February 2, 2000
Web posted at: 11:42 p.m. EST (0442 GMT)

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MEXICO CITY -- A standoff between Mexican authorities and striking students at Latin America's largest university is continuing, with students demanding the immediate release of colleagues arrested during clashes with police.

The students of National Autonomous University (UNAM) fought with police Wednesday morning, injuring at least 37 university workers under a shower of rocks and firebombs. Police arrested 251 students.

"We cannot have a dialogue with the police in our classrooms, with hundreds of our comrades under arrest," said Rodolfo Hernandez, a student.

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Mexico City Bureau Chief Harris Whitbeck reports that efforts to break the student strike have resulted in violent clashes. Real 28K 80K Windows Media 28K 80K

Interior Minister Diodoro Carrasco said late Tuesday that university authorities requested the assistance of the Federal Preventive Police (PFP) after strikers attacked UNAM workers and anti-strike students who were occupying one of its preparatory schools.

First direct police action on the campus

Wednesday's arrests represented the first time police took direct action in the conflict since students went on strike last April, at first to protest a proposed tuition fee increase to some $69 per semester from a token two U.S. cents.

Officials dropped the fee increase proposal in the early months of the strike, but a small band of radical strike leaders broadened demands for reform at UNAM to include greater rights for the poor among the university's 270,000 students.

University authorities said the students are being manipulated by leftist guerrilla organizations, but an analyst disputed that notion.

The students, according to Ignatio Rodriguez Reyna, were acting out of frustration rather than ideology.

"They know even if they have some superior education they wouldn't have any future ... it creates a social frustration," he said.

Violence endangers 'strategy of seeking dialogue'

The police action was notable because UNAM is self-governing and off-limits to security forces unless university authorities request their help.

It also marked a possible change in the willingness of authorities to use force despite painful memories of a 1968 massacre by the army of students demanding democracy.

But political analysts said the PFP action did not mean that force would be used to a greater degree to take back UNAM's sprawling campus from the strikers.

"I don't get the impression (what happened last night) was part of a greater plan," said political commentator Sergio Sarmiento. He said he did not believe that UNAM dean Juan Ramon de la Fuente was looking for an excuse to send in the troops.

But a political analyst said the violence is bad news for those who hoped for further negotiations to end the standoff.

"This has braked the ... strategy of seeking dialogue," said Joel Estudillo of the Mexican Institute of Political Studies.

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