We explain what the Tlatelolco Massacre of 1968 was and what its consequences were. Also, its characteristics and commemoration.
On October 2, 1968, a shooting started a massacre at a student rally.
What was the Tlatelolco massacre of 1968?
The Tlatelolco massacre It was a massacre perpetrated by the Mexican government during the repression deployed against a group of thousands of protesters gathered in the Plaza of the Three Cultures, on October 2, 1968.
This tragedy occurred within the framework of a series of protests and demonstrations called student movement of 1968which began in July of that year and were carried out by students from the National Autonomous University of Mexico, the National Polytechnic Institute and other educational institutions.
Teachers, workers, professionals and intellectuals from Mexico City and other states soon joined the protests. The movement He demanded greater democratization of Mexican political life and questioned the authoritarian model of government and economic dependence on foreign capital, especially American.
The massacre was perpetrated by a paramilitary group called the “Olimpia Battalion”together with the Mexican Army, the Secret Police and the Federal Security Directorate (DFS), and was a representative event of the protest struggles in Latin America and the world that characterized the year 1968, as well as the repressive responses of the governments of the time.
History of the Tlatelolco Massacre of 1968
Background of the Tlatelolco massacre
The Tlatelolco massacre occurred in the context of a series of protests and mobilizations that headed the student body of the National Autonomous University of Mexico and other Mexican educational institutions since July 1968.
Protests had already taken place in Mexico before and complaints from students, workers and professionals who demanded better working conditions and salaries.
One of the most important movements was a doctors’ strike between 1964 and 1965which gained great importance and was finally repressed by the government of Gustavo Díaz Ordaz, who had just assumed the presidency.
This climate of mobilizations ran into the repression by the government of the Institutional Revolutionary Party that ruled Mexico for decades, which in turn fueled discontent.
For some middle urban sectors, students and intellectuals, the reason for the claim was not so much economic but political: against authoritarianism and repression, in favor of democratization or greater political participation.
The student movement of 1968
The Mexican student movement was organized in response to the events taking place in Mexico in the late 1960s. However, it also was inspired by other student and social mobilizations from countries like the United States (against the Vietnam War and in favor of civil rights) and France (against the government of Charles de Gaulle and traditional political parties).
On July 22, 1968, a confrontation between students from two educational establishments in Mexico City provoked the intervention of the grenadier corps (the riot police of the Mexican capital), who applied excessive force. The following two days the student attacks continued and the grenadiers intervened with greater repression: they entered educational institutions and attacked students and teachers.
The student response was the organization of a march against police violence for July 26made up mainly of students from the National Autonomous University of Mexico and the National Polytechnic Institute and joined by members of the Mexican Communist Party.
The repression of July 26, 1968
On July 26, 1968, Thousands of students marched towards the Zócalo (main square of the city) to protest against police violence. Before reaching the square, the riot police attacked them, causing them to disperse and leaving around 500 people injured and several arrested.
The following days there were episodes of violence and the army occupied the buildings of the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) and the National Polytechnic Institute (IPN). Meanwhile, A National Strike Council was formed, made up of students from the UNAM, the IPN and universities from other cities.
During August and September There were rallies and marches, some of them massive. and with the support of workers, professionals, teachers and intellectuals. Clashes also took place between grenadiers and students. The repression caused the movement to decline at the end of September. On October 1, the government withdrew the army from the educational facilities it had occupied.
The student rally of October 2, 1968
On October 12, 1968, the Olympic Games to be held in Mexico City were to begin, so the Mexican government chaired by Gustavo Díaz Ordaz was interested in appeasing the student movement before that date.
On Wednesday, October 2, one day after the army abandoned the facilities of the National Autonomous University of Mexico and the National Polytechnic Institute, the a meeting of the student movement in the Plaza de las Tres Culturas, in Tlatelolco (Mexico City), called by the National Strike Council.
The meeting was attended by thousands of people and was guarded by the army, which surrounded the square. There, some demands that had already been formulated in August were agreed upon, such as the release of political prisoners, the abolition of the grenadier corps or compensation for victims of repression.
Minutes before six in the afternoon, A helicopter launched some flares and soon a shooting began.It is not known exactly where the first shots came from, but the consequences were more shots, beatings, chases, and a significant number of dead, wounded and arrested.
The massacre of October 2, 1968
The students were gathered next to the Chihuahua building and forced to strip.
According to some testimonies, in the Chihuahua building, where the spokesmen of the student movement and numerous journalists were, members of the Olimpia Battalion infiltrateda paramilitary group of the Mexican government.
According to this version, after receiving a signal in the form of a flare dropped by a helicopter, these They opened fire on the crowd and on the Mexican Army who were maintaining public order around the protest, which provoked the soldiers to fire on the building in response. Police officers infiltrated the crowd, identified by each other by wearing a white glove or handkerchief, proceeded to beat and subdue students.
The army He chased the protesters even into the surrounding buildingswhere they entered to protect themselves from the shooting, even though they did not have a court order legally endorsing their conduct. Hours later, the square was littered with corpses and many students were forcibly gathered next to the Chihuahua building or outside a convent, where they were forced to undress.
Some journalists had their film or film confiscatedThe detainees were imprisoned and some were sent to Military Camp Number One, while the tanks remained patrolling the area where the massacre had taken place.
The death toll from the Tlatelolco Massacre
Some versions assert that the death toll ranged between 200 and 300 people.
To this day, the exact number of deaths in the Tlatelolco massacre is not known. The official government version announced just under 30 deathsHowever, in one of the interviews conducted by Mexican writer Elena Poniatowska with witnesses of the massacre, a mother who rummaged through the corpses looking for her son revealed that she had counted more than 65 bodies.
Other versions They claim that the figure ranges between 200 and 300 people killed.as the English correspondent John Rodda concluded at the time, who counted testimonies about the events in the square and about the seriously wounded taken to hospitals. Others claim that there were more than a thousand.
The Special Prosecutor’s Office for Social and Political Movements of the Past, in a report released in 2006, recorded around 350 deathsSome witnesses said that the bodies were removed in garbage collection trucks.
The The number of injured was estimated at more than a thousand, in the same way as the detainees. Some estimates estimate that there were almost 2,000 detainees in Military Camp Number One alone.
The involvement of the CIA
In October 2003, a report was published that revealed declassified documents from US organizations such as the CIA, the State Department, the Pentagon, the FBI and the White House. These documents revealed the intervention of the CIA (US foreign intelligence service) and the Pentagon in the surveillance and repression of the Mexican student movement of 1968.
The CIA carried out reports on the student organization and the actions of the government during the months that the conflict lasted, while The Pentagon sent weapons, ammunition and radio equipment requested by the Mexican government to control movement and prevent disturbances during the Olympic Games.
The Mexican government also believed that the student movement could be the seed of a communist agitation, which also worried US agencies that were in the midst of the Cold War. For this reason, CIA reports focused primarily on leftist students and professors, especially those linked to the Communist Party. The American spy network in Mexico was codenamed LITEMPO.
Responsibility and justice for the Tlatelolco massacre
In 1998, the government authorized Congress to open an investigation into the events of October 2, 1968. However, it was with the government of Vicente Fox (2000-2006), who came to the presidency outside the Institutional Revolutionary Party that had governed Mexico for seventy years, that the investigation was promoted, some documents were released and The Special Prosecutor’s Office for Social and Political Movements of the Past was created with the aim of revealing the truth surrounding crimes committed by security forces in past decades.
Today, the perpetrators of the massacre are recognized as Mexican army, secret police and paramilitaries of the Olimpia Battalion. Also held responsible were the then president of the republic, Gustavo Díaz Ordaz, and the Secretary of the Interior and successor to the presidency, Luis Echeverría Álvarez, who was accused in 2006 of genocide for his alleged participation in the Tlatelolco massacre and other events…