------------------------- Via Workers World News Service Reprinted from the Aug. 05, 2004 issue of Workers World newspaper -------------------------
DECADES AFTER MASSACRES OF STUDENTS:
MEXICAN EX-PRESIDENT ELUDES GENOCIDE INDICTMENT
By Adrian Garcia Los Angeles
An attempt to indict a former president of Mexico on charges of genocide has stalled.
Two days after Special Prosecutor Ignacio Carrillo asked a federal court to indict former Mexican President Luis Echeverria on criminal charges of genocide, stemming from a 1971 massacre of students in Mexico City while Echeverria was head of state, the request was denied on grounds that a 30-year statute of limitations had expired.
This was the first time in Mexican history that a president had faced criminal charges. Carrillo, appointed special prosecutor by President Vicente Fox to investigate state abuses against leftists and adversaries of the then-ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) during the 1970s and 1980s, presented documents from a two-year-long investigation to a court on July 22. Carrillo stated that "dozens" of students were killed after government goons called the "Falcons" attacked a peaceful student demonstration in Mexico City on June 10, 1971.
Carrillo used a 1967 Mexican law as the basis for his charge of genocide against Echeverria and other former government heads, including former Interior Secretary Mario Moya and former Attorney General Julio Sanchez Vargas. Because the victims were "a national group of political dissidents" who were "partially destroyed through the illegal use of physical force," the law permitted the charge of genocide to be leveled against the accused, claimed Carrillo.
Echeverria has denied taking part in the planning or execution of the deadly repression in 1971. Judge Julio Cesar Flores has refused to issue arrest warrants against Echeverria and other members of his government, concurring with the contention of Echevarria's lawyer that a 30-year statute of limitations expired in 2001.
Special Prosecutor Carrillo argued that the statute of limitations did not apply, and has vowed to appeal the court's decision. The appeal is based on Mexico's signing of an international pact in 1966 that forbids any time limits being placed on the prosecution of individuals responsible for genocide.
"Sooner or later they will pay for their actions," reproached Roberto Garcia Flores, brother of Juan Garcia, one of the slain students of the Corpus Christi Massacre of June 10, 1971. Juan Garcia was among 10,000 demonstrators marching near the National Polytechnic Institute in Mexico City demanding education reform before they were brutally repressed. Up to 280 people are reported to have died or disappeared.
Echeverria is also implicated in yet another, more infamous, student massacre in Mexico. On Oct. 2, 1968, days before Mexico City was to host the Olympic Games, thousands of student demonstrators protesting in the Plaza de Tlatelolco were fired upon by federal troops. It has been reported that hundreds perished and hundreds more were arrested and imprisoned. Echeverria, then serving as Interior Secretary under the Diaz Ordaz government, claimed he sent troops to the demonstration to maintain order and referred to those arrested as common criminals. "Not one was arrested for writing a novel or a poem or for his way of thinking," Echeverria said contemptuously.
An inquiry conducted to investigate the 1968 massacre released its findings last October. It revealed evidence that some of the snipers used the apartment of Echeverria's sister-in-law as a shortcut to get to the demonstrators in the Plaza de Tlatelolco. No criminal charges have been filed against Echeverria in this massacre of student demonstrators, although the Fox administration insists it has been investigating this and other incidents of repression against dissidents.
Vicente Fox is no friend of the left. He is from the conservative National Action Party, which unseated the seven-decades rule of the Institutional Revolutionary Party in 2000 with promises of transparency and rule of law. The U.S. has been an ardent supporter of Fox's policies, "believing that it furthers both countries' social and economic integration," reported the July 23 Los Angeles Times. This integration is providing U.S. corporations with a market for their goods and with low-paid labor.
Fox is reported to have opted for a special prosecutor instead of a Truth Com mission to investigate government crimes against dissidents, such as the Tlatelolco Massacre, because he realized an investigation takes years to conduct, "giving him time to pursue cooperation from the PRI for his legislative program." (Los Angeles Times, July 25) He is shrewdly using popular anger over these unpunished crimes as a lever in his struggle with his bourgeois political rivals.
Mexico's efforts to eradicate leftists and revolutionaries should be analyzed in a historical political context, says columnist Ramon Rodriguez. He wrote that 1968 "was the year that student and union radicalism was engulfing the world, from France where the government was almost toppled, to the U.S. when President Lyndon B. Johnson was forced to refuse reelection" because of a massive anti-war movement. (La Opinion, Jan. 12)
- END -
(Copyright Workers World Service: Everyone is permitted to copy and distribute verbatim copies of this document, but changing it is not allowed. For more information contact Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011; via e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe wwnews- [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe [EMAIL PROTECTED] Support the voice of resistance http://www.workers.org/orders/donate.php)
------------------ This message is sent to you by Workers World News Service. To subscribe, E-mail to: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To unsubscribe, E-mail to: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To switch to the DIGEST mode, E-mail to <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Send administrative queries to <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
