When I previously wrote about the situation at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), the head of the largest university in the Americas had announced a plebiscite aimed at ending the nearly ten month old student strike. (ETS! 1/19/00). The question left hanging was whether officials could develop a ballot that the General Strike Council (CGH) would accept as legitimate.

After I had finished the article, yet before it was printed, that question had been answered: "No." The CGH announced their own vote. Not surprisingly, each side announced the results it desired. The authorities balloting called for an unconditional end to the strike, while that of the CGH called for the strike to end after the University addressed the strikers demands.

Like so many previously attempted solutions to the impasse, the exercise amounted to a big fat zero. But, with presidential elections looming, and the strike holding center stage in the nation's public discourse, the authorities were determined to reassert control, no matter how messy. As is the wont of those in power, they preferred an outcome entirely in their favor. (Does this sound familiar?)

Following the votes, and a series of violent conflicts, between pro and anti strike elements of the University community and between strikers and the police, the authorities acted.

At 6:30 AM, Sunday February 6, riot gear clad officers of the Federal Preventive Police stormed the campus, arrested hundreds of students in a sweep and issued warrants for strike leaders still at large. The government declared the strike over. The CGH, who make up in cajones what they lack in tact, declared they weren't done yet.

Here in the U.S., news sources which, as far as I can tell, never mentioned a word of the strike for the ten months of its duration, ran front page stories about the end of the strike, including dismayed reports about the less than pristine state of affairs found on the newly "liberated" campus. Among other transgressions against property, the students apparently had the temerity to turn academic laboratories into makeshift kitchens. Practical it may have been, but the corporate media consensus suggests that the students should have had the strike catered. That's what passes for professional journalism in reference to our close neighbor and NAFTA trading partner. (The recent WTO brouhaha, which was catered--courtesy of Seeds for Peace, Food not Bombs and various other angels--didn't manage to garner any more favorable press. It's almost like a pattern. Go figure.) Meanwhile, hastily gathered demonstrations in support of the students took place the following Monday at various Mexican Consulates, including a rather tiny demonstration in Seattle. Small in number because of the difficulty of getting the word out on such short notice, the demonstration showed that at least some people manage to get some actual news from somewhere.

Small is not how to describe the demonstrations in Mexico itself. On Wednesday alone, an estimated 100,000 people marched in Mexico City calling for the release of the detained students. Prominent among them were the parents of these incarcerated youth. Despite that the CGH were well on their way to pariahhood because of the perceived tarnishing of the university's (an important national icon) image, (the Mexican establishment media helpfully keep reminding everyone of this, lest it escape anyone's attention) the police raid invoked disturbing memories. With a longer social memory than we have, the 1968 massacre of hundreds of student demonstrators by the government is a yet unhealed wound. The Sunday assault on the campus probably helped remind some folks, who had simply grown tired of the interminable standstill, that the CGH have a valid point or two after all. It may even help the strikers regain some of their eroded sympathy among the general populace.

Mexicans take the "Autonomous" part of UNAM very seriously. The University is supposed to be its own entity, free from (notoriously corrupt) governmental interference. And sending the (albeit unarmed except for the ubiquitous truncheons) cops in to take the campus by force falls well within the definition of "interference."

Recognizing the delicateness of his position, UNAM's Dean, Juan Ramon de la Fuente, who called in the police in the first place, has asked for leniency for those arrested students who did not take part in "violence." This call for leniency seems to disinclude the strike leaders, most of whom have been charged with, among other things, terrorism. A charge which is fast becoming the modern version of the fifties broad brush accusation of "Card Carrying Communist," and nearly as perjorative as being an "anarchist from Eugene."

The University has announced the first semester of 2000 will begin on Monday February 28. Neither my Spanish nor my knowledge of the Mexican version of government reality manipulation is up to figuring out how it works exactly, but the Dean says that nearly 100% of the students will be able to complete their college schedules almost as if nothing had happened. In a couple months he'll probably have trouble remembering there was a strike at all. Mexico might have a longer social memory than we do, but that doesn't stop the neoliberal ruling class from trying their damnedest to "modernize" that quaint relic from the backward past.

In the meantime, the crisis continues. An ex dean and professor emeritus of UNAM has severed ties with the University in disgust. Opposition members of the Chamber of Deputies are raising the roof, and the streets are fuller than they have been since the strike began.

There's a chant, which translates from Spanish roughly as "The struggle does not stop at the border." The students of UNAM are fighting the same forces that are behind the WTO. We wonder, "what next?, " while "next" is already happening - not so far away.