Fresh information which has reached taken Trotskyist militant Luis Vitale should give an added spur to the campnies for his release We now know that Vitale was origi mally held in a cell together with a well-known folksinger and a militant of the Communist Party. Both these have now been shot, while Vitale has been savagely tortured, It is possible that he too will be shot at any times il internalional allention is not to cussed on his case.
Born in Argentina in 1927, Vitale has a long histery of activity in the worker' movement. From 1959 to 1962 he was a member of the leader.
to the TUC here), and in 1965 he took part in setting up the MIR (Movement of the Revolutionary Left). More recently he has been a leading member of the Revolutionary Socialist Party, which emerged from a regroupment of Trotskyist forces at the end of 1972. At the time of the coup he wan a lecturer in geography at the University of Concepcion, and had published three volumes of a major work, A Merxist Interpretation of the History of Chille.
Students at a number of colleges und aniversities in Britain have already up Virale's case: the firm us from Chile on the situation of offer of a teaching post here would greatly reinforce pressure on the jun ta to give him a safe-conduct out of the country. The student unions at both Birminghum Polytechnic and Birmingham University have passed resolutions demanding that the su thorities should offer Vitale a teach ing post, while at the London School of Economics the Court of Governors is to consider the matter at its meeting next week A resolution demanding his release has been sent to the Chilean Embasy.
The latest news about Vitale, together with renewed fears about the ship of the Chilean CUT (cquivalent life of Communist Party lender, Lat Corvalan, makes it all the more urgent to step up the campaign for the release of those held by the Chilean junta. An international focus on this issue will make it considerably harder for the regime to pursue its torture and execution of militants anabated. But at the same tiase demands mast he stepped up for the British Government to follow the example of othe Western European countries and offe asylem to refugees from the junta At stake is nothing leas than the lives of Vitale, Coralan and many, many other militants.