Report of Latin America 2013 ¡Adelante!

This weekend's 9th Annual Latin America ¡Adelante! conference paid moving tributes to three giants of the progressive revolutionary movement at the weekend. The deaths of Nelson Mandela and Hugo Chavez and the 40th anniversary of the assassination of Salvador Allende brought sadness but also hope to over 500 delegates packed into Congress House in London.

The privatisation of education in Chile – a failed neoliberal experiment

Chile has the most expensive higher education in the world. Per student, the country spends less than any other, and the student spends more. The Boston Review reports on the rampant expansion of for-profit education in Chile over the past four decades and the student protests which are starting to turn the tide of public opinion against educational profiteering:
http://www.bostonreview.net/BR38.3/lili_loofbourow_chile_education_privatization.php

Chile 40 Years On

This year marks the 40th anniversary of the military coup that ousted the constitutional president of Chile, Salvador Allende, from office and gave rise to the vicious dictatorship of General Augusto Pinochet.
  People all over the world are already organising and planning events to mark this crime that cost the lives of thousands, and the disappearance and torture of many thousands more.
  Here in Britain a network has been set up – as announced at the Another World Real Conference here - to organise & encourage the commemoration of our 9/11, 40 years ago Visit the web site http://chile40yearson.org/

Now Sing by James Scully

NOW sing: the guards howling
beat him with obscenities.
        But he did.
His legend is
He was singing
                 Venceremos
when they shot him.
Even for them, it was too much

they killed him,
they couldn’t kill him enough.

Victor Jara
               sin guitarra,
who’d held out with bloody stumps
                                            and sung
http://www.jamesscully.net/

The not so glorious picture of Chilean Mines‏

Cameron as expected leapt onto the passing bandwagon of public emotion at the rescue of the Chilean Miners trapped underground for two and a half months. Who amongst us could fail to be moved by the spectacular rescue and humanity of the situation. But there is a deeply disturbing picture that is not the ‘glorious picture’ described by Cameron in Prime Minister’s Question Time today that should serve as a salutary reminder that unions must still battle on health and safety . We must not allow the profiteers to compromise the health and safety of workers in exchange for profit.