[R-G] Massive Student Demonstration In Support Of Constitutional Reforms

[Anthony Fenton]

Massive Student Demonstration In Support Of Constitutional Reforms
November 22nd 2007, by Kiraz Janicke - Venezuelanalysis.com
Chavez addresses a student demonstration in front of the Miraflores  
presidential palace. (Prensa Presidencial)

Caracas, November 22, 2007 (venezuelanalysis.com) - In a massive  
demonstration that dwarfed violent opposition student protests two  
weeks ago against Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez's proposed  
constitutional reforms, more than 50,000 students marched in favor of  
the reforms in Caracas on Thursday. The rally on the ‘Day of the  
Students,' also commemorated 50 years since the student uprising on  
October 21 1957 that culminated in the downfall of dictator Marcos  
Pérez Jiménez on 23 of January 1958.

Students gathered in Plaza Venezuela at 10 am where Cesar Trompiz, a  
student leader from the Bolivarian University of Venezuela, announced  
that the aim of the march was to say, "Yes to the reforms, yes to the  
revolution and yes to President Chavez."

The march was festive and peaceful as it wound its way through the  
streets of Caracas. Students danced and sang "Yes, Yes, Yes to the  
reforms!" and "Yes, Yes, Yes - the hour of the people, the hour of  
the poor!' Supporters also waved flags and posters from high-rise  
apartment blocks, and workers on a construction site in La Candelaria  
downed tools and cheered and danced salsa on the scaffolding as the  
students went by. An incident where an opposition supporter hung a  
‘No' sign out the window of an office building was met with laughter  
and chants of ‘They will not return' in a reference to the old  
political parties that governed Venezuela prior to Chavez.

Three thousand students also joined the march from the School of  
Social Work in the Central University of Venezuela (UCV), where on  
November 7, opposition students had trapped 123 Chavista students for  
several hours, threatening to lynch them, throwing rocks and chairs,  
smashing windows and attempting to set fire to the building.

Thousands of high school students also marched in support of a reform  
that would lower the voting age to 16, which Trompiz explained was a  
proposal introduced by the student movement, "and another reason to  
celebrate."

The march finally arrived at Miraflores at 5pm where students flooded  
the grounds of the presidential palace and waited to hear from  
President Chavez, just returned from a six-day tour of Europe and the  
Middle East.

Referring to the student uprising in 1957 Chavez said, "In the 50s  
the students rose up against the president, but today they are in  
Miraflores with the president because this government belongs to you  
all, this power belongs not to Chavez, but to the people, the  
students..."

"Here is the demonstration that the Venezuelan students are with the  
revolution... here a solid revolutionary student movement has been  
born. This is essential, you students are the fuel of the  
revolution," Chavez added.

Some people go around saying Chavez wants more power with the reform,  
he said, "but what I want is to give more power to the republic, a  
new equation of power, of popular power, strengthening political  
parties and social movements."

The reforms are for the future, and are necessary to deepen the  
transition to socialism, Chavez explained. "One-day I will have to  
leave the presidential palace," he said to cries of protest, however  
he assured, he was confident that there were many capable people that  
could take over from him.

Paraphrasing a popular anti-imperialist chant at student  
demonstrations across Latin America -‘those who don't jump are  
Yankees'- he concluded his speech saying "those who don't jump are  
escualidos" (a term coined by Chavez when he referred to the  
opposition as being "philosophically and morally squalid"), as  
Urdaneta Avenue was filled with tens of thousands of jumping students.

The reforms will enshrine the right to free university education in  
the constitution and proposed changes to article 109 will also give  
students and workers voting parity with academic staff for elections  
of university authorities. Hector Sosa, a student from the Bolivarian  
University of Venezuela told Venezuelanalysis.com that these had been  
"the dreams of Venezuelan students for generations."

Sosa also said that the reforms are necessary to strengthen popular  
power through the creation of worker, student, campesino, and  
communal councils.

For Adriana Castillo, a student from the National Experimental  
University of the Armed Forces, the march signified the rebirth of  
the Venezuelan student movement, which she explained to  
Venezuelanalysis.com, had historically been very radical and left  
wing, but throughout the 1990's had shifted to the right as  
universities restricted access and became more elite.

Emilio Negrín, president of the Bolivarian Union of Students argued  
that in reality more than 90% of students support the constitutional  
reform but the opposition refuses to recognize the 700,000 students  
in the education missions, and the municipal Bolivarian universities  
created since 2003.
A far smaller demonstration of opposition students also took place in  
Plaza Brión in the middle class suburb of Chacao, where newly elected  
president of the UCV student union, Ricardo Sánchez argued that the  
reforms which will allow Chavez to stand for reelction will lead to  
"Cuban-style dictatorship." He also called for opposition students to  
march to Miraflores next Monday.