In one more proof of the persecution to which we are submitted in Colombia, dark forces try to stain the name of the ACEU and of some of its leaders in order to accuse them of flirting with illegal actions and organizations. At 17h24, on june 1st 2007, arrived to the institutionnal e-mail of the National executive committe of the ACEU (ejecutivo@aceucolombia.org) a message that, indicating with first name Diego Marin and Alejandro Vega, recognized leaders of the ACEU, was speaking about a supposed managing of explosives that have been sent from the Cauca towards the city of Cali and making the supposition of the responsibility of the ACEU and some of its members in this type of activities.
In the same line this e-mail spoke about the transport of one « Goods » towards Norway, place that was visited recently by both leaders of the ACEU mentioned more behind, The e-mail included an attached file with a supposed information of an guerrilla organization that would be delivered in the Forum UNIVERSITIES REGARDING ARMED AND SOCIAL CONFLICTS, event summoned by the ACEU from June 7 to June 9 in Bogota.
It is not a coincidence that this e-mail appears just after the ACEU was denouncing the serious facts of repression happened in the University of the Cauca that led even to Alejandro Vega’s detention. In this detention was claimed criminalizing Alejandro and other 15 university activists for the crime of revolt, terrorism, concert to commit an offence between other charges based on a supposed freightage of explosives.
This situation of harassment and persecution to the ACEU is not new and especially in the University of the Cauca that has already a history of more than one year of terrorism and electronic sabotage, threats that have led Diego Marin’s forced displacement in 2005 and of Andrés Vidal in 2006, and that today is under measures of protection from the Ministry of Interior Alejandro Vega, who actually is representative of the students in the academic council of the University of Cauca.
For its nine years of existence the ACEU it has been a target of all kinds of persecutions, which have costed the life of several of its leaders, the forced displacement of several dozens and cut the freedom of some of its members of which two are actually in prison without fair reason. In the last two months of intense activity of protest several leaders of the ACEU have been imprisoned and threatened, as well as many of them have been submitted to permanent follow-ups and harassment from the public forces and strangers.
This fact adds itself eventually to the list of persecution and repression against a transparent organization, recognized for its national and international path, which relies on the recognition of a long list of organizations defender of human rights in the whole world and the solidarity of many student organizations in Latin America, in Canada and Europe.
For this one and other motives both leaders already mentionned of the ACEU travelled last February to Norway, where the ACEU has the recognition of non-governmental, social organizations and on government of this country since it was award winning of a prize of peace, granted by Norway students and academic, precisely for defending the rights of the students in difficult conditions of safety and violation of human rights. This visit permitted also to visit other European countries, where those leaders of the ACEU could denounce the persecution and repression to which is being submitted the student Colombian movement.
The Forum to which the infamous mail refers is precisely the event where, every two years, hundreds of university students debate on the impact of the social and armed conflict in the universities and where strategies are designed to collaborate in the construction of the peace for Colombia from the academy. In this occasion the above mentioned forum will count on the participation of at least 8 international delegations of America and Europe. The governements of France and Norway are also invited.
Both the international action of the ACEU, developed in conference and the recent one in Europe, as its leadership in the current conjuncture of student fight against the privatization of the education and the permanent denunciation of the crisis of human rights in the universities, turn out to be inconvinient for the government and the dark forces that try to silence the democracy chasing, suppressing, imprisoning and killing the truth and to everyone that believes in it and want to spread it.
WE DO PERSON IN CHARGE TO THE COLOMBIAN STATE FOR THE SAFETY AND PHYSICAL INTEGRITY OF DIEGO MARIN, NATIONAL SECRETARY OF ORGANIZATION OF THE ACEU AND OF ALEJANDRO FERTILE PLAINE, REPRESENTATIVE OF THE STUDENTS IN THE ACADEMIC COUNCIL OF THE UNIVERSITY OF THE CAUCA. ALSO WE DO PERSON IN CHARGE TO THE COLOMBIAN STATE FOR THE DIFFERENT IMPLICATIONS THAT THIS TYPE OF ACTS COULD BRING FOR THE ACEU AS ORGANIZATION AS WELL AS FOR ALL ITS MEMBERS AND OUT-STANDING LEADERS. WE ARE CALLING ALL THE NON-GOVERNMENTAL, SOCIAL, SYNDICAL ORGANIZATIONS AND TO ALL THOSE WHO KNOW THE PATH OF THE ACEU AND OF ITS LEADERS TO PRONOUNCE AGAINST THIS INFAMOUS FACT, GOING IN WRITING TO EMBASSIES, CONSULATES, ATTORNEY’S OFFICE, DEFENSORS OF THE PEOPLE, MINISTERY OF THE INTERIOR, PRESIDENCY AND VICEPRESIDENCY OF THE REPUBLIC OF COLOMBIA, DOING THE SAME REQUIREMENTS AND MAKING RESPONSIBLE TO THE COLOMBIAN STATE, ITS GOVERNMENT AND ITS INSTITUTIONS ON WHAT THIS SYSTEMATIC ACTION OF PERSECTUION COULD TRANSPORT FOR THE ACEU AND ITS LEADERS.
In the middle of the hardest fight and actions of mobilization in the last decades, this type of facts tries to silence the voice of one of the most important organizations of the students in the whole country and to justify the aggression against an important core of activists and social fighters. But those who are interested in striking ourselves know that we are not afraid of them and that our crystalline dreams of freedom and democracy will never meet stained by their dark and mean interests of misery and death.
COLOMBIAN UNIVERSITY STUDENTS ASSOCIATION - A.C.E.U.
Secretaria de Derechos Humanos
Asociación Colombiana de Estudiantes Universitarios ACEU
derechoshumanos@aceucolombia.org
"La solidaridad es la ternura de los pueblos"