UNAM Strikers Arrested en Mass, Call for Action for nytcamer@ursula; Fri, 11 Feb 2000 21:52:52 -0500 Via NY Transfer News * All the News That Doesn't Fit source - msn@mexicosolidarity.org UNAM Strikers Arrested en Mass, Call for Action Following is information on the student strike at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), including background on the strike, a brief analysis of the points of disagreement, and a message from the General Strike Council (CGH). The Mexico Solidarity Network calls on concerned people to call either the Mexican Embassy in Washington, DC (202-728-1600, ask for the Ambassador), or your local Mexican Consulate with the following demands: - Release the striking students from jail and drop all charges. - Negotiate a just end to the strike that meets the six basic demands of the General Strike Council. Background The nine-month-old student strike at the National Autonomous University of Mexico took a decided turn for the worse Sunday when 2,400 federal police raided the campus and arrested 632 students. The Associated Press quoted one student: They were aggressive. They came in swinging. They took everyone they could. There was no resistance. We were sleeping. According to the AP report, Students yelled at one another to stay calm, sit down and not provoke the police UNAM is the largest university in Latin America with 270,000 students. The police invasion follows a tense two weeks. In late January striking students and the Rector of the university mounted competing referendums. Predictably, the Rector s referendum showed support for ending the strike and the student s referendum demonstrated continued support for the striker s demands, positions which are not mutually exclusive. Also predictably, the mainstream media applauded the Rector s efforts while discrediting the student s labors. On February 2, about 200 people from an anti-strike faction (the NYT reported that only a small number were students or administrators ) backed by 150 members of the university security force, attacked the strikers with rocks, sticks and bottles. One person was killed and 37 injured. Police arrested 251 people, apparently all striking students. The attack followed a call from the Ministry of the Interior to students who were opposed to the strike to re-take the facilities and a call from Rector Juan Ramon de la Fuente for students and faculty to negotiate the reopening of their departments directly with the strikers (NYT, 2/3/00). The Rector conveniently abandoned that strategy after violence erupted. Reporting in the US media has been particularly one-sided. To site only a few of the more egregious examples: - Initially the New York Times credited the striking students with initiating the violence in February 2, tacitly admitting the next day that the erroneous information had come from television news reports. (Television news in very closely controlled by the ruling PRI in Mexico.) - An AP news report on February 6 editorialized that the raid ended an exasperating ordeal in which Mexican authorities from President Ernesto Zedillo on down seemed unable to wrest the country's most important academic institution from a tiny band of radical students with names like Mosh and The Devil. - When Rector Juan Ramon de la Fuente arrived at the university, with press in tow, to present the results of his referendum to striking students, the New York Times characterized it as an audacious display of openness to break the impasse with student strikers, then neglected to report that the Rector had failed to appear at several scheduled negotiating sessions the previous week. The strike began on March 15, 1999, after the government tried to raise tuition dramatically, while the Mexican constitution calls for free education. Strikers quickly developed an analysis of public education in the context of globalization, and saw tuition raises as the first step in a process of privatization that is rapidly enveloping public institutions in Mexico. Initially the strike enjoyed widespread support among students and university employees, but disagreements around tactics and strategy lead to splits into various factions. Many progressives in Mexico agree with the basic demands of the strike but do not want to destroy an institution that represents the cultural center of Latin America and that has been an important road out of poverty for many working class youth. Strikers have won some concessions from the administration, but many of the fundamental issues remain unresolved. While the New York Times reported on February 2 that the university s president has agreed to concede to most, but not all, of the demands, the devil is in the details. * Following is part of a letter from one of the striking students and a call for action from the General Strike Council: Student letter: We started the strike because Barn s (the last rector) wanted us to pay tuition, while the Mexican Constitution says that public education must be free. I must be clear in remembering that before the strike, education at UNAM wasn t free. There was a General Statute of Payments since 1966, where it says that the semester in high school costs 15 cents and in college it costs 20 cents. Besides, there were a lot of illegal payments you had to do for using computers, laboratories, sport fields, pools, for a uniform they forced the youngest students to use, for taking English or any other language classes, etc. In June, Barn s took away his proposal of tuition, and he said that you could make voluntary payments. The problem was that in the changes he made to the statute, he legalized those other payments (well, not really legalize, because no valid statute can say anything against what the Constitution says. But you know the president supports this plan, so no law would apply here). That was why we didn t accept this as a solution to our demand, which we haven t changed at all. We want free education. Now, De la Fuente says he will suspend the statute, and that the one of 1966 will be in use. So, education won t be free, it will stupidly cost 20 cents (the receipts will be more expensive). We think they do this in order to be able to raise tuition whenever they want it, starting by making people get used to paying for education. But De la Fuente doesn t own our education. Mexicans pay taxes to be sure everyone gets education, health services, etc. It s our right. This demand remains unsolved. Another demand of ours is the General Congress. We want to build a space where voices of students, teachers, and workers can be heard and where they really participate in making decisions for the university. We gained the approval of the administration to make a Congress. Now they say that they are the ones who want to change UNAM, and they want to organize the Congress by themselves. In this new proposal, they say that a group of 28 people will be commissioned to organize it, but of these 28 people, 21belong to the administration. And guess what: the commission will be able to take decisions with a 75% vote (oh yes, by accident, the 75% of 28 is 21). They say that in the Congress there will be 500 representatives, of which 38% will be students, 38% teachers, 16% researchers, 4% workers and 4% authorities. We do not agree completely with this, but mainly we would like to take part in the organization. We would like to discuss if this composition, and we want to vote and that our votes mean something. Our demands of ending the modifications they did on 1997 to the General Statute of Ingress and Permanence (I m not sure about the translation of this names) and the end of the relationship between UNAM and CENEVAL (National Center of Evaluation) won t be attended by now. They say the will only suspend them while we discuss them in the Congress. In a Congress where the administration will be able to take decisions without us, as it has been always, as it was in 1990, when they did a Congress absolutely controlled by them, which didn t change anything. The other two demands are only partially solved. When we ask them to make sure everyone can continue with the classes where they were interrupted by the strike, they say that will be in the hands of the principal of each school or faculty. There s no general commitment to do it. So if a principal doesn t want to let us finish with our semester, he or she would be able not to do it. When we ask them not to punish anyone for participating in the strike, they say that they will forget about the demands they presented to the University Tribunal (can you believe this exists???), but they don t mention anything about the demands they presented to the police, which continues processing over 300 students for charges such as theft, vandalism, property damage, etc. For all of this, we didn t accept the consensus proposal. But the rector acted smartly. While he presented it to the press, he made it appear as if everything had been solved. So there was no need for continuing the dialogue. His commission hasn t come back to the negotiations, although we go everyday and we wait for them outside the Palacio de Miner a. Instead, he organized a plebiscite. He paid for a lot of time in TV, messages on the radio and entire pages in the newspapers to announce it, to show that the conflict was solved and to convince people to vote for the end of the strike. There was a huge campaign of publicity for this, and they put about 1500 places for voting around the city and in other states. In this plebiscite, he asked two tricky questions: 1) Do you support the proposal that the rector made or not? And 2) Do you think that the strike must end now? But even with all this stuff, the results were not the ones they expected. They say that half the people in UNAM voted in the plebiscite (180,000 people, around 49%), but of these, only 39% supported the rector s proposal. Of course, almost everyone said that the strike must end soon, I m sure strikers are most worried about this (we are really tired after 9 months), but the plebiscite didn t ask us how do we think that strike must be solved. But of course, all the press, TV, and radio are saying that all the people at UNAM want the end of the strike and that the proposal is enough to solve the problem. To fight against this, we made an information campaign. We pasted posters, we talked to the people on the buses, on the subway and on the streets about what was really happening. We filled the city with information. And we organized a Consulta. On January 18 and 19 we all worked from sunrise to sunset talking to the people and inviting them to vote. We asked them 3 questions: 1) Do you think that the six demands of the strikers must be attended immediately so the strike can end soon? 2) Do you think that both parts (administration and strikers) must return to the dialogue so they can build a solution to the conflict? And 3) Do you think that the rector s proposal may cause a confrontation between people in the university (if they say strike is over and they try to enter by force to the campus)? We did succeed with this. We had more than 150,000 university people voting yes to our questions, and over 500,000 people that don t belong to the UNAM supporting us. We hoped this could force the administrators to return to the dialogue with us, when they notice that they don t have all the strength in their side. But the press has been saying that we cheated with the results of our consulta, and every political actor in Mexico (representatives, political parties, governors, candidates, etc) is declaring that we should accept the results of the plebiscite, because it is the voice of the university. That is really worrying, because if they convince people that they have solved everything, but the intransigent ultras still don t want to open the campus, this may cause public opinion to accept that students (I mean porros) go to the campus and try to open the schools by the force, causing a confrontation between university people. Or in the worst of the cases, that nobody would say anything if the rector asks the government to send in the police or the army to break the strike. * Message #1 of the General Strike Council (CGH) of the National Autonomous University of Mexico February 6, 2000 To all the Peoples of the World, To all the University Students of the World, To The NGO's, To Civil Society, To the Workers, Campesinos, and Indigenous Peoples, To All Types of Women Struggling Against All Types of Oppression, This is an urgent call by the General Strike Council of the UNAM (CGH-UNAM) Today February 6th 2000, thousands of military police belonging to the "Federal Preventive Police" body violated the university's autonomy and militarily occupied the largest University in Latin America. We hold the following peoples responsible of this act of repression: The President of the Republic Ernesto Zedillo Ponce de Leon, The Secretary of State Diodoro Carrasco, The Attorney General, Jorge Madrazo, the psuedo-rector, Juan Ramon De La Fuente and the official candidate of the PRI to the Presidency, Francisco Labastida Ochoa. In this action over 500 members of the CGH (we still don't know the exact number), who at the time were holding a plenary assembly at the University were taken prisoners. At the moment of the forced eviction the CGH had already decided unanimously to demand that the authorities return to the dialogue so that negotiations could be established that would allow for a solution to the conflict that would not involve repression. The demand was made that tomorrow at 10 am the government meet with us at the "Palacio de Mineria." According to the declarations made by the Attorney General, Jorge Madrazo, the order to physically end the student movement was given on Friday February 4th. It is worth remembering that that same day, from 10 in the morning to 12 at night we the CGH were involved in talks with the psuedo-rector Juan Ramon de La Fuente. The President of the National Commission for Human Rights, Jose Soberones, who participated in these talks, officially declared to the press that no resolution had been reached. The curious thing is that this declaration was made before the talks had ended. With this in mind, we conclude that these "talks" were a trick. Because, while the rector pretended to dialogue, the plans for the repressive actions had already been prepared. THE CGH WILL NOT SURRENDER! At the plenary assembly that was interrupted by the police, it had already been decided that if the police raided the university the CGH would meet in exile (we will give you more information on this as the day goes on). Another accord of the CGH is that we will not exchange prisoners for our demands. We demand the immediate release of the nearly one thousand Political Prisoners that belong to the CGH! We ask for your solidarity We ask that you urgently take all the actions of solidarity that are possible. We suggest that you: hold activities in front of Mexican embassies and consulates; that you manifest your support of the CGH and that you protest this police action, that you translate and disseminate our communiques. In the next bulletin we will send you the faxes and addresses of the Mexican governments buildings. SO that our six demands are met! Liberty for the Political Prisoners! No to the Privatization of education! Down with Neoliberalism and the Plans of the IMF and World Bank! That our hearts open so that we may spread dignity to all our brothers and sisters, and so that our rage explodes in the hands of the oppressor. Consejo General de Huelga de la UNAM (CGH-UNAM) Mexico D.F., domingo 6 de Febrero (9:15 a.m.) ================================================================= NY Transfer News Collective * A Service of Blythe Systems Since 1985 - Information for the Rest of Us 339 Lafayette St., New York, NY 10012 http://www.blythe.org e-mail: nyt@blythe.org ================================================================= nytcamer-02.11.00-21:52:46-28156