Throughout Latin America, student protests spread

As militant protests and occupation movements have continued to grow across Europe, the Middle East and North America, a wave of student protests, backed by organized labor and community groups, has been sweeping across Latin America.

On Nov. 24, in support of Chile’s ongoing student protests and voicing their own demands, thousands of people took to the streets in more than a dozen cities in Latin America on the same day demanding quality public education.

The Latin American March for Education was called by the Chilean students confederation, and demonstrations were held in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Paraguay, Peru, Uruguay and Venezuela.

The sheer size and breadth of the demonstrations, in addition to their international character, show that a significant movement is taking place.

Some 10,000 protesters marched through the streets of Santiago, Chile, demanding reforms of the educational system, as they have been doing for months. Again, there was a crackdown by the anti-riot police, who arrested some 60 people.

Police also attacked demonstrators in Colombia, where the U.S. has a significant military presence.

“Today is a very special day because we are marching throughout Latin America,” stated Esteban Miranda, president of the University of Chile Law Students Center. (Inter Press Service News Agency [ips.org] Nov. 25)

He said the hemispherewide mobilization was a demonstration of the similarity of demands by students in the region, as well as of the support for the movement in Chile.

An education law enacted by the 1973-1990 dictatorship of Gen. Augusto Pinochet set off a process of decentralization and privatization that gave private schools free rein to pursue profit and use entrance exams to select their students. Chilean students, backed by labor and other groups, have been protesting those measures since February.

The march in downtown Santiago was supported by organizations of students from secondary schools, technical, vocational and arts institutes, as well as trade unions and teachers.

Luis Garrido, a representative of the Sindicato Único de Trabajadores de la Educación (SUTE) teachers union, said that the movement has broad objectives: “Capitalism is profits, business, buying and selling, and that is not what educators are about,” said Garrido. He added that the movement in which teachers and students have come together is demanding a “social transformation.” (IPS, Nov. 25)

Under a steady drizzle, tens of thousands of young people poured onto the streets in the main cities of Colombia in response to the regionwide call to march for quality public education for all. The protests followed a massive march of 200,000, which took place in Bogotá on Nov. 10, to press the right-wing government of Juan Manuel Santos to withdraw a controversial bill to privatize education along the lines of the Chilean model.

“Today we are mobilising for all of Latin America because we are suffering from governments that do not recognise education as a fundamental right,” said Gladys Ríos, a social science student at the University of Antioquia in northwest Colombia. (IPS, Nov. 25)

Camila Vallejo, a leader of the student movement in Chile, characterized the movement in Chile and across Latin America as being more than a movement for educational reform:

“We do not want to improve the actual system; we want a profound change — to stop seeing education as a consumer good, to see education as a right where the state provides a guarantee.”

“Why do we need education? To make profits? To make a business? Or to develop the country and have social integration and development? Those are the issues in dispute.” (Guardian, Aug. 24)