The following is abridged from a letter sent by Dean Mighell, Victorian secretary of the Electrical Trades Union, to ALP leader Kevin Rudd following Mighells forced resignation from the party on May 30.
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Like the rest of Latin America, Venezuela’s history is scarred by colonialism’s racist legacy — Venezuela’s people were dispossessed in 1520 following Spanish settlement. In the following centuries, they were systematically killed and their land exploited. Slavery, which allowed the colonisers to plunder Venezuela, existed until 1854, and at the time of the 1830 constitution neither indigenous people nor those descended from Africa were recognised as Venezuelans.
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