Radical Students in Mexico Commemorate Strike by Forcing Professors to Strip By RHONA STATLAND de LÓPEZ
Mexico City
A year after federal police officers ended a 10-month strike over tuition at Mexico's largest university, radical students took over part of the campus once again on Tuesday. Smashing windows and writing graffiti as they did during the long strike, the student activists went even further this time by humiliating a number of faculty members.
According to about 35 professors at the National Autonomous University of Mexico, some 150 members of the General Strike Council, known by its Spanish initials CGH, ordered them to remove their outer clothing. "They marched us out military-style and made us take off our shoes, pants, and sweaters, then left us in our shirttails and underwear for an hour," Manuel Quijano, one professor, told a radio news program.
José Luis Hoyos, a professor of political science, said that when he refused to remove his pants, the activist Alejandro Echeverría, known as El Mosh, took a razor, cut off Mr. Hoyos's pants and then threw them in his face.
Although the CGH insisted that the anniversary takeover of the university, known by its Spanish acronym UNAM, was backed by a majority of the students, the group could not substantiate its claim. Several anti-strike students said if that were so, barricades that had been placed to block entrances to the campus would not have been necessary to keep out students who wished to attend classes.
"Most of us don't want anything to do with the strikers anymore," said one student, Tania Reyes Hernandez. "They are so divorced from the student community in general."