In June 2020, a section of the covered corridor of the Central University of Venezuela (UCV), up to the call No man’s land, severely fractured until the structure collapsed, which is part of the World Heritage Site. It was one of the evidences of the historical management of some university authorities headed by the then rector Cecilia Garcia-Arochaafter three decades in office without the authorities of the highest house of studies in Venezuela being able to be renewed democratically.
The photo of the collapsed structure became a forceful symbol of a management that many described as a “university dictatorship” that left the House that previously defeated the shadows prostrate.
But a few months earlier, in January of that year, the vice-chancellor Bernardo Mendez, after accusing García-Arocha of alleged authoritarianism, corruption and usurpation, he announced his resignation from the board of directors he had assumed on June 20, 2008. He submitted his resignation by means of a lengthy letter, in which he exposed serious acts of corruption in the current outgoing rector.
“The Rectorate has come to assume powers of intervention in tasks that by law and regulations are the responsibility of the Administrative Vice Rectorate, which produced the progressive dismemberment of its Institutional Organization Chart,” Méndez accused in the letter that was made public in various digital media.
He claimed the lack of respectful dialogue between the members of the rectory team and stated that the resignation had been postponed to avoid a conflict between authorities that would affect the university. “Relations have progressively deteriorated and there has been a continuous breakdown in the work of the rectory team, to the point that it is untenable for me to continue in office,” he said.
This Friday, June 30, In the third election attempt to finally choose a new directive, the end of the presence of the current rector finally became a reality. After a few days of manual counting of the votes in the non-parity system of the UCV, the results gave the winner to the professor and doctor Victor Rago.
“We reiterate the concern of many years: if the one proclaimed as rector on 06/30/23 assumes the position of the same prince, will we continue in the well-known collapse and the distribution of positions that make up the traditional bureaucratic team of inefficiency, vices and corruption?” asked the Venezuelan historian Agustin Blanco Munoztenured professor at the UCV, in an opinion article published this Saturday in the newspaper Last News.
“In order to achieve some rescue-recovery, it is essential to separate from that past that in 2020, Bernardo Méndez, the resigning administrative vice-rector, denounced the rectory team to which he belonged as the bearer of enormous corruption,” Blanco considered.
“Elementary to ask then, if it will be able to recover, after 15 years of emptiness, determined by a huge creative absence, a prostrate institution and with no one to lift it up,” he claimed when summarizing the management of the current ex-chancellor.
“When this article appears, the UCV will already have a new rector elected, if the Electoral Commission does not suspend the process due to the well-known “technical failures” or others. And if not, this new authority, in the process of taking office, will have to check if something other than the many princes who have held office was chosen ”, he warned.
For his part, on June 14, 2023the president of the National Assembly (AN)deputy Jorge Rodriguez, He expressed that both the graduates of that house of study, as well as the parliamentarians and all Venezuelans, must demand a true democratic system for the “House that defeats the Shadows.”
“Of the elections in the UCV, only one fact can be rescued as positive, which is having evicted the fascist, thief and criminal, Cecilia García-Arocha, from her lair.”, Rodríguez said when evaluating the mechanisms used during those elections to renew the university authorities.
The Venezuelan parliamentarian warned that García-Arocha owns a private university in Costa Rica, and wondered how he did to acquire it and if that institution applies the same democracy as in the UCV.
For his part, the deputy Ricardo Molina He urged those who reach the different positions, to face, with impetus, the rescue of the belligerence that the UCV should never have lost. And that fascism cannot continue taking spaces in the UCV, Therefore, it is necessary to open real spaces for discussion that contribute with proposals for the country.
Finally, Molina was emphatic in expressing that fascism cannot continue to take over spaces in the UCV, so it is necessary to open real spaces for discussion that contribute with proposals for the country.
I’m leaving because I want:
On May 26, 2023, after the ucevista community (graduates, students and active teachers, workers and retirees), won their right to renew the authorities in the first election in 15 years, andhe electoral process was paralyzed and suspended without prior notice, during a sad historical day that once again tarnished these last years of the UCV.
Several teachers, candidates for the various formulas for the elections, authorities, students and workers expressed their disappointment at the disaster of these manual elections that showed their shortcomings. Professor of the Faculty of Engineering, Jose Gregorio Rangelexpressed “It is a rather unfortunate fact, because there was a gigantic feeling of participation in this process from early hours, the different sectors, teachers, workers, administrative personnel, in an unprecedented act, were summoned for the first time to vote”.
Through digital platforms and social networks, and in the long lines in front of the polling stations on the University Campus, the ucevistas showed their disagreement with the serious delay and suspension of the voting process, due to so many “technical” irregularities.
The day had its high point when thousands of throats in the queues and before the rector García-Arocha herself, They asked for his resignation loudly.
“Get Arocha out of the University! Resign, resign!!”, were part of the slogans pronounced by students, professors, graduates and workers of this house of study, who assure that it was an act of sabotage against the elections by the then authorities of the university.
The principal, visibly upset, lashed out at the students and said that what happened was not their fault. When asked by journalists about her resignation request, the high university authority said that they are not removing her from it, but that it is her decision to leave it. “Nobody takes me out, I’m leaving on July 14 because I want to.”
New directions?
This Saturday, July 1, the Electoral Commission of the UCV, on its website, it reported on the results of the second electoral round held on Friday, June 30 (actually, the third day after the failure of May 26 and the subsequent repetition of June 9).
The doctor Victor Rago was elected rector, in competition with Humberto Rojas, the second candidate in the race. The elected rector is an anthropologist and PhD in Linguistics, an undergraduate and graduate professor, and was dean of FACES and a member of the University Council.
The newly elected authorities include as academic vice-rector Fatima Garces, the administrative vice chancellor, Jose Balbino Leon; the Secretary Corina Aristimuno; Dean of the Faculty of Agronomy, Aida Ortiz; the dean of the Faculty of Economic and Social Sciences (FACES), Luis Angaritaand the dean of the Faculty of Legal and Political Sciences, John Apitz.
Rescuing the UCV
Since 2021, the Presidential Commission for the rescue of the UCV has been working to rehabilitate the Ciudad Universitaria campus, after years of abandonment by the board led by García-Arocha.
“I call on the student movement, the professors and professors, the deans of faculties, everyone, to support the recovery of the University City of Caracas, support the work of the Great Venezuela Bella Mission that is making good, beautiful and functional our Central University of Venezuela. We will recover it completely!”, said the president of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, Nicolas Maduro Moroswhen expressing his satisfaction with the work of comprehensive and total renovation of the spaces, during one of his visits to the UCV to verify the progress in these tasks.
The works have had such a favorable impact that a sample of their achievements was exhibited at the Venice Biennale, and UNESCO has confirmed that Venezuela is working to recover the brilliance of the Cultural Heritage granted to the UCV in the year 2000.
The presence of the head of State of the Bolivarian Government, in the spaces of the main house of university studies in Venezuela, became an unprecedented event in national history. A democratic, legitimate and constitutional president, who makes available the human, economic, financial and moral resources to recover the House that overcomes the Shadows for the Venezuelan youth and university students in general, just as the President did on his occasion. Commander Hugo Chavez by handing over the Botanical Garden and the Rental Zone to the UCV.
In contrast, the role of the State with the UCV in the 20th century is eloquent. During the so-called IV Republic, the oligarchic and capitalist State raided and militarily occupied the university campus on various occasions.
The symbol of that time was the image of tank gunships, soldiers and armed police that they invaded several times and completely closed the university, to the point that, even, They provoked murders of students.
In the XXI century, the Bolivarian Government inaugurated by Commander Chávez and continued by President Maduroworks for the UCV and for the young university students of today and the future.
Sources: Archive VTV-WEB/ÚN/Agencies
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