I spoke with my only friend who is not completely against the reform and Chavez and he wanted me to join a demo with the "Sí"-block, that is the poeople who are in favor of the reform. To see how that is. And my god, I could really need another point of view of all that is happening, of the articles in the reform and what possible good they might bring. I think I have a quite good idea about the critique of the reform, but not at all about the other side.
So tomorrow (thursday) is the final big big march by the opposition. All students at my university are going, all teachers and everyone who is voting NO this sunday. This photo is from the preparations. They made hundreds and thousends of these t-shirts. I guess you can figure out what they are for.
All classes have been cancelled and the semester has been prolonged one week. Instead of going on holidays on the 7th, we have class until the 15th. Very bad for me, since I will have visitors coming. But as I have always said, I am never so charming and nice to be around as when I am a stressed out savage with red sleepless eyes and absolutely now time to spare!!
Well, two days ago the students at my uni went out on the road passing by the exitgate. It was like a demo, but with the aim to make the people passing by aware of what they think is bad with the reform. They handed out leaflets with info and took up half the road, which of course created a cue of cars. The police came and the situation got ugly.
I wasn´t there when it all began but according to students I spoke with when I arrived it was the police who in cut off the road and then pushed the students back into the university area. When I got there the police were standing outside and throwing teargas bombs, over the fence and among the students. They answered by throwing stones. Who began the throwing is still highly unclear.In the end of the photo is the exitgate, the smoke comes from the tear gas bombs. Everyone had smeared toothpaste in their faces to be able to stand the gas. They were also prepared with bottles of vinegar, it helps neutralizing the effect of the bombs if you breath vinegar.
I had mixed feelings about the incident this afternoon. On one hand it was indeed an exaggerated response by the police, and further a clear offense of the autonomy status that the university has. But speaking with some of the students throwing stones at the police I got a feeling that they enjoyed the mere fact that the situation had gotten out of hand.
The excitement shone threw their young boy-eyes and I could hear the adrenaline pumping through their body. But these people you find everywhere, and oh, did I say they are young boys... ok.
In this photo two students were studying the shells from the tear gas bombs being thrown in. I have manipulated the photo so you can't identify the people, as you should, being a good professional...
The vice-head master then went out together with the students representative to speak with the police and reach an agreement. After a lot of mediating the students were finally permitted to return to the street and carry on with the leaflet-out-handing activity. This is when I hitched hiked home. Apparently though, things got worse again after that and the throwing of things-process started all over again.
Mediation going on... the color of the University of Simón Bolívar is yellow.
...after the students had been allowed to once again enter the street and hand out leaflets to the by-passing cars.
Ok, what will happen tomorrow no one knows. On friday the Chaviztas will march. Both blocks have permission to carry out their marches, but that hasn´t prevented violence from ocurring in earlier demos.
And then the big question... what will happen after this sunday. In the case of a NO, as well as in the case of a SÍ??
0 comments:
Post a Comment