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Mar
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I curse poetry conceived as a cultural luxury by the neutral ones who wash their hands, pretend not to know, and escape from reality. I curse the poetry from those that do not take side until getting dirty. —Gabriel Celaya
Dear students, workers and colleagues of the public and state universities of the country,
From my new prison cell in the high security wing of “La Picota” prison I wish to send a warm greeting, accompanied with renewed hopes of success in the struggles that appear on the horizon in 2010. A year that official tradition dedicates to the celebration of the bicentennial of independence.
It has been more than eight months that I have been in prison under trial for the supposed crimes of ” rebellion” and “concert to break the law with terrorists aims”, in which I have been subject to the flagrant violation of my procedural guarantees; admitting illicit and illegal evidence like the computer of the deceased leader of the FARC, “Raul Reyes”; and incorporating victims of that guerrilla organization as special interveners who have received no concrete, real and specific damage from me.
Not being content with these abuses, on the 23rd of December I was removed under extreme security measures, from the facilities of the national jail “La Modelo”. During two days, my family, lawyers and friends did not know my whereabouts, to the point that they needed to raise the alarm about this situation to some national and international mass media and NGOs. My transfer took place the same day I obtained, after numerous institutional obstacles, the authorization for the visit of my son, whom I had not seen for two years and ” coincided” with the denunciations of corruption that days earlier I had made against a civil servant of the national Prison “La Modelo”.
On the 17th of February the “trial hearing” will go ahead .This is the step prior to sentencing, in a process that has had clearly political aims, and in which critical thinking and the freedom of teaching, principles that distinguished the student movement of Cordoba (Argentina) nearly a century ago, are also on trial.
These events occur in a chain of systematic attacks on the public university community, demonstrated not only in the increasing cuts of financial resources that place knowledge and the education services under the implacable logic of the market,and also violate the fundamental principles – like the freedom of thought and its institutional autonomy.
All of this has been demonstrated by the arbitrary detentions of students, the incursion of the police in the university campus, the murder and disappearance of students, the threats to teachers and professors, the request on the part of the General Office of the public prosecutor of the Nation of the students names pertaining to public universities of Bogota and the proliferation of rebellion accusations levelled at university community members in hasty trials.and with restriction of access to the material of Luis Eduardo Sarmiento.
This situation takes us back to the dark years of the military dictatorships in South America, and becomes even more worrisome with recent government proposals to use a thousand students of Medellín as police informants , thus exploiting for its war interests the economic needs of this important social sector, trying to turn Colombia into a country of informers, and intensifying, the armed and social conflict that President Alvaro Uribe Vélez tries to hide.
The incorporation of students in these military intelligence activities not only denotes an absence of an education project for strategic sectors in the social and cultural development of the nation, but also entails high risks of transforming the university campus into a war zone.
It should be noted that the informant network is one of the fundamental pillars of the ill-named government policy of ” democratic security” that has served to sustain “false positives” (extra judicial killings),the persecution of numerous intellectuals, students, social, popular, and indigenous leaders who at the moment flood the jails of the country. Today we can speak of more than 7,000 political prisoners detained under cruel and overcrowded conditions that the Colombian government tries to ignore with the sophism of having a frontal attack against terrorism.
Against these facts, the university cannot evade its responsibility by using a supposed “neutrality.” On the contrary it must assume the social commitment to lead, from the academic sector, the generation of proposals that help to give solution to the social problems.
It is through open and pluralistic debate of ideas-not of the silence and the adulation of individual thought- that the university can guarantee the fulfilment of its social function and be elevated to a true instrument for social transformation, in the context of an ever changing world.
This becomes even more necessary in a country like ours where – a colleague of the University of Antioquia reminded us, “the people are gagged, plugged and blindfolded, so as not to speak anything, not hear anything and not see anything”, because – in a society riven by internal conflict it turns out to be convenient to keep silence so not to be misunderstood, and moreover it is comfortable to speak the language of those in power, so they will not turn us into the object of their reprisals.
My academic life has closely been linked to the fight for democratic ideals, first as a student, as later as a teacher and now as political prisoner of an establishment that criminalizes committed educational work.
I am thankful to all the students, workers and colleagues of the public university and some private universities who, with their words and actions – in an open or quiet way – have offered valuable solidarity to me. Also I am thankful to the Association of University Professors (ASPU), to the Association of Professors of the University of Antioquia (ASPRUDEA), to the organizations and student work groups, as well as to their alternative media for their untiring commitment for my freedom. This is the commitment to freedom of thought and opinion and the respect for scientific and intellectual work.
Be assured that the campaign that you have developed has not been in vain, and although these bars and armed guards try to scare me and to debilitate my democratic convictions, I guarantee that I will maintain unbroken my critical voice, my commitment to the defence of the public university and the search for political solutions to the armed and social conflict in Colombia.
Fraternally
Miguel Ángel Beltrán Villegas
Associate Professor of Sociology, National University of Colombia
From the “High Security” pavilion of “la Picota” jail, February 1, 2010.
Translated for Peace and Justice for Colombia
