[News] Students at UPR Piedras hold vigil to keep cops off campus

[Anti-Imperialist News]

http://www.prdailysun.com/news/UPR-students-hold-vigil-to-keep-cops-off-campus

Puerto Rican Daily Sun, December 10, 2010

Students at UPR Piedras hold vigil to keep cops off campus

It was not business as usual at the University of 
Puerto Rico Río Piedras campus Thursday as 
students, teachers, labor groups and political 
organizations presented a united fund to boycott classes.

While students gathered outside the gates, 
refusing to go to class, their professors met 
off- campus and voted not to teach as long as police remained on campus.

They also postponed the strike vote they had 
approved last week in exchange for the 
administration receiving the students for a dialogue.
Several organizations demanded that the police be removed.

“There is no doubt that the government is 
frightened by the university’s power, and the 
love the people have for it as an institution,” 
said María Gisela Rosado, president of the Puerto 
Rican Association of University Professors, in 
reference to the presence of police on campus.”
“We want this fee to be canceled, or at the least 
put on hold, until the institution can get on an 
even keel, and all of us can look for ways to resolve this,” she said.

The group also urged the people to join the march 
from the Capitol to La Fortaleza scheduled for Sunday at 1 p.m.

Student spokeswoman for the Student 
Representation Committee María Soledad Dávila, 
said the administration is taking advantage of 
the academic recess ordered by the chancellor to install cameras.

“They are taping, and we don’t know what they are 
doing in the faculties,” she said. “The people 
are here aware that the University is not theirs 
[the administration’s] but ours.

“As long as there is a police presence inside the 
University, there will be no classes,” she said.

Police have not entered the university for the 
last 30 years, and when they have, it has been to 
repress ideas and limit the project of a public university.”

The teachers will not bar the way of anyone, she 
said, but the majority of students, professors 
and employees are expected to repudiate the police presence on campus.

This protest was not anticipated when they met to 
give a strike vote for an event which is scheduled for Tuesday.

Another group condemning the presence of the 
police is the University Pro Independence Federation, known as FUPI.
“This is a serious act of provocation on the part 
of Luis Fortuño’s government towards the 
university community and the island as a whole,” 
said FUPI spokesman Kevin Luciano, adding that it 
was also “a historic step backwards for the university.”

Police have not been brought on campus [in recent 
years] precisely because it has brought dramatic 
consequences including the death of Antonia 
Martínez Lagares, two police and an ROTC cadet at 
the beginning of the 1970s,” said Luciano.

Also commenting on the police presence was the 
Movement to Socialism, which called on the 
student body to act decidedly and united, before 
the new institutional aggression on the part of 
the government against university autonomy, the 
non-confrontation policy and accessibility to an excellent public education.”

“We denounce the occupation by police of the UPR 
campuses aimed at intimidating and creating a 
belligerent climate. When the police were removed 
[from UPR] 30 years ago, it was because of the 
vicious killings, attacks and arrests, the 
climate of confrontation, building of dossiers, 
and harassment, the result of which was a failure 
of democracy and crass violations of civil 
rights,” said the organization’s spokesman Alvin R. Couto de Jesús.

“Police on campus represents an act of 
confrontation that undermines the university 
autonomy project and eliminates the 
non-confrontation policy because it destroys the 
possibility of resolving conflicts from a 
university point of view built on dialogue and mediation,” he said.

Another point of view came from the Association 
of Pro-Statehood Students which announced 
Thursday that it will create a united front with 
the leaders of the organization on other campuses 
to prevent incidents like those which occurred in Río Piedras.

The organization’s president in Mayagüez, Edwin 
Jusino, said there is no conflict between the 
statehood cause and the protection of UPR.
“If it is true that we have the right to protest, 
it is also true that we must not violate the law. 
Our struggle must not be a violent one; we must 
develop dialogue and lobby to force the 
government and the legislature to resolve the UPR crisis,” said Jusino.

The Trade Union Coordinating Group said that it 
had also agreed to express solidarity with the 
many organizations of professors and non-teaching 
workers.  They also voted to support the students 
of the 11 campuses who are rejecting the new 
tuition fee. They also will participate in 
activities to promote their position.

They also repudiated the remarks of Chief of 
Staff Marcos Rodríguez Ema, who said they would 
(literally) “kick out” the demonstrating students.

The director of the group, Luis Pedraza Leduc, 
said [Rodríguez Ema’s] words are the fundamentals 
to create a climate of uncertainty, fear and violence at the University.”

Pedraza Leduc said Rodríguez Ema did the same 
thing in 1996 when he provoked a strike at the 
Government Development Bank, which lasted for two months.

Pedraza Leduc criticized La Fortaleza for 
instructing government agencies to mobilize 
employees of confidence to the UPR campus 
participate in marches which support the university administration.

After the 48-hour strike ended, Fortuño announced 
that he would soon name a committee to amend the regulations of UPR.

On another subject, Fortuño justified the 
mobilization of the police to the campuses and 
said that after noon classes would begin, 
allowing workers to clean up the barricades and 
trash which the students placed in certain areas.

The president of the Popular Democratic Party 
Héctor Ferrer called on the governor to remove 
the police, and urged alumni to support the students.

He said the governor should assume the responsibility and face the situation.

“We have seen conflict and unpleasant encounters, 
which have resulted in violence, we have seen 
student and police lives in danger, but the 
governor has been absent. It looks as if solving 
this conflict is not one of his priorities,” said Ferrer.

In reaching out to former students, he said: 
“This struggle is not just about the students, it 
affects the whole country, and it is time for the 
alumni to take a step to join this cause, which 
is, without a doubt, a fair one.”

Ferrer invited the governor to put aside 
political differences and to use “viable means” 
presented by the PDP delegation to solve the conflict.
Among their suggestions are a bill proposed by 
the Law School students to amend the Scholarship 
Fund law and bills that propose to amend the 
Fiscal Emergency Law 7 to restore the income formulas of the UPR General Fund.
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