Mexico: Torture, Massacres & Murder

The government of Mexican President Vicente Fox quietly released a jaw-dropping report on how former administrations used violence, torture, massacres, and murder to silence political opponents from the 1960s to the 1980s. Five years ago the Fox administration opened an investigation into political crimes carried out by the Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, the authoritarian party that had ruled Mexico for 71 years before being ousted by Fox and his conservative pro-business National Action Party (PAN) in elections that took place in 2000.

The report released by the Fox government makes clear that the political violence was not an aberration, but official government policy set in motion and condoned by Presidents Díaz Ordaz (1964-1970), Echeverría (1970-1976) and López Portillo (1976-1982). However, human rights activists in Mexico are worried that the report was released without fanfare just before a three-day weekend, and that the 859 page report was posted to the internet rather than being released at a major press conference. Critics of the Fox regime point out that the report, titled "Historical Report to the Mexican Society", makes no recommendations about bringing human rights violators to justice.

Included in the report is an admission that the massacre of students and their supporters at Tlatelolco Plaza in Mexico City during a 1968 protest against government corruption, was planned and carried out by the highest levels of government. The mass student protests took place ten days before the International '68 Olympics were held in Mexico City, and over the years activists have insisted Mexican army troops and police shot dead thousands of unarmed dissidents - carting off their bodies to be unceremoniously buried in secret. The authorities have always maintained that only rogue forces opened fired at the students in Tlatelolco Plaza, and that 4 were killed.

The report contains a whole chapter on the Tlatelolco massacre, as well as chapters on other massive human rights violations where populations of entire villages considered "subversive" were rounded up, and the communities burned to the ground. The report cites the names and circumstances of 645 people "disappeared" by the government, 99 outright extrajudicial executions, and more than 2000 cases of civilians being tortured at the hands of the army and police [ Read more about the report. ]