Negotiations between UVic and student protestors break down

Negotiations between students protesting the war in Gaza and UVic administration officials looking to close their campus encampment appear to have failed. On Friday, the People’s Park encampment protesters announced that talks were at an impasse. On Saturday, UVic responded by announcing that “[a]s we see no further prospect for a successful dialogue, the university has advised the People’s Park UVic that they are trespassing and asked them to leave university property.”

In solidarity with university students across North America, the protesters erected the encampment on May 1, calling for a ceasefire in Palestine and for the university to divest funds from companies supporting Israel.

The students announced yesterday their one-text negotiations with the university had failed. One-text mediation involves working with a single or shared document to bring a contentious issue to resolution. Students say they submitted a "third and final" version, but claim the university did not engage with it, instead insisting on its most recent offer.

The sticking point appears to be the firmness of UVic's commitments to making investment and partnership changes. Protesters stated on Friday that UVic “offered us a proposal with no concrete commitments and ineffective policy,” while UVic states in a FAQ that it “cannot agree to demands or ultimatums from any group.” In 2021 UVic shifted part of its investments away from fossil fuels, after a multi-year student-led divestment campaign and a 2019 faculty vote.

UVic did not say in Saturday’s statement what it intends to do, but in their own Saturday update campers said they were issued a trespassing notice and told to leave by 8am on Monday.

Recently, in Nanaimo, Vancouver Island University (VIU) issued a trespassing notice on July 11 that set 8am last Monday morning as a deadline. When that passed, VIU sued protesters—seeking damages and an injunction to remove the camp under threat of arrest.

UVic’s encampment appeared the morning after hundreds of students at Columbia University in New York were arrested during a similar pro-Palestinian encampment. Two and half months later, organizers say their good faith negotiations have not been reciprocated.

Student protestors at the University of Windsor have been the only ones able to forge an agreement with administrators. That encampment is being peacefully taken down. Encampments at McGill, the University of Toronto, University of Guelph, Memorial University and UBC have all been forced—either by raid or court injunctions—to dismantle.

Organizers at People’s Park—as the encampment has been dubbed—continue to demand the university divest from companies profiting from Israel's offensive in Gaza and to end partnerships with Israeli academic institutions they contend  are complicit in the war.

Also Friday, this international ruling from The Hague

On Friday,  the International Court of Justice (ICJ) advisory ruling stated that Israel's settlement policies on Palestinian territories violate international law. The IJC—the only international court that adjudicates general disputes between nations—called on Israel to end its military occupation of Palestine and to remove its illegal settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. Its advisory opinion relates to the legality of Israel's 57-year occupation of lands sought for a Palestinian state.

Even in the face of the ICJ’s advisory ruling, the UVic students say the university has refused to acknowledge their most recent proposal to “find an actionable solution that furthers their commitment to the UN convention on Human Rights and United Nations Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP).”

“The administration has failed to echo the International Court of Justice’s language that plausible genocide of Palestinain people,” their representative said.

Audrey Yap, a UVic philosophy professor who has stood in solidarity with the encampment told Capital Daily: “The students have been working really hard to try and understand what the university frameworks might be, how they might talk and get their demands into language that's actually actionable.”

UVic protests started back in February

Students actually began vying for the attention of faculty long before the first tent arrived on campus when Emily, a UVic student, began a hunger strike outside of the Legislature on Feb 16th. She ended it less than a week later after receiving no acknowledgement from the university.

Not long after they set up, the students began face-to-face negotiations with Elizabeth Croft, vice-president of academic and provost and Kristi Simpson, vice-president of finance and operations at UVic, in June.

Encampment organizers say they were met with what they called “weaponized incompetence, manipulation and stonewalling.”

On July 4, UVic put out a statement saying: “We left that meeting [with the encampment] with a feeling of cautious optimism. We had hoped that we were embarking on a positive way forward together. Unfortunately, since that meeting, the actions of encampment members have demonstrated an unwillingness to work with the university towards a peaceful resolution.”

Philosophy prof Yap applauds students

Despite that negative portrayal of the students, Yap said: “It has felt really unfair the way that a lot of university communications seem to have portrayed the encampment and the students there, and are really not true to my experience.”

She said she has been amazed by the growth the students have experienced during the process.

“As an educator,you look at students doing something amazing and you just can't help but feel incredibly proud of them and just amazed and lucky. You see all the things that they're doing and all the things that they've learned and the kind of environment they've created and it’s wonderful. This is what an educational space could be like.”

Among other things, the student petition demands that the university divest from investments overtly connected to corporations that benefit from the war on Palestine, including Thyssenkrupp Marine Systems Canada (which leases space from UVic), BlackRock ($4.3M through the company) and Scotiabank ($258.3K), the largest foreign investor in Israeli weapons manufacturer, Elbit Systems.

Destruction in Gaza

Since the war began, all universities in Gaza have been destroyed. “We refuse an agreement that evades accountability,” said the students. In response, they are calling on UVic to cut academic ties with Israeli universities.

In a statement read to media on Friday morning, UVic encampment leaders said: “The motivation to fight for divestment from genocide has not waved. UVic’s hands are red and [UVic President] Kevin Hall’s hands are red. They are equally culpable, aiding and abetting this genocide.”

U of T campus encampment taken down

Student-led demonstrators who organized a pro-Palestinian encampment at the University of Toronto cleared their site after more than 60 days of protest, ahead of a court-ordered deadline to leave on July 3.

"We refuse to give the Toronto Police Service any opportunity to brutalize us,” encampment organizer Mohammad Yassin said.“We are leaving on our own terms to protect our community from the violence the University of Toronto is clearly eager to unleash upon us."

“None of the encampments can last forever,” Yap said. “I'm not really sure what they're thinking would be their next strategic move.”

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Story updated at 8pm Saturday to include new statements by UVic and protesters.

Correction: A previous version of this story included Western University in the list of schools with encampments shut down by raid or injunction. Leaders of the encampment at Western chose to dismantle July 6.