International Student Movement

For
some years the student movement in Colombia has been the victim of
systematic persecution on the part of state agencies (DAS, OTP, CTI,
ESMAD, Army and National Police) and parastatals. In our memory are the
murders of 14 students between the years 2002 to 2006, the many
arrests, disappearances, torture and displacement that in recent years
have been filed against the students, or made subject to such agencies. 

Colombian
universities have been marked in recent decades by becoming a forum for
discussion, of struggles of ideas, to play a critical role to the
established order and to be generating a social conscience. In the past
six years the universities generated strong criticism towards the
government of Álvaro Uribe Velez and his democratic security politics.

In
line with this critical attitude by the universities, two weeks ago,
some lawmakers of the governing coalition are insist on referring to
universities, especially some public ones, as nests of bandits and
terrorists. Consequently they have kicked-off a campaign of
delegitimization and stigma with the help of the mass-media, where they
try to display any dissenting voice to the government, as an apology to
crime and terrorism.

We
reject the accusations made by leaders of the coalition government
assertions that serve as an excuse to state security agencies and
paramilitary structures, to once again attack the integrity of the
various members of the university community. Like those made on
September 16, 2008 by the director of the Department of Administrative
Security (DAS), Maria del Pilar Hurtado, pointing to student
organizations and academic secondary accusing them to belong to
insurgencies.

We
condemn any action that is generated by illegal armed groups or
security agencies of the state, also liable to the national government
headed by Álvaro Uribe Velez, Maria del Pilar Hurtado, director of the
Department of Administrative Security (DAS), the Attorney General Mario
Iguarán and Senator Gina Parody of the physical and psychological
integrity of all members (students, workers, teachers, retirees and
administrative expenses) of Colombian universities. 

We
call on all students of the world, social movements and national and
international community to show solidarity with the Colombian student
movement, to support a movement that today is a victim of one of the
most vicious campaigns of extermination to freedom of speech and
thought in Colombia. 

no to the militarization of the universities 
no to the stigmatization of the student movement in Colombia 
no to the criminalization of Colombian students   
 
general assembly of students  
University of Antioquia