Dear Mr Straw,

I have great pleasure in writing to you, as someone who presently serves on the National Executive Committee of the National Union of Students. As the officer with responsibility for Internationalism, I would like to speak to you in your Governmental role and as someone who pioneered international solidarity campaigns within the NUS. You retain the legacy of a respected student leader who had an international perspective for the role for the student movement.

I am sure you are aware that on November 17th, 1938, German troops executed every tenth member of the Czechoslovakian Students’ Union, including President Jan Opletal. In 1945 student representatives from across Europe met to discuss proposals to re-establish an International Student movement and a Czech proposal for November 17th to be known as international student day of action.

This year, at a meeting in Bloomsbury, student representatives from across Europe came together at a European Student Assembly and agreed to re-invigorate November 17th as the International Students’ Day of Action. Once again recognising the importance of solidarity among student movements across the world.

We are set with the task of working together, in friendship with all freedom-loving students of the world, to find with the rest of our generation, a strong critique and answer to many of the world’s problems. This will serve as the foundation of a more just and peaceful world.

However, I am not writing to you to reminisce about your past role as President of the National Union of Students, but to ask you to use your influence, as Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, to help us support fellow students and their rights which are under attack on this International Student Day of Action.

I would like to highlight for you some of our specific international concerns, and engage in dialogue with you on the broader international situation of students and student movements.

As you are aware of the situation in Zimbabwe and its development into a totalitarian state under Robert Mugabe, we look for your help in exerting political pressure to free the Zimbabwe National Association of Students (ZINASU) to organise without state oppression. ZINASU is coming under increasing attacks from the governing political group ZANU PF. They have found many of their activities being oppressed. Recently, Philani Zamchiya, President of ZINASU, was hospitalised after being attacked and severely beaten by police outside his students’ union office. This follows on from a similar attack a few months earlier, after a rally on educational rights, where their General Secretary was assaulted, hospitalised and then imprisoned without trial.

We are also concerned about the plight of students in Belarus, the only remaining dictatorship in Europe, under the leadership of Alksandar Lukasenko. He has brought little good to Belarussians. People are deprived, without basic civil and human rights and isolated from the international community. Students in Belarus face expulsion and even imprisonment for expressing their beliefs. Extreme threats and acts of violence are the consequences faced by students who take an active part in demonstrations. Furthermore, students who speak Belarusian and student activists face discrimination within their institutions, their work often under-marked. This situation is becoming entrenched in the educational system as the President appoints rectors who are happy to expel students expressing criticism of the Lukashenka regime. The Government supported students’ social organisations are hopelessly ineffective, acting primarily as the Presidents’ mouthpiece. On graduation, students are required by Presidential decree to undertake work for two years; postings can be highly dangerous, including work in severely effected by the Chernobyl catastrophe.

HIV and AIDS is an issue that does not discriminate and affects all parts of society. However, some groups are of higher risk. Southern Africa is presently being ravaged by the effects of this pandemic. While in Zambia and Botswana, 1 in 4 people are affected - the majority are under the age of 25. Students are being stigmatised as carriers of HIV and AIDS with families stopping their children’s rights to a university education for fear of infection.

It has been 10 years since the end of Apartheid in South Africa, the last great global student solidarity campaign. Students’ movements from all over the world are coming together to ask their governments for more political action on the HIV and AIDS pandemic. As the UK is hosting the G8 in July, we ask you to commit your support and promote the increased investment in the Global Fund and support universally free care and treatment for victims of this catastrophic virus.

Finally, I ask you to look at the implications of the IMF poverty reduction programmes and the effect they are having on Tertiary education sectors in the developing world. Where forced liberalisation and consequential privatisation is being taken advantage of by trans-national educational corporations. These corporations are more interested in economic than social and cultural capital development. We have concerns about the role of these institutions being seen as purely service providers and economic drivers, not seeing their role in the Tertiary Education sector for the cultural and social development of students.

These are just some of the issues that I want to bring to your attention and ask for your help and guidance. I am sorry if they appear ambiguous and complex, but where rights are withdrawn, we have a moral responsibility to act. I wish to work in cooperation with the Foreign office to ensure students internationally have the right to freedom of speech, liberty and to study free from intimidation and violence - rights enshrined in the British tradition. Ultimately these rights and freedoms should not be seen as privilege to the student body, but inalienable rights of the global community as a whole, where it is the duty of all students to work together in global citizenry.

Yours sincerely,

James Lloyd,
NUS National Secretary

The Blogs on this site represent the individual views of their authors and do not necessarily reflect the policies or practices of the National Union of Students.

All links in blogs will open in a new browser window.

The permanent URL for this specific blog entry is: http://www.officeronline.co.uk/blogs/jameslloyd/270171.aspx