Tuesday 5 October

6.00.- 8.00.pm
Room G37,
Senate House, University of London,
Malet St.,
Doors open 5.30.pm Latin American Bookstall

Chile has benefited in the last period from high world demand for its minerals – especially copper. But fast growth has come at a cost, as the 33 miners currently trapped underground at the San Jose copper and gold mine know – a mine notorious for its lax safety record and high profits.

It is not only workers who pay the price of globalisation. Over the last two years there have been momentous student struggles in Chile – for example “the penguins” revolt over neo-liberal education reforms. The indigenous Mapuche community, is also struggling for autonomous rights in its historic homeland areas and is subject to “anti-terrorism” laws which can mean up to two years “pre trial detention”. This repression has resulted in a series of hunger strikes by Mapuche militants in prison.

Eli Valencia is a member of leadership of the People and Workers’ Movement (Movimiento de los Pueblos y los Trabajadores – MPT) of Chile. The MPT is a new development on the Chilean left, it has brought together revolutionaries, workers and social organisations in a fighting anti-capitalist movement that aims to unite a previously divided and fractious left.

Eli, a long established militant in the struggle against the Pinochet dictatorship, will be speaking at a series of meetings across Britain. She will be explaining how the struggle has developed in “democratic” Chile and how the shadow of decades of dictatorship is gradually being thrown off by a new workers and student movement.

This tour is sponsored by permanentrevolution.net and details of all the meetings as they are organised can be found on our website under “action” at: http://www.permanentrevolution.net/category/21

Fundraising Social

Friday 8th October

Lucas Arms

Grays Inn Road nr. Kings Cross

London, United Kingdom

The Mapuche in Chile have suffered heavy repression in recent weeks and are call for solidarity. Hunger strikers are entering their 80th day while the Sebastian Pinera Conservative government continue to refuse to meet the demands of the Mapuche People. We are hosting a fundraising evening in solidarity with the Mapuche.