University City, February 29, 2000.
General Strike Council
press bulletin
I. Where do they think they're going?
Investigators and professors in the area of mathematics who have formed part of the group organized by the PRDista Rosaura Ruiz, who came two months ago acting with the intent of breaking the strike in the College of Sciences, in these days have participated in three types of meetings: one with the director of the school of Sciences, Fernando Magana, to decide who (of Sciences) needs to be freed and who needs to remain imprisoned in Reclusorio Norte; the other was with the rector and the general attorney [of UNAM] to induce them to make the necessary gestures so that our companera, Leticia Contreras, can not be released and so that three professors of this same college can be arrested; and the other was in the Institute of Mathematics where they are compiling the list of professors of Sciences that need to be expelled (those that participated in the strike) and inventing the "arguments" that will be used for these purgings. STOP, FASCISTS.
II. The harassment continues at the parents' sit-in encampment.
Last week Jose Narro offered [the parents] money for their childrens' bail, in exchange for breaking their camp at the Office of the Rectory. When the parents' assembly rejected their charity, demanding that UNAM drop the charges, the rectory changed tactics, and is now willing to talk. Narro, arguing that they are NOT university students and that they give UNAM a bad image, in a menacing tone, asked them to vacate their installations or else they will raise corresponding demands before the Public Ministry for impeding the normal development of activities.
III. "So nice, so pleasant, so fascist..."
"If they are following them and taking photos, at the most it's because they are very nice," is how the general attorney, Serrano Migallon, responded to the report that a student from the Iberoamerican University gave on the presence in UNAM of police that follow and photograph CGH sympathizers.
So haughty are the university authorities (believing that the student movement has already been broken) that they already overlooked the forms and announced to the four winds that "they are going to be hung up to dry for all they have done". This is how the general attorney, in a forum organized by the Ibero, declared the clear intention of the university authorities of breaking up UNAM, in which the prepatories (UNAM-affiliated high schools); The CCH, ENEP, and FES, will be converted into autonomous and independent organisms (Does anybody agree with the "five points of consensus" which, according the De la Fuente, were arrived at by the university community, through who knows how many meetings? Is anyone okay with the fact that one of these points of consensus was "In the reform process, the integrity of the institution needs to be guaranteed, whose parts need to be redefined but not eliminated" (La Jornada, Dec. 15, 1999)? Does anybody agree to the public compromise to the repressive and lying De la Fuente, that the university should not be dismembered, that the issue can not even be touched upon by the Congress? Another participant's disillusion of the fraud-plebisite?). However Migallon has something for everyone: "perhaps it can be concentrated in that which is going to be investigated and how, maybe by reducing or trimming off a little in those areas, increasing in a very sensible manner the participation on the part of the investigation with the academic". They have already heard the esteemed investigators and some of you so diligent in your work of confronting the student movement in order to be able to impose the "normality" decreed by De la Fuente and some of you so concerned with doing the authorities' dirty work so that they now get away with it. Once again, the threat of blacklisting those who who do not want to or can not, with the evident dismissal of the dissenting professors. Once again they can respond to the students' call, together we can again stop the authorities.
And on the activities of cultural diffusion, Mr. Migallon says that "it can be reduced or it can be driven by distinct economic criteria, like soccer or shows" The attorney scores a big point!
In addition the gentleman who hardly knows his name, says that there are "less than 100" prisoners in Reclusorio Norte (240, sir), that the General Regulation of Payments went into effect in 1996 (1966, sir), that the autonomy of UNAM is only scholarly (no comment, Mr. Clown) and that our higher body of direction is called "National Strike Council" (it's still General, sir).
IV. The ANUIES in the lead.
If it has not already been made clear that the government and the university authorities are trying to impose their entire tragic plan for education, here are the declarations of the ANUIES [National Association of Universities and Institutes of Higher Learning], published yesterday in the daily papers: "schemes establishing independent financial backing were determined for the faculty and researchers, and in both instances distinguishing those destined for middle and high school education and the programs of a technical level; of undergraduate, of graduate (specialization, masters, and doctorate)", of that which tries to break up the universities, starting with UNAM and to prepare the groundwork to start the separation of the aforementioned for the privilege of those who are interested (researchers and graduate students).
"The criteria (in the allowance of the aforementioned), with some differences according to the modality of the studies will be: student fees; primary enrollment and that of the expenses of the last four years, and a merging of factors of efficiency and quality associated with the aforementioned requirements. Among the factors of quality it has been proposed considering the graduation rate, the realization of the objectives of learning or accreditation of the program by a specialized organism." These are the compromises required by the organisms of international finance, establishing market criteria, of efficiency in education, the same that have proven to be failures in developing countries over the past two decades. Its logic is perverse, allotting a lower budget to the less "efficient" Universities which, lacking resources, will be deemed each time less "efficient" (the perfect vicious cycle to make them disappear). Furthermore, their criteria of efficiency have never had to look at the academic complexity of that which is truly a University.
V. Power to the companeros from Law and Social Work.
Today Carranca and Burgoa (the driving forces behind the legal complaints and the incarceration of our companeros) received their just punishment; fifteen minutes of uninterrupted ridicule from an auditorium filled with students from the College of Law, prevented these two babbling law experts from carrying out their conference on the differences between political prisoners and delinquents. This started another fifteen minutes of loud laughter.
The assembly of Social Work of February 14th decided to demand the resignation of the entire administration of the ex-director Nelia Tello, paving the way for the new director, Roberto Bermudez, while not implying any relation to him. If this demand is not realized, the assembly will take the actions they see fit in order to obtain it.
VI. On the consulta in the college of Sciences.
Yesterday the authorities, hidden behind a group of students (some appeared at the tail-end, with the signature of the Administrative Secretary of Sciences, Carlos Angeles Medina, in the fold-out sections of the newspapers) organized a consulta in Sciences to boycott the resolution of the Student Assembly of that College, to close the halls all week. Even though the halls were not closed down yesterday so that the students could dedicate themselves to building to building barricades around the ballot boxes, it is certain that classes were not held in this college.
According to their results, 1660 voted out of an estimated total of 7000 (when the Sciences community is around 5000...Did they include the personnel of the Institutes?), of these they reported that 1144 were students, as one can observe that the majority were grad students (according to the official numbers, there are around 1100 grad students in this College. The majority of grad students kept themselves on the margins of the strike, attending classes, giving the reason that they could lose their scholarships and only a percentage participated in the CGH, withdrawing various months ago; but supposedly there is a sector that keeps up the fight). In the case of the workers, only the "faithful personnel" voted, the base of workers decided in the Assembly to not to participate. The results of this consulta reveal the participation of a block of the university right, particularly among the faculty, composed primarily of researchers from the various Institutes. The percentage results of two of the three questions (the other is in favor of dialogue) are:
In favor of A. keeping the halls open, and B. releasing the prisoners.
Students A. 95% B. 72.6%
Faculty A. 97.5% B. 56.9%
Workers A. 97.43% B. 44.3%
The organizers of the consulta, in an attempt to justify it, have insisted that everyone was in agreement in fighting for the freedom of our companeros, that the discrepancy was only in the method of attaining it. What do they have to say now?
Today the Sciences assembly carried out the closure of the halls with a march that went all over the school and by passing along the word, closed the classrooms.
VII. The same prescription that was used at UNAM.
In El Mexe, they are using the same methods used on UNAM against the CGH. In a document of limited circulation, El Mexe is referred to as "...a center of generation of anti-government activities, from its interior they plan acts of vandalism like auto theft, business hold-ups, cattle rustling, and assault." "They create irregular situations and vices of alcoholism, promiscuity, homosexuality, drug addiction, and prostitution." "The student leaders of 1980 to the present are a hegemonic group of power, with dishonest policy compromises; working teachers and students who don't submit to the assigned policies of laziness, are physically and verbally attacked." Where have we heard this before? Remember that we heard this for more than nine months and it is not a coincidence that all social movements are categorized in a similar way.
-The Press Commission of the CGH