[July 04, 2008] 15 Hurt in Peru protest Tweet (EFE Ingles Via Acquire Media NewsEdge) Lima, Jul 4 (EFE).- Fifteen people were hurt in a clash between students at Lima's San Marcos University and municipal workers building a road near the campus, Peruvian media reported. Thursday's confrontation took place on the outskirts of the campus of the oldest institution of higher learning in the Americas, whose wall was knocked down to make room for the road-widening project. Students and professors at San Marcos say the road expansion is infringing on the campus and that it will result in damage to a pre-Columbian ceremonial structure on the college grounds. Images broadcast on Peruvian television showed students and workers battling each other with sticks and stones as police looked on impassively. Some of the laborers invaded university buildings during the fracas, and the campus doctor, Cesar Torres, told RPP radio that 15 students were injured in the confrontation. The clash came after San Marcos students held a massive march through downtown Lima to demand that Mayor Luis Casta?eda halt the road project. Municipal authorities say the university chancellor signed a contract with the city agreeing to the road widening and they deny that the expansion will harm the campus or the pre-Columbian site. Besides the student demonstrations, Lima was the scene Thursday of marches by more than 1,000 striking miners and by members of the country's main labor federation, the CGTP, which has called a nationwide general strike for July 9 to protest the economic policies of President Alan Garcia. Three miners were injured when police resorted to tear gas to keep them from reaching Congress. EFE dub/dr Copyright ? 2008 EFE News Services (U.S.) Inc. [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ]