South Africa: University of the Left: A Warzone

South África/24 de Octubre de 2016/Allafrica

Resumen: El movimiento junto con el SRC se reunió con la dirección ejecutiva. El propósito principal de la reunión fue proporcionar una plataforma abierta donde la administración pudiera responder al memorándum de demandas que se habían dado a ellos por el movimiento. El memorando revisado contiene 40 demandas y la mayoría de éstas habían sido inexistente desde el Memorando de demandas que habían sido entregados en octubre de 2015.

The movement along with the SRC met with Executive Management. The main purpose of the meeting was to provide an open platform where management could respond to the Memorandum of Demands which had been given to them by the movement. The revised memorandum contains 40 demands and most of these demands had been existent from the Memorandum of Demands which had been handed over in October 2015.

At the meeting on Monday, management failed to give an intelligible response to the student body thus students rejected the response and mandated management to come to a meeting on Wednesday, 19 October with all relevant stakeholders, including but not limited to, the Chairperson of Council, Mthunzi Mdwaba and all Executive Management members. On Tuesday evening, an email was sent to the campus community where management committed to provide feedback by Wednesday, 19 October 2016.

On Wednesday 19 October 2016 at 09:58, the UWC community received communication that “petrol bombs” were found inside buildings on campus; furthermore students and staff were advised to not come onto campus. Around 7am there had already been a police bomb unit on campus. These bombs were conveniently found on the day that the meeting between Management, Council and the student body was supposed to sit. We are yet to see pictures of these bombs and whether the culprits have been found or not, we are only told that the matter is still being investigated. It is obvious that these bombs had been planted by the University and they were attempting to use this “incidence” as a scapegoat to not attend the meeting.

At 14:04 when students had been waiting for over two hours at the student centre for the meeting, the campus community received an email stating that management would not be attending the meeting and attached to the email was a vague response to #UWCFeesWillFall’s 40 demands. After the SRC addressed students, it was then decided that everyone would move to Res Life and decide on a way forward.

Around 15:36 police started throwing stun grenades and teargas at the mass of students that were moving. Students dispersed to various locations. Police started charging in towards students, in this instance police also shot through windows and Res Life building started burning. The movement is in no way liable for the burning of buildings and we condemn this rogue behaviour which we believe might have been carried out by the institution itself in a bid to once again paint students as “violent hooligans”.