University Strike Imperils Mexican Research Efforts

A student-led strike that has crippled Mexico’s largest university threatens to indefinitely suspend much of the nation’s scientific research, a prominent researcher said Friday.

The strike illustrated the vulnerability of Mexico’s fledgling research efforts, many of which are based at the sprawling, 268,000-student National Autonomous University, or UNAM, one of the world’s largest universities.

Students shut down the UNAM’s campuses and research centers Tuesday to protest a tuition hike and other unpopular measures implemented by UNAM President Francisco Barnes de Castro.

Francisco Bolivar Zapata, UNAM’s coordinator for scientific research, warned that some 4,000 research projects--about 40% of the nation’s college research--could be seriously affected, the government news agency Notimex reported.

Researchers said laboratory animals could die, or infect each other with diseases, and scientific instruments could go unmonitored.

Only the university-affiliated National Disaster Prevention Center, which monitors activity at the nearby Popocatepetl volcano, has continued to function.

Meanwhile, the strike has led to an unusual political debate after Interior Secretary Francisco Labastida Ochoa claimed Thursday the left-center Democratic Revolution Party was behind the strike, citing internal intelligence reports.

Democratic Revolution President Pablo Gomez denied the claims and said Labastida should be investigated because Mexican law does not allow his office , which is in charge of national security, to engage in covert intelligence operations.