WITS STUDENTS STAGE A SIT -IN AND A HUNGER STRIKE AT THE VICE-CHANCELLOR’S OFFICE

Protest action (Sit-in)

We sit here in the waiting area waiting for the leadership of the university to deal with issues that affect us largely. These issues have been expressed to the relevant structures and we have been waiting for those structures to initiate the relevant action but up till now we have been WAITING.

These are the issues:

· ATM in Wits Education Campus

Since February the SRC has been fighting the battle of the ATM in WEC. Hitherto, we have managed to convince the Security Advisory Committee and the Student Services Advisory Committee about the urgent need of an ATM. Both structures agreed that it should be installed as soon as possible. Recently the risk management team of the legal office made a site visit and decided where the ATM will be. We appreciate the efforts up to this point but wish to state firmly that until we receive a written commitment, with a date, of when an ATM will be installed, we remain unconvinced that the management will respond positively to this request. It must be said that we are not this year’s SRC is not the first to address this issue and we feel the management is not taking this issue with the seriousness it deserves. We have expressed these views to the Deputy Vice Chancellor (Academic) Prof. Ballim. This peaceful action seeks to get that written and binding commitment from the management since we have been waiting.

All campuses have an ATM. It is only the WEC campus that does not. Are Education Students and staff any less or less deserving? WEC has three (female) residences that are sometimes forced to walk at night to the medical campus to withdraw cash for their needs. Students in EOH and Knockando also rely on that ATM or use the garages nearby. Due to the distance, this exposes them to danger at night and time-consuming walks to get what they need for their basic survival.

· Extra Bus on Fridays and Sundays

This issue has also been on the table for very long. Since the first block we spoke to the head of residence about the matter, he agreed verbally, but thus far he has not shown any commitment to this. We have recently forwarded a petition of +/- 700 signatures from students to the VCO and requested a response to be given on Tuesday the 10^th of August. This has not been received. We have said it very clearly that on Fridays and Sundays between 18H00 and 21H30 there is high volume of students that use the bus. As such, the buses congested and incapacitated to deal with the number of students. The issue seriously affects students using the bus around those times and the Residence Life is well aware of this.

We request that a date when the extra bus or a comprehensive alternative will begin. This must be in writing as a form of a commitment to the student’s dissatisfaction.

· Bus Stop at Braamfontein Centre Residence (BC)

This also has been an issue we have discussed with the powers that be. We request that the Circuit bus make a stop at this residence, particularly at night and early in the morning. The Jan Smuts gate and the distance to BC has been declared a “hot spot” for crime. As such, students are endangered and their study patterns are affected. The ARC has spoken to the management of the complex and they have agreed. Luxliner has indicated that they can initiate this only if a directorate is given by Residence Life This has been difficult to get from this office. We also request a commitment in writing of when this will start.

WE ARE NOT GOING TO EAT AND WE ARE NOT GOING TO LEAVE THE WAITING AREA UP UNTIL WE GET WHAT WE HAVE REQUESTED ABOVE.

Bafana Lesley Nhlapo
SRC President
University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg
074 581 1586
072 211 4378

Nombulelo Nyathela
SRC Policy, Legal and Constitutional affairs
University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg
076 900 1029

KSM on the intention of the Czech Republic’s government to place a US early-warning system component in the Czech Republic

Statement of the Communist Youth Union (KSM) on the intention of the Czech Republic’s government to place a US early-warning system component in the Czech Republic

The Communist Youth Union (KSM) sharply rejects the intention of the Czech Republic’s government to place on our territory a US early-warning system component – a centre collecting and processing information data of the system.

After approximately 70% of the citizens rejected the governmental intention to place another component of the mentioned system – a US military radar - in the Czech Republic and after 200 000 of them expressed their resistance with their signatures under the petition of the KSM and with dozens of thousands of signatures under the petitions of other initiatives, it comes up to day that the governments of the Czech Republic behind the public’s back continued the secret negotiations on the placement of the US military facility on our territory. The ruling forces have an intention to carry out this important act without any expression of the will by the people and without discussion in the Parliament of the Czech Republic. Any cover-up considerations on the eventually possible interconnection with NATO are completely without merits and misleading. It should be based on a bilateral agreement between the US and Czech governments. Arguing with possible formal interconnection of the facility with the NATO that acts as an instrument of the US aggressive policies changes absolutely nothing in the whole affair and is designed to cover its essence.

The right-wing parties as well as the Czech social democratic party demonstrate with their pro-US servile and yea-saying attitudes whom they serve. They perform as a gearing-lever implementing the interests of the imperialist structures – of the government of the USA, of its criminal instrument NATO as well as of the EU. It is the domestic and foreign capital and not the working people who posses a real power in our country and who during the capitalist economic crisis on one hand further sharpens the class struggle against the working and unemployed people through the painful cutting of their social and legal position and who simultaneously bears its deal of responsibility for the policy of aggressions and occupations with deployment of the Czech army mercenaries and military equipment especially in the occupied Kosovo and Afghanistan on the other hand.

The Communist Youth Union (KSM) carries on its struggle against the placement of the US military facility on our territory and for leading out our country from the imperialist horse-collar of USA, NATO and EU.


Communist Youth Union (KSM)

Prague, 3rd August 2010

On the 65 years of US nuclear attack to Hiroshima and Nagasaki

Statement of the World Federation of Democratic Youth (translated into English)

Today is the day August 6; the nuclear weapon is used in war leaving death of about 150000 people in Hiroshima and later on 80000 people in Nagasaki with its devastating effects.

There is no justification of this weapon who used then, amassed in their artillery more since then, and deserve proud of having it, and trying to acquire now– is just to invite incalculable catastrophe against humanity.

The World Federation of Democratic Youth has always raised this concern very strongly. Whilst we born struggling against Nazi brutality of war against humanity we always lauded our voice high for denuclearization and disarmament of whole world at the same time. Here the question pertains not about who were allied and who frayed, but an issue revolves around why war, what sort of war and war against whom.

The 2nd World Festival of Youth and Students in Prague has commemorated the Hiroshima Day not to see such man made catastrophe again by coming generations. The World Federation of Democratic Youth is going to have its 17th World Festival of Youth and Students in coming December in Johannesburg, South Africa. In the festival we have a tribunal against use of Nuclear Bomb that is to raise our voice for denuclearization and disarmament of whole world.

It goes really beyond our thinking level about the stock of Nuclear weapons piled by the USA and the former soviet countries and others later on- to create hegemony or in the name of global balance of power or security! We know the countries must have their calculation that how many times they can destroy this world into pieces as the US has it’s already experience of using it in Hiroshima and Nagasaki and Soviet Union had self-faced with Chernobyl disaster. More than 25000 nuclear weapons almost each with 16 times more powerful than the blasted one in Hiroshima are still there at launch pad and in artilleries coupling with devastating H-Bombs. This process has triggered to dispose trillions of dolor of resources against humanity that could be in urgent need to fight against poverty, hunger, environment crisis, AIDS etc in the world.

The tiresome saying about the responsibility of holding nuclear weapons and their much afraid if it goes in hand of non-state actors or for terrorist attack is much highlighted. WFDY agrees that this application could be serious. However, the non proliferation of nuclear weapon could effectively applicable only if the doctrine of world security could rely on the mutual understanding among countries for the world peace and progress. If the imperialist policy under the US leadership goes on its way of preemptive doctrine of attack even after end of cold war sidelining all the countries and UN Mechanism, the wish of non-proliferation will always be other facet of doctrine to maintain just hegemony.

The WFDY is always against proliferation of nuclear weapons. To summon this task the world community must come up with higher level of agreement to eliminate those weapons from everywhere in the world.

On this Hiroshima Day we express our solidarity with the victims and survivors of nuclear weapons in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. We memorize this day not to come again in the life of coming generation anywhere in the world. We reaffirm our commitment to struggle for safer-world free from all nuclear weapons in the world and join hands in hands with our member organizations in Japan and with all others who are struggling for this great cause of humanity.

Fidel Castro message to the Youth - ENG & SPA

Fidel Castro, Message to the YouthFor 57 years, two generations of Cubans, that which preceded us and ours, which led both from the First of January 1959 until today, have fought against the most powerful empire ever known to mankind.

I do not harbor any fears of sounding exaggerated, I say it with modesty, and even grief. It hurts to see how hundreds of millions of young people in the world couldn’t even learn to read and write, or are semi-literate, or lack work and ignore everything related to the inalienable rights of human beings.

A colossal crime is being committed on billions of teenagers and youths of both sexes, whose beautiful minds are manipulated by the mass media and that many of them, mostly men, are turned into soldiers to die in unjust and genocidal wars that take place anywhere on the planet Earth.

The economic system that has prevailed is incompatible with the interests of humanity. It must end, and will end.

The new generations of young Cubans will get their message through, which was born of the experience of their own homeland; they will fulfill the sacred duty imposed on them by their own time.They will do so with humility and truth in hand, without stupid belief in racial or national superiority of any kind.

I’ve often wondered: Why do our children and our teenagers have to die?

Why do our young people have to die?

Why do those minds, where so many virtues could be planted and grown, have to go?

Why do their parents have to die in fratricidal wars?
Imagine that the Global Research website deserves no credit, that the theory of Gregory Ryskin, a biochemical engineer at Northwestern University about the bubble of methane that the writer Terrence Aym associated with the oil spill of British Petroleum in the Gulf of Mexico, deserves no attention at all and they invite us to sleep peacefully.

Global Research published the only possible explanation of the sinking of Cheonan, a sophisticated anti-submarine ship capable of detecting a boat of this type at 185 miles away. Obviously, it could not be sunk by an old Russian submarine, built over 50 years ago.

We prefer to cling to the hope that the arguments used in the Reflection to be published on Tuesday, August 3, conform to reality.

Otherwise, the danger of another war breaking out, which would immediately become nuclear, would be the only alternative, and therefore, this message will become more important than ever.

There is not a chance in a thousand, in ten thousand, or in any desired amount, that the United States or Israel renounce the sanctions established by United Nations Security Council, with strict time limits, or that Iran accepts that its ships be inspected.

A blind man could see that with clarity. We will not give up, or allow the Empire to deceive the world.

Mensaje a los Jóvenes

Durante 57 años, dos generaciones de cubanos, la que nos precedió y la nuestra, que dirigió ambas desde el Primero de Enero de 1959 hasta hoy, hemos luchado contra el más poderoso imperio que ha conocido la humanidad.

No albergo temor alguno de parecer exagerado, lo digo con modestia, e incluso pena. Duele ver como cientos de millones de jóvenes en el mundo no pudieron siquiera aprender a leer y escribir, o son semianalfabetos, o carecen de trabajo e ignoran todo lo que se refiere a los derechos inalienables del ser humano.

Un colosal crimen se comete con miles de millones de adolescentes y jóvenes de ambos sexos, cuyas maravillosas inteligencias son manipuladas por los medios masivos de información, e incluso muchos de ellos, fundamentalmente varones, son convertidos en soldados para morir en guerras injustas y genocidas que se llevan a cabo en cualquier parte del planeta Tierra.

El sistema económico que ha prevalecido es incompatible con los intereses de la humanidad. Debe cesar y cesará.

Las nuevas generaciones de jóvenes cubanos harán llegar su mensaje, que nació de la experiencia vivida por su Patria, cumplirán un deber sagrado que le impuso la época que les correspondió vivir. Lo harán con humildad y con la verdad en la mano, sin la estúpida creencia en superioridades raciales o nacionales de índole alguna.

Me he preguntado muchas veces: ¿Por qué tienen que morir nuestros niños y nuestros adolescentes?

¿Por qué tienen que morir nuestros jóvenes?

¿Por qué tienen que desaparecer las inteligencias donde tantas virtudes podrían sembrarse y cultivarse?
¿Por qué tienen que morir sus padres en guerras fratricidas?

Imaginen que el sitio Web Global Research no merece crédito alguno; que la teoría de Gregory Ryskin, ingeniero bioquímico de la Universidad Northwestern, sobre la burbuja de metano que el articulista Terrence Aym asoció al derrame petrolero de la British Petroleum en el Golfo de México, no merece atención alguna y nos invitan a dormir tranquilos.

En el Global Research se publicó la única explicación posible del hundimiento del Cheonan, un sofisticado buque antisubmarino capaz de detectar una nave de este tipo a 185 kilómetros de distancia. Obviamente, no podía ser hundido por un viejo submarino de fabricación rusa, construido hace más de 50 años.

Nosotros preferimos aferrarnos a la esperanza de que los razonamientos empleados en la Reflexión que se publicará el martes 3 de agosto, se ajusten a la realidad.
De lo contrario, el otro peligro de que una guerra estalle, que de inmediato se volverá nuclear, sería la única alternativa, y por lo tanto, este mensaje se volverá más importante que nunca.

Ni siquiera existe una posibilidad en mil, en diez mil, en cualquier cifra que se desee, de que Estados Unidos o Israel renuncien a las sanciones ya establecidas por el Consejo de Seguridad de las Naciones Unidas, con límites rigurosos de tiempo, ni de que Irán acepte que sus barcos sean inspeccionados.

Un ciego lo vería con claridad meridiana.

No nos rendiremos, ni le permitiremos al imperio engañar al mundo.

Watch Fidel's speech on Youtube.