the spirit that exists here. Coming only as a messenger of my country, I could immediately sense your feelings from seeing the posters that greeted my arrival.

This is no traditional University: this is--as many other universities on this continent are not--a University that has been reformed. I believe that this is a University that is engaged with the people, with changes, with the struggle for economic independence and for the complete independence of our people.

I once went to a university--it has been many years, of course, don't ask me how many--but I got a college education. I went not in search of a diploma because I was a student leader and I was expelled from the university. I can speak to students from across the years, but I know that you know that there is no generation gap--there are young old people and old young people, and I place myself in the latter category.

But there are young old people who do not understand that to be a university student, for instance, is an extraordinary privilege in the enormous majority of the countries of our continent. Those young old people believe that the university has been created to train technicians and they think that they should be satisfied with merely acquiring a professional title. The degree gives them social status and boosts them on their way up the social ladder. Caramba, how terribly dangerous, the degree is, an instrument that gives them more income and better living conditions than the majority of the rest of our fellow citizens.