It's...disheartening, seeing what your college has been reduced to...
Today February 9, 2011...The Universtity of Puerto Rico became a warzone.
I was not there for the begining...but I know how it ended...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S1gWT5ScoOE
This video is only a small piece of the violence the students of the UPR had to face today. It was caos. It was a battle ground. It was a bloodbath.
This...ALL this...because our government did not know how to handle the money that was meant for our college. Some say it was used for corruption pay-offs. Others, for our previous governer's personal use. All that IS known is that it's gone and it must be replaced. 30 million dollars...just gone. HOW CAN THAT HAPPEN?!?
Now they're been SQUEEZED out of us!! Out of 12,000 students who came to this institution because it was the most affordable, because it was the best. Now? Now it's just a prison we have to pay for. And no one knows what that money is being used for. It's not for the professors, because their leaving by the dozen. It's not for materials, we have the same worn out, torn books we did last year and the year before that. No one knows and their trying to find out.
Since August of last year a group of students have set out to figure out what happened and to find alternatives to the imposed $800 quota. They've been ignored, kicked out of school, ARRESTED...all because they wanted to know the truth and find some other way to fix this problem without losing our place at college. It's been 7 months...7 MONTHS...and STILL no one knows what's going on. The quota has been imposed. And more than a THIRD of the students, that's 4,000+ people not including professors, have had to leave because they can't pay a quota that didn't even exist until several months ago.
And the government's answer to all of this? Have the ENTIRE police force INVADE our campus. Not a minute goes by that I don't see a police cruiser or motorcycle, Hell, a Riot Team walk around the campus as if they own it. Staring us down as if we were no better than common criminals. It's disgusting. Specially when the police on this island are no better than thugs with badges. It's sickening.
It was a time bomb just itching to go off. And today...it did.
Just because a couple of guys decided to paint a protest on the street in front of the college library. WTF world??
I'll admit some of the tactics used by the students weren't very smart, but they'd never HURT anyone! And today they got the shit kicked, punched and beated out of them?? For PAINTING??? *defeated sigh* I just don't understand where these people (the government) think they're going with this...I just don't.
I love my Island and I'm proud of being Puertorrican...but today...hell, for a few months now...I just want to get out of here. It's painful to see what my people have become...what they've stooped to. All I pray for is that this stops before it goes too far...that is if it hasn't already. I don't want to know...I just... can't.