Striking students clash with the police as they try to prevent fall class registration VIDEO CNN's Harris Whitbeck explains the ongoing strike Windows Media 28K 80K

August 11, 1999
Web posted at: 11:08 p.m. EDT (0308 GMT)

From staff and wire reports

MEXICO CITY (CNN) -- A four-month-old student strike is threatening to bite into a new school year at Mexico's largest and most prestigious public university, with radical students holding firm to their demand that the university repeal planned tuition hikes.

Fall classes at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) are scheduled to begin August 16. But a collapse in talks between strikers and university leaders and the apparent failure of a last-ditch mediating effort by professors emeritus are jeopardizing the start of the new term.

Clashes have broken out at fall class registration sites, with some students throwing rocks and bottles at parents and police. Strike supporters chastised students wishing to return to classes at one site on Tuesday, calling them "fascists."

The conflict has paralyzed the university, an institution that has educated generations of Mexican professionals, nurtured the country's intellectuals and radicalized its army of political activists.

Students began the strike on April 20, protesting a proposed increase in fees that would end generations of effectively cost-free education at the 270,000-student university.

"We're willing to open up, to look for a solution to this conflict," said striking student Alejandro Alba.

University officials say the student movement has lost credibility.

"They are not interested in the university or in any sort of academic transformation of it," said UNAM professor Arturo Bouzas.

The campus of Mexico's largest public university stands almost empty just days before classes are scheduled to begin

The student strike has cut to the heart of Mexico's painful transition to a modern economy, a policy derided as "neoliberalism" by the left. Many leaders who were educated abroad have slashed social spending and privatized former state industries in moves hailed by Wall Street but hated by the poor.

Authorities have refrained from sending in police armed with tear gas, remembering the disastrous results of a 1968 student protest in Mexico City when security forces opened fire on thousands of students who gathered to condemn government repression. The number of dead remains a mystery with estimates in the hundreds.

Some striking students say they are merely continuing the 1968 protest. But their critics accuse them of just trying to provoke chaos.

"It is different, because in 1968 the students fought against government oppression, but this movement has no objective," said university professor Ignacio Burgoa.

Many students indicated they just wanted to return to class.

"We don't want a strike, we want to study," said Emilia Reyes, who was blocked from registering by protesters. "We've already lost one semester and don't want to lose another."

Mexico City Bureau Chief Harris Whitbeck and Reuters contributed to this report.

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