Forum marks Chile coup
BRISBANE — On September 11, 100 people attended a "People's Forum" to mark the 30th anniversary of the military coup which overthrew left-wing Chilean president Salvador Allende.
Greetings were given to the gathering by Alvaro Guzman, a student leader from Venezuela currently on a speaking tour of Australia.
The Committee for the Chilean September 11, which organised the forum, is calling on the current Chilean government to abolish impunity for coup leader Augusto Pinochet and to scrap the 1980 constitution imposed by the military regime.
Protest against the WTO
BRISBANE — On September 13, 200 people rallied in the Roma Street Forum in solidarity with the world-wide protests against the World Trade Organisation trade talks in Cancun, Mexico.
The rally, and march to the Department of Foreign Affairs, included demands against the US occupation of Iraq. The protest action was sponsored by the Transport Workers Union, the National Tertiary Education Union, the Greens, Australian Democrats, Women's International League for Peace and Freedom, Palestine Community Association, Griffith University Student Representative Council, the socialist youth organisation Resistance and the Socialist Alliance.
Meeting hears Chilean human right activist
MELBOURNE — Victoria Torres, a member of Chile's Coordinating Committee of Political Prisoners, spoke at a September 11 meeting to commemorate the 30th anniversary of military coup in Chile.
Torres explained that the political prisoners defended by her organisation are not a carry over from the Pinochet military regime of the 1970s and '80s, but of successive civilian "democratic" governments since the early 1990s.
Organised by the Chilean Popular and Indigenous Network, the meeting was attended by 50 people. A "Solidarity Night with Victoria Torres" will be held at the Brunswick Town Hall on September 27. For more information, phone (03) 9481 2273 or 0401 558 373.
Hicks calls for son's release
SYDNEY — Terry Hicks, father of David Hicks, one of two Australians imprisoned as "terrorists" at the US military base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, addressed a public form at the Trades Hall on September 20 after visiting Pakistan and Afghanistan.
"I am now more than ever convinced of my son¹s innocence", Hicks said upon his arrival in Sydney. "John Howard must demand from George W. Bush David's release, and also the release of Mamdouh [Habib], when Bush visits Australia next month."
Maintrain workers leaflet train commuters
SYDNEY — Maintenance workers employed by United Goninan Maintrain handed out leaflets at city railway stations on September 17 urging commuters to telephone NSW transport minister Michael Costa to demand he intervene in their dispute with the company.
The leaflet claimed that vital safety work has not been completed on 120 CityRail carriages because each time the 300 workers at Maintrain's workshops in Auburn hold a stopwork meeting to discuss their dispute with the company over long-term job security, they are locked out.
"We've been locked out 15 times in the past two months", Australian Manufacturing Workers Union state secretary Paul Bastian said.
From Â鶹´«Ã½ Weekly, September 24, 2003.
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