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Read the NUS president's shameful attempt to censor the Black Students'

bored and lonely | 09.08.2006 15:23 | Lebanon War 2006 | Anti-racism | Repression | Workers' Movements | Sheffield

Below is an email sent from Gemma Tumelty to the NUS NEC due to Ruqayyah's correspondence with the RESPECT coalition. Both of these emails are followed by a statement from Ruqayyah Collector, NUS Black Students' Officer on the current situation.

As it requests, please email NUS in protest at NUS' failure to call for an immediate ceasefire in the current crisis unfolding in the Middle East, at last weeks NUS NEC meeting where it instead followed the policy of the government.

Gemma's email:

Dear NEC
on 3rd August we held our first NEC meeting, the most contentious debate was obviously the situation in the middle east, one of the resolves from that meeting was for the "co-convenors of the anti-racism anti-fascism campaign to write a letter to George Galloway" re: position on Hezbollah

I read that as one joint letter from Sam and Ruquayyah. There were disagreements between the two about the way forward. (emails attached)

Ruquyyah then unilaterally sent the letter below and Sam's will now in response to this be also sent unilaterally. The press release will be based on Sams's response and NEC policy - as per usual practise.

It is a shame that no co-operative decision could have been reached that follwed the NEC policy, I feel the policy of the National Executive has been ignored and treated with contempt - therfore I write this email to inform you of the sequence of events.

Also an email has been sent to officers condemning NEC policy, this is unhelpful, devisive and destructive to NUS at a time when we have several referenda coming up. So please do not repsond to any emails you have on this issue, i will co-ordinate repsonses centrally.

Thanks

Gemma


RUQUAYYAH's LETTER - been sent already.

Dear Respect Coalition,

I write to ‘condemn your current stance on the crisis in the Middle
East’ following comments made by George Galloway at the emergency
demonstration on the 22nd July in support of Hizbullah and its leader
Hassan Nasrallah.

I was mandated to write to you by the NUS NEC meeting on 3 August where
the current crisis was discussed.

Unfortunately, the NEC did not call for an immediate and complete
ceasefire to stop the carnage in Lebanon which has so far claimed the
lives of some 1000 Lebanese and around 100 Israelis. The NEC voted not
to support an immediate ceasefire and instead called for a `sustainable
ceasefire'. Such language has been used by George Bush and Tony Blair
giving Israel a green light for the massacres of civilians and wholesale
destruction of the civilian infrastructure of Lebanon.

Unfortunately the motion did not call for the release of all prisoners
by all sides either. It called for the release of the three Israeli
soldiers held by Hizbollah and the Palestinians. It did not call for the
release of the nearly 10,000 Palestinian prisoners, including 300
children and half of the democratically elected government, held by the
Israelis, nor for the Lebanese citizens that the Israelis have held for
many, many years.

Unfortunately the executive did not mandate me or anyone else to write
to Tony Blair to demand that he stop effectively supporting the massacre
of civilians and destruction of the civilian infrastructure of Lebanon
by refusing to support the calls for an immediate ceasefire.

Neither did the Executive ask me or anyone else to write to George Bush
to demand that he stop supplying the weapons which are being used
against the civilian population of Lebanon and Gaza.


Yours,


Ruqayyah Collector
NUS Anti-Racism/Anti-Fascism Convenor


Finally Ruqayyah's statment:


Dear Student,

On Thursday 3 August, the NUS NEC discussed and passed policy on the
current crisis unfolding in the Middle East.

Unfortunately the NEC voted down a proposal calling for an immediate
ceasefire.

I believe that this decision is completely out of touch with the views
of students, the overwhelming majority of whom want to see peace and
justice now.

Over the last three weeks the conflict has claimed the lives of some
1000 Lebanese and around 100 Israelis. The United Nations Children's'
Fund have estimated that a third of the casualties are children.
Children make up nearly half of the 1 million Lebanese – more than a
quarter of the population - who have been displaced by the conflict and
are now at risk from disease and malnutrition.

As the killing and violence continues, students should demand that NUS
adds its voice to the scores of MPs from across the political spectrum,
Amnesty International, the Archbishop of Canterbury, Israeli peace
organisation Gush Shalom and many others calling for an immediate
ceasefire.

Instead of calling for an immediate end to this carnage, the NUS NEC in
effect followed the lead of George Bush and Tony Blair, by calling for a
'sustainable ceasefire', suggesting that further violence including
ongoing slaughter of civilians and wholesale destruction of the civilian
infrastructure of Lebanon, is necessary.

NUS should not stand by while the death toll continues to mount.

I encourage all students and student officers to write to NUS President,
Gemma Tumulty  gemma.tumulty@nus.org.uk and send me a copy to
 ruqs@nus.org.uk urging that NUS adds its voice to those calling for an
immediate ceasefire as the first step towards a lasting peace for all.

Yours,

Ruqayyah

Ruqayyah Collector
NUS Black Students' Officer

bored and lonely

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Comments

Hide the following 3 comments

The records show that NUS has never been about justice or truth

09.08.2006 19:32

© muhammad haque/aadhikaronline 2006


the assumption that any incumbent in any post in the uk national union of students will do anything really opposing violations of human rights unless it is ordered by the real setters of the nus’s agenda to do so, is an assumption that is not supported by the evidence of the past 40 years of the organisation.

no official ‘union’; in britain has ever been recognised by the holders of the real mowers in the country or by the ‘consensus’, as being legitimate the moment its ‘executives’ start telling the truth.

the national union of students is one of several thousand uk organisations that are permanently servicing the needs of the sate.

and as the state is serving the needs of big business , there is no reason to even suspect that these organisations are only allowed to operate if they serve big business. or the so-called ethos of big business

whatever ordinary conscientious students ever did manage to say against injustice ‘at home’ or internationally, has been only done because of the independent initiatives and guts shown by those who cared. not by the nus executives.

all students who are expected to ‘join’ nus must be given a fact book containing the records in bnreuf of the decades of lying and betrayal and corruption by the nus executives.

it will not be different over lebanon.

so the course that the genuinely caring opponents of the current violations of human rights anywhere should mobilise their own statements, shows and demonstrations within the universally recognisable and acceptable rules and ethics.

it is a violation of morality to even talk in ways that suggest that holders of nus executive power are morally acceptable when they execute the hidden agenda. that is to suppress the truth and to deny justice.

we could go over the past 40 years and even come across people on the nus electives of the 1970s and early 1980s with names like charles clarke. or jack straw . or david aaronovitch or trevor phillips.

these are not names that remind of justice. freedom, care.conscientiousness at all.!

the national unionised surrogates of the state are never expected to do other than to provide a propaganda image that ‘there is democracy in the academic industry in the uk.

the records show that the nus has not been about education. it has been about managing the iundustry..


© MUHAMMAD HAQUE / AADHIKARonline 2006
mail e-mail: lawmedia@hotmail.co.uk


Oh! NUS doing what labour HQ says shocker

10.08.2006 15:23

Everyone with half a brain or less knows that being in the (labour) leadership of NUS is all about making the right noises, the right sounds, the rights resolutions and the right one-night-stands in order to get YOURSELF either a cushy 'advisor' role or even better, a snout in the Labour parliamentary trough as an MP.

this is what the NOLS (national organisation of labour students) is for, to lubricate their own entry into political careers.

always has been, always will be. student politicians are just practising for the real thing.

being surprised by a NOLS-led NUS leadership sell-out on an issue like lebanon or tuition fees is like being surprised that eating glass is bad.

NOLS hacks seeking political power through bum-licking the Labour party and doing exactly what the party leadership wants is as old as the hills.

look at jack straw, stephen twigg, lorna fitzsimmons

yes, i am being libellous

fuck student politicians (everyone else does)


old studnet


In the interests of fairness...

25.08.2006 10:00

Gemma's comments on the situation can be found here

 http://www.officeronline.co.uk/blogs/gemmatumelty/272769.aspx

Tim


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