La guerra sucia: Mexico was not immune

Mon27Feb2006

La guerra sucia: Mexico was not immune

12:15 H | Topics: Activism - Justice - Mexico

For those of you that think that "la guerra sucia" -- the "dirty war" -- only occurred in South America, think again. While perhaps not as widespread and surely not as publicized, police and government engaged in tortuous acts and murder against regular Mexican citizens who were thought to be enemies of the state. The BBC talks about a report produced for President Fox's eyes only, but leaked by an American NGO:

A US NGO has printed material saying Mexicans had a right to know.

The army kidnapped, tortured and killed hundreds of rebel suspects, says the report, which covers 1964 to 1982.

What's in the report? Well, the stuff that nightmares are made of, so disgusting yet so familiar to us by now:

The draft report's authors write: "The authoritarian attitude with which the Mexican state wished to control social dissent created a spiral of violence which... led it to commit crimes against humanity, including genocide."
...Detainees were forced to drink gasoline and tortured with beatings and electric shocks, it says.

Bodies of dozens of leftists were dumped in the Pacific Ocean during helicopter "death flights" from military bases in Acapulco and elsewhere.

What may be surprising to those unfamiliar with 20th century Mexican history won't shock any Mexican that lived, say, in the 1960s. Everyone knows that the regimes of Presidents Díaz Ordaz and Echeverría were among the most oppressive of dissent.What may be surprising to those unfamiliar with 20th century Mexican history won't shock any Mexican that lived, say, in the 1960s. Everyone knows that the regimes of Presidents Díaz Ordaz and Echeverría were among the most oppressive of dissent. If you need proof, you need not look further than the massacre of Tlatelolco, a government ordered mass murder of hundreds of student protesters in days prior to the 1968 Olympics in Mexico City.

According to the BBC, the Mexican special prosecutor claims that the report is "biased" and "contrived":

Ignacio Carrillo Prieto, has said the draft report is biased and places too much blame on the military without pointing to the abuses committed by the rebels.
He says the president is to be given a revised version on Monday that will later be published.

Ironically, it's this special prosecutor that tried and failed to convict ex-President Echeverria on genocide charges for the 1968 massacre.

Read the Mexican "Dirty War" report on the National Security Archive website (inglés y español)

Via / BBC News

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Jennifer

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1. Maegan la Mala ~ Monday, Feb 27 2006 | 12:52H:

Wow. thanks for writing this. Incredibly sad and scary pero as you wrote, not surprising.

2. Ortega Gassett ~ Sunday, Mar 12 2006 | 03:22H:

Tonight I can finally cry and understand why I was afraid... All these years, I wondered what made me become a lawer. My mother has remained afraid of saying one dessenting word against any government, although in her home whe did teach me to question wars. And now let the healing begin and give me strength to contineu to question the current war.

La guerra sucia and Tlatelolco, is a horrific repression of the right of the students to free speech and expression which was crushed by the criminals in the Mexican government.

I was 10 when the 1968 Tlatelolco slaughter of the students occurred. I recall being terrified when my father explained of the scariest events which occurred no less than a year, after my family leaving Mexico for the U.S. That summer I watched Walter Cronkite reporting every night of bodies arriving from Vietnam, while my father explained in Spanish, of the massacre of el Tlatelolco.

At my young age, one early afternoon I was watching cartoons when a news bulletin interrupted my program to announce Bobby Kennedy had been shot. And I'll never foget how my mom and I watched the news of Martin Luther King being shot. Yes, the summer of 68' made me grow up fast and then the world was never be the same...

Professor Meyer at the Colegio De Mexico described how tanks surrounded the manifestations with their cannons pointing at the students. Moments later, street gutters were running with blood, and masses of bodies were placed in helicopters to be dumped on the oceans of Mexico.... Yes, it was supposed to be the summer of love, and yet my innocence was forever shattered. Nothing was ever the same...

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