Uruguay, 1968: Student Activism from Global Counterculture to Molotov Cocktails
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Uruguay, 1968: Student Activism from Global Counterculture to Molotov Cocktails
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Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780520964358 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | University of California Press |
| Publication date: | 11/15/2016 |
| Series: | Violence in Latin American History , #1 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 256 |
| File size: | 3 MB |
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Uruguay, 1968
Student Activism from Global Counterculture to Molotov Cocktails
By Vania Markarian, Laura Pérez Carrara
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESS
Copyright © 2017 The Regents of the University of CaliforniaAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-520-96435-8
CHAPTER 1
Mobilizations
STUDENTS TAKE TO THE STREETS
In the Montevideo autumn of 1968, faced with announcements shortly before the beginning of the school year that government-subsidized bus fares would increase, high school students burst onto the public scene as they took to the streets to protest. These protests kicked off the year's great mobilizations, which were some of Latin America's longest and most intense, rivaled only by events in major cities in Mexico and Brazil. In the first days of May, students made headlines as they staged various rallies, occupied school facilities, set up roadblocks with toll collection to raise money, and held spontaneous sit-ins to disrupt traffic around their schools. This activity was, in the words of journalists Roberto Copelmayer and Diego Díaz, "boisterous but peaceful." While demonstrations were led by various actors, activism on a large scale was catalyzed by the Coordinating Unit of High School Students of Uruguay (Coordinadora de Estudiantes de Secundaria del Uruguay, or CESU), which responded to the Union of Communist Youths (Unión de Juventudes Comunistas, or UJC). Witnesses and commentators alike agree that the levels of violence seen during those days were not very different from what had been experienced in similar situations in previous years. Local newspapers reported sporadic incidents of rocks being thrown at buses and some clashes with police forces that tried to break up the protests, arresting and even slightly injuring some demonstrators. Nobody expected this unrest to maintain its momentum for long. The demonstrators who were arrested were usually set free within hours, and if they were underage they were released to their parents. This was in sharp contrast to reports of a violent police force dispersing demonstrators at the International Workers' Day rally on May 1, where serious incidents had occurred, spurred on by the combative stance of the cañeros (sugarcane cutters) of the Union of Sugarcane Cutters of Artigas (Unión de Trabajadores Azucareros de Artigas, or UTAA), who had marched down to Montevideo from the country's northernmost region.
On May 8, just days after President Jorge Pacheco Areco introduced several changes in his cabinet, Interior Minister Augusto Legnani resigned without explanation and was replaced by Eduardo Jiménez de Aréchaga. A week later, Colonel Alberto Aguirre Gestido was appointed chief of police of Montevideo. By then, classes had been suspended in many of the capital's high schools because they were occupied by students, paralyzed by a strike, or temporarily shut down by the authorities. The presence of students in the streets was taking on new dimensions. The number of demonstrations grew, and the various groups of protesters came together in joint marches, often putting up barricades, burning tires, and, according to some observers, hurling makeshift incendiary bombs, or Molotov cocktails, mostly at city buses. At the same time, the number of arrests grew, and the Montevideo police called in the Metropolitan Guard (Guardia Metropolitana) as backup for the regular officers assigned to neighborhood police stations.
Meanwhile, CESU leaders were still hoping to reach a negotiated solution with the mayor of Montevideo to prevent the rise in bus fares. Conflicting rumors surrounding these negotiations escalated the protests, triggering "flash" demonstrations that sought to take repressive forces by surprise. Protesters also organized roadblocks and picket lines intended to inform the public of the situation. This surge of actions also included what were known as "counter-courses," noncurricular classes on various subjects, often held off school premises with the participation of students and teachers who sympathized with their demands. At the end of May, while the municipal authorities announced their commitment to keep student bus fares down, high school students demanded that the benefit be extended to the entire population. The CESU's call to put an end to this stage of the conflict was met with outright rebellion from students, who continued to occupy several high schools.
In early June, the bus fare issue was still unresolved, and student unions found new reasons to protest. Traditionally this time of year brought demands for greater funding for public education as legislators prepared to discuss the budget that was to be adopted by the executive branch. These issues fueled existing conflicts among students and teachers in other public education institutions, such as the polytechnic school, the Universidad del Trabajo del Uruguay (UTU), and the teachers' training college, the Instituto Normal. Student demands were largely connected to an explosive growth in enrollment and the resulting shortage of materials and human resources and the executive branch's attempts to impose solutions. Newspapers across the political spectrum were filled with articles about the crisis in secondary education — the shortage of classrooms, the difficulties of the teaching staff — and the need to take urgent action. This evidenced widespread concern over the deterioration of the country's valued public education system, an indicator that had often been used to support the claim of Uruguay's singularity in the region.
As the country's social and economic crisis reached unprecedented levels, teachers' and students' unions used this public sentiment to their advantage, stepping up their demands and confronting a government set on implementing reforms that were unfavorable to them and limited their participation in governing bodies and decision-making processes. The refusal by governing party legislators to ratify the appointment of Arturo Rodríguez Zorrilla as director of the National Board of Secondary Education further inflamed those who claimed that the government was violating the board's autonomy. Parents also organized to put pressure on both sides, with some supporting the demands of teachers' unions and students and others rejecting this excessive "politicization" of education. The rest of the country was not indifferent to this unrest.
Widespread protests erupted in June when university students joined the demonstrations. On June 6, the Federation of University Students of Uruguay (Federación de Estudiantes Universitarios del Uruguay, or FEUU) called on students to demand that the executive branch release the funds it owed the university and other educational institutions. High school students who were still mobilizing for subsidized bus fares joined FEUU protesters at the steps of the main university building. At the end of the rally, as was often the case in these demonstrations, a group of protesters started marching down the main avenue, 18 de Julio, toward the Old City district. They had advanced only a few steps when they were met with gunfire from a police vehicle. Five students were seriously wounded. Most analysts agree that this incident, which involved shots fired from .38-caliber service revolvers, was the first clear sign that the repressive forces were adopting new methods. There were also mass detentions, with charges filed in court against several of the students arrested.
The way students organized and demonstrated and their aims also changed significantly as of that moment. In the days after the shooting, young people across all levels of education rushed to the streets imbued with "a sort of frenzy," in the words of Gonzalo Varela Petito, who was a direct participant and has a vivid memory of these events. On June 7, students gathered in front of the university to protest the shooting; the rally ended with serious clashes and property damage, as well as the arrest and injury of hundreds of students. Over the next few days, demonstrators adopted tactics that involved gathering in groups, scattering, and regrouping and began to seek out confrontations with the police. The shock effect of these "flash" demonstrations was meant to gain an advantage over the police forces. In addition to actions in Avenida 18 de Julio and other downtown streets, the students staged marches, threw rocks, put up roadblocks, and engaged in violent clashes in the neighborhoods surrounding their schools, many of which were still being occupied.
On June 12, the University of the Republic, the CESU, the FEUU, and the national labor federation (Convención Nacional de Trabajadores, or CNT) called for a demonstration in "defense of freedoms, against repression, and for the release of jailed students." When the rally was over, university authorities asked the demonstrators to disperse, in compliance with the Interior Ministry's ban on marching to downtown Montevideo. Many participants, the majority of them students, disobeyed the order and confronted the Metropolitan Guard, which was waiting for them armed with tear-gas launchers. Instead of retreating, the young demonstrators put up barricades and began breaking store windows and throwing Molotov cocktails at the police forces, disbanding and regrouping along side streets. The Metropolitan Guard responded violently, leaving dozens injured and almost three hundred students arrested.
The next day, the government issued a decree implementing Prompt Security Measures. These measures — a limited form of state of siege stipulated under the constitution, allowing the government to suspend the rights to strike, freedom of assembly, and freedom of speech, among other repressive actions — had been applied sporadically in previous years (most recently in October 1967) in response to social conflicts and emergency situations such as floods but never for so long or as harshly as they were applied by Pacheco. In justifying the measures, the June 13 decree called attention to the "profound disruption of the social peace and the public order" that could ensue as a result of the several labor conflicts under way, in particular among civil servants and state bank employees, without mentioning the student unrest directly. Only the phrase "unusual climate of street violence," near the end of the decree, alluded to the previous night and similar events.
The ministers of culture, labor, and public health opposed the measures and resigned. These internal differences revealed the initial difficulties encountered by Pacheco as he sought to consolidate the authoritarian shift and to move more decisively toward economic liberalization, the two features that defined his administration from the moment he took office in December 1967 after the unexpected death of President Oscar Gestido. The government sought to contain the wave of mostly labor-related protests, which had swelled over the past decade as real wages dropped and structural inflation set in. The freeze on prices and wages decreed under Prompt Security Measures in June 1968 was another step in that direction as it entailed ignoring collective bargaining mechanisms mediated by the state (which would be formally dismantled by year's end). As of that moment, and except for a brief interruption in March 1969 when the measures were lifted for three months, an unprecedented repressive stance prevailed in the government's approach to the growing social unrest. It was during that period that what Alvaro Rico has termed "conservative liberalism" was consolidated as the ideology that supported the authoritarian restructuring of the Uruguayan state that would culminate with the 1973 coup d'état and that began in 1968 with changes in the political regime.
In the short term, the government's authoritarianism failed in its aim to bring down the level of confrontation, succeeding instead in pushing large sectors of society into joining the protests. Organized labor continued to hold strikes and demonstrations against the government's economic policies (including a general strike on June 18) while resisting harsh repressive actions, such as the militarization and confinement in military facilities of workers who provided services in areas considered "essential." With respect to the student movement, the second fortnight of June was perhaps more turbulent than the first, with a series of demonstrations, roadblocks, rock throwing incidents, and clashes with the police, as well as hundreds of protesters arrested and dozens injured. It would appear that at this stage the younger high school students (those in the first four years of secondary education) took a backseat as their older peers (those in the last two years of high school) began leading the protests along with university students.
On June 27, serious incidents broke out around the School of Medicine. This led the government to accuse university authorities of allowing the institution to be turned into "a rioting center," in the words of the newly appointed culture minister, Federico García Capurro. Two weeks later, on July 11, the police surrounded dozens of students who had taken refuge at the School of Medicine after meeting with workers from nearby factories and demonstrating in the area. This continued until July 14, when, following difficult negotiations between Pacheco and university officials, the police agreed to allow the students to leave the building in the presence of a judge. However, during those four days hundreds of protesters were arrested in the vicinity of the school, and at least one student received a gunshot wound. Reports of injuries suffered by police officers also began to emerge. The skirmishes, street demonstrations, and other forms of protest continued over the following days, with more young people arrested for violating the Prompt Security Measures. Around that time, the FEUU convention met again to decide the steps to be taken after two months of intense street struggle. These discussions, which are considered in greater depth later, were conducted amid growing unrest and escalating confrontations with police forces.
On July 29, architecture students hung a sign in their school building declaring their solidarity with the civil servants who had been militarized. The sign was deemed offensive by the armed forces. After ordering university authorities to take down the sign, the military moved in on the students. They were met with rocks thrown from the roof of the building, to which they responded with volleys of tear gas. The students put up a new sign and took to the streets, where they clashed immediately with the police. The next day a rally was held in front of the main building of the university to protest these incidents, culminating again with a spontaneous march down Avenida 18 de Julio and new clashes with the police, which left three officers injured.
Similar episodes continued until the beginning of August, when the government's repressive actions peaked in response to repeated demonstrations. In the early hours of August 9, the police raided the main building of the university and the buildings of the Schools of Agronomy, Architecture, Fine Arts, Economics, and Medicine, alleging that it was in connection with its investigation into the whereabouts of Ulysses Pereira Reverbel, director of the state power company. Pereira Reverbel had been kidnapped by the MLN-T in one of the first high-profile actions by this group. The raids were conducted with neither a warrant nor any court officers present, and none of the schools' deans were notified. In the morning, when news of the raids spread, a battle involving a large number of students broke out in downtown Montevideo and continued throughout the day, leaving several people seriously injured, including one student with life-threatening wounds from the impact of a tear-gas canister. In other parts of the city there were also demonstrations and serious incidents between protesters and police. That day marked a breaking point in university-government relations, shattering the hopes still harbored by some of finding a negotiated solution to a crisis that had begun as early as March, at the start of the school year. Near the end of the day, the executive branch decided to request authorization from the Senate to remove from office all members of the university's Central Governing Board (Consejo Directivo Central, or CDC). At the same time, the police imposed a prior censorship requirement on all press releases issued by the university. The next day the Tupamaros freed Pereira Reverbel.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Uruguay, 1968 by Vania Markarian, Laura Pérez Carrara. Copyright © 2017 The Regents of the University of California. Excerpted by permission of UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESS.
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Table of Contents
ForewordAcknowledgments
List of Abbreviations
INTRODUCTION
1. MOBILIZATIONS
Students Take to the Streets
Coordinates of a Cycle of Protest
On Violence
2. DISCUSSIONS
The Unions and the Movement
The Lefts and the Students
Paths and Paradoxes of Revolutionary Action
3. CULTURAL EXPRESSIONS
Militant Mystiques
Youth Cultures
More Nuances
CONCLUSION. 1968 AND THE EMERGENCE OF A “NEW LEFT”
Notes
Bibliography
Index