Confianza
UCV (Trust UCV)
A
group of university students and staff focused in the analysis, reflection, and
exchange of opinions about the struggle that higher education institutions,
including the Universidad Central de Venezuela, confront, and the country’s
current problems.
Monday,
March 24, 2014
THE
GROUP CONFIANZA IN RESPONSE TO THE COUNTRY’S CRISIS AND THE AGRESSION TOWARDS
THE UCV (CENTRAL UNIVERSITY OF VENEZUELA)
THE
GROUP CONFIANZA IN RESPONSE TO THE COUNTRY’S CRISIS AND THE AGGRESSION TOWARDS
THE UCV
Our
country is facing unprecedented times. Once more the powerful student movement
has covered the national territory with its presence and its voice, together
with the Venezuelan people, that little by little is recovering its strength.
There have been 45 continuous days of protests in Venezuela’s main cities, and
today they don’t seem to give ground or diminish in intensity. These have also
been 45 days of systematic and growing repression, with a painful number of
murders, tortures, vicious beatings, arrests, and charges, all due to the
shameful crime of protesting against a government that has been progressively
closing all spaces available to free expression until the point of reducing them to infeasible interstices. During these
last days the decision to stamp them out on all fronts has elevated the
decibels up to a scandal.
The
last student manifestations, clearly peaceful, have been prevented from exiting
the ghettos where the government is trying to confine them; mayors Ceballos and
Scarano have been arrested, the latter even demoted and sent to jail without
trial by, paradoxically, the so-called Constitutional Chamber of the Supreme
Court; other governors and mayors have been threatened with similar procedures
and the President of the National Assembly has let out his rage and his dogs
against deputy María Corina Machado, in order to strip her of her parliamentary
privileges. Political leader Leopoldo López was charged and arrested, without
any proof, of having allegedly promoted the national protests, increasing the
list of political prisoners headed by Iván Simonovis. It is, then, an assault
meant to create fear among the entire population and to stop even the smallest
protests at all costs.
This
decision of the government to show its most repressive face is meant to contain
the social protests that have surfaced as a response to the serious financial
problems in the country, now impossible to conceal because they are evident
daily in the perennial lines of buyers of scarce or inexistent food products
and absent medicines, the choking increase of the inflation that threatens to
surpass the 56% reached in 2013, the exceedingly high and growing levels of
insecurity, the abandonment of Elath services, in a few words, the general
dissatisfaction of people in the face of overflowing crime, even when not all
of them are protesting. These manifestations reflect the citizen’s inconformity
and difficulty comprehending how Venezuela, being the country with the highest
income among the members of the international organization ALBA, has the worst
financial performance: the worst treasury shortfall, the lowest financial growth,
and the highest inflation caused by a financial policy that leads to the ruin
of the country and the impoverishment of Venezuelans, condemning them to a disastrous
quality of life.
The
group Confianza-UCV wishes to express its position in the face of the serious
current situation. In that sense, it is of the opinion that the country needs
to urgently establish a true dialogue, completely different to the farce set up
by the government, the so-called Peace Conferences, where the President
pontificates unendingly surrounded by a silent and indulgent audience where
only his own friends
are
represented, with few exceptions.
A
true dialogue between the government and the democratic alternative, that will
effectively try to search for solutions to the current crisis of the country,
should start off with certain indispensable requirements that will create trust
from both sides: the establishment of neutral ground, choosing an escort or
mediator of mutual agreement, the requirement of certain agreements from both
sides that will
prove
an authentic intention of searching for solutions; an agenda that includes the
most important issues that are originating the current protests, such as
freedom for the political prisoners, the cessation of repression and human rights
violations, the suspension of arbitrary court appearance and construction of
barricades, as well as other problems that affect the governability of the
country, among others the restoration of the autonomy of the public powers, the
designation of members whose service period has expired in the Supreme Court of
Justice and in the National Election Board, the designation of the National
Treasury Inspector, the full recognition of the rights of the members of
parliament who disagree with the government and the cessation of the
progressive limitations of freedom of information and expression. In short, it
is about the recognition of the existence of half a country that resists
accepting the establishment of a regime that continues to show its totalitarian
trends and it is obviously in blatant violation of the National Constitution.
Such is a dialogue that could lead
to
decrease the polarization and promote mutual respect and recognition as
Venezuelans with political differences, but who can live and work together for
their country.
In
the midst of the current crisis, as it has been happening in these last 15
years, the Universidad Central de Venezuela has once again been the victim of
aggression from the government’s repressive squads and the armed groups. The
university’s authorities have been trampled on and disrespected, and the
students have been attacked by police squads and armed groups that, among many other acts of brutal hostility,
have burst into classrooms and student assemblies, displaying extreme forms of
violence, brandishing firearms and blunt force weapons, and leaving eleven
students wounded, several of them with serious injuries, like in the event that
took place on Thursday, March 19 in the Faculty of Architecture and Urbanism.
In
the face of these new aggressions and the complexity of the country’s current
situation, the group Confianza-UCV is of the opinion that the defense of the
National Constitution, the autonomy and spaces of the UCV, should be accomplished
with the university’s doors open; that the university’s institutional
organisms, its authorities, the Governing Board, the faculty committees, the
school boards,
the
student unions, the university assemblies, the students, the staff and the
laborers, are all responsible for its defense. It is within them, their
presence and their commitment, where the institution’s legitimacy and strength lies.
Only in this way, with an open university willing to mobilize, actively
participating in the righteous current struggles and through the study and
understanding of the country’s main problems will it be possible for the
university to effectively contribute to the search of solutions to the national
crisis and to rebuilding the Venezuelan society. The university is a
fundamental institution within the Republic and as such must be defended by the
entire nation. Let us summon the Venezuelan society to its defense; let us
incorporate the UCV into the construction of the new democratic coexistence.
Finally,
we ratify as members of the university and particularly of the UCV, our most
unconditional adherence to democratic values and, in consequence, we demand
from the National Government the immediate cessation of the indiscriminate
repression and an absolute respect to the constitutional norms and the human
rights of every Venezuelan citizen as
well as of allthose who live in this country’s territory, without distinctions
of any nature, as well as to initiate a transparent investigation about the
deaths occurred to determine those materially and intellectually responsable
for these (murders, assassinations) acts. In particular, we demand the utmost
adherence to what is established in the Article 109 of the Constitution of the
Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela in regards to the autonomy of national
universities. Only the most honest and transparent respect to our Constitution
and to the rights established in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights can
guarantee a true dialogue and the construction of a lasting peace with justice
for all.
University Campus in Caracas, March 24, 2014
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