Chile News and Culture

Here's a roundup of Chile news stories from 2004 -- both interesting and obscure.

FAMILIES OF VICTIMS FLY TO CHILE DEMANDING COLONIA DIGNIDAD RELEASE

400 Sign Open Letter To Lagos, Including U.S. Legislators

(Nov. 25, 2004) The families of Boris Weisfeiler and Maarten Visser will deliver an open letter to President Ricardo Lagos today, calling for an investigation into Colonia Dignidad. They believe their relatives, who disappeared in 1985, were detained at the German enclave in southern Chile.

Among the 400 signatories from 16 countries are parliamentarians, academics, human rights campaigners including Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and the Ethical Commission Against Torture, captains of industry and former colonists.

“We demand the Chilean government take and promote energetic and definitive action with regard to human rights violations in the former Colonia Dignidad, freeing its inhabitants, granting them the help they need and pursuing those found to be responsible,” the letter says.

Sergio Laurenti, executive director of Amnesty International Chile, told The Santiago Times the letter “will put pressure on the government and those responsible to talk. It cannot do too much but it demonstrates the concerns of 400 people. We hope that the government will listen.”

Colonia Dignidad was founded in 1961 by Paul Schaefer as a 17,000-hectare farming community for fellow expatriates near the Argentine border in Region VIII, with the ostensible aim of providing health care and education for the rural poor of the area. Schaefer had fled child molestation charges in his native Germany.

Colonia Dignidad was used as an intelligence and detention center by agents of Gen. Augusto Pinochet’s military government and its leaders became all but untouchable, despite reports they were abducting and abusing local children. Escapees told of sexual abuse, forced labor and abduction.

In 1998, Schaefer went underground after a warrant was issued for his arrest. Since then he has been a fugitive and the colony, now known as Villa Baviera, has been in decline (ST, Oct. 6).

Olga Weisfeiler, the sister of one of the foreigners believed to have been held at Colonia Dignidad, also presented personal letters to Lagos, one signed by U.S. Sen. Edward Kennedy, another by Rep. Barney Frank, pressing Chilean authorities to seek a resolution to her brother’s case.

“I would like to help put more pressure on the government to open up all Chile, all the human rights cases,” Olga told The Santiago Times.

She is sure that Colonia Dignidad will be mentioned in the soon to be published Valech Report into torture during the1973-1990 dictatorship.

On Jan. 4, 1985, Boris Weisfeiler, a Russian-born Jew and naturalized U.S. citizen, was taking a 10-day walking holiday in southern Chile when he vanished. After a cursory investigation, the Chilean authorities concluded he had drowned in the Nuble River in Region VIII.

But U.S. State Department documents declassified later revealed that in 1987 a man known only as “Daniel,” an agent working for Pinochet’s secret police, informed the U.S. Embassy in Santiago that he had been part of the team that arrested Weisfeiler and took him to Colonia Dignidad, claiming that he was a “Jewish spy.”

According to the Embassy’s memo on the meeting with Daniel, “The only explanation of these unusual practices his (Daniel’s) superiors offered him is that Colonia Dignidad is a good ally.”

In 2000, a rare inspection of Colonia Dignidad, now officially renamed Villa Bavaria, found a thin folder labeled “Boris Weisfeiler.”

Olga has made visited Chile four times since Boris’ disappearance, for an investigation into her brother’s disappearance. She believes, as she stated in an earlier letter to Lagos in 2000, that the solution to the riddle of her brother’s whereabouts lies in Colonia Dignidad: “Only unrestricted access to its territory would solve numerous crimes that took place there and help its residents to gain freedom” (ST, March 8).

The upshot of Olga’s lobbying was a recent letter from Edward Kennedy to U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell, asking that the matter be put on the agenda for President George W. Bush’s meeting with Lagos in July. When the two leaders met, Weisfeiler’s case was raised. U.S. officials assured the Weisfeiler family that the White House “will continue handling this matter with the Chilean government, both in Washington and in Santiago.” (ST, Oct. 6)

Shortly after his return from Washington, Lagos asked the Ministry of the Interior to provide a report on Weisfeiler and Colonia Dignidad.

POWELL LAUDS CHILE, PUSHES FREE TRADE AGENDA

(Nov. 22, 2004) In one of his last public appearances as U.S. Secretary of State, Colin Powell said the United States has a “very friendly relationship” with Chile, and praised the Chilean government’s “great contribution to free trade and democracy in Latin America and around the world.”

Powell, who was in Santiago for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit, described Chile and the United States’ efforts to fight corruption, thanking Chile for its “regional leadership.”

Reducing corruption is among APEC’s priorities, as set out in the Leaders’ Declaration issued Sunday. Corruption is seen as a deterrent to investment and a threat to good governance.

Powell, who announced his retirement earlier this month, said he and Chilean Foreign Minister Ignacio Walker had discussed the U.S.-Chilean Free Trade Agreement (FTA), which went into effect Jan. 1. “Both security and trade have increased in less than a year, benefiting both nations,” Powell said.

Powell, 67, said President George W. Bush remains keen on a Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA), an arrangement that would remove trade barriers in the Western Hemisphere.

But attention was not focused solely on the Americas. Powell fielded questions on nuclear weapons programs in Iran and North Korea, though he was reluctant to preempt the results of negotiations by the European Union Three in Iran and the U.S.-led Group of Six in North Korea.

Asked whether the U.S. is prepared to work with leftist governments in Latin America – a veiled reference to strained relations between Washington and Hugo Chávez, Venezuela’s controversial president – Powell said, “The United States is prepared to work with any democratic country, provided full and fair elections have shown the will of the people.”

Chávez won a referendum on his mandate in August and said he hopes to improve his country’s relationship with the Unites States, to whom it is a major exporter of oil (ST, Aug. 17).

Walker is holding his first round of bilateral meetings since replacing Soledad Alvear as Foreign Affairs Minister in October (ST, Sept. 30). Earlier, a press official was unable to contain his amusement when a Korean journalist asked him where the Chilean Foreign Minister, Johnnie Walker, was to be found.

Walker commended Powell on his four years as secretary of state.

Powell is known for his diplomacy and tact and for being the lone dove in the Bush administration before the invasion of Iraq. Walker will shortly begin to build a relationship with Powell’s successor at the State Department, Condoleezza Rice, a hardliner among the neo-Conservatives of Capitol Hill, whom Powell reportedly described as “fucking crazies.”

The next major international forum to be held in Chile will be the meeting of the Community of Democracies in May 2005.

By Tom Burgis

CHILE'S APEC SUMMIT ENDS WITH NUCLEAR WEAPONS WARNING

(Nov. 22, 2004) Boosting trade and improving counterterrorism measures emerged as top priorities for the leaders of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) who gathered in Santiago at the weekend.

While Chile’s President Ricardo Lagos emphasized the economic relevance of the APEC summit, his U.S. counterpart George W. Bush took advantage of the first international meeting after his reelection to rally support for his campaign to prevent proliferation of nuclear weapons.

During bilateral meetings before the opening of the summit on Saturday, the U.S. president focused his efforts on lobbying leaders from Japan, China, South Korea and Russia to press North Korea to eliminate its nuclear weapons programs.

“The will is strong, the effort is united, and the message is clear to Mr. Kim Jong Il: Get rid of your nuclear weapons programs,” Bush said Saturday afternoon while addressing the CEO summit at CasaPiedra.

Allegations that North Korea possesses nuclear weapons and a uranium-enrichment program won the totalitarian state a place on Bush’s “axis of evil” list in 2002. That pressure eased as the United States focused on Iraq, but this weekend’s declarations indicate that the North Korean issue has regained ground as a top issue on the U.S. agenda.

But Lagos, the host of the event, focused on the economic side of the APEC meeting and voiced his concern that a rise in security measures might slow down trade.

“If you have increased security, that means increasing the cost of transportation of goods,” he said Saturday.

“We can’t allow security measures to get in the way of free trade flows, because less trade means less exports and less employment,” Lagos added.

The final declaration of the 12th APEC leaders’ summit – dubbed The Santiago Declaration – also affirmed the primacy of trade and investment liberalization and supported the implementation of the 2001 World Trade Organization recommendations (See today’s Business Briefs).

The Santiago Declaration mentioned the enhancement of human security – together with the promotion of transparency and knowledge-based society – as the latest APEC priorities, second only to the economic policies to be implemented by next year’s APEC meeting in South Korea.

“We expect to review progress on our commitments to dismantle transnational terrorist groups, eliminate the danger posed by proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, their delivery systems and related items, and confront other direct threats to the security of our region in the future,” said the declaration released Sunday after the leaders’ final meeting.

Despite the U.S. pressure on the North Korea issue, Lagos and Bush agreed on the good state of their countries’ bilateral relations.

During a meeting Sunday night, Bush praised Chile’s economic performance and expressed his hope that the countries will develop “relations that are always stronger.”

“Chile is an incredible country. Chileans are good-hearted people that treasure their freedom. They are dedicated to democracy. People in this country understand the importance of economic freedom,” Bush said in La Moneda.

The two heads-of-state pointed out that since the Chilean-U.S. Free Trade Agreement (FTA) went into effect last Jan. 1, exports have increased notably, producing economic growth in both countries.

“The success of our trade agreement is an example for other countries. Exports have increased dramatically in both countries and both Chilean and U.S. citizens have benefited from it,” Bush said.

Sunday night’s meeting between Lagos and Bush is part of the U.S. president’s official visit to Chile after the closure of the APEC meeting. As a result of a dispute between U.S. and Chilean security officials, the Chilean presidency had to cancel an official dinner planned for last night.

The gala planned for over 200 guests was replaced by a “working dinner” after Chilean security officials refused to accept the U.S. Secret Service’s request that Chilean guests go through metal detectors before dining with the presidents, a standard U.S. security practice.

Another incident Saturday night – when Bush had to break up a skirmish between his lead Secret Service agent and a Chilean policeman – led the U.S. press to criticize the authoritarian attitude of the Chilean Carabineros.

The Chilean government assigned more than 5,000 police to APEC, in what is the largest security display since the 1987 papal visit, but The New York Times pointed out that “by presidential standards the security has not been particularly noticeable.”

50,000 PROTEST IN SANTIAGO AS CHILE SAYS NO TO APEC

189 Arrested As Police And Demonstrators Clash Throughout Capital


(Nov. 22, 2004) Santiaguinos returned to work today after three days of mass protests and violence in the Chilean capital that saw 189 arrests and numerous injuries.

On Friday, hours before some of the world’s most powerful leaders – including U.S. President George W. Bush, Russia’s Vladimir Putin and Hu Jintao of China – arrived for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit, 50,000 people took to the streets for a march organized by the Chilean Social Forum under the slogans “another world is possible” and “Santiago is ours.”

The protesters walked along a predetermined route lined with Carabineros from Parque Almagro to a rally in Parque Bustamante.

The march turned violent when a small group of protesters began to throw rocks and glass bottles at police. Organizers called for calm but, as the park filled with gas from helicopters, marchers fled onto the surrounding streets and into Plaza Italia, where masked demonstrators threw Molotov cocktails, smashed shop fronts and tore up benches, and police in riot gear responded with water cannon and baton charges.

One man was taken to hospital after being hit in the face with a bottle.

According to police, 189 people were arrested, including five foreigners – three Germans and two students from the United States. The foreigners were later released but will face charges of criminal damage at a hearing on Dec. 9.

Several protesters and 23 carabineros were injured. Two offices received gunshot wounds in further clashes in the La Victoria and Villa Francia suburbs, where there were 11 more arrests.

Cristián Labbé, the mayor of Providencia, said the cleanup operation will cost 100 million pesos (US$170,000) and slammed the governor of the Metropolitan Region, Marcelo Trivelli, for authorizing the march.

President Ricardo Lagos said the violent protesters were not representative of Chile. “They do not represent a single significant sector of the country,” he told journalists Saturday, insisting that only peaceful demonstrations are legitimate forms of protest.

Hundreds of protesters have been arrested throughout Chile over the past week, and thousands of additional police were on duty in the Chilean capital in the largest security operation since the papal visit in 1987.

Chileans are angered by the willingness of the country’s socialist President Lagos to adopt U.S.-sponsored economic models and foster Free Trade Agreements (FTAs). Marchers called for APEC delegates to turn their attention from the superrich to global poverty and achieving sustainable development in the Third World.

A member of the Chilean communist party known as Manuel attacked Lagos for betraying the party of Chile’s iconic president, Salvador Allende. Allende became the world’s first elected socialist head of state in 1970 and died in the 1973 coup that brought Augusto Pinochet to power.

“Salvador Allende was a revolutionary socialist. Lagos is a capitalist. We need to change Chile and to change Latin America,” Manuel said.

The poet Raúl Zurita, an active member of the political resistance during Pinochet’s military government, said, “We are here against Bush, against APEC, against the dictatorship of the rich.”

Aside from discontent with Chile’s proliferating FTAs and the injustices of globalization, demonstrators voiced their outrage at the Bush’s policy of preemptive war. Banners denounced the U.S. president as “terrorist number one” and the loudest chant was “no to war, yes to peace.”

Among the diverse crowd were student and political groups, monks and members of Chile’s indigenous Mapuche.

The president of the Council of all Lands of Chile indigenous rights group, Aucán Huilcamán, later presented an open letter addressed to the APEC leaders, making “an urgent call to the members of APEC to include the indigenous issue in their agenda and to establish mechanisms for the full and effective participation of indigenous peoples as a way to guarantee and assure our cultural projection and the respect of indigenous peoples’ human rights.”

The Mapuche are angered by the presence of multinational forestry and farming corporations in the areas of southern Chile they regard as their homeland.

Muslim marchers protested the Russian presence in Chechnya and called for an independent Palestine.

Abdul Gafari, a Chilean Muslim, told The Santiago Times, “We are here against the terrorists Bush and Putin. We don’t want to see more Muslims killed – not just Muslims, all the innocent people who are being killed. The powerful can just do what they like, that’s the problem.”

At 500,000, the Palestinian community in Chile is the largest outside the Middle East.

Behind the Muslim group marched a contingent of Franciscan monks.

“We are here to protest the dehumanization that goes hand-in-hand with globalization … to promote the value of the human being,” said Brother Julio.

Further protests, peaceful and otherwise, took place throughout the city. A series of events organized by the Chilean Social Forum explored the alternatives to neoliberalism; outside the Espacio Riesco center, where APEC delegates convened Saturday, a group of Falun Dafa practitioners denounced human rights abuses in China and what they describe as the persecution of their fellow practitioners by the Chinese military.

Inside the conference centers, the voices of dissent were few.

Peruvian economist and development expert Hernando de Soto told a meeting of businessmen that 65 percent of the 21 APEC economies’ populations are excluded from the benefits of globalization, giving the lie to the “trickle down” theory of free trade economics.

“Of the 2,600 million people in the APEC countries, 1,700 million have not managed to join the international market and are not globalized. It doesn’t matter how much talk there is about the World Trade Organization and the Doha Round Table … We’re talking about two thirds of the population – as much as 80 percent in some countries. This is the problem,” De Soto said.

Despite the violent end to its march, the Chilean Social Forum will continue its work, said Luis Sepúlveda, the Chilean writer and one of the Forum’s leaders

Asked whether a mass demonstration could influence the APEC leaders, Sepúlveda was not optimistic. He told The Santiago Times:

“This won’t change anything. It’s the political climate in Chile that has to change. The people marching are calling for the country to take a different route, for leaders to take them into account when taking the big decisions. Chileans want a Latin American vocation, and the majority wants to see better relations with the other countries of the region before free marketeering with the economic superpowers.

“We will carry on our work after today. This is a process that will shape the actions of the political class of tomorrow. All the young people who are here – they’re going to decide the future.”

By Tom Burgis

WOULD'BE PINOCHET ASSASSIN SECRETLY BACK IN CHILE

WOULD-BE ASSASSIN PULLS WOOL OVER POLICE...And Everyone Else, For 16 Years, reports La Nacion (Nov. 17, 2004)

César Bunster Ariztía, a leading figure in the Sept. 7, 1986 assassination attempt against former dictator Gen. Augusto Pinochet, has been secretly living and working in the country for the last 16 years, according to a report in last Sunday’s state-owned daily La Nacion.

A member of the Manuel Rodríguez Patriotic Front (FPMR), Bunster rented the house and the vehicles that were critical components in the assassination attempt, which took place on a mountain road in the Cajon del Maipo a few kilometers outside of Santiago. When authorities discovered his name on the rental papers following the attack, they launched a no-holds-barred search for Bunster, who was wanted dead or alive.

The military government’s frustration was so great that it unleashed an assault on ‘suspected’ accomplices to the assassination attempt, leaving four civilians dead. The event also prompted the military government to declare a state of emergency and to jail numerous well-known opponents to Gen. Pinochet, including a political leader named Ricardo Lagos, today the president of the country.

But Bunster had fled to Cuba after the attempt, and his whereabouts remained unknown to the general public until the article in Sunday’s La Nacion. The media now report that Bunster returned to Chile in 1988 and assumed the identity of his step-brother, Enrique Mirial, a permanent resident of Europe. During the past 16 years the ‘Chilean Mirial’ has developed an excellent reputation as a Spanish-English translator in the political and diplomatic communities of Santiago – apparently enjoying a high risk game that his new identity allowed him.

Bunster has worked for the British, U.S, Canadian, and Australian embassies in Chile as well as the Armed Forces and the Ministry of Defense. During Pinochet’s detention in London in 1998, Bunster handled some of the documents exchanged between the British and Chilean authorities. And in 2000, Bunster served as a translator for Norman Lamont, the former British Chancellor of the Exchequer and Pinochet’s defense lawyer in the United Kingdom.

Earlier this year, Bunster’s lawyer, Hugo Gutiérrez, appealed for and received a dismissal of the case that had been brought against his client in San Miguel Court of Appeals. The lawyer invokes a statute of limitations in Chilean law permitting dismissal of cases that aren’t brought to trial after 15 years.

Murder or attempted murder charges, of course, do not have this statute of limitations. But Bunster’s attorney had kept those charges at bay by successfully arguing that his client was part of an opposition ‘cell’ unit, and as such did not have knowledge about the purpose of the house and car rentals that he had carried out. Outlawed cells operate in such fashion to lessen the dangers resulting from detection of one unit.

As a result of the recent court decision, Bunster is now legally permitted to live in Chile and has freely decided to assume his former identity. And his story has come out.

The revelation that one of the nation’s top translators was, in fact, a fugitive from justice has created quite a stir in Chilean diplomatic and government circles. “Only last July, Miriel told us (his true identity) directly,” a British embassy representative told The Associated Press.

César Bunster is the son of Alvaro Bunster Briceño, who served as the Chilean ambassador to the United Kingdom during the Salvador Allende government of 1970-1973. Though Alvaro lost his position as ambassador after the 1973 military coup, he and his family continued to hold diplomatic status in the United Kingdom, where Bunster spent 12 years and graduated from Birmingham University in 1982. He then moved to Mexico in 1983.

Leaders of two of the political parties that were most brutalized by the Pinochet dictatorship – the Socialist Party and the Communist Party - were quick to express their opinion that Bunster’s case was emblematic of the situation faced by thousands of Chileans.

Dep. Jaime Naranjo, president of Commission of Human Rights, said the case supports his belief that Chilean citizens who committed crimes in their struggle against the dictatorship should be allowed to reenter and reintegrate themselves into Chilean society today. The La Nación article “reveals the difficulties that many people face who participated in crimes during the dictatorship and who have not been able to become a part of Chilean society,” Naranjo said.

A similar assessment was made by Communist Party secretary general Guillermo Teillier, who urged the government to pass a law allowing Chileans in hiding to reintegrate themselves into Chile’s society. “Many people don’t have citizens’ rights; others can’t return to the country; others continue to live in hiding and just wait for time to pass,” Teillier said.

Teiller added that he was left with a strong impression of César Bunster. “He seems to me like a great fighter for democracy and freedom in Chile and, as the report revealed, he is an intelligent and able person,” said Teiller. At the same time, Teiller expressed misgivings about the way in which the story came into the public domain. “I don’t know if articles of this nature are very ethical, nor do I know if he (Bunster) gave his consent, but this is a very delicate issue,” he said.

“This revelation makes one better understand the reality that thousands of Chileans face, people who have been forced into hiding and whose judicial problems persist today,” said human rights attorney Gutiérrez.

But Carmen Hertz, human rights lawyer and co-author of a book about the Pinochet assassination attempt called “Operation 20th Century,” told The Santiago Times that she found the article “scandalous,” a “form of attack,” and that it showed a general lack of respect for Bunster’s personal privacy.

Gutiérrez said his client is trying to live a normal life and that he would like others “to respect his private life.”

SOURCE: EL PAIS, LA NACIÓN, EL MERCURIO, ASSOCIATED PRESS By Katie Reilly

LESBIANS! CHILE STUDENTS EXPELLED

Sexual Discrimination Still The Norm In Chilean Schools?

(Nov. 5, 2004) Chile’s public debate about the sexual preferences of its student population was back in the headlines this week, with two more schools taking disciplinary action against young women for their alleged lesbianism.

L.F.L., 13, and M.R.D., 15, were expelled last week from the Escuela de Niñas España in Concepción, Region VIII, for their alleged lesbian conduct, while four girls in Valdivia, Region X, were told they won’t be readmitted to classes in 2005 because of a picture that shows them kissing. These two cases come on the heels of two other highly publicized cases that received national attention earlier this year.

In Concepción, a school inspector caught L.F.L. and M.R.D. coming out of a bathroom together and reported this to the general inspector, Patricia Navarro, who decided to expel the students until the end of the year.

Schoolmates allegedly saw the two girls kissing in the bathroom. But L.F.L., an eighth grade student, says she is not a lesbian, and that she had gone to the toilet to cry after having broken a mirror in class. She was initially on her own, but she randomly bumped into M.R.D., a friend of hers.

“She (Navarro) treated us really badly. She called us lesbians and told us she would kick us out,” the girl said.La Tercera reports that, according to family members, the two girl students had been previously forbidden to be together on the school grounds because of their alleged lesbianism.

Marcela, L.F.L.’s mother, says that Principal Ana Krum Ahumada had been discriminating against the two girls since the beginning of the year, because of their rumored lesbianism.

“Really, the two of them are just shy and very close,” the woman told La Tercera.When the younger girl’s family contacted the school to ask for an explanation, the principal didn’t clarify what the girls were doing in the bathroom and didn’t explain why they had been expelled.

In response, the girl’s parents contacted the Municipal Directorate of Education (DEP), the director of which, Héctor Mardones, went to the school Wednesday to discuss the issue with principal Ahumada.“She acted very rashly,” said the DEP director.Following Mardones’ intervention and a demonstration held on school grounds by L.F.L.’s classmates Wednesday morning, Ahumada agreed to readmit the students to class.

The parents also brought the episode to the Carabineros police, which reported the school’s “psychological mistreatment” of the two girls to Concepción’s Juvenile Court.Notwithstanding the readmission of the girls to the school, the Movement for Homosexual Integration and Liberation (MOVIHL), which has been closely following cases of sexual discrimination in Chilean schools, denounced the situation to the Education Ministry (MINEDUC).

“We talked with Mardones, with the police that reported the case to the juvenile court and with the head inspector of the school, Patricia Navarro, and we came to the conclusion that the pupils were unjustly expelled,” MOVIHL President Rolando Jímenez told The Santiago Times.Jímenez explained that MOVIHL made an appointment with the undersecretary to the government Francisco Vidal, MINEDUC’s Departmental Secretary Harold Correa and the head of Unidad 600, Alexis Ramírez, for next Tuesday.

Unidad 600, the MINEDUC agency in charge of promoting and protecting equal rights, was last June in charge of the case of Gabriela, the lesbian student expelled from Santiago’s Centro Politecnico San Ramón (ST, June 23), and of D.F. and F.G., the two gay students expelled from Santiago’s Liceo Metropolitano last September (ST, Sept. 15).

At Tuesday’s meeting, MOVIHL plans to discuss the implementation of a national plan to fight sexual discrimination in schools, as well as the creation of a circular – to be sent to schools nationwide – in which the MINEDUC declares sexual discrimination on school grounds unacceptable.

“Our aim is make the government finally takes a political stand on the topic, so that we can avoid new arbitrary expulsions based on sexual discrimination,” said Jímenez. “We always manage to get the students back to class, but we’re tired of dowsing fires,” he added, remembering the cases of the Centro Politecnico San Ramón and of the Liceo Metropolitano, where expelled students were eventually readmitted after MOVIHL’s intervention.

Jímenez pointed out that MOVIHL has made several proposals to MINEDUC this year, such as organizing meetings about the topic of homosexuality in schools throughout the country. So far, the only answer has come from Unidad 600, which has officially incorporated the topic of homosexuality among the list of issues to tackle next year.

The other episode of discrimination took place in Valdivia’s Colegio Inmaculada Concepción, where the director decided Wednesday not to readmit the four students for the 2005 school year after seeing a picture of the girls – published on the Internet – showing at leat two of them kissing, reports Radio Cooperativa.

The radio station’s Region X correspondent, Barbara Cox, told The Santiago Times that the families of the girls are now seeking an attorney to get the girls back to school. According to the mother of one of the students, the picture was taken as a joke last April, when the girls were taking part in a debate about lesbianism. The case is currently being examined by Valdivia’s DEP, and Jímenez says MOVIHL will be contacting the institutions as soon as possible.

SOURCE: LA TERCERA By Irene Caselli (editor@santiagotimes.cl)