Section A·Page 21
The University Daily Kansan
Monday, August 16, 1999
World
Student protests delay the beginning of fall semester
The Associated Press
MEXICO CITY — Silence looms over the sprawling and normally bustling main campus of Latin America's largest university, four months after a student-led strike brought classes to a halt.
Graffiti covers the walls and murals mocking school officials adorn its corridors. A university police car is parked outside one classroom building, its normal blue-and-white exterior covered in psychedelic motifs.
The calm scene stands in stark contrast to the off-campus clashes with Mexico City police as students protesting tuition hikes at National Autonomous University, or UNAM, try to prevent entering freshmen from registering.
The fall semester was to begin Monday, but has been delayed indefinitely for most students.
"This is a decisive moment because if the conflict between students and officials goes on, it will have disastrous consequences for the UNAM, for students and professors," Maria Stoopen, professor of literature, said.
In recent weeks, conflict has been more common than negotiation with little hope for an immediate resolution. In the most recent confrontation, 150 riot police were called out Friday after 50 striking students
"We are in agreement with the students that the university is in need of an overhaul. But we disagree on the means to reach that end."
Cristina Gomez National Autonomous University professor of history
UNAM officials said 195,000 of the expected 268,000 students had been able to register for the fall semester. But on Friday they announced that only 45,000 students — mostly those who use off-campus facilities — would begin the semester on time.
formed a human chain to block a registration center north of the city. No violence was reported.
Students have barricaded the campus, and it is unlikely they will be forcibly dislodged, in part because of history. One of the darkest moments in Mexico's recent past came when soldiers fired on anti-government student protesters in 1968, killing an estimated 300 people.
dent Francisco Barnes de Castro to raise tuition for the first time in more than 50 years from a symbolic 2 cents to $160 a year.
The present strike began April 20 to protest a decision by university Presi-
The Mexican constitution guarantees free public education to all, but UNAM officials argue that doesn't include higher education.
"We are in agreement with the students that the university is in need of an overhaul," Cristina Gomez, professor of history, said. "But we disagree on the means to reach that end."
As the strike dragged on, Barnes agreed to forget about the tuition increase. But by then the students were fired up and pressed other demands, such as greater student participation in running the school.
The spring semester was suspended, and with negotiations stalled on the students' new demands, professors have begun to take the initiative to end the strike.
Teachers and students sought a basic agreement Thursday that would give students and professors a greater say in the university's academic policies. They failed to strike a deal.
Though some students are fed up with the strike, sophomore Yaokoa Chavez, a Latin American Studies major, said the strikers were resolute in their demands.
"We are wom out, tense and tired — but not discouraged," he said
Leftist students fight to unify
Riot police block march of South Korean students to North Korean border
The Associated Press
SEOUL, South Korea — Armed with tear gas launchers and water cannons, South Korean riot police blocked thousands of leftist students from marching to the border with North Korea yesterday to promote national unification.
After a rally at Seoul National University, several hundred students confronted 8,000 riot police at the school's main gate at nightfall. About 200 students lay on the pavement, shouting: "Let's accomplish unification!"
The students were among about 5,000 leftists who gathered at the university demanding unification of the rival Koreas. The rally was part of activities marking the 54th anniversary of Korea's liberation from Japan's colonial rule in 1945.
Several students were seen hurling fist-sized rocks at police, who did not respond with their tear gas and water cannons. No serious clashes were reported.
Authorities deployed 13,000 police around the school and along a highway leading to the border, 55 miles away, as the leftists had planned to attend a North Korea-sponsored rally there.
The Seoul rally was one of the largest in recent years. Government officials expressed concern that the leftist student movement, which has waned significantly in recent years, may gather momentum.
Earlier, the students held a boisterous campus rally, during which they demanded the withdrawal of 37,000 U.S. troops in South Korea, arguing their presence hinders unification.
In a separate government-sanctioned pro-unification event, 60,000 South Koreans formed a "human unification belt," a 30-mile chain of people holding
hands along a highway from Seoul to the gateway to the border.
At the border village of Panmunjom, several hundred North Koreans had a rally calling for unifying the two Koreas under a system that would leave their different systems intact, the North's official Korean Central News Agency said.
The border rally, an annual event for the past decade or so, was the highlight of a North Korean celebration of the Aug. 15 Korean Independence Day.
South Korea bars its citizens from participating in the rally, which it regards as anti-Seoul propaganda. Past efforts by students to attend it touched off violent clashes with police.
The Korean peninsula was partitioned into the communist North and the capitalist South in 1945 with Japan's defeat in World War II. The North and the South are still technically at war, having signed no peace treaty at the end of the 1950-1953 Korean War.
People of the two Koreas cannot visit the other side without government approval, which is rarely given.
South Korea celebrated the holiday by calling for peace and freeing, among others, 56 political prisoners, including seven North Korean spies.
The 56 were among 1,742 convicts set free under a sweeping presidential amnesty. The amnesty also affected 1,115 others who were convicted earlier but have been free on parole. They had their civil rights restored or their criminal records erased.
In a nationally televised Independence Day speech, President Kim Dae-jung urged North Korea to accept talks to discuss peace.
He denounced North Korea for seeking to deal directly with the United States, while avoiding official dialogue with South Korea. North Korea shuns official dialogue with the Seoul government, which it regards as a U.S. puppet.
Despite North Korea's intransigent and hostile stance, the South Korean leader said he will continue to push his policy of engagement with the North's Stalinist regime.
Opponents criticize Kim's so-called sunshine policy as coddling North Korea.
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