More than 700 strike leaders to be charged in Mexico for nytcamer@ursula; Sat, 12 Feb 2000 02:47:32 -0500 Via NY Transfer News * All the News That Doesn't Fit Strike leaders held in Mexico Authorities say they will formally charge 745 protesters 02/08/2000 By Tracey Eaton / The Dallas Morning News MEXICO CITY - The leaders of a strike that shut down Mexico's oldest and largest university for nearly 10 months were ordered held without bail Monday as authorities debated what to do with more than 700 jailed protesters. To Mexican authorities, many of them are hoodlums, accused of such serious crimes as "terrorism" and "sabotage." But to supporters, they're "political prisoners," angry urban rebels in a less than democratic nation run by the same political machine since 1929. "Let our rage explode in the hands of our oppressors!" one strike supporter declared in a message posted on the World Wide Web. The strikers occupied Mexico City's National Autonomous University of Mexico, or UNAM, in April after university officials proposed raising the yearly tuition from a few cents to about $140. The dispute simmered for months. Then at dawn Sunday, 2,662 federal police officers swept in and re-took the campus, arresting hundreds of strikers. By Monday, Mexico's attorney general's office was reporting that it would formally charge 745 people, including 83 minors. Some officials continued calling for leniency as authorities set up a hotline for relatives wanting to know the status of those arrested. Three top leaders of the protest, Alejandro "El Mosh" Echavarria, Alberto "The Devil" Pacheco and Mario "The Cat" Flavio Benitez were ordered held without bail on Monday. Their supporters said the charges against them - ranging from terrorism and inciting a riot to sabotage and destruction of public property - were "invented" and groundless accusations. "Is it terrorism to defend free public education in a country with 100 million poor?" read a statement posted on the strikers' Internet site. "Please, don't believe what the media say. Take to the streets and raise your voice." Few heeded that call Monday in Mexico City. The streets were quiet as about 200 strike supporters met privately to decide what to do next. There was no immediate word on when the university would re-open. Authorities began cleaning up the campus Monday and assessing the damage. Mexican newspapers showed photos of classrooms and hallways littered with broken chairs, equipment and stray dogs. Cuauhtemoc Cardenas, who is vying for the presidency in Mexico's July 2 election, criticized Sunday's raid of the campus, saying authorities ought to be addressing the root causes of such conflicts. Mr. Cardenas and other left-leaning politicians contend that as long as power is so heavily concentrated in one party - the governing Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI - there will be political tension and the potential for violence in Mexico. For the strikers, the dispute may have begun over the proposed tuition increase, but it quickly grew larger than that. It became a protest against the PRI, free markets and political corruption. Yet the strike never had widespread public support. University officials in January held a straw poll to test the support for a plan to negotiate with the strikers and re-open the school. More than 90 percent of about 150,000 students who voted in the poll backed the plan. C 1999 The Dallas Morning News ================================================================= NY Transfer News Collective * A Service of Blythe Systems Since 1985 - Information for the Rest of Us 339 Lafayette St., New York, NY 10012 http://www.blythe.org e-mail: nyt@blythe.org ================================================================= nytcamer-02.12.00-02:47:34-25775