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Victor Toro: Chilean Revolutionary
Victor Toros thumping abrazo is more than just the ritualistic pounding of flesh on flesh. The act resonates symbolically over Villa Grimaldi, the Air Force Academy, places thousands of miles to the south of the South Bronx, where Toro was among General Pinochets most prominent torture victims.

Now 60, with long straight silver hair that vanishes inside his black beret when the weather turns cold, the Chilean émigré receives visitors in his tiny office dominated by his computer, the prized possession of his old age. His office, with its piles of paper, cans of paint, its quote by Chief Seattle (The earth does not belong to us, we belong to the earth.), and its photo of Che, is hidden away inside the ramshackle vastness of La Pena Del Bronx.
Toro founded La Pena 15 years ago as a center for undocumented workers from Mexico and Central America, who work for minimum and sub-minimum wages (living often 12 to 14 in an apartment) in the factories and restaurants of the South Bronx.
Its not like in Chile. The workers who come here are usually not politicized. At meetings, we talk about whats happening in Chile and the rest of Latin America; whats happening in the world.
They talk to each other about their problems: How can I pay the rent? How can I send money home when I earn so little? In womens groups, the talk is often about rape, beatings.
At the age of nine, Toro began working as a miner, a transporter of minerals in Mineral de Tofu, the mine in which his father worked in the north of Chile. It was a small iron and copper mine. He used to go to the miners meetings led by Communists and Socialists.
When he was older, he organized workers in the fish industry in the north, then Mapuche Indians in Arauco in the south, around land claims. This he continued doing, even after Allende came to power in 1970.
The Mapuche are the only Indians in Latin America who never surrendered to the Spaniards. They resisted the Spaniards for 300 years.
In the mid-1960s, Toro, along with Miguel Henriquez and Luciano Cruz, founded Chiles pro-Castro MIR (Movement of the Revolutionary Left). Toro went underground when Pinochet took power on September 11, 1973. He was seized a year later by an Air Force contingent in a safe house in the working class district of San Miguel in Santiago.
An informer betrayed me, says Toro, who asserts he was lucky to have been seized by the Air Force and not the Army or DINA, Pinochets secret police.
They definitely would have killed me as I was on the Most Wanted List. But the Air Force, though they tortured you, believed in destroying the organization not the person. So I managed to stay alive.
Would he consider returning to post-Pinochet Chile? He couldnt, he says. Too many enemies. Hed surely be killed.
In his corner of the Bronx, there is no resistance, no labor movement, no link between the undocumented workers uptown and the unions downtown.
We have contacted UNITE (Union of Needletrades, Industrial, and Textile Employees) and asked them for their support. They say, We support you. But they do nothing. There is sympathy, but no action. The undocumented workers are left to fend for themselves. They are isolated, completely at their bosses mercy. Have there been strikes?
Toro points in the direction of the Pride Furniture factory up the block by the railroad tracks. Once there was a strike at the factory by regular and undocumented workers for higher pay and benefits. The company fired everyone.
For Toro its a little like plummeting from post-graduate level organizing back to kindergarten. But no unions remained in the Chile he left in 1978. (He was exiled to Sweden.) Starting over with nothing is something he knows a lot about.
He spent the early years of his exile traveling around Europe and the U.S., speaking out against the Pinochet dictatorship. In the course of his travels, he stumbled on the South Bronx. I liked it immediately. It was Puerto Rican, black, Mexican (most of the Central Americans came later). In the summer, people were out in the street playing dominoes, playing drums, drinking beer, dancing. There was all that life-giving energy.
More and more of late, workers are taking to selling flowers or peddling fruit on the street corners. They say they make more money that way than by working in factories or restaurants.
Toro shakes his head. Hes seen people die in the streets because they couldnt afford to go to doctors. He can think of only one local hospital, Bronx Lebanon, that runs programs free of charge for the uninsured poor suffering with AIDS or cancer. The struggle here is for survival, plain and simple.
Mainly through the Internet, Toro stays aware of the changes in the Chilean labor movement. Pulverized by Pinochet, the Communists and Socialists have failed to re-establish their monopoly over the labor movement.
Not such a bad thing, really, Toro concedes. The labor movement is now less bureaucratic, less controlled than it was in my day. Not nearly as strong, of course, but thats to be expected. A socialist [Ricardo Lagos] may be in power, but the right still calls the shots.
After all these years, he still speaks of Chile as if it were right there on his desk, the extension of his arm.There is a fine new spirit of independence that the young workers have. They think for themselves. They are not ideological like we were, but they are against globalization, against the multinationals. Toro puts his faith in the anti-globalization movement. The world has changed and he with it.
Will things ever change for the undocumented workers of the South Bronx?
It wont be easy. As illegals, they have no rights.
And having no rights, they have no power. But if they can
organize and get the support of other workers and if it can
be proven that there has been a violation of their rights
as workers, then finally we can get somewhere. ![]()
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LABOR - May 1 is May Day. Workers of the world will celebrate the 124th anniversary of International Worker’s Day. Born out of a call for an 8-hour workday in the United States, this day is an opportunity for all workers to show their solidarity with one another, as well as to renew the call for labor rights.FARM CONFERENCE - The Farm Conference on Community and Sustainability will be held May 24-26 in Summertown, TN, in partnership with the Fellowship of Intentional Communities. Tour green homes, see sustainable food production, learn about solar installations, alternative education, midwifery, and more.
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PALESTINE - The Conference of the Palestinian Shatat in North American will be held June 3-5 in Vancouver. The conference will examine the future of the Palestinian liberation movement.
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ECONOMICS - The Union For Radical Political Economics will hold its 39th annual conference May 9-11 in New York City.
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RECLAIM THE DREAM - The 2013 Poor People’s Campaign & March from Baltimore to Washington D.C. will be May 11. Communities, schools and unions interested in participating are encouraged to contact the Baltimore People’s Assembly.
Contact: 410-500-2168; 410-218-4835; BaltimorePeoplesAssembly@gmail.com; Southern Christian Leadership Conference of Baltimore and the Baltimore Peoples Power Assembly, 2011 N. Charles St., Baltimore, MD 21218.
MOTHER’S DAY - The 17th Annual Mother’s Day Walk For Peace will be May 12th, in Dorchester, MA. The walk began in 1996 for families who had lost children to violence. The day has become a way for thousands of people to financially support the work of the Louis Brown Peace Institute.
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NATO 5 - An International Week of Solidarity with the NATO 5 has been called for May 16-21. Supports call on supporters to raise awareness of the NATO 5 and support funds for the defendants on the one-year anniversary of their preemptive arrests.
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MOUNTAINTOP - The 2013 Mountain Justice Summer Activist Training Camp will be held May 19-27 in Damascus, VA. It will be a week of workshops, field trips to view Mountain Top Removal coal mines, direct actions, and service project.
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FEMINIST SCI-FI - The feminist science fiction convention WisCon 37 is scheduled for May 24-27 in Madison, WI.
Contact: WisCon, ? SF3, PO Box 1624, Madison, WI 53701; concom37@wiscon.info; http://www.wiscon.info/.
ANARCHY FEST - A month-long Festival of Anarchy is scheduled for May in Montreal. The festival includes The Montreal Anarchist Bookfair (May 19-20).
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LABOR - The International Labor Rights Forum will present: Down the Supply Chain, Driving Corporate Accountability, on May 22 in Washington, DC. The Labor Rights Awards Ceremony and Reception will honor pioneers in supply chain worker organizing, working solidarity and international labor rights policy.
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MULTICULTURE - The 26th annual National Conference on Race & Ethnicity in American Higher Education (NCORE) will take place May 28-June 1, in New Orleans.
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Contact: 1101 Pennsylvania Ave. NW, Suite 600, Washington, DC 20004; 202-756-2268; comments@nfcb.org; http://www.nfcb.org/.
BRADLEY MANNING - On June 1, a rally will be held at Fort Meade in support of Bradley Manning.
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BIKES - Bikes Not Bombs is holding its 24th annual Bike-A-Thon and Green Roots Festival in Boston, MA on June 3, with several bike rides scheduled, music, exhibitors and more.
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LEFT FORUM - The 2013 Left Forum will be held June 7-9, at Pace University in New York City.
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VEGAN FEST - Mad City Vegan Fest will be held in Madison, WI, June 8. The annual event features food, speakers, and exhibitors.
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ADC CONFERENCE - The American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC) holds its annual conference June 13-16, in Washington, DC, with panel discussions and workshops on civil rights, media and other topics.
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CUBA/SOCIALISM - A Cuban-North American Dialog on Socialist Renewal and Global Capitalist Crisis will be held in Havana, Cuba, June 16-30. There will be a 5 day Seminar at University of Havana, plus visits to a cooperative, urban garden, community development project, social research centers, and educational & medical institutions.
Contact: cuba@globaljusticecenter.org; http://www.globaljusticecenter.org/.
NETROOTS - The 8th Annual Netroots Nation conference will take place June 20-23 in San Jose, CA. The event features panels, trainings, networking, screenings, and keynotes.
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MEDIA - The 15th annual Allied Media Conference will be held June 20-23, in Detroit.
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GRASSROOTS - The United We Stand Festival will be hosted by Free & Equal, June 22 in Little Rock, Arkansas. The festival aims to reform the electoral process throughout the U.S.
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SOCIALISM - The Socialism 2013 Conference is scheduled for June 27-30 in Chicago, featuring talks and panel discussions.
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LITERACY - The National Association for Media Literacy Education (NAMLE) will hold its conference July 12-13 in Los Angeles under the heading, Intersections: Teaching and Learning Across Media.
Contact: 10 Laurel Hill Drive, Cherry Hill, NJ 08003; http://namle.net/conference/.
IWW - The North American Work People’s College will take place July 12-16 at Mesaba Co-op Park in northern Minnesota. The event will bring together Wobblies from branches across the continent to learn new skills and build One Big Union.
Contact: http://workpeoplescollege.org/.
PEACESTOCK - On July 13th, the 11th Annual Peacestock: A Gathering for Peace, will take place at Windbeam Farm in Hager City, WI. The event is a mixture of music, speakers and community for peace. Sponsored by Veterans for Peace.
Contact: Bill Habedank, 1913 Grandview Ave., Red Wing, MN 55066; 651-388-7733; billhabedank@yahoo.com; http://www.peacestockvfp.org.
CHILDREN’S DEFENSE - July 15-19, join clergy, seminarians, Christian educators, young adult leaders and other faith-based advocates for children at CDF Haley Farm in Clinton, Tennessee, for five days of spiritual renewal, networking, movement building workshops, and continuing education about the urgent needs of children at the 19th annual Proctor Institute for Child Advocacy Ministry.
Contact: cdfinfo@childrensdefense.org; http://www.childrensdefense.org.
ACTIVIST CAMP - Youth Empowered Action (YEA) Camp will have sessions in July and August in Ben Lomond, CA; Portland, OR; Charlton, MA. YEA Camp is designed for activists 12-17 years old who want to make a difference in the world.
Contact: info@yeacamp.org; http://yeacamp.org/.
LA RAZA - The annual National Council of La Raza (NCLR) Conference is scheduled for July 18-19 in New Orleans, with workshops, presentations and panel discussions.
Contact: NCLR Headquarters Office, Raul Yzaguirre Building, 1126 16th Street, NW, Washington, DC 20036; 202-785-1670; www.nclr.org.
LABOR - The Eastern Conference For Workplace Democracy: Growing Our Cooperatives, Growing Our Communities, will be held at Drexel University in Philadelphia, PA, July 26-28.
Contact: info@east.usworker.coop; http://east.usworker.coop/.
WOMEN/LYNNE STEWART- Radical Women is asking for support letters and cards to be sent to Lynne Stewart. Stewart is a civil rights attorney and political prisoner who is currently in jail. She has breast cancer and authorities have denied her request for transfer from her Texas prison to the New York City hospital where she received medical attention during a prior bout of breast cancer. Send messages and cards to: Lynne Stewart 53504-054, Federal Medical Center Carswell, P.O. Box 27137, Fort Worth, TX 76127.
Contact: 747 Polk Street, San Francisco, CA 94109; 415-864-1278; RadicalWomenUS@gmail.com; http://lynnestewart.org/; http://www.radicalwomen.org/.
HAITI/WOMEN - Haiti’s government is considering a legal reform measure that would prohibit and punish all sexual assault, including marital rape. MADRE and the International Campaign to Stop Rape & Gender Violence in Conflict are launching a petition to raise international support for this push to address violence against women in Haiti.
Contact: 121 West 27th Street, #301, New York, NY 10001; 212-627-0444; madre@madre.org; http://www.madre.org.
SYRIA/MIDDLE EAST - The Middle East Children’s Alliance (MECA) is currently seeking funds to assist more than 200,000 refugees fleeing violence in Syria.
Contact: https://www.mecaforpeace.org.
FOLK FESTIVAL - The Falcon Ridge Folk Festival will be held August 2-4, in the Berkshires, NY.
Contact: http://www.falconridgefolk.com/; falcridge@aol.com.
WAR RESISTERS - The War Resisters League will hold its 90th anniversary conference, Revolutionary Nonviolence: Building Bridges Across Generations and Communities, August 1-4, at Georgetown University. The event will focus on the U.S.’ long history of antimilitarism.
Contact: 339 Lafayette Street, New York, NY 10012; 212-228-0450; wrl@warresisters.org; http://www.warresisters.org.
POPULAR ECONOMICS - The Center for Popular Economics is holding its 2013 Summer Institute August 4-9 at Hampshire College in Amherst, MA. No background in economics is needed for this intensive training. This year’s theme is, The Care Economy: Building a Just Economy with a Heart.
Contact: Center for Popular Economics, PO Box 785 Amherst, MA 01004; 413-545-0743; programs@populareconomics.org; www.populareconomics.org.
VETERANS - Veterans for Peace is holding the 28th annual convention August 6-11 in Madison, WI. This year’s theme is, Power To The Peaceful.
Contact: http://www.vfpnationalconvention.org/.
DEMOCRACY - The Democracy Convention will take place August 7-11 in Madison, WI. The convention brings together nine conferences including topics such as media, education, defense, race, environment and others.
Contact: https://democracyconvention.org/.
MEN - The 38th National Conference on Men & Masculinity: Forging Justice: Creating Safe, Equal and Accountable Communities, presented in partnership with HAVEN, will be held in Detroit, MI, August 8-10.
Contact: ccardinal@haven-oakland.org; http://www.nomas.org/.
OCCUPY - An Occupy National Gathering will be held in Kalamazoo, MI, August 21-25.
Contact: natgat2013@gmail.com; http://occupynationalgathering.net/.
COMMUNITIES - The Communities Conference is a networking and learning opportunity for co-operative or communal lifestyles, with workshops, events and entertainment; scheduled for August 30-September 2 at the Twin Oaks Community in Louisa, Virginia.
Contact: http://www.communitiesconference.org/.
LABOR DAY - The 29th annual Bread and Roses Festival, a celebration of the ethnic diversity and labor history of Lawrence, MA, will be held September 2, in honor of the 1912 Bread and Roses Strike. There will be music, dance, poetry, drama, ethnic food, historical demonstrations, walking & trolley tours.
Contact: PO Box 1137, Lawrence, MA 01842; 978-794-1655; http://www.breadandrosesheritage.org/.
OCCUPY WALL STREET - September 17 is the two-year anniversary of the Occupy Wall Street movement. Events are planned in New York City and worldwide.
Contact: http://occupywallst.org/.
TEACHERS - The 13th Annual Conference, “Teaching for Social Justice: The Politics of Pedagogy,” will be held October 12 in San Francisco, CA. The free event features workshops, resources, and free childcare.
Contact: 415-676-7844; teachers4socialjustice@yahoo.com; http://www.t4sj.org/.
HAITI - International Action, which brings clean water and chlorinators to Haiti, seeks office space capable of housing up to six people and their office equipment.
Contact: Zach Bremer, Zbrehmer@haitiwater.org; 202-488-0735; http://www.haitiwater.org/.
MEDIA - The Union for Democratic Communications and Project Censored are sponsoring a joint conference on media democracy, media activism and social justice to be held November 1-3 at the University of San Francisco. Proposals for presentations, workshops and panels from activists and critical scholars are invited.


