What there is not

“There be so many things goin' on ya caan keep up” said my Caribbean friend. And he was right of course. Amidst the Student Association President's ever secretive activities and the to-ing and fro-ing to meetings with persons unknown his one grand gesture was to publish an open letter to President Chavez. Using confrontational language and the most strident of tones, it was not at all helpful. Worse than this – he claimed to speak in the name of all students, staff, alumni, and a whole host of others. The first problem with this was that not a single one of the people in whose name he spoke had been consulted about the 'carta' and second was that no-one believed he had actually written it or that it was his idea to post it on facebook, to many individual email addresses and to media outlets in Spain, the US and Venezuela. The culprit, it was thought, was Fundacea. Within hours of the world seeing it he was forced to take it down but he did a less thorough job of retracting it than he did of circulating it in the first place. I can only think the aim was simply to rile the authorities irrespective of what effects, if any, it might have on the situation. And so began Monday of last week.

Tuesday saw the return of Senor Marcano of Fundacea to a somewhat hostile reception in Pedraza. Around 20 students had responded to the call of the Student Association President (for which read Fundacea) to return to the College for a meeting. They held a shambles of a meeting the night before with no agenda, no order and at which nothing was decided. Apparently, “it is always like that..”. The volunteers had been invited to attend the student meeting on Tuesday but we were promptly thrown out by Senor Marcano. funny, I thought this was a meeting initiated by students who should be free to invite whoever they wished. They in turn did not challenge Marcano's taking control of things.  Staff wanted to join the meeting too but they were refused entrance and it looked as though there might be a bit of an altercation as they marched en mass from their protest at the gates to the room where the meeting was being held. Why Marcano behaved in this way and provoked confrontation is not clear to me. Perhaps it was a final exercise of what little power he had left.   Part of the ongoing games that have been played for months now.  In his own words, “There is no Fundacea, there is no United World College” and that was that! Basically he had wiped his hands of everyone and everything. His only response to questions was that Fundacea has no money and he's no idea how workers will be paid what they're owed. As far as he knew the government would turn the place into a public university.  He was quite adamant about this in Pedraza but not when he spoke to London, insisting that it is just 'leaked information'. More games.  Many students and staff walked out and the meeting died a death as he lost all authority. The 2 weeks back pay staff had been promised for the previous Friday finally came through on Wednesday. But academic staff are owed more than 6 weeks pay and non-academic staff more than 4 weeks pay.

And so we are one step closer to becoming a public polytechnic-university. No-one will put it in writing, no-one will discuss the process or dates.  But it is inevitable. Having been shown the door the week before I packed my bags and my heavy heart and said goodbye to the circus on Wednesday just ahead of the arrival of the Alcaldi (Mayor) of Pedraza. He assured the striking workers that the College will become a public educational establishment but like everyone else could provide no details about the process.

By Monday, that is today, government has agreed to pay a further 15 days salary and workers have returned to work. There is talk of classes beginning on 15^th November. The Ministry of Education will have a meeting with students at the College this coming Friday. Presumably more information about the process of take over will be made available then. It seems there is a willingness to grant current students the UWC imprimatur on their graduating certificates. Whether or not UWC will agree this is still an unknown. Quite what students will be graduating in, and when remains a mystery. Not a good way to have to live.

So it seems it is goodbye UWC Simon Bolivar. The dying patient is drawing the final breaths and as I watch from Caracas, I believe the real travesty will be to treat this as a death by natural causes. This has been no act of nature and someone(s) must be held responsible. It shouldn't be assumed that someone is the Chavez government.

Caracas 7th November 2011