1999 UNAM strike 1999 UNAM strike The 1999-2000 strike and shutdown of the UNAM (National Autonomous University of Mexico, the largest university in Latin America) had its origins in the January 1999 announcement by its latest rector that tuition would increase significantly and graduation requirements would become more restrictive. In response, a large group of students declared a strike and blockaded the main campus to the point of institutional paralysis. The blockades intensified and eventually led to the university's closure, during which there were violent encounters between opposition groups, students, guards and faculty. The crisis led to the eventual resignation of the university's
Xavier Cortés Rocha Xavier Cortés Rocha Xavier Cortés Rocha is a Mexican architect and urban planner. He was also rector of the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM) for a short time. He was born in Tampico. Cortés graduated in architecture and later in urban planning at the Escuela Nacional de Arquitectura of the UNAM. He continued his studies in Paris. After 1968 he taught at the UNAM. In 1999 he became Secretary General of the UNAM, and was interims UNAM president from 12 to 17 of November 1999. From 2001 to 2009 he was director of "Sitios y Monumentos del Patrimonio Cultural"