TASEK UTARA 1974: STUDENT-SQUATTER SOLIDARITY

Overseas student unions like the Australian Union of Students (AUS), the Asian Students Association (ASA), the New Zealand Union of Student Associations (NZUSA) and the Hong Kong University Student Union, expressed their support for UMSU and condemned the NEC.

The Academic Staff Association of University of Malaya also released a press statement on 22nd Sept. in support of the squatters and the students just struggle.

The Funny Show

Th NEC was an illegal and illegitimate organisation and had no right to power at all. Most fanciful of all was their "handing over of the administration of students' affairs" to the acting V.C., Prof. Ahmad Ibrahim. Prof. Ahmad Ibrahim, also dean of the Law Faculty, apparently forgot the most basic aspects of constitutional law and happily accepted.

This charade even prompted a progovernment reader of the New Strait Times to comment: "How can an unconstitutional body like the NEC have the authnrity to `hand back' the administration to the acting V.C.?

Lecture Boycott

UMSU called upon the students to boycott lectures on Sept. 24. This was warmly received by the overwhelming majority of the students.

On Monday morning, Sept. 23rd, despite all the pleas, persuasion and propaganda by both the NEC and university authorities that the situation in the campus had returned to normal and that all staff should report for duty and all lectures should continue, the students of the Faculties of Science, Engineering, Agriculture, Dentistry, Law, Medicine and part of Economics decided to boycott all lectures unless the illegal NEC was dissolved and UMSU was restored.

The only two faculties that did not boycott were Arts and Education; the students in the latter were out doing their teaching practice. In short, the majority of the students did not recognise the NEC.

However, the "NEC" tried to introduce racial overtones to the issue by claiming that the boycott of lectures was manipulated by the Science Society to drum up support for their language claims.

This argument was far fetched. Firstly, the Science Society had started the boycott of lectures days before the squatter issue started and had already resumed lectures.

Secondly, their earlier boycott did not affect all the other faculties. Thirdly, they had issued a statement that the boycott of lectures to fight for a more systematic language programme had been called off and that the UMSU boycott was on solely for the dissolution of the NEC and the restoration of UMSU.