Instituto del Derecho de Asilo - Museo Casa de León Trotsky, A.C.

(IDA-CMLTAC)
Avenida Río Churubusco No. 410
Col. del Carmen Coyoacán
CP 04100 México, DF -- MEXICO
Tel. 56 58 87 32
gall.museotrotsky@gmail.com

Dear Friends in the World

We are writing this letter to invite you to support the effort to preserve and renovate the Leon
Trotsky Museum (IDA-MCLTAC) in Mexico City.

Already many of our U.S. supporters -- including Suzi Weissman, Carol Lang and Alan Benjamin --
have sent out appeals to their friends urging support for our project. We thank them for their
efforts, and we thank the dozens of you who have already sent in financial contributions to our
fund.

On August 20, at 4 p.m., we will launch the International Friends of the Leon Trotsky Museum at a
special event in a larger venue than our Museum's auditorium: the Foro Coyoacanense, Hugo
Argüelles, Calle Allende No. 36, in the center district of Coyoacán, in the southern region of Mexico
City.

This event will be part of a three-day series of activities on August 19-21 marking the 70th
anniversary of the assassination of Leon Trotsky, the 35th anniversary of the opening of the
Trotsky Museum, and the 20th anniversary of the founding of the Institute on the Right of Asylum.

We would like to invite all our friends and supporters in the United States to join "International
Friends" and, if possible, to attend the launching of this group on August 20.

If you would like to join "International Friends," please send us a note to the email address listed
above. We welcome all who support our Museum's six-point "Statement on Social Objectives" and
our four-point "Renovation Project" [see below], and who wish to help us raise desperately
needed funds to promote these objectives.

Our goal is for International Friends to include the broadest possible regroupment of personalities,
democratic rights activists (including supporters of the right to asylum, which is one of the main
themes of our Museum), political activists, and museologists of different progressive political
tendencies and backgrounds.

On August 19 and August 20 (until 2 p.m.), we also will be holding in our Museum's auditorium a
Conference on "Socialism, Democracy and Dissident Movements." There will be presentations by
Mexican and international speakers. Some of the panels are the following:
- Trotsky and the Dewey Commission (Prof. Olivia Gall, UNAM and Trotsky Museum),

- Participation and Rights of Latinos in the United States (Prof. Suzanne Oboler, Editor, Latino
Studies, CUNY),

- Dissident Social Movements on the Left and the Right in the United States (Alan Benjamin, Editor,
The Organizer),

- The Relevance of Victor Serge (Suzi Weissman, KPFK Radio producer and author),

- Trotsky and the Dissident Movements in Eastern Europe (Prof. Gabriel García Higueras,
University of Lima, Peru), and

- Victor Serge, the POUM and the "Socialism and Liberty" group (Prof. Claudio Albertini, UACM).

The program of the event launching the International Friends of the Leon Trotsky Museum on
August 20 (starting @ 4 p.m.) will include presentations by Esteban Volkov (Trotsky's grandson and
president of the board of directors of the museum) and Olivia Gall (director of the museum); a
theatrical presentation by Grupo Sol Azul of Moises Mendelewicz titled "Conversations with
Trotsky"; a presentation on Political Asylum in Mexico by Pablo Yankelvich (INAH); and a trailer
presentation of the film "Planet Without a Visa" (by David Weiss and Linda Laub), with an
introduction by Linda Laub.

Finally, on August 21, there will be a laying of a wreath of the tombstones of Leon Trotsky and
Natalia Sedova, with a presentation by Esteban Volkov.

We invite you to donate to our Museum preservation/renovation fund and to join our
International Friends of the Leon Trotsky group and campaign.

If you are a resident or a citizen of the United States, please:

1. Send your checks, payable to Global Exchange (write "Trotsky Museum" on Memo line of
your check), to International Friends of the Leon Trotsky Museum, P.O. Box 40009, San
Francisco, CA 94140.,

2. Fill out and send, to the same P.O. Box, the following Coupon

TROTSKY MUSEUM DONATION COUPON

[ ] I will contribute $ _____ to the fund to preserve the Leon Trotsky

Museum in Mexico City. My tax-exempt contribution will be made out to Global

Exchange (with Trotsky Museum on Memo line of check) and sent to International

Friends of the Leon Trotsky Museum, P.O. Box 40009, San Francisco, CA 94140.
 DATE

NAME

ADDRESS

CITY

STATE

COUNTRY

ZIP

EMAIL

and send it to International Friends of the Leon Trotsky Museum, P.O. Box 40009, San Francisco,
CA 94140, with a copy to alanbenjamin@earthlink.net]

If you are a citizen of another country and you don’t need a tax exemption for your donation to
us, please:

1. Wire your donation to us to

 -The bank BBVA Bancomer S.A. INSTITUCION DE BANCA MULTIPLE, GRUPO

FINANCIERO BBVA BANCOMER
-The account number 0452487284
-The number of what is called in Mexico the "Clabe  Interbancaria" (a number destined to
transfers from one bank to the other) is 012180004524872848
-Swift code:     BCMRMXMMPYM
-The bank's address is Av. Centenario No. 12 Col. Del Carmen Del. Coyoacan C.P. 04100
en Mexico D.F.
-TEL. (52) 55 56 59 67 17  Ext. 34
- FAX  (52) 55 56 59 92 63,

2. Fill out and send the following coupon

TROTSKY MUSEUM DONATION COUPON

[ ] I will contribute $ _____, or €_______ to the fund to preserve the Leon Trotsky
Museum in Mexico City.
DATE

NAME

ADDRESS

CITY

STATE

COUNTRY

ZIP

EMAIL

and send it Olivia Gall, Instituto del Derecho de Asilo – Museo Casa de León Trotsky A.C., Avenida
Río Churubusco 410, Colonia del Carmen, Coyoacán, México 04100 D.F., Mexico, with a copy to
alanbenjamin@earthlink.net and to gall.museotrotsky@gmail.com.

We also hope that you will be able to join us at one or more of our events in Mexico City on
August 19-21.

Sincerely,

Olivia Gall
Full Professor, CEIICH-UNAM
Director of the IDA-MCLTAC

**********

Appendix No. 1

International Friends of theLeon Trotsky Museum (IFLTM)

(Excerpts)

The IDA-MCLTAC's Social Objectives

The Social Objective of the Institution is:

1. To maintain, protect, preserve, restore, guard and improve in all pertinent and necessary ways,
the Leon Trotsky House-Museum, who must offer its visitors the best possible museology services.

2. To maintain, protect, preserve, guard and increase, in all pertinent and necessary ways, the
existing materials in the Rafael Galván Library and in the association's Documentary Center, which
must offer its visitors the best possible information and research services.
 3. To promote and develop research, analysis, education and effective communication regarding
the topic of the right of asylum, and, when related to asylum, on those of migration and refuge.

4. To promote and develop the study, analysis, education and effective communication regarding
"the defense of public rights and public freedom."

5. To manage the association's assets and resources, as well as those received through donations,
contributions, transfers, bequests, wills, liens, trusts, funding, agreements or employment
contracts, in cash or in kind, coming from individuals or corporations, domestic or foreign, public
or private. These funds and resources will be used exclusively for the purposes of the Association.

6. To establish partnerships through agreements or other legal forms provided by existing

legislation, with any cultural, artistic, social or academic national or international institution, both
public and private, which may contribute to the better attainment of its goals.

********************

Appendix No. 2

Renovation Project

The Directive Council of the Institution has developed a project consisting in gradually
transforming the IDA-MCLTAC into an institution that takes the figure of Leon Trotsky as its central
axis, but also approaches the different ideological and political currents of socialist thought,
actions and debates, the right of asylum and the history of revolutionary and post-revolutionary
Mexico, in which Trotsky was admitted as a political refugee. The goal is to create an institution
that will establish agreements with academics, museums and documentary, visual and
bibliographical archives from all over the world, in order to offer the public:

1. A MODERN MUSEUM

* A well-preserved house-museum that will give its visitors an idea of the real environment in
which Trotsky, his friends, guards, secretaries and guests lived between May 1939 and August
1940: a tense and anguished environment, not always but sometimes joyful, not very prosperous,
but of hard work and comradeship.

* Permanent as well as temporary exhibits built on visual, audiovisual, documentary and

interactive materials.

2. A RESEARCH, EDUCATIONAL AND INFORMATION CENTER, INTERESTED IN THE ANALYSIS OF

HISTORICAL FACTS AND IN THE EXCHANGE OF IDEAS, THROUGH

* Consultation of printed, graphic, audiovisual and interactive materials, in situ or via the web,

* The development of educational and cultural programs, which will consist in conferences,
symposia, book presentations, courses and workshops.
* A small bookstore in which our visitors will find books -in three languages, if possible- related to
the institution's subjects.

3. A CINEMA CLUB

In it, old and new short films, movies and documentaries, organized according to different subjects
of historical, political, intellectual and cultural interest will be shown and discussed.

4. A SPACE FOR ART, ART CRAFTS, CULTURE, ENVIRONMENT, CUISINE AND SOCIAL GATHERING

A space that will try to constitute an original, simple, elegant and international cultural option that
will harbor:

* Diverse cultural expressions of our contemporary world: sculptors, painters, mimes, actors,
storytellers, dancers, poets, musicians, etc.

* The house's garden, such as it was kept by Natalia Sedova and by Sieva Volkov's family between
1939 and the early 1970s.

* A cafeteria that will serve very good coffee, tea, pastries and appetizers, and that will offer in
Coyoacán a touch of originality given by four combined elements: (a) a simple international menu
made by a few Baltic, Jewish, Balkan, Turkish, French, Norwegian and Mexican dishes, typical of
the countries where Trotsky lived or was exiled, (b) the access to reading, in situ, some
international newspapers and magazines, (c) a decoration that will portray the style of Mexican
restaurants in the thirties, and (d) some music or poetry evenings.

* A shop, selling posters, little boxes, mugs, pens, calendars book markers, agendas, etc., so that
our visitors may take home some of the museum's souvenirs.