MEXICO CITY (Reuters) -- Striking Mexican students supported by their
                   parents took back control of the rectory of Latin America's largest university
                   on Monday, trying to reignite a nine-month strike that ended last month
                   when police stormed the campus.

                   About 200 masked students and some parents entered the rector's office,
                   smashing windows and overturning metal detectors, said officials at Mexico
                   City's National Autonomous University (UNAM).

                   "They've taken the building back," said Guadalupe Diaz, an UNAM
                   spokeswoman. "Many are wearing masks. ... They broke the metal
                   detectors and windows of the rectory."

                   The seizure of the building took place exactly a month after authorities
                   moved to end the student strike by sending police to UNAM's sprawling
                   campus, known as University City, in the south of the capital.

                   The strike began in April 1999 to protest a proposal to raise tuition from
                   about two U.S. cents to about $69 per semester for the estimated 270,000
                   students. That idea was scrapped but strike leaders then began pressing for
                   reforms at UNAM to benefit poor students.

                   UNAM rector Juan Ramon de la Fuente lashed out at the student strikers
                   who took over his offices on Monday, saying a small group was determined
                   to plunge the university into "instability."

                   "It was a deliberate and violent operation which deeply hurts the institution
                   and shows us once again how fragile and vulnerable the university is," he told
                   a news conference, adding that UNAM authorities planned to lodge a formal
                   complaint with the police.

                   Mexico's oldest university, UNAM suffered badly during the strike, losing
                   both prestige and equipment as student radicals controlled its buildings.

                   The Feb. 6 police takeover of the campus was provoked by a violent clash
                   a few days before between strikers and university workers. Some 200
                   students still remain in prison, facing charges ranging from looting to criminal
                   association.

                    Copyright 2000 Reuters.