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CAMILA VALLEJO CHILE S HARD LEFT HEARTTHROB NEWSWEEK

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Hard-Left Heartthrob

Chile s youthful revolutionary leader is rattling a nation and a continent as she champions education reform.

It is 7 p.m. in Bras lia, and the streets of Brazil s capital are jammed with homebound commuters, but in a basement auditorium of the darkening congressional building, a student rally has hit fever pitch. Ca-mi-la, Ca-mi-la, Ca-mi-la! they chant. All day they d strained for a glimpse of Camila Vallejo, the Chilean undergrad who turned a campus quarrel over high-priced education into a national political revolt that has roiled the Andean nation and electrified Latin youth from Mexico City to Puerto Montt.

Now Vallejo was taking her Chilean Spring on the road, and Brazilians were not about to miss out. Thousands of them had marched with her under a withering sun to the doors of Congress. They had trailed her inside where she spoke before the human-rights commission, posed for photo ops with heat-seeking lawmakers, and dashed off autographs, leaving a vapor trail of reporters, photographers, and TV cameras wherever she turned. And now that the dark-haired woman, wearing loose-cut jeans, a diaphanous blouse, and a billboard smile has taken the stage, her followers are in a lather. Save your wolf whistles for later, Vallejo jokes.

Vallejo, 23, has fought for student debt to be eased as well as for the utopian goal of free education for all. Marcelo Hernandez / DPA-Landov