Shadow Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus was among the speakers at a rally and speakout on the steps of the Victorian Parliament House on Saturday 24 May.
On the eve of the anniversary of not only the September 11 terrorist attacks in the US, but also of the 1973 CIA-backed Pinochet coup which overthrew the democratically elected government of Salvador Allende, LASNET organised a rally in solidarity with students, workers, and Indigenous people currently struggling against another right-wing government in Chile, that of Sebastian Piñera...
This was followed on Sunday by a commemoration of the September 11 coup, with speakers, music and a showing of the film "The Black Pimpernel" at Trades Hall.
Last August, 14 anarchists were arrested accused of "terrorism" by the Chilean state, around the mediatic "Bombs case", 10 are still in the Maximun Security Prisons, under Pinochet's anti-terrorist law.
The Latin American Solidarity Network (LASNET) organised a picket outside the Chilean Consulate in Melbourne at lunchtime today, displaying the Mapuche flag and delivering a letter to be forwarded to the President of Chile, Sebastian Pinera.
While the US flag flew at half-mast in memory of the victims of 11 September 2001, representatives and supporters of the Latin-American communities in Melbourne held a small rally to remember the victims of the US-inspired coup in Chile on the same day in 1973, and to demand an end to US interference in the affairs of Latin America.
