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((El Mostrador photo))

[Translations of two articles, the first from El Clarín for June 13, the second from El Mostrador for June 14. See originals here and here and related articles here and here. Copper mining in Chile, nationalized in 1971, is under the control of CODELCO, Corporación Nacional del Cobre de Chile, the National Copper Corporation of Chile.]

Government plans to hand lithium mining over to private corporations

The government yesterday opened domestic and international public bidding for the exploitation of the country’s lithium mines, which has until now been in the hands of two state enterprises. The winning bidders will be able to extract as much as 100,000 tons of the metal for a period 20 years and will have to pay the state seven percent of the monthly profits as royalties.

Lithium, also known as “white gold,” is used in automobile, cell-phone and computer batteries but also in glass making and medicines. (more…)

[Translation of an article from Página/12 of Buenos Aires for June 8. See original here and related article here.]

by Sebastián Premici

“I never understood why they privatized it. What they did with the oil fields was terrible, we could see that, but we did not know the whole of it. The business had very good economic results, you could see it on the books, but none of it stayed here.” Omar Stocco is a chemical engineer and plant manager of the YPF refinery in Luján de Cuyo, Mendoza. He has worked for the company for 25 years and was a witness to the whole process of privatization. Now, at 52, he will be in charge of security at the refinery, which currently produces 13,000 cubic meters of fuel. But he will also be a witness to the new managerial and political change in the petroleum company. “Everything is in place for things to be done well,” he declared. (more…)

The student movement and citizen protests against exclusion, neoliberalism and the lack of democracy

[Translation of an article from SubVersiones for August 25. See original here and related articles here.]

"This is our moment and this is our position: Free, quality public education" -- SubVersiones photo by Italo Retamal

by Claudia Villagrán Muñoz

Something changed in Chile on August 4. It was no longer only students who were mobilized but an important part of Chilean society actively joined in the students’ clear and concise demands: free, quality public education for all Chilean children and youths. The march, called by high-school and university students and by the professors, who on that day defied the authorities’ orders not to hold another march along the main avenue of Santiago, was brutally repressed by the Chilean police, who are under the command of the Ministry of the Interior.

There arose immediately a widespread indignation over the prohibition against the right to assemble freely to demonstrate, indignation against the police forces being used against minors who were not causing trouble, indignation over seeing downtown Santiago in a state of siege as in the worst days of the dictatorship, indignation because a just demand was not being listened to after three months of legitimate protest. When night fell, the most humble of the population, sectors of the middle class and even the well-to-do all over the country joined together for a cacerolazo [a noisy protest involving the banging of pots and pans] organized by the citizenry in a matter of hours, a massive spontaneous protest that had not been heard since protests across the country against the Pinochet dictatorship. (more…)

Diario Tiempo photo

With teachers’ support,  students occupy schools in response to proposed reforms

[Translations of four articles from Diario Tiempo of San Pedro Sula and El Heraldo of Tegucigalpa, for August 6, 7, 8 and 9. See originals here, here, here and here.]

Diario Tiempo, August 9

Police continue removing students from occupied schools

Tegucigalpa – Hundreds of Honduran police on Tuesday removed groups of high-school students who were occupying some ten schools in different departments of the country in opposition to what they consider a proposal for privatizing education, a police source reports.

“We have recovered eight institutions so that children in the capital can go to class,” declared police commissioner and coordinator of the operation, René Maradiaga, in an interview broadcast on ABC. “We have detained 48 people,” who were taken to police headquarters in the capital. (more…)

"The struggle belongs to the whole society. All for free education."

[Translations of three articles from August 5, the first from La Tercera, the second and third from El Mostrador. Both publications are in Santiago, Chile. See originals here, here and here and related articles here.]

Government confirms 874 arrested in student protests and 90 police injured

Government spokesman Andrés Chadwick confirmed this morning that the nation-wide total of persons detained in the student march yesterday was 874 and that there are “more than 90 injured police officers.” He further added that the demonstrators’ constitutional right to assemble was not violated since it “depends on a request” and this was denied by local authorities…

In response to student claims concerning violation of the right of assembly, Chadwick declared that “the constitutional right to assemble is subject to a request, to authorization, when it is to occur in a public place, and that has to be submitted to the local authorities and the local authorities determine the place where the right will be exercised.” (more…)

El Mostrador photo

Demonstration in capital draws 50,000

[Translation of an article from El Mostrador of Santiago for July 14. See original here and related articles here, here and here.]

According to early counts, more than 50,000 people gathered in the center of the capital city on Thursday [July 14] for another march called by the Colegio de Profesores and the Confederación de Estudiantes Universitarios (Confech) to oppose proposals on university funding offered by the executive and to insist on ending profit making in education.

Although the city government had not authorized the demonstration to gather in the Plaza Italia area, it was from there that the column of people, carrying signs and poster, began to move west on the Alameda. (more…)

One-day stoppage falls on 40th anniversary of nationalization law

[Translation of an article from El Mostrador of Santiago, Chile, for July 11. See original here.]

Workers in Codelco [Corporación Nacional del Cobre de Chile – National Copper Corporation of Chile] began a 24-hour strike this morning as a warning against the eventual privatization of the mining company.

Some 15,000 regular workers and another 30,000 contract workers are called on to participate in the strike, which the company says will entail a loss of 41 million dollars.

The president of the Federación de Trabajadores del Cobre [Federation of Copper Workers], Raimundo Espinoza, said on the 24 Horas television channel, “We have in effect a complete shutdown of Codelco; there is no production. After 24 hours we will go back into production, because this strike is a warning in the face of questions we have already presented to Codelco, in the face of the question of privatization, of the participation of this government, which has invested a minimum level of resources into the company.”

According to the leader, the stoppage includes the Chuquicamata, Andina, Teniente, Ventanas and El Salvador divisions and the central office.

“We are undertaking this stoppage because we have concrete evidence of an effort not just by Codelco but by the government to begin a secret privatization of this great state enterprise. We are going to make a presentation to the comptroller and we sent letters to the Senate and the Chamber of Deputies and to the presidents of all the political parties, giving them background on our vision of the company,” he said.

In an interview with Radio Cooperativa, the leader asserted that they will send information on this “secret privatization” to the comptroller general of the republic and to Congress.

The mobilization coincides with the 40th anniversary of the law nationalizing copper that led to the founding of Codelco. The enterprise has decided to postpone celebrating the anniversary.

[Translations of two articles, the first from La Jornada of Mexico City, the second from El Mostrador of Santiago, Chile, both from July 1.  See originals here and here and related articles here.]

Hundreds of thousands of students demand education reforms
Confrontations with police result in 38 arrests, 20 injuries to cops

By Enrique Gutiérrez

Santiago, June 30 – In one of the largest demonstrations of the past 20 years, some 200,000 Chilean students rallied today at La Moneda, the  presidential palace, to demand reform in public education and to reject  privatization, resulting in isolated confrontations with the police, with at least 38 arrests and two dozen injuries to police officers, and a warning from the president, businessman Sebastián Piñera, that strikes and demonstrations will not improve the educational system.

“Un pueblo educado jamás será engañado” [“An educated people will never be deceived”], “Queremos educación pública gratuita y de calidad” [“We want free, quality education”] shouted the students, among whom were high school and university students as well as professors.  “We want the government to understand that this is a political movement, that what we are fighting for is better education,”  asserted student leader Camila Vallejos. (more…)

Union claims plot to privatize is behind contract workers’ strike

[Translation of an article from El Mostrador of Santiago for June 8. See orignal here. Codelco is the Corporación Nacional del Cobre, the state-owned National Copper Corporation; the El Teniente division of Codelco, about 80 kilometers south of Santiago, works the largest underground copper mine in the world.]

by Claudia Rivas Arenas

“A political conspiracy” to weaken Codelco is the charge leveled on Wednesday by the Federación de Trabajadores del Cobre [Federation of Copper Workers] of the El Teniente division, which has been on shut-down for five days, resulting in a loss to the country so far of 50 million dollars.

The workers travelled to the National Congress to seek the backing of Senators Juan Pablo Letelier (Partido Socialista) and Guido Girardi (Partido por la Democracia), who criticized the administration harshly for its role in the conflict and because, they assert, neither the Minister of Mining, Laurence Goldborne, nor the Minister of Labor, Evelyn Matthei, has attempted to solve the problem. (more…)

[Translations of articles from La Jornada of Mexico City and El Mostrador of Santiago, Chile, for May 12. See originals here and here.]

La Jornada

Thousands of youths reject privatization of education

By Enrique Gutiérrez

Santiago, May 12 – Some 25,000 Chilean students took to the streets of Santiago on Thursday and thousands more marched in other parts of the country to demand a strengthening of public higher education and rejection of privatization of education, and gave the rightist government of Sebastián Piñera until May 21 to repond to their demands.

After a peaceful beginning, the response of the police was to begin suddently to repress them with water cannons and tear gas, using the repressive measures of the ministry of the interior, which sparked encounters with the students that lasted for hours. (more…)

[Translations of two articles from La Jornada of Mexico City for March 18, a day celebrated in Mexico as the anniversary of the expropriation of the country’s petroleum industry in 1938, during the administration of President Lázaro Cárdenas, in office from 1934 to 1940. The resulting state enterprise, Pemex, has supplied the country’s petroleum successfully ever since but in recent years has been the target of privatization attempts by conservatives. Cárdenas is considered the most leftist of the country’s presidents. His son, Cuauhtémoc, also a leftist and also prominent in politics, was at one time head of the government of the Distrito Nacional, ran for president in 1988 and was one of the founders of the Partido Revolucionario Democrático (PRD).]

Cárdenas says Pemex contract “clearly in violation”

[See original here.]

By Alma E. Muñoz

Mexico, DF – On the 73rd anniversary of the expropriation of petroleum declared by Lázaro Cárdenas del Río, his son, Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas Solórzano, spoke of the unconstitutionality of the incentive contracts Petróleos Mexicanos is preparing to award for the exploitation of its Magallanes, Carrizo and Santuario fields. (more…)

An interview with economist José Manuel Flores

[Translation of an interview from Brasil de Fato for March 5. See original here.]

by Pedro Carrano

Since 1973, the Chilean economy has traced a long path, beginning with the coup headed by General Augusto Pinochet against the popular government of Salvador Allende, and today is being consolidated into an economy controlled by large domestic and foreign businesses that holds the line on exportation and keeps the internal market strangled – despite representing only one percent of the productive capacity of the country. So they control 80 percent of the internal market and provide jobs for only 20 percent of the population.

This is the analysis of Chilean economist José Manuel Flores. In a country in which neoliberalism has gained hegemony and has brought about a radical alteration in the economy, the export of copper is central, a target of control and export. “Before, copper was exported and now copper concentrate, its raw material, is being exploited. Transnationals control 76 percent of Chilean copper,” the economist calculates. In an interview with Brasil de Fato, Flores talks about the relation between natural resources and the Chilean economy, the failure of the Concertación as an alternative government after Pinochet’s departure, and now as the opposition to the government of rightist Sebastián Piñera, in office for a year. In this scenario, popular movements take on a new importance. The recent popular revolt in the province of Magallanes against an increase in the price of gas demonstrates this. (more…)