[A-List] Fw: Chilean students fight back

["Sabri Oncu" <soncu@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

-----Forwarded Message-----
From: EL NUEVO TOPO 
Sent: May 21, 2005 12:10 AM

Subject: Chilean students fight back

Concepcion Chile--The students have occupied the university in protest
against a new law approved by the neo-liberal "socialist" government which
would treat student loans as any other loan by banks.  Poor students who
cannot provide security for loans are theby excluded from college education
as most education has become privatized. Primary education as well is no
longer free in Chile with parents requiring to pay 2000 pesos a month (aprox
$3.20 US a month).

On Wednesday police attacked the students with tear gas and 50 students were
arrested.  In front of the university, the Arts Building is nearly
completley covered with plastic supermarket bags as a protest against the
commercialization of education.  The student leaflet described this plastic
covered building as:"The House of Art is one of the buildings with the
greatest cultural importance in the region and in the country, thast is why
we chose it as a symbol for this action which is to cover it with a membrane
of supermarket plastic bags...The Law of Student Financing  faces us with an
economic political action which puts at risk the Arts degrees...forming
again an elitist art without social consciousness..." EARL GILMAN