Student massacre still hangs over Mexico

CNN
February 14, 2002

Student massacre still hangs over Mexico

MEXICO CITY, Mexico (Reuters) -- It was the darkest night in Mexico's
modern history. And more than 30 years on, the wound still gapes wide open.

                 Weeks before the triumphal opening of the 1968 Olympic Games, dozens -- some
                 say hundreds -- of students were shot dead by army soldiers and police
                 as they gathered for a mass demonstration in the capital.

The episode was burned into the national conscience and is remembered as "The
Tlatelolco massacre" after the square in which the killings took place.

                 Many believe that until the full truth is known about events that still haunt the
                 nation, Mexico's transition from authoritarian government to vibrant democracy will
                 not be complete.

                 "It has resonance to this day because Mexican police power continues to violate
                 human rights," said Delal Baer, an expert on Mexican affairs at the Center for Strategic
                 and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington.

                 "This is a traum a which has scarred many prominent Mexicans. The generation of
                 Tlatelolco are in their late 40s and 50s and many of them are at the peak of their
                 adult lives," she said.

                 Historians say the decline of the long-ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI),
                 ousted from office in 2000, began at Tlatelolco when Mexicans discovered that a
                 student movement calling for more democracy could be crushed so mercilessly.

                 The tragedy exposed the dark underside of the PRI, which had never suffered a
                 direct challenge to its authority and had always ruled by co-opting critics rather
                 than stifling them.

                 And today, President Vicente Fox's government says it intends to shed light on the
                 massacre as part of a campaign to expose the alleged wrongdoings of the fallen PRI
                 regime.

Flare lights and white gloves

                 This much is known of what happened: as crowds gathered to listen to speeches
                 by student leaders, a flare lit up the night sky and plainclothes agents wearing a
                 single white glove for identification opened fire in apparent response to the signal.

                 Then uniformed soldiers who had taken up positions on different sides of the
                 square advanced with fixed bayonets, putting panic-stricken demonstrators to
                 flight. As the night wore on, dozens of dead, dying and wounded were taken to
                 hospitals and morgues in the capital.

Exactly how many died and who gave the order to the white-gloved members of
the shadowy "Olympia battalion" to open fire has been disputed ever since.

                 Mexico's president at the time, Gustavo Diaz Ordaz, later took responsibility for the
                 massacre, claiming he saved the nation from communism, but the former ruling
                 elite has maintained a conspiracy of silence over the events.

                 But with the PRI, which held sway over the nation for 71 years, now out of power,
                 it is just possible that the mystery of what happened on that dark October night
                 may finally be revealed.

                 Mexico's Supreme Court has ordered the public prosecutor's office to open an
                 investigation into the Tlatelolco killings. A special prosecutor charged with looking
                 into disappearances in the 1970s is expected to be asked to investigate the case.

Graphic pictures published

                 Previously unpublished photographs of victims of the massacre, which appeared
                 this week in Mexico City daily El Universal, have reminded Mexicans of the savagery
                 of the event, prompting fresh calls for a new probe.

                 "I think it is something that has to be clarified even though we know who started
                 the shooting," said Luis Gonzalez de Alba, who as a 23-year-old student leader in
                 Tlatelolco witnessed the killings.

                 Gonzalez de Alba suspects the "Olympia Battalion", a special military corps created
                 to oversee security at the Olympic Games, was under orders from then Interior
                 Minister Luis Echeverria to open fire on the crowd.

                 Echeverria succeeded Diaz Ordaz as president in 1970 and his six years in power
                 witnessed the start of a "dirty war" by the military against left-wing insurgents that
                 claimed hundreds of lives.

                 "I think Luis Echeverria is the main suspect," said Gonzalez de Alba, who was
                 arrested at the Tlatelolco rally and spent three years in prison. Echeverria has said
                 responsibility lies squarely with Diaz Ordaz.

Investigators may still find it very hard to get to the bottom of what happened with
many of the top government officials involved either very old or dead.

                 Miguel de la Madrid, who ruled Mexico between 1982 and 1988, said he
                 encountered stiff resistance when he asked subordinates to give him access to
                 archive material relating to the massacre. "When I asked for material they said it did
                 not exist."

It is unlikely that anybody will be put behind bars for their part in the killings.

                 "If people are looking for someone like Luis Echeverria to be indicted they will be
                 disappointed. But if there is a general assignment of responsibility perhaps it is
                 possible to achieve closure," said one analyst who asked not to be named.