Word: ongania
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Higher education in Latin America gains world attention only when students riot, which they seem to do somewhere at least once a month, or when governments crack down on them. Lately, the schools in the news have been those of Argentina, where President Juan Carlos Ongania has attempted to curb the universities' tradition of freedom from government control...
...After Ongania imposed strict new rules on Argentina's nine national universities last month, students rioted, six rectors resigned, and nearly half of the 2,000 teachers at the big (81,000 students) University of Buenos Aires said they would quit rather than take an oath of loyalty to the regime. Last week, when Ongania attempted to reopen the university under a new, pro-government rector, students paraded through the streets chanting "Books si, boots no!" Police arrested 85 of the rioters, and Ongania banned the country's student federation, which promptly called a nationwide strike...
...disorder which racked the Illia Administration. Nobody in Argentina complained against the coup d'etat. On the contrary: there occurred a widespread feeling of relief and hopeful optimism. The Revolution, carried out by the heads of the Armed Forces to lead the country at a moment of national crisis. Ongania's government has since received spontaneous support, or at least acceptance, from meet of the representative forces of the nation: Business, Labor, Church and Press...
...government is drifting, however, Ongania does not want to be reminded of the fact. Fortnight ago, he abruptly closed down a satirical magazine that had dared to poke fun at his walrus mustache. He was even angrier over the grumbling at the University of Buenos Aires, long a hotbed of Communist and far-left activity. Fearing mass student unrest, he accused all nine state universities of "subversive action," wiped out their traditional autonomy, and put them under the control of the national Ministry of Education. That night, police moved onto university campuses, throwing tear gas and swinging clubs and rifle...
Last week, after an angry outcry throughout Argentina and the rest of Latin America, Ongania called his first press conference on television and stuck by his decree, announcing plans to reorganize the entire educational system. Moving on to other "concrete guidelines" for his government, Ongania made a few other points. Tax evasion, smuggling, and profiteering by food distributors would be implacably suppressed. Within 60 days, he promised, administrators of all state-owned enterprises would come up with a program for cutting costs. What is more, some of the enterprises might be returned to private hands. For one thing, said Ongania...