ISR Issue 49, September–October 2006

Interview with a Chilean student leader

“This opens the door to a democratizing revolution”

RODRIGO OLIVARES is a member of the thirty-four-student negotiating committee of the Coordinating Assembly of High Schools Students (ACES) and the national coordinator of the Federation of Students for Solidarity (FESOL). FEDERICO MORENO, who visited Chile during the student occupations, spoke to Rodrigo about the movement.

WHAT IS the ACES? How did it form? LAST YEAR there was the Assembly of Student Centers of the Socialist Party, the Popular Front of High School Students of the Communist Party, and the Federation of Students in Solidarity (FESOL). Each acted, mobilized, and negotiated separately. This year, the three converged to form the Coordinating Assembly of High School Students (ACES), where they function as political blocs. When the movement became massive, more schools joined, until over 800 students were coming to the assemblies, and we decided to divide the ACES into Santiago's five zones, with a coordinating plenary. For the committee that negotiates with the government, we elected four spokespersons from each zone, plus representatives from the other regions of the country. Currently, I'm spokesperson for the south zone.

HOW DID the negotiations play out?

THE ACES started with a list of minimum demands: free PSU (college placement test) and transport passes. At first the only thing we won was that the pass was made unlimited. Since we saw that the movement was on the rise, we decided to add more demands, reaching the final eight-point list.
The government said we had to demobilize in order to negotiate, but we weren't disposed to doing that. That week, during which there were important protests, there were no stable negotiations because neither side backed down. Since the government saw that the protests continued, that the students adopted the tactic of occupying some schools in anticipation of the president's national speech on May 21; and since, because she didn't even mention the issue in her speech, the occupations spread; since they saw that the movement continued to rise, the Minister of Education saw himself obliged to call a great meeting with student representatives in Santiago. This is where these guys messed up. First, because the minister didn't show up, and second, because they didn't allow all the representatives in. This caused a fury in the movement. We walked out and said we wouldn't sit at the negotiating table until the minister came himself. From here on, we imposed the conditions, not the government. That's when people started talking about a “penguin revolution,” [because of the black and white uniforms the students wear] more schools joined, and we had to divide the ACES in zones.

Then the ACES called for a national student strike and for protests that Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. The negotiations began in this context. If the minister walked out for a smoke or to consult Bachelet, we would halt the meeting. If the guy wasn't at the table we wouldn't talk. That's how we had him those days from 5 pm till midnight. The guy seemed cornered-he would grab his head. When he spoke, if we didn't like what he was saying, we wouldn't wait for him to finish; we would interrupt him banging on the table: “Mr. Minister, you can't say that, that is an insult to us, that's not what we're asking for.”

WHAT HAS the movement achieved?

THIS MOVEMENT was able to put the government in check. It started as a defensive movement, and quickly went on to demand legitimate things that we didn't have before. The government's first response was an emphatic “No.” There was no money for any of what we demanded. Then, as the fight progressed, the minister offered the free PSU and the free transport pass to three-fifths of the students. Since we considered this to be miserable crumbs, we called for the national social strike and the next day Bachelet went on national TV and offered the free PSU and pass to four-fifths of students, and a commission to reform the LOCE. Personally, I'm not satisfied. If the ACES would have continued the mobilizations, put the kids on the streets, we could have won the whole list, because we had the balance of forces on our side, because, like we laid the glove down in the negotiations, we also did it on the street. Now, I think there was a bad maneuver on the part of the Socialist and Communist Parties, who wanted to demobilize. But, although the commission to reform the LOCE is solely advisory and has little student representation, the fact that we managed to question this pillar of the regime, of Pinochet's constitution, is a tremendous victory that shakes Chile like nothing has since before the dictatorship, and opens the door to a democratizing revolution in our country.