12 Hurt as police, protesters clash in southern Mexico

Tixtla, Mexico, Jun 3 (EFE).- Twelve people were injured here Wednesday when Mexican federal police intervened to prevent a march by the families and supporters of 43 students kidnapped last September and presumed dead.

The demonstrators planned a procession to Chilpancingo, capital of the southern state of Guerrero, but some 300 police intercepted the group in Tixtla.

The commander of the police contingent told the parents of the 43 students abducted last Sept. 26 in Iguala, Guerrero, that protesters would be allowed to pass as long as they were not wearing masks or hoods.

The families and their allies rejected that condition and the ensuing standoff soon degenerated into a confrontation, with classmates of the missing students attempting to park a truck inside a tunnel and set it on fire.

Ten police and two protesters suffered injuries.

The protesters eventually turned around, heading back to Ayotzinapa Normal School, the teachers training institution near Iguala that was attended by the 43 missing students.

Meanwhile, around 300 people, including teachers and members of the unofficial community police force, blocked access to Tixtla as their comrades burned posters and leaflets touting candidates in Sunday's elections.

The aim of the mobilization, a teacher identifying himself as Miguel Angel told Efe, was to demand the safe return of the 43 students and the repeal of the education overhaul enacted in 2013 by President Enrique Peña Nieto.

"We will impede the elections" to force the government to meet those demands, the teacher said.

The activists are determined that elections will not take place in Tixtla and they have a "well-planned" strategy to prevent the voting, Miguel Angel said.

More than 83 million Mexicans are eligible to cast ballots Sunday to choose 500 federal legislators, nine state governors and hundreds of regional and local officeholders. The campaign has been marred by killings and threats.

The parents and their supporters reject Mexican authorities' official account of the events of Sept. 26, 2014, in Iguala.

That night, police attacked Ayotzinapa students as they traveled through the town on buses. Six people - including three students - were killed and 43 other students abducted.

Federal authorities say the incident was the work of corrupt municipal cops acting on the orders of a corrupt mayor who had connections with the Guerreros Unidos drug cartel.

The cops handed over the students to cartel gunmen, who killed the young people and burned their bodies at a dump, according to the official story.

The movement that has coalesced around the Ayotzinapa parents denounces the upcoming election as a farce, pointing to the campaign violence and to the involvement of candidates suspected of links to organized crime.

Efforts to disrupt the elections have been taking place this week in other southern states, including Oaxaca and Chiapas, and in the Gulf coast region of Veracruz.

Spearheaded by members of the CNTE, a militant teachers union, the actions have included the occupation of election offices and the burning of ballots.

The Peña Nieto administration has made some concessions to appease the CNTE, including the suspension of the teacher-testing provisions of the education overhaul, but the union wants the legislation repealed.

While the government touts the overhaul as necessary to improve education, the CNTE contends the plan unfairly scapegoats teachers for the failings of a chronically underfunded schools, especially in rural areas.