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| UNAM Rector, Jose Narro Robles Photo: Héctor Téllez |
Milenio: Liliana Sosa
The National Autonomous University of Mexico won't negotiate the criminal complaints filed with the Attorney General's Office against those who seized and held the Rectory Tower [administrative building] for 12 days. Rector [President] Jose Narro Robles made it clear that the university seeks that the events don't go unpunished.
The rector explained that the meeting [scheduled for May 9, with the students of the College of Sciences and Humanities] will address only academic subjects, as contained in the plan of studies of the College [a group of five high schools operated by the university], and neither will there be room for the petition to reinstate five students expelled from the CCH campus in Naucalpan [for aggressive acts during demonstrations there in February].
"The issue of the sanctions imposed [on the five students] by the University Court or complaints against the University are not on the table," Narro Robles said.He reiterated that the university will not withdraw the complaints it has filed and asserted that they had been submitted in a timely and forceful manner for the authorities to act:
"UNAM is not going further into these problems, but neither does it want this to go unpunished."Since last Wednesday, when the hooded students released the Rectory building, the University has focused on taking an inventory of the material losses, which so far has not been completed.
"We are making a full assessment, an inventory of damages and losses to the university. There is progress, but we haven't completed the inventory or the quantification of the damages," he said.Narro Robles called the damage and loss of university property, as well as to works which are a World Cultural Heritage [mural by David Siqueiros], "outrageous".
"In addition to the damage to the image of the university, there must be added the loss of time, services and materials. That was and is, of course, enraging".Finally, he reiterated his willingness to engage in a respectful dialogue that is responsible, intelligent and informed by the university community, and it has the objective of being a space for raising differences in academic matters.
He explained that during the negotiations to free the Rectory building, it was established that the talks will be carried out with students who are not masked and that it is being convened only to discuss matters related to academic studies.
Throughout the week, the federal government has made clear that during the time that the hooded students held the Rectory, there was an ongoing dialogue with the rector of UNAM. In particular, the Secretary of Government Relations, Miguel Angel Osorio Chong, said it continued to be an issue with the federal government whether to use federal police, if José Narro so decided, but he always preferred the path of dialogue.
On April 23 the University Court expelled five of the 15 students involved in the violent events on the CCH Naucalpan campus on February 1 and 5, when they were demonstrating against the proposed new curriculum of the institution.
The demand for reinstatement of the five students was the primary reason that a group of masked youths broke into the Rectory Tower on April 19. Their other demands were to discuss with the authorities the curriculum against which they had demonstrated last February and to have the criminal charges against them withdrawn. Spanish original