Speech pronounced by the university students in the Main Square
23 April ´99
Companions:
Today the college students we are in Strike, because we are not arranged to
accept that the University closes its doors to the children of the workers.
Because we refused to allow that the government continues taking away resources
to the education of the population, to subsidize to the bankers and to the
great industralists.
Because we defend the right of everyone to study, and therefore, that the
public education is gratuitous in all their levels. For that reason we are in
Strike, and for that reason we demanded the immediate solution to our demands:
In the first place, the definitive establishment of the education gratuitous
in the University, that it won be more quotas and all the illegal collections
will be eliminated.
Secondly, we want that the bureaucratic ties and filters disappear that are
expelling from our university the students of limited resources; for that
reason we demanded the reestablishment of automatic pass of baccalaureate to
faculty, and the elimination in the limit for the permanence.
Thirdly, in response to the climate of police intimidation, the proliferation
of threats, the hits that our companions have suffered from the porros,
groups of shock and the bodyguards of "Vigilancia UNAM"; we demanded the
dismantling of all this repressive apparatus.
In fourth place, because we want a university to the service of the people,
with its doors opened to its children; a university where critical
professionals are prepared, that when graduated they contribute to the
tranformación that this country needs, and not to impelling the system that we
suffer; in short, because we want a university of all and for all, we demand
the accomplishment of a decisive instance where students, professors and
workers, we transform the UNAM.
Because all this we are in Strike, and more.
The government was committed with the bankers to give him to the public
resources through the FOBAPROA, and he was put to retire those resources of the
education, health, etc. Now they pretend that the people puts again those
resources for the education. We are not going it to allow. The taxes are paid
by the workers, we all paid them, and those resources must return to the people
with education and health. For that reason we demanded, to the federal
government, to increase the budget for education, at least to 8% of the GIP
established by UNESCO, and a 2% of it for superior education.
For that reason we are in strike, as now we had never felt so ours to the UNAM.
Today we are thousands, we have won each battle in each school, the force of
the arguments, of the reason and the dialogue between college students one
dominated the stupidity and the authoritarianism with which director Barnes de
Castro has lead our university.
The close mind, the pride and the authoritarianism of the director increased
the indignation between the students. The student movement, today organized
in the Consejo General de Huelga, has become general, reason why from this day,
all the schools and the university facilities are of the side of our fight.
The University is in calm, although in shake at the same time. The climate of
intimidation, violence and repression that lived many schools today was exiled
by the vertiginous organization of the students. The " 30 activists by school
"that the director predicted, have become thousands who of free way added
itself to strike, promoting the discussion in the schools which they lacked to
get up itself, and going out, now, to communicate to the whole people the right
reasons of our revolt.
From now on, our demands sustained in the force of the reason, also have the
endorsement of the force of Strike. Strike, to be the last resource, is now a
stage of hope and learning, of encounter. It is the row of knowing us to
majority and owners of our University. They are the shared in common kitchens
with that by them pass, are the nocturnal guards full of people and song, the
very short nights, in which time is not enough to discuss the University, the
country and the future.
Strike is outbreak of imagination and thousands of young people around the
city, our word will be multiplied in posters, blankets and papers, same that
reproduce thanks to the generosity of people in the street.
We did not admit that we was accused to be paid by any political fraction, our
brigades are gotten infuriated before such affirmation. Who does not believed
it can approach anyone of our establishments at the moment in which the count
of the cans is made, and to the reports of ours commissions of finances. It
cannot be said the same of the slogans of the director, who is consuming the
limited resources of the UNAM. All this gives authenticity to and makes
legitim our revolt.
Strike is not only a mechanism to engage in a dialog with the whole people.
The self organization that in it is originated is a direct question to the
power and the authoritarianism as forms to organize the society. Then strike
is a contribution to the transformation of the whole country.
The student movement is done by college students who organize themselves from
their different schools, in assemblies or representations, coordinated by the
Consejo General de Huelga. There is no strange hand here that manipulates
from the outside. There is no interference of strange agents neither of
organizations nor of political fractions. This student movement is independent,
are messianic leaders nor "caudillos". We all are a unique voice.
We will not allow that the rumors of repression, the police attacks to
companions and signallings, the threats of the intervention of the public
force, intimidate to us or they dissuade to us to break off this right and
pacific battle.
On the contrary, we will denounce any aggression to a member of the Consejo
General de Huelga or to any college student, we will defend him as we were only
one. We pronounced ourselves against the misinformation campaign that the main
television transmitters of this country have mounted against the student
movement making bad use of its must to inform.
We do a call to them from the heart of Mexico so that they transmit the truth,
which have filmed in our Consejo General de Huelga, the truth of which has
gathered in the different schools, that they take to the television the
culture, freedom atmosphere, of debate, of critic of our movement in strike.
Which are the exits to the conflict? The student movement has gotten tired to
repeat it, is inadmissible the breaking of an ethical and social principle as
it is the right to the education. But we have gone much more far, while the
director remained forever discussing the twenty cents, the students are
discussing the transformation of our University. If the director is not able
now to solve the conflict, we will go to the whole society, because is to
it for who our UNAM is and are all Mexican those that must be pronounced with
respect to the high mission of this house of studies.
Companions, we are not fighting for ourselves, not only by our brothers who now
attend elementary and high school, not only by the future generations. We are
defending the gratuitous education in all the country. As Jose Martí said, "a
cultured town, is a free town", and we love a free town.
This is a fight of all, not only of the college students. Listen all. In
addition to the solidarity and the support that can offer us to history like
spectators, or participant assets of the national defense.
This is what is at heart of the fight that we freed. We want that you actively
add it, that we all together snatch more budget for university, that we all
together expel to "porros" from all the schools. That we all together stop the
interference of private organism, like the CENEVAL, in the public education.
That we all together make reality the right to the education.
By all this, we summon you to meet immediately in your Assemblies, to discuss
in them the fight plan whom they will impel from each university, from each
center of work, each colony.
We are not going to yield, are not going to give reverse gear, we have
initiated this battle and nothing will stop to us. We wait for you.
To make a call to fight shoulder with shoulder with the workers, the students,
the farmers, to reveal themselves and resist the privatizadora attack that the
government has triggered under the mask of directo or of the patterns, of
general the economic policy, is to walk together, to defend it together, that
means to said together and to fight all, close ranks in defense of the people
against the privatization, to fight with and by the companion of alongside, the
neighbor, with the worker and the student, the electrician and the professor,
and until with whom we do not know its face.
Because to defend the education today, it is to guarantee that in the future it
can continue existing with the slogan of being the best education for the
greater number, that is to say, for everyone, for which today we do not even
see. Because to be student also it means to defend a nation project in which
all those that has been forced to keep silence speak to a single voice with
all, with the people. Because, as Salvador would say, "to be student and to not
be revolutionary is equal to not being anything ".
For that reason today we say that it is time to show that the universal right
which has all human being to study, to work, to live with dignity, cannot be
shut up by the powerful ones and that our shout of fight goes by the repressed
housewifes, by the injured workers, by the defense of the public education,
gratuitous and for the people, by the defense of the national sovereignty, by
the natives, the children of the street, the farmers without land, the
political prisoners, the teachers of this country, who are jailed or dismissed
of their work, by this country that still is use called Mexico.
This movement is going to be win by all of us. In defense of the gratuitous
education.
By increase in the bedget for the education.
Consejo General de Huelga