Contrary to the law these students were arrested and mistreated by the Police, as a result of which the SSFF Committee issued a tract headed The charge is false. Fifty students participated in the distribution of this tract and only Zoran Minderovic, a student at the Academy, is found guilty and sentenced to a month in prison (he has refused to comply with this sentence and has actually gone into hiding). Summer: A large number of students in the Philosophy Faculty are summoned for questioning about the May events by the State Security Service.
Autumn & Winter '69-70: The subsidy to Student is temporarily blocked, and after the publication of three issues, the Party Committee at the University attacks the editorial board accusing its members of being "extremists," spokesmen for a "philosophic platform", "anarcho-liberal Stalinists", etc. The committee publicly demands the dissolution of the editorial board and the leaders of the official student organisation come to their aid by publishing a statement against Student.
At the meeting of the 2nd December, the students of the Philosophy Faculty present a resolution attacking the actions of the Party Committee, accusing it of using bureaucratic anti-communist methods and stating that since June 1968 repressive measures had been taken against the young peoples' and students' press for their anti-bureaucratic activity-publishers refuse to finance certain newspapers, the staffs of two of them had been dismissed, four editors are summoned to Court, six newspapers are banned, five permanently, and ten editorial boards have been dissolved.
December '69 and Spring 70: The University student assembly discusses for five consecutive meetings the proposal to dissolve the editorial board of Student. Three meetings have been interrupted because the quorum was not attained. According to the Press, so-called "oppositional students are supposed to have created incidents in order to dissuade the students from going to the Assembly.
On 26th December, the University student committee by an illegal decision (contrary to the Constitution as well as the penal code) forbade the presence of non-delegated students at the meeting. Some hundreds of students try to force the door of the ampitheatre. They throw themselves violently at the guards and the police. After two hours of demonstrations and protests, the students go into the room. The discussion is stormy but it appears that 23 delegates support the line of Student, while only seven delegates are for the dissolution of the board. The delegates of the Philosophy Faculty, greeted by an ovation, that TiLL the campaign against Student has been fixed up by the forces of the bureaucracy and protest against the transformation of the student organisation into a simple transmission belt for the C.P., which, according to them, has no right to claim a monopoly of truth for itself.
Since Student is accused essentially of criticis ing everything existing, the delegates explain that criticism in this sense is in fact Marx's own claim and the principle of Marxist thought.
During these meetings the bureaucracy brought into play everything it could to draw away militants from the Philosophy Faculty.
(A meeting was organised to contest the legality of the SSFF Committee with fake evidence.)
The Police restarted the action brought against Viado Mijanovic and his comrades, accused of having published the May tract called The charge is false. Dusan Kuzmanovic, Curgus Velimir and Velia Mihajlvic, philosophy students, have been summoned for questioning at the Court.
The last meeting of the student assembly on 10th January 1970 is held in the presence of dozens of guards and police agents. Between the two meetings most of the delegates were replaced by full-timers of the C.P. (the principles of democratic centralism obliged them, accord ing to them, to approve the decisions of the C.P.) - N. Nedeljkovic (sociology student) and The delegated defenders of Student denounce this meeting as packed. Likewise they assert that the bureaucratic intervention of the C.P.
had prevented all democratic debate. The Assembly President favoured the adversaries of Student by breaking off discussion at a moment when about 40 delegates, defenders of Student, demanded to be heard. The chair is immediately abandoned as well as the Motions commission.
Nobody can speak any more, not even Alia Hozic, editor-in-chief of Student, a sociology student, who had asked to reply to attacks and questions.
159 delegates voted against Student, 13 for.
There were 15 abstentions, also about 50 dele gates refused to vote under these conditions, protesting in this way, but in vain, against the methods used Almost at the same time-at the beginning of December-the Philosophy Society of Serbia held a meeting on the subject, Socialism and Culture. The situation was distinguished by the bureaucratic offensive against the liberty to be creative. In '69 in Serbia no fewer than 40 works had been banned; this figure was larger than the total number of bans for 20 years after the war. This discussion took place in the pre sence of hundreds of intellectual workers and had an important echo, provoking a wave of vigorous attacks on the part of the C.P. Towards the end of January 70 at the conclusion of a press campaign directed against students and left intellectuals, a meeting of the Republic Parliament dedicated almost 12 hours to an examination of the situation in the Faculty of express the opinion Philosophy and Philology. Students and teachers were accused of being 'oppositionals", "extreminutes of this meeting has never been made public.
A new SSFF Committee is elected, which undertakes a good number of actions. A petition is signed by the students and teachers raised against the American aggression in Cambodia. (The Press completely ignores these developments in the Far East.) Thousands of leaflets are distributed on this subject, a satirical journal, Frontisterion, aimed at the students of the Philosophy Faculty, would have been published and has been forbidden by the censor at the Printing Press. An address to Yugoslavs has been published raising the problem of the growing support of the Kakany (Bosnia) miners' strike against poverty.
The police went into Philosophy Faculty twice in the course of this strike, searching the building from top to bottom and thus violating the autonomy of the University; in the course of that the dean of the Philosophy Faculty was arrested in his office. The strikers distribute more than 10,000 leaflets to inform the population and explain to it the reasons for the hunger strike. The Press stays silent once again.
Summer 1970 Repression comes down again on the progressive students of the Philosophy Faculty as soon as the vacation begins. Numerous students are found guilty of "publication of false information liable to cause disturbance among the population with the end of undermining confidence in official institutions."
Also the following students are accused:
- Perunovic Slobodan, archaeology student, member of the SSFF Committee. - Zivojinovic Moma, philosophy student, member of the SSFF Committee. - Boskovic Dusan, philosophy student, member of the SSFF Committee.
- Vojvodic Vlada, student of medicine. - Jovicic Ljilja, sociology student, ex-member of the SSFF Committee.
- Pavicevic Radmila, teaching student.
- Moljkovic Ilija, literature graduate, publicist, student in the Philosophy Faculty. - Nicolic Milan, sociology student, ex-member of the SSFF Committee. - Liht Sonja, sociology student, ex-member of the University students committee and of the Central Committee of Serbian Youth.
Ecvijevic Slobodan (history student) have been arrested during leaflet distribution and sentenced to a month in prison. - Dapic Goranko, philosophy student and secretary of the SSFF Committee, arrested on 17th July and imprisoned in inhuman conditions. He is accused of propaganda hostile to the State Bozidar Borjan, philosophy student, has been in prison for two months. He is convicted of having published a strictly philosophical review, Le Rondo. He has been transferred because of bad health to the hospital of Zrenjanin Prison (Serbia) where he still is.
Dapic Goranko is provisionally freed after six days in prison while the President of the SSFF Committee, sociology student Vlado Mijanovic, is arrested.
The principal charges levelled against Dapic and Mijanovic can carry as much as twelve years in prison: - criticism of the Yugoslav electoral system in April 1969; - distribution of a leaflet headed The charge is false, in June '69; - assertion that none of the demands of June 68 have been realised; - distribution of the document 3,000 Words in June 1969; - assistance in the publication of the paper Frontisterion in April 1970; - accusing the bureaucracy for measures taken against Student, - organisation of meetings against the American aggression in Cambodia and distribution of leaflets calling a meeting on 7th June 1970; - organisation of the hunger strike on 22nd June and distribution of the strikers' leaflets For Dapic: - insulting the leaders during the Belgrade students assembly on 10th June 1970; - distribution of leaflets against the repression of the student press; - "hostile" talk during a meeting in the course of the hunger strike on 24th June 1970 About 40 students have already been sum moned for questioning by the State Security Forces or as witnesses at the Court It is probable, from semi-official information; that a trial is in preparation against these militants. It is important that this information is disseminated as widely as possible and that the revolutionary student movement in Western Europe acts in solidarity. (This material has been translated from Rouge, the weekly paper of the Communist League in France.)
The Red Mole 1.15 Oat 1970 Paro 7