By JULIA PRESTON
MEXICO CITY,
Feb. 2 -- Mexico's federal authorities jailed 156
strikers from
the national university today, including 86 adults and
70 minors, who
took part in violent clashes on Tuesday with a faction
opposed to the
strike. They face charges ranging from disturbing the
peace to terrorism,
which is a federal felony.
Talks between
the administration and the strikers, which were scheduled
to resume today
after a six-week lapse, were canceled by both sides.
Only a week
after the university president, Juan Ramón de la Fuente,
called on students
and faculty to negotiate the reopening of their
departments
directly with the strikers, he was forced to abandon that
strategy. He
pleaded with students opposing the strike not to try to enter
any university
buildings.
Throughout the
day top government and justice officials, journalists,
strike leaders
and the authorities from the National Autonomous
University of
Mexico vied to prevail with their version of the confusing
and fierce fighting
at Preparatory School 3. Officials said that 37 people
were injured
in the worst violence in the nine-month strike.
Television news
videotape and witnesses from both rival factions
disclosed that
the midday takeover of the school by a group opposed to
the strike had
not been peaceful, as Mexican television originally
reported. The
anti-strike faction forced its way through the front gates,
rousted a handful
of strikers off the school grounds and then hurled
stones at strikers
who began to gather in the street.
Of 200 people
in the anti-strike faction, only a small number were
students or
administrators from the preparatory school. José Serrano
Migallón,
the university's general counsel, said the administration
dispatched a
group of unarmed civilian custodians, usually assigned to
direct traffic
and keep order on campus, to stand watch at the school
after the strikers
were evicted. The injured were all from this group.