Students and youth in struggle
AZURAMANN CEKA is an AND JEF/PADS student leader and a member of the bureau of the Youth, Student and Pupils Movement. He was interviewed by FRED SPENCER
Question: What's the nature of your movement? What are the relationships with AND JEF/PADS?
The students and pupils have their own organisation. Inside the organisation, we are an autonomous group. We are organised at the levels of the schools, the two universities and other higher institutions, both private and public.
Since we live closer to the students, it's up to our movement to deal with their daily and strategic concerns. The objective of World Bank and IMF policies is to reduce public investment in education and privatise teaching and learning. Our role is to explain that and organise resistance in schools.
We put the stress on academic and social questions concerning the students and youth, questions where the IMF/World Bank are creating many difficulties.
Question: Did those problems play a role in the ongoing strikes?
The students led a big strike in 1994 against the World Bank project of reforming higher education by reducing the number of entries and establishing hard rules about repetition.
The academic year of 1994 was not validated after the strikes. Then the government expelled hundreds of students, no exam was organised and this disturbed the educational system.
New measures were adopted: forbidding student union and political activities in the campuses, reduction of the number of scholarships, high selection to enter university etc. These were explicit conditions of the World Bank to finance the revitalisation of higher education.
Moreover, students generally play a leading role in the fights for democracy and social justice. The government wanted to destroy that capacity.
Students succeeded in organising big street fights against the government last March. The fight was successful despite physical violence and arrests.
Question: In April, AND JEF/PADS organised a national youth conference. Can you tell us about that?
This conference aimed at creating a national movement of school pupils and university students of our party. We wanted the party to take into account the new forms of radicalisation of the youth.
Another objective was to organise the new militants in a context where the party is getting bigger. Many students who belonged to the former opposition parties that joined the government are now joining us. We are proud of that and conscious of the big problems that it carries in terms of political training and organisation.