Important Lesson

Standing somewhere between students they are proud of and a rector they are ashamed of, Belgrade University professors are, as one of them said, trying to move closer to the Intiating board for defending democracy and keep up with the students as well as their much praised protest on the streets of Belgrade.

The professors support the demand that a election committee made of representatives of all parties be formed, and they too want the resignation of Belgrade University rector Dragutin Velickovic. The students have charged the rector with "deceiving the public on the character of their protest" and ignoring their demands, while the initiating board has come up with an additional demand: establishing legitimate and financial mechanisms to ensure autonomy and freedom for the university and its students.

"The Serbian minister of education and the Belgrade University rector are deceiving the public about the situation at the university, bringing shame to fellow professors", writes the dean of the Mathematics faculty, Zoran Kadelburg, in a letter informing the minister, the rector and the students that his faculty supports the protest. The art faculty has called the rector's insulting rhetorics tantamount to "inviting mob justice" while others are encouraging students to add free media to their list of demands. The philosophic faculty demands that officials who called the students "manipulated offenders and fascists" apologize in public for their words. The list of faculties joining the protest is longer by day: most of them are on strike and professors have called for sessions to discuss further activities.

A professor of the Veterinarian faculty envies her collegaues and students on strike. The faculty dean has locked up all amphitheatres and classrooms and banned a professorial session, saying he received such orders from the education ministry. A petition expressing dissatisfaction with the dean has so far been signed by 150 veterinarian faculty professors, but he responed with threats to sack them. Most of them are scared...

Other professors also came forward and spoke about various forms of pressure ranging from locked halls and guards in front of some faculties to threats that students who join the proterst will be expelled from the university. The deans of some faculties openly said the rector had praised them for "loyal behaviour", which boils down to ignoring the demand to call and allow professorial sessions.

Unlike some of their professors, who yielded in to pressure brought upon them to bear by the rector, the students of some faculties still in the stranglehold of the education ministry showed courage and joined the mass protest, while others are putting pressure on their deans to call sessions, a professor of the agricultural faculty said. "They have set an example we ought to follow", he said.

The faculty of physical chemistry finally held a professorial session, but the dean said he was against "confrontation and polarization". He also opposed the proposal that classes lost during the protest be held after it ends, so the final conclusion boils down to the fact that no conclusions were made. Some professors later signed a petition supporting the students' protest.

The dean of the medical faculty made it clear he was by all means against "rocking the boat", meaning he had no sympathy for either his students on strike or professors holding sessions in the faculty's packed amphitheatre since December 4.

Professors rallied around the Initiating board admit that the students are teaching them a lesson because they know what they want. The students, on the other hand, have every reason to keep believing in their cause as over1,500 of the 2,700 Belgrade University professors have so far signed the petition supporting the 1996 students' protest.

 

 

Profile

 

Dragutin Velickovic,

 

Belgrade University Rector

 

Dragutin Velickovic was born on April 22, 1996 in Aleksandrovac Zupski. He graduated biology in Belgrade in 1960. A year later he became a graduate of the agricultural faculty too. He successfully defended his doctoral dissertation in 1971, after which he was appointed assistant professor of biochemistry at the agricultural faculty. He was the faculty dean for five consecutive terms. He is currently the managing director of the tobacco institute. He is the author of some 70 scientific publications and three biochemistry textbooks. He is a member of the ruling Socialist Party of Serbia (SPS) and a federal deputy. He is married and has two children, a son and a daughter.

His second mandate as dean of the agricultural faculty came after a majority of the Belgrade University representatives voted against him. After amendments to the law on University, the government curbed the university's autonomy to the maximum which prompted 20 council members to abandon the session. There was no quorum, and only three of the 11 University representatives present voted for Velickovic.

Dr. Nebojsa Popov, the only council member who voted against Velickovic, said the Belgrade University had never been in a more opressed position - not even during the rule of the Obrenovic and Karadjordjevic dynasties, not even during Tito's communist rule. When he asked those who voted for him whether they had read a word of his programme, no one responded. Debates about the validity of Velickovic's second term as dean of the agricultural faculty continued in some newspapers.

He probably ought to thank his SPS colleagues, namely academician Mihajlo Markovic, for being elected rector of the Belgrade University.

The opposition said his election was a stalinist farse, an authentic reward for keeping the agricultural faculty out of the 1992 students' protest.

His reply: "The election was legitimate, I received some 200 letters of support. Most people were thrilled with the outcome".

His colleagues describe him as a completely irrelevant character in the sphere of science.

Commenting on politics at the university he said the following in 1995: "I am fully opposed to any kind of politics or party activities at the university".

"Autonomy is a very relative term. Lenghthy debates on this issue will take us nowhere", he said last year when asked for an opinion about autonomy for the university.

Many people will never forgive him for approving the military draft of students in 1991 and 1992. When many young people fled the country to avoid the war in the former Yugoslavia, he said they shouldn't have been allowed to leave. He added that those who left shouldn't be allowed to return.

This year, he said the most talented students never actually left the country as a result of the university's policy to encourage the most promising individuals to stay here. He explained they had no reason to leave in the first place. In 1995, he said Yugoslav students were living and studying in the most desirable conditions.

He will also be remembered for attacks on the Soros foundation. When this institution was banned in Yugoslavia, this is what he said: "I am happy that this organization has been decalred illegal. I welcome the government decision to ban those acting against Serbian interests. If I played any part in the adoption of this decision, I did so with great pleasure".

"The students had nothing but admiration for me when I told them they won't be going to the USA with Soros money", he explained the students' reaction to the decision.

A historic statement for Serbian television: "A small number of students out on the streets has succumbed to pressure exerted by those manipulating them. I have been following the protest myself, and I can say that there are only a few Belgrade University students in this crowd rallying secondary school pupils and other youngsters. Classes are in progress as usual."

What the students said in reply: "We want the rector's resignation" !!