“Seniority on campus seems to be agreed by several organizations, one of which is UKM (Student Activity Unit) Menwa (Student Regiment). The seniority of Menwa is familiar to the ears of students, where the mentality of the oppressor is neatly imprinted with uniforms that are typical of militarism," the press release resulted from the action of the UMS (Muhammadiyah Univerisity of Surakarta) student alliance to dissolve Menwa and reject seniority on campus. The action was carried out on October 28, 2021 at 12.30 WIB which was attended by around 50 participants including UNS (Sebelas Maret University) students and non-students. The action was began with a mass gathering in front of the UMS law faculty building, then the they walked to the Menwa secretariat office to deliver oration and continued with the signing of the petition to disband Menwa and reject seniority on campus.
The action was motivated by the death of 2 students, namely Nailah (a 2020 UMS law faculty student) and Gilang (a 2020 UNS K3 student) because attended training held by UKM Menwa. In the press release, Menwa is considered as an UKM that often commits seniority and violence—not only bruises, even lives are also often sacrificed under the pretext of disciplining new students. According to Ahmad Syauqi as the field coordinator, the UMS student alliance wanted the student death cases to be thoroughly investigated and the campus also provided transparency on the progress of the cases, because even though the Menwa had been given sanctions—Menwa was frozen for one semester, the subsidy was cut by 50%, and structurally removed from office—it was not worth is compared to the loss of a student's life. He also added that, the case of Nailah's death that occurred in April 2020 was brought up again because when the case was raised, there were still a lot of people who didn't know about it, even the law students themselves. And the BEM (Student Executive Board) were also trying to cover it up, even though they were quite satisfied with its sanctions imposed by the campus against Menwa. The action clearly put forward 4 main demands, namely, (1) dissolve Menwa, (2) thoroughly investigates the case of Nailah's death, (3) impose sanctions on all parties involved, (4) abolish seniority and militarism in the campus environment.
Widi Adi Nugroho as the president of BEM UMS denied that BEM had covered up the case. He said that his party had been monitoring the case since May-June. He has also asked the campus for an explanation of the chronology of the death of Nailah.
“We were also disappointed because of the lack of transparency from the campus and it seemed that something was being covered up,” said Widi. He fully appreciated the action and hoped that this solidarity action, from the campus and the police, could provide the fairest possible justice.
Writer: Ayu Ukhti Muslimah (English Education’19) Editor: Ayu Ukhti Muslimah (English Education’ 19)
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