[The following article appeared in the April 8 issue of Palabra Socialista, a Peruvian Trotskyist fortnightly. The translation is by Intercontinental Press.]
Now that classes have begun, we feel it appropriate to draw a brief balance sheet of the gains made last year, so that we can pinpoint the situation we face and the basic tasks for the current year.
We of the JAS (Juventud Avanzada Socialista - Vanguard Socialist Youth] have been stating that since the May 2 conflict, in Lima and throughout the country an extraordinary upsurge of secondary school students has begun. In the main struggles of the working class, and especially in the teachers' struggle, secondary-school students have played a very wellknown role. Last year there were more than seven compañeros who were victimized, shot to death when they were participating in mobilizations with the workers (Tumbes, Chimbote, Arequipa, etc.).
Despite that, we want to add that many weaknesses persist, which we now have to overcome. There was no coordination among struggles last year. No organizations arose to group together the totality of secondaryschool activists; the organizations that did arise like COFESELM in Lima and the Federación de Estudiantes Secundarios del Perú [Peruvian Federation of Secondary-School Students], have ended up being watered down and bureaucratized.
That's why we want to begin by facing the problem of student organization. All of us — as products of capitalist crisis and the educational system - experience a series of problems in the schools (absence of freedom of expression, abuse from bad teachers and their assistants, the trampling of our dignity by the hierarchical system, lack of scholastic mobility, inflated prices of books and other materials, etc.). And we will not be able to go on defending our basic rights if we don't find the necessary organizational channels.
This is the task that must be initiated school by school with the opening of the academic year. We must understand how to take advantage of legal loopholes to avoid being vietimized by the authorities. At least in Lima, a dynamic already exists for activists to gather around newspaper clubs and utilize the papers as organs for publicizing the problems of students. We feel that that dynamic should be carried forward to forming more general coordinating committees. In this concrete case, we think that the Asociación de Periodistas Escolares de Lima [APEL - Scholastic Press Association of Lima] has taken very important steps and that it should be strengthened by the participation of all secondary-school students in shaping the newspaper clubs. In schools where the students have more power, where they have even already taken over the newspaper clubs, they can use loopholes in the Reforma Educativa [ Educational Reform] and throw themselves into forming student associations, defending to the maximum the autonomy of secondary-school pupils.
Time for Secondary Students to Organize
[The following article appeared in the April 8 issue of Palabra Socialista, a Peruvian Trotskyist fortnightly. The translation is by Intercontinental Press.]
Now that classes have begun, we feel it appropriate to draw a brief balance sheet of the gains made last year, so that we can pinpoint the situation we face and the basic tasks for the current year.
We of the JAS (Juventud Avanzada Socialista - Vanguard Socialist Youth] have been stating that since the May 2 conflict, in Lima and throughout the country an extraordinary upsurge of secondary school students has begun. In the main struggles of the working class, and especially in the teachers' struggle, secondary-school students have played a very wellknown role. Last year there were more than seven compañeros who were victimized, shot to death when they were 540
workers (Tumbes, Chimbote, Arequipa, etc.).
Despite that, we want to add that many weaknesses persist, which we now have to overcome. There was no coordination among struggles last year. No organizations arose to group together the totality of secondaryschool activists; the organizations that did arise like COFESELM in Lima and the Federación de Estudiantes Secundarios del Perú [Peruvian Federation of Secondary-School Students], have ended up being watered down and bureaucratized.
That's why we want to begin by facing the problem of student organization. All of us — as products of capitalist crisis and the educational system - experience a series of problems in the schools (absence of freedom of expression, abuse from bad teachers and their assistants, the trampling of our dignity by the hierarchical system, lack of scholastic mobility, inflated prices of books and other
Only by taking advantage of the democratic openings that this government allows will we be able to keep on advancing, contributing to the strengthening of student organization among those attending secondary school. Let's begin now! The JAS has bitten off this task; all compañeros who agree with driving forward student organization should join the JAS to continue constructing an alternative leadership for the movement of secondary-school students.