MEXICO CITY -- (AP) -- President Vicente Fox and his government paid homage Tuesday to the victims of a notorious 1968 massacre of pro-democracy students and promised to open secret government archives about the event.

 Fox said his government ``recognizes the events of Oct. 2, 1968, as one of the most important events in the democratic struggle of Mexicans'' that led to his own
 opposition-party victory last year.

 Shortly before the 1968 Olympics here, troops opened fire on a largely peaceful student demonstration in Mexico City's Tlatelolco Plaza.

 The government claimed only about 24 died, but witnesses described a bloodbath and most historians say about 300 died in a crossfire, their exits blocked by police.

 The event scarred the consciousness of a generation of Mexicans and began the gradual unraveling of the governing Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI.

 The PRI, which restricted formal opposition until the end of the 1980s, lost last year's presidential election to Fox after 71 years in power.

 Thanks to the demonstrators, Fox said, ``all of us today enjoy this climate of liberties, pluralism and greater participation.''

 Fox's interior secretary, Santiago Creel, promised to meet a longstanding demand of democracy activists by opening up intelligence archives on the incident. He said it would help clarify responsibilities ``without vengeance and without falling into a witch hunt.''

 Previous governments have released relatively little of the material, apparently fearing it might implicate the army or important figures.

 One of the activists who has been pushing to open the archives, Raúl Alvarez, agreed that the move should help lead to trials for those behind the events.

 No one has ever been tried for the killings.

 The archives are believed to contain information on how the military organized for the event and could shed light about who ordered the shooting. They might also prove how many died.

                                    © 2001