| Democracy returning to Peru's Public Universities By Ronald J. Morgan Lima, Peru --- Public universities here, are rebuilding a democratic leadership after years of government intervention. Since the fall of the Alberto Fujimori regime last November, government controls have given way to elections. In May, students and teachers at San Marcos National University elected Manuel Burga, from the Social Science Faculty to be rector. The elections also marked the return of the university and faculty councils. And expelled teachers and students have been returning. Free of government control after five years of military occupation (1990 to 1998) and five years of government adminsitration (1995-2000) San Marcos has established a university truth commission to investigate disappearances, arrrests and abuses to student and teacher rights during the period. Fujimori, who ironically rose to the presidency from his post as rector of the National Agrarian University, considered the public universities to be a bastion of terrorism and a challenge to his political control. And for a while, he largely muted their historic activism with a series of repressive measures. One of them, a death squad attack on the National Education University, known as Cantuta, has lead to murder charges against the former president. On July 18, 1992 the death squad called Colina disappeared a professor and nine students from the university. The unit was controlled by presidential national security chief Valdimiro Montesinos. Government repression of student political activity moved from death squad activity to military occupation of the main public universities in 1993 and 1994. Military units set up bases inside the universities, painted over political grafitti and tore down flags with the likeness of Che Guevara and Peru Shining Path leader Abimael Guzman. Soldiers attended classes, required that students sing the national anthem and conducted surprise searches of students and professors. The teaching of Marxism, and the posession of books by Mao Tse Tung or Peruvian communist party founder Jose Carlos Mariategui could lead to arrest. Teachers and students were expelled in mass. "There was no liberty of expression, no liberty of association," says Dimitri Senmache Artola, president of the Student Coordinator for Democracy and Human Rights. There was systematic psychological torture, death and rape threats. And telephone taps." Senmache estimates that 40% of the professors at San Marcos University left or were expelled. In 1993 the Peruvian Federation of Students ceased to exist. "From 1992 to 1995," he said, is a generation of students without politics." Following Fujimori's 1995 reelection the regime began a more sophisticated attack on the public universities. A government intervention abolished the system of elected rectors, and faculty and university councils which had included one-third student representation know as el tercio, or the third. Rene Meza, a student activist who was expelled from San Marcos during the 1990s says the regime moved from seeking to destroy violent groups on campus to repressing all who opposed the Fujimori regime. "When in 1993 San Marcos Rector Wilson Reategui lead student marches against the new 1993 Fujimori constitution he was called a terrorist. The university was becoming an obstacle not through the presence of subversives but through the political presence of a group of intellectuals who were critical of the regime." Unversity autonomy at San Marcos and other public universities was replaced by a government-appointed rector and a five-man commission for each school. "They combined the poltical intervention with the miltary intervention for total control," Meza said. A crackdown on teacher unions also ensued. Then beginning in 1996 the government began scaling back public financing of the universities and raising the share to be paid by students. There was an increase in the traditionally low tution from 20 Soles ($5.80) to 40 soles ($11.40) in 1996, sparking the first serious protests since the army had intervened. By the the year 2000, tuition had reached 180 soles ($51.40) and the number of fee categories had increased from 20 to 60. From being financed by 80% public funds in 1996 the university had lowered its participation to 50% by 2000. Meza, a student in the San Marcos school of education, was expelled with 20 other students for protesting the hikes in February and March 1996. "The logic was to liquidate the universities as a public institution," Meza said. The make up of university lost much of its poor popular sector students and now mainly consists of middle income students who see the university as a more affordable alternative to the private universities. The Fujimori adimistration's ability to quash major student protest held until 1997. In that year the government sought to reinterpet the constitution to allow a second reelection of Fujimori. When the effort was rejected by the Constitutional Court, Fujimori sacked the opposing judges. The action infuriated law students at both the private and public universities. And on June 5, 1997, 200 to 300 students protested the reelection maneuver. A psycological barrier of control had been broken and a year later on June 4, 5,000 students took to the streets to demand a return to university autonomy. This time the government repressed the demonstration, injuring 200 protesters. The attack produced revulsion and on June 11, 1998, 15,000 students marched with their hands painted white to protest the violence. The student movement was back in operation, says Semanche, who became one of its leaders. The same year Fujimori ended miltary occupation of the campuses but decided against a return to autonomy. Pressure began to galvanize against a second reelection of Fujimori. Students were in the forefront of the effort to obtain 1.5 million signatures calling for a referendum against reelection. The referendum was voted down by the Fujimori-controlled congress but is remembered as a high point in the opposition to a continuation of the Fujimori administration. Students again showed power when Alejandro Toledo backed out of a second round runoff in the fraud- tainted 2000 presidential elections. They sent 25,000 students into the streets to protest the Fujimori swearing in for a third term on July 28. Known as the march of the Cuatro Suyos it largely marked the end of the Fujimori era. While the students would have liked a seat at the Organization of American States transitional talks with the government in August 2000, Semanche said,they are satisfied that democracy and academic freedom have returned. Meza, who is finishing a bachelors in education, says, he most would like to see a increase in education spending from new President Alejandro Toledo. The recently elected president promised students that there would be better pay for professors and increased access to internet and other technology at the nation's public universities. ### |