Death Squads at Colombia Universities

A Public Statement by Professors, Lecturers and Faculty of the Universidad de Antioquia

Medellin, Colombia, May 25 de 2006


PUBLIC STATEMENT TO THE NATIONAL AND INTERNATIONAL COMMUNITY

Professors, lecturers, and faculty of the University of Antioquia, gathered on May 25, 2006, outside the university campus, due to the unexpected closure of our Alma Mater and in the course of the deplorable events of threats by pamilitary death squads against our community, which severely affects normal functioning.

WE DENOUNCE:

1. On 9 May, 2006, on the university campus, a letter written
in the name of a group of death squads that threatened to murder 15
members of our university community was circulated. On the 19 May 2006, through an email, another message extended the threat to 8 more members of the university, and 3 days later, a new communique was distributed and signed by a group calling itself "Colombia Free of Communists," in which, by fully endorsing the current president and his "democratic security" policies, they extended threats to the whole university community and to various organizations defenders of freedom and human rights.

2. In the days leading up to the presidential elections, the University of Antioquia, as well as other state universities, were closed, silencing the possibility for deliberation, and obstructing that the chance that persons directly threatened with murder would be accompanied.

3. Furthermore, electoral authorities have decided to exclude the professors, lecturers, faculty, students, staff, and retired people of the University of Antioquia, among others, from exercising a historic function by serving as voting observers. This makes the environment even more strained, and casts a mantle of doubt over the elections.

4. Finally, we denounce that the series of threats, followed by the
closure of the university and the evident mistrust spreading in our university community, represents an extremely serious precedent. We call for all university people and the national and international community to close ranks around the necessity to defend the open university, without any type of threats.

Above all, the University is a center for open and plural debate for the construction of knowledge and for the free exercise of citizenship with a critical spirit and social commitment.

PROFESSORS, LECTURERS, AND FACULTY OF THE UNIVERSIDAD DE ANTIOQUIA

http://counterpunch.org/deathsquad06152006.html