Max Mendoza, president of the Bolivian University Confederation (CUB), admitted this Tuesday to have a “friendship” with the head of the Movement Towards Socialism (MAS)Evo Morales, with whom he met about 60 times during his tenure as president and highlights that works were managed that the teachers could not specify with the Government.
The highest university representative, in the midst of the controversy over the attack recorded this Monday at the Tomás Frías Autonomous University (UATF), held teachers responsible for the conflicts that exist in public higher education houses and rejected the words of the president of the Potosinista Civic Committee (Comcipo), Roxana Graz, who attributed the attack to a desire to control power by the ruling party.
“In the university one can have the militancy that one wants, because that is what the Political Constitution of the State and our university says, one can have the sympathy that one wants, and the theme of friendship, andor I have had about 50 or 60 meetings with the then president, Evo Moralesand we have also generated a friendship with him, and we have generated that the Bolivian university has works, regardless of the budget, “said the leader in an interview with ‘De Nueve a Doce’ on radio Compañera.
Four students died and another 83 were injured the day before, in the middle of a student assembly that had the purpose of approving the call for elections for the Local University Federation (FUL), when a triple-action grenade exploded, causing a riot, because only one door was open for more than a thousand people.
“The secret is that we do management, we don’t make speeches, we don’t do demagogueryHow do the rectors earn, how much do they spend for an election, why don’t they ask what they have promised. What we have to talk about is the dead, who authorized that assembly, because the students are denouncing (the rector),” demanded Mendoza.
He argued that one of those arrested responds to the rector of the Tomás Frías University, Pedro López, who allegedly authorized the holding of the assembly. “He who has been arrested and those who have thrown the grenade answer to the rector,” added the leader.
He asked not to talk about the supposed relationship that exists between the MAS and the university student representation. “I am not the leadership of the MAS, ask Evo Morales, I don’t know (if they had a candidate). Do not touch me again on issues that are not from Potosí, they want to ask if the MAS had candidatesask the MAS”, he claimed.
Mendoza stated that “what happens is that the teaching sectors have not achieved anything for their universities, we haveand it has not been selling us or offering us, much less generating violence”, considering that the university authorities use young people as a “herd” for their campaigns.