Mexico's attorney general said a truth commission is an option if the courts don't indict government officials in the disappearances of dissidents 30 years ago.

BY SUSANA HAYWARD
Knight Ridder News Service

MEXICO CITY - Mexican Attorney General Rafael Macedo de la Concha said a truth commission to investigate ''dirty war'' crimes against political dissidents 30 years ago would be an option if the courts didn't indict officials for offenses in that era.

His remarks came as Mexico's Supreme Court prepares to decide this week whether to reinstate charges brought by a special prosecutor against former President Luis Echeverría and other officials for alleged genocide in the deaths of 20 to 40 students on June 10, 1971.

''Mexicans have to know the truth. The special prosecutor has done his job and has established the legal truth,'' Macedo said late Thursday. ``Now we have to see what the court says.''

If the Supreme Court lets Echeverría and other officials off the hook, they might next face a so-called truth commission, Macedo continued.

The commission, although without power to punish, would be empowered to determine historic truth about the fatalities.

''Undoubtedly, there's a possibility for such a commission,'' Macedo said.

This approach, if adopted, would begin to redeem President Vicente Fox's pledge to bring to justice those responsible for crimes during Mexico's so-called dirty war against leftists, from the 1960s to the 1980s.

Fox and the special prosecutor he appointed in 2002 to handle the cases, law Professor Ignacio Carrillo, have been criticized for accomplishing little in the effort to bring dirty-war officials to justice.

''Dirty War. Blah Blah Blah,'' read placards that human rights activists carried outside the legislative palace Wednesday when Fox gave his state of the union address.

Carrillo is in charge of investigating the disappearances of some 600 political dissidents, insurgents and leftists during the period when rebel groups, many Marxist, surged throughout the country, and the government, run by the Institutional Revolutionary Party, responded with arbitrary arrests, torture and banishment.

In July, Carrillo charged Echeverría, who was president from 1970 to 1976, and 11 other top officials with the student deaths in 1971.

According to Carrillo, witnesses say an elite force called the Falcons, which Echeverria created, ambushed the students and opened fire unprovoked.

Echeverria has denied the charges, saying the deaths were the result of an armed standoff with the students.

District Judge Cesar Flores ruled in July that the 30-year statute of limitations had expired in the Echeverria case. Carrillo responded by asking Macedo to appeal the case to Supreme Court.

Carrillo argues that the investigation was open until 1982, so the statute of limitations shouldn't be invoked until 2012.

It was the first time a former president of Mexico had been charged with any crimes. The case is considered a test of Fox's determination to punish those responsible for abuses under the Institutional Revolutionary Party.