Cogan’s Reviews

A Mexico book by Patrick Oster

Author Oster practised law in Chicago before taking up journalism in 1973. In 1984 he became the Mexico City bureau chief for the Knight-Ridder news chain. On that assignment, he started putting together the portraits that make up this excellent account of a timeless and yet changing Mexico.

His approach is to focus on twenty varied individuals and use them as a reason to discuss the larger issues they represent. For example, he writes about Miguel Tostado who can’t find work in his village and who becomes an illegal immigrant, working in Dallas. Thus he is able to send back $50 a month to his wife and baby daughter. He crosses the border successfully the first three times but runs into a terrible problem on his fourth trip when he is sealed into a railcar with 18 others. They all suffocate and die except Miguel.

Oster uses this one individual to look at the larger issue of illegals crossing into the U.S. and the estimated 1 billion dollars they send to Mexico every year. His research also shows that the majority of these men usually do not want to stay in the U.S.

Through the story of Dr. Enrique López Hernández, a dedicated young medico who runs a clinic in a Mexico City slum, he covers the much larger issue of national health care in Mexico. Dr. Hernández is himself so poor that his ‘black bag’ is a woman’s plastic clutch purse. I love one of his quotes. “We don’t need more specialists here. We are dying of diarrhea.”

And through the story of Adalberto Rosas López, mayor of Ciudad Obregon, we get a wonderful look at the endlessly cunning and devious ways in which the PRI has managed to win election after election and stay in power in Mexico for six decades.

Other Mexicans who are portrayed here are Gerardo, a rich, rather arrogant young restaurateur who fully enjoys the good life in Mexico City, as well as Adelaida, a housemaid who spends six hours a day travelling to and from her minimum wage job and spends half her pay on transportation. We also meet Jose, a tragafuego, or fire-breather, who has spent eight years on street corners doing his act every few minutes for about twelve hours each day to earn a few pesos from passing drivers.

We encounter a gay teacher, and a feminist, and a news reporter who has disturbing things to say about how the government controls the press. And we even meet that rarity of rarities in Mexico – an honest cop! (This one really is honest, too.)

Oster does excellent research. He’s as bold at venturing into dangerous out-of-the-way places as he is diligent in delving into arcane government data on economics and employment and foreign relations. For instance, he walks into street gang territory in a Mexico City slum to interview gang members. Even though that encounter is used as a springboard for a discussion about crime in the city, the gang members emerge as surprisingly likeable – even sensible – given the conditions they live under. And he visits remote areas, well off the tourist track, to create several of his other portraits

His interviews with a family of garbage pickers lead to an interesting examination of ecological issues in Mexico. I found that to be a story that simply has to be read to be believed.

Another interesting and rather offbeat subject here is Felicia Mercado a blonde beauty queen and soap opera star who has won many beauty contests but knows she can never win the main one – Senorita México. You have to be dark-skinned to do that, even though Mexican men worship blondes. The government likes to perpetuate the myth that Indians are admired and important, even though they are more often persecuted by that same government and now make up only ten percent of the population.

Oster has much to say about the Mexican family. Yes, we all say Mexicans have a strong family life – but there’s a dark side, too. And Mexican men obviously have to do a lot of changing to do to become more accepting of feminists and homosexuals.

There are many negatives in Oster’s portrayal but it’s hard to dispute the truth of what he’s saying. He gives us enough examples of government repression and of the corruption that is so endemic here.

On the brighter side, however, he writes as follows about a popular comedian, Hector Suárez, who delights in poking fun at Mexican customs and foibles:

“The picture is not all grim, however,” he said as we finished up our colloquium. “Changes are afoot. Since the government of President Díaz Ordaz massacred student protesters just before the 1968 Olympics, Mexico has been a different country. The differences have been slow to surface. But they are there. The government is letting the press print more critical things. Opposition politicians have emerged and are increasingly vocal. But political leaders will not be the ones to change Mexico. We must begin in the home.”

Suárez, evidently, has done that for himself. He has got his own alcoholism under control and in a land of machos, he has become what he calls “a hundred percent feminist.” He considers his wife his best friend. He gives his two teenage kids regular lectures about how to be good citizens and sensitive human beings.

“My son and daughter know what the truth is,” he said. “They know things aren’t perfect. But they know that things can get better. They know we can go forward as a nation.”

Verdict: A first-class description of a slowly-changing country.

THE MEXICANS – A Personal Portrait of a People
By Patrick Oster

Harper & Row paperback. 1989.

Available from Amazon Books: Paperback

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Did You Know…?

Juan O’Gorman was born on July 6, 1905, in Coyoacán, Mexico City. His father, Cecil Crawford O’Gorman, was a mining engineer and artist of Irish origin; his mother was Mexican. Juan was educated at the National University (UNAM), and became a well known architect.

A follower of the Franco-German rationalism school, he was one of first Mexican architects to break with traditional Mexican style. His first experiment in this regard was the home of Cecil O’Gorman in 1929, where the influence of the legendary French architect Le Corbusier was apparent. At about the same time, O’Gorman built the home-with-studios of Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo. These buildings were among the first examples of functionalist architecture in Mexico.

But O’Gorman was not only an architect. He was also a distinguished painter and muralist. His largest, and perhaps his most-viewed work, is the monumental mosaic on the walls of UNAM Library (1953). This is the world’s largest mural! More than three million pieces of naturally-colored stones and glass, each less than five centimeters (about two inches) in diameter, cover 3,712 square meters (43,000 square feet) of wall. The mural took two years to complete and covers all four walls. The north side shows the pre-Hispanic cultures, the south the conquest of Mexico. Social struggles are represented on the east side and the university shield on the west side.

His more conventional murals include those in the Independence Room in Mexico City’s Chapultepec Castle, and a magnificent mural in the library of Pátzcuaro, Michoacán (see images and detailed description below).

The current exhibition of his paintings and drawings includes several self-portraits, the most remarkable of which is “Multiple Self-Portrait,” consisting of no fewer than four self portraits in a single picture. The artist paints himself painting himself painting….

Among his other portraits, those of fellow muralists Diego Rivera and José Clemente Orozco stand out. The items in the exhibition are extraordinarily varied in style, ranging from earlier conventional landscapes to enormously complex fantasies, inspired by Salvador Dali. Frequent flyers will recognize another of O’Gorman’s masterpieces, “The Conquest of Air by Man” (1937), normally on show at Mexico City airport, which tells the history of flight from birds, to Da Vinci’s wing designs, to modern planes.

In later life, O’Gorman returned to architecture, inspired by the works of Frank Lloyd Wright. He died in Mexico City in 1982 at the age of 77.

Where To Go

The centenary exhibition of about 150 of Juan O’Gorman’s finest works is on show until October at the Banamex offices in the former Iturbide Palace, Madero 17, in downtown Mexico City. The exhibition is open daily, except Tuesdays, from 10.00 a.m. to 7.00 p.m.

The Pátzcuaro library mural

On the north side of the small plaza (Gertrudis Bocanegra square) in central Pátzcuaro is the former San Agustín church, now converted into a library. This library houses a magnificent mural painted by Juan O’Gorman. Begun in February 1941, the mural was finished in February 1942, one year before the eruption began of nearby Paricutín volcano. Nevertheless, prophetically, O’Gorman depicts a volcano in full eruption near the top of the mural. Like most murals in Mexico, this one tells the history of the local area.

Near the top, are The Sun and The Moon, representing the Purepecha deities, Huriata and Cutzi respectively, who gave life to the plants and watched over the night. A waterspout is depicted. According to legend, after volcanic eruptions in the Sierra, this waterspout gave rise to the lakes of Pátzcuaro, Zirahuén and Cuitzeo. Near Lake Pátzcuaro are shown several temple bases (yácatas) like those at Tzintzuntzan, with a “tree” of routes leading to them.

Aspects of indigenous life and customs, such as agriculture, hunting, trading and prisoners of war are shown, together with ritual bathing and mining. One miner is shown being carried out of the mine having been overcome by the poisonous fumes.

From the right, the Spaniards arrive, led by the allegedly barbarically cruel Nuño Beltran de Guzmán. They attempt to destroy the Purepecha culture, but it survives in a “mummified” form. The native American princess Erendira, the first Indian woman to ride a horse, breaks the siege of Pátzcuaro and rides for help from people living in nearby settlements and on the islands. A feminine Paul Revere! But her efforts are in vain and the Purepecha are tricked into surrender.

Elsewhere, scenes suggest the good and the bad sides of the Conquest. Overlooking the Spanish Inquisition, and a bonfire of Indian idols and codices, is a surrealist figure of a grotesque hand-with-eyes, symbolizing an empty head, a brain that doesn’t think, an intelligence without control, an invasion.

The good is shown by several priests who brought education and crafts. They include, in a white tunic and red cloak, the first Bishop of Michoacán, Vasco de Quiroga, who had been influenced by the Utopian ideas of Thomas More. Vasco de Quiroga introduced large fishing nets and encouraged many crafts.

Careful study of the faces of those accompanying the invading Spanish forces will reveal portraits of Mussolini and Hitler. The Conquistadors, Fascists and Nazis are all considered equals…

The bottom right hand corner depicts José María Morelos, the Independence leader, author of Mexico’s first constitution with its slogan “Independence and freedom for all the peoples of America.” Next to him is Emiliano Zapata, the Revolutionary hero, with his slogan, “Land and Liberty.” Kneeling down is Gertrudis Bocanegra, the local heroine from Mexico’s struggle for Independence, executed for her troubles.

On the left hand side (not shown in the image), O’Gorman could not resist drawing himself, wearing glasses, together with his wife. He holds a scroll which proclaims the future day of redemption for Mexican Indians and the release of a “great force which will explode like a gigantic volcano in eruption” to produce “extraordinary art and culture.” Close by is a jester with a sign saying “That’s life”.

All in all, a fitting monument to a great artist, born exactly 100 years ago this year.

Text and all photos © Copyright 2005 by Tony Burton. All rights reserved.

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TLATELOLCO MASSACRE:
DECLASSIFIED U.S. DOCUMENTS ON MEXICO
AND THE EVENTS OF 1968

Mexico’s tragedy unfolded on the night of October 2, 1968, when a student demonstration ended in a storm of bullets in La Plaza de las Tres Culturas at Tlatelolco, Mexico City. The extent of the violence stunned the country. When the shooting stopped, hundreds of people lay dead or wounded, as Army and police forces seized surviving protesters and dragged them away. Although months of nation-wide student strikes had prompted an increasingly hard-line response from the Diaz Ordaz regime, no one was prepared for the bloodbath that Tlatelolco became. More shocking still was the cover-up that kicked in as soon as the smoke cleared. Eye-witnesses to the killings pointed to the President’s “security” forces, who entered the plaza bristling with weapons, backed by armored vehicles. But the government pointed back, claiming that extremists and Communist agitators had initiated the violence. Who was responsible for Tlatelolco? The Mexican people have been demanding an answer ever since.

Thirty years later, the Tlatelolco massacre has grown large in Mexican memory, and lingers still. It is Mexico’s Tiananmen Square, Mexico’s Kent State: when the pact between the government and the people began to come apart and Mexico’s extended political crisis began.

To commemorate this thirtieth anniversary, the National Security Archive has assembled a collection of some of our most interesting and richly-detailed documents about Tlatelolco, many recently released in response to the Archive’s Freedom of Information Act requests, all obtained from the secret archives of the CIA, FBI, Defense Department, the embassy in Mexico City and the White House. The records provide a vivid glimpse inside U.S. perceptions of Mexico at the time, and discuss in frank terms many of the most sensitive aspects of the Tlatelolco massacre which continue to be debated today: the political goals of the protesting students, the extent of Communist influence, Diaz Ordaz’s response, and the role of the Mexican military in helping to crush the demonstrations.

But while the declassified U.S. documents reveal new details about Tlatelolco, perhaps most important is the challenge their release poses to Mexico today. Thirty years after the massacre, the Mexican government continues to deny its people basic facts about what happened — refusing to open Army and police records to public scrutiny on the grounds of “national security,” denying Congress the right to hear testimony by agents of the state who were present at Tlatelolco. The valiant investigative efforts by reporters, scholars, historians, and an official congressional committee have helped clarify the events of 1968 enormously. But Mexico’s secret archives are also critical for a full understanding of Tlatelolco — and until they are opened, doubts about the truth of the Tlatelolco massacre will linger on.

  Go to the documents 

Kate Doyle , Analyst, directs the Guatemala and Mexico Documentation Projects for the National Security Archive. For the past seven years, Doyle has served as a foreign policy analyst in charge of Archive projects on Central America, the “drug war” in the Americas, “low-intensity conflict” and other aspects of U.S. policy in Latin America. She supervises the Archive’s ongoing collaborative effort with the Historical Clarification Commission of Guatemala, and assists on the Freedom of Information Act lawsuits against the U.S. government brought by the Archive and others on behalf of Jennifer Harbury and Carol DeVine. She was project editor for the Archive’s document publication, El Salvador: War, Peace and Human Rights, 1980-1994, and co-authored the 1994 report of the Washington Task Force on Salvadoran Death Squads. Doyle received her BA from Brown University in 1984 and her MA from Columbia’s School of International and Public Policy, where she was an Alice Stetton Fellow. Her articles have appeared in The Boston Globe, World Policy Journal, Current History and The Nation among other publications.

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Document 1
3/28/68
CIA Special National Intelligence Estimate
Security Conditions in Mexico
Secret
In preparation for a visit to Mexico City by Vice President Hubert Humphrey, the CIA issues a special assessment of security conditions in Mexico. Written several months before the first serious wave of student demonstrations began, the document describes the country as a model of stability, with President Diaz Ordaz firmly in control and a ruling party which “virtually monopolizes Mexican politics.”

Document 2
7/19/68
CIA Weekly Summary
Student Unrest Troubles Mexico
Secret
When students launch a series of country-wide protests in July, initial U.S. reporting out of Mexico alerts Washington to several issues that come up again and again in subsequent documents: the potential danger posed by the strikes to the Olympic Games, their political significance, and the role of the “international” left. This CIA analysis discusses Cuban influence on a student strike at the University of Veracruz. Demonstrators seek to disrupt the Olympic games, although the PRI electoral fraud in local and gubernatorial elections also may serve as cause for further unrest.

Document 3
7/31/68
White House memorandum
Student Disturbances in Mexico City (7/30/68 U.S. Embassy cable attached, untitled)
Secret, Bowdler to LBJ
Mexican authorities claim to have “solid evidence” that the Mexican Communist Party, with Soviet complicity, engineered the July 26 riot. The U.S. Embassy does not have corroborating evidence, but suggests that Moscow may have ordered riot to counteract impact of events in the Czechoslovakia.

Document 4
8/2/68
CIA Weekly Summary
Students Stage Major Disorder in Mexico
Secret
The July 26 riot provides a classic example of Communist agitation techniques. Document questions Mexican claims of Soviet complicity, however, as USSR does not want to undermine its good relations with Mexico.

Document 5
c. 8/15/68
DIA Intelligence Information Report
Troops Used to Help Quell Mexico City Student Riots
Confidential
Report provides a chronological account of Mexican military involvement in disbanding student protests in Mexico City during the week of July 29. While the report states that the military performed “creditably,” it also notes some charges of “over-reaction,” such as the alleged “hazing” of students inside one school. The Mexican Government denies reports that 4 students were killed during the disturbances. Generals Mazon and Ballasteros head a special military “Task Force” to deal with the situation of unrest.

Document 6
8/23/68
CIA Weekly Review
Mexican Government in a Quandary Over Student Crisis
Top Secret
CIA says the Mexican Government may be underestimating students’ ability to continue large-scale, disciplined demonstrations. The present impasse is due to the Government’s belief that a) giving in to students would invite further demands and b) ignoring situation most likely will lead to further disruption. Document claims that Communist youths are involved in the crisis. CIA says that further violent outbreaks can be expected.

Document 7
8/29/68
White House message
Student Situation in Mexico (8/29/68 U.S. Embassy cable attached, Student Situation)
Confidential, Rostow to LBJ
Rostow reports to President Johnson that the Mexican Government’s conciliatory strategy has not quelled student disturbances, and a return to a “get-tough, no-nonsense posture” is inevitable. Rostow claims that while the violence is not likely to affect Diaz Ordaz’s administration, it will no doubt affect the Olympics in a negative manner.

Document 8
8/30/68
CIA Intelligence Information Cable
Mexican Military Alert for Possible Cuban Infiltration of Arms Destined for Student Use
[Classification excised]
CIA source claims that Cuba is prepared to smuggle arms to students for September demonstrations in Mexico. In response, Mexican Navy and army troops along the coast are put on high alert.

Document 9
9/6/68
CIA Weekly Summary
Mexican Government Stalls Student Movement
Secret
While the Mexican Government has made minor concessions to protesting students, the approach of the Olympics will most likely lead the Diaz Ordaz administration to meet further demonstrations with very tough measures.

Document 10
9/9/68
CIA Intelligence Information Cable
Situation Appraisal: Status of the Mexico City Student Movement
[Classification excised]
Cable states that students are increasingly organized, and able to exercise some influence on national affairs. The Mexican Government has not been unified in action against the protesters, and President Diaz Ordaz continues to avoid becoming personally involved. While no hard evidence exists that Cubans or Soviets masterminded the student demonstrations, the Mexican Government continues to inspire such rumors. Cable concludes that “the old order is passing” and the PRI has lost control over public behavior.

Document 11
9/13/68
CIA Weekly Summary
Mexican Students Still Spar with Government
Secret
CIA refers to the Mexican Government’s “behind the scenes maneuvering to divide the students,” including efforts by the officially-inspired “committee of the authentic student body” to quash future student strikes.

Document 12
9/19/68
White House message
Untitled
Confidential, Rostow to LBJ
Rostow alerts President Johnson to the military’s decision to occupy UNAM in response to the student strike and take-over of university buildings.

Document 13
9/24/68
DIA Intelligence Information Report
Army Intervenes on Additional Occasions in Mexico City Student Situation
Confidential
Report states that Mexican Army troops were again employed to disperse protesting students, from 8/28 into the month of September. The period marked the first known involvement of troops from outside Mexico City, indicating the increasing seriousness of the matter. The September 18 occupation of UNAM also indicates that the position of the Mexican Government is hardening.

Document 14
9/26/68
FBI memorandum
Olympic Games, Mexico City, Mexico: October 12-27, 1968
Confidential, Sullivan to Wannall
FBI goes on alert for movement of “U.S. subversive elements” into Mexico, which the agency believes may try to disrupt Olympics and participate in student uprisings.

Document 15
9/27/68
CIA Weekly Review
Violence Grows in Mexican Student Crisis
Top Secret
CIA reports “stresses” on and within the Mexican political establishment stemming from student unrest and the increasingly violent confrontations between protesters and the Mexican security forces.

Document 16
9/27/68
White House memorandum
Security Considerations in Mr. Nixon’s Planned Visit to Mexico (9/26/68 CIA intelligence estimate attached, with cover memo)
Secret, Rostow to LBJ
CIA expresses concerns about security conditions in Mexico and suggests that Nixon cancel his plans to visit Mexico during the Olympics. If he does go, the CIA document warns, Mexican security forces would have hard time protecting him, and “anti-U.S. extremists” would cause “some nasty incidents.”

Document 17
c. 10/1/68
FBI letter
Olympic Games, Mexico City, Mexico – October 12-27, 1968
Confidential
Document discusses potential threats to the Olympic games. These include individual US citizens with histories of subversive activity and anti-Castro Cubans, who are expected to try and harass Cuban athletes during the games. The FBI urges that information about potential subversives be provided to the U.S. and Mexican Governments.

Document 18
10/4/68
CIA Weekly Summary
A Renewed Violence in Mexico
Secret
New violence (Tlatelolco) puts Government of Mexico’s ability to safeguard Olympics in jeopardy. All military zone commanders have been granted the authority to “move against disorderly students.”

Document 19
10/5/68
White House memorandum
Mexican Riots – Extent of Communist Involvement (10/5/68 CIA memorandum and 10/5/68 FBI cable attached)
Secret, Rostow to LBJ
CIA concludes that recent student unrest was sparked by domestic conditions. Cuban and Soviet involvement was limited to moral and some financial support. The FBI reports Communist/Trotskyist groups formed the Olympia Brigade, a “shock group” which allegedly initiated the shooting at Tlatelolco on 10/2.

Document 20
10/8/68
FBI cable
Olympic Games, Mexico City, Mexico, October Twelve – Twenty Seven, Nineteen Sixty Eight
Confidential, Director FBI to LEGAT Mexico City
To protect U.S. athletes during the Olympics, the FBI must establish a liaison in the U.S. Embassy for channeling information to U.S. Olympic team officials regarding safety concerns. Cable emphasizes the necessity of concealing the FBI’s role to avoid jeopardizing ongoing FBI operations in Mexico.

Document 21
c. 10/8/68
CIA report
Answers to Questions Raised by White House Concerning Student Disturbances in Mexico (10/9/68 White House cover memorandum attached)
Secret, Lewis to Rostow
CIA addresses issues raised by FBI sources and concludes a) no evidence exists of significant foreign influence in riots, b) external influences included moral support and some financial support, but not the supply of weapons, and c) the Trotskyist “Brigada Olympia” was developed with the intentions of interfering with the Olympic games.

Document 22
10/12/68
Department of State telegram
Untitled [Mexico Riots] (10/14/68 White House cover memorandum attached)
Confidential
The U.S. Embassy states that, contrary to official Mexican reports, direct foreign involvement in the student uprisings has been “essentially negligible.” Rather, newer and more extreme student elements are responsible for the continued unrest and riots such as that which occurred at Tlatelolco on 10/2. The Mexican Government has increased military pressure with the intention of seizing the leaders of the extremist student groups. Document states that the foreign influence argument has been used by the Mexican Government to divert attention away from deep local problems.

Document 23
10/18/68
DIA Intelligence Information Report
Army Participation in Student Situation, Mexico City
Confidential
Report provides a chronological account of the Army’s role in controlling student uprisings from 9/24 through 10/18. With regards to Tlatelolco, report states that on 9/30, troops withdrew from the UNAM campus, which they had occupied since 9/18. Also on 9/30, the Mexican Defense Minister instructed military zone commanders throughout the country to move against student disturbances “without waiting for instructions.” Report provides a key overview of the events of 10/2 at Tlatelolco and the days immediately following.

Document 24
10/22/68
DIA Intelligence Information Report
Mexican Army Preparations to Cope with Future Student Disturbances in Mexico City
Confidential
Following the close of the Olympic games and the expected return of students to classes, the Mexican military expects a resurgence in student protest activity. To counter possible future violence, the military is training two special 1,500-man units, one of which carries the name “Brigada Olympia.”

Document 25
10/23/68 DIA Intelligence Information Report
Status of Brig. Gen. Jose Hernandez Toledo
Confidential
Gen. José Hernández Toledo, wounded at Tlatelolco, is recovering at a Mexican military hospital. A source tells the DIA that the Mexican Army “had taken good care” of the 18 foreigners (including some Cubans) involved in the events at Tlatelolco. When asked to clarify, the source said “good care” meant detention.

Document 26
11/1/68 CIA Weekly Summary
Mexican Government Readies for More Student Trouble
Secret
Although it is unclear whether students will continue the strike, this document suggests that the “new left” (extremists) within the student movement seek to prolong the unrest and continue their provocations against the Mexican Government. Mexican officials are preparing for future violence.

Document 27
c. 11/15/68
INR Working Draft (extract)
Student Violence and Attitudes in Latin America
Confidential
According to this draft analysis of student unrest in Latin America, the disorders in Mexico are the worst in the hemisphere. The continued violence demonstrates a deep and widespread dissatisfaction with the Government of Mexico, and has severely damaged Mexico’s reputation as being the “most stable and progressive country in Latin America.”

Document 28
12/6/68
CIA Weekly Summary
Mexican Student Strike Apparently Waning Secret
Document states that despite intermittent attacks by extremist groups, the student strike in Mexico is nearly over. In the wake of a student vote to end the strike, class attendance is rising.

Document 29
1/17/69
CIA Weekly Summary Special Report
Challenges to Mexico’s Single-Party Rule
Secret
As students return to classes, the “authentic context” to student strikes is becoming clear: the demonstrations of 1968 represent a strong warning to the Government of Mexico. Although Mexican officials claimed “outside agitation” was the basis of the unrest, document states that most reports linking the student movement to subversion remain unsubstantiated. Finally, document states that the events at Tlatelolco caused severe political damage to the Mexican Government.

Document 30
c. 3/24/69
DIA Intelligence Information Report
General Officers in Disfavor with Secretary of Defense
Confidential
Generals Ballesteros Prieto and Luis Gutierrez Oropeza are both out of favor with the Minister of Defense because they ignored his orders to keep troops out of Tlatelolco. According to source, soldiers were merely supposed to surround students and observe with the intention of confining the demonstrators to that part of the city.

Return to the Introduction

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When the Tlatelolco Women Boiled Water–
But Not for Dinner

(Part 1: The Youth Revolt)

As battles between youth and security forces became more and more pitched–and as supporting the movement became more risky–more sections of the masses stepped in to join them. This happened most especially in the Tlatelolco complex, a huge, mainly middle-class project which also housed many workers and poor families in its rooftop flats. One press report estimated that 12,000 residents participated in the movement on the side of the students.

On September 21, 1,000 police attacked Voca (Vocational) 7, a high school within Tlatelolco. Students held them off in a fierce battle in which police set fire to two buildings, fired round after round of gunfire into the school, and launched clouds of tear gas into apartments.

Tlatelolco housewives spent that night boiling water to throw out the windows onto soldiers or hunting for rags, bottles, and fuel to make molotov cocktails for the students. Children lined the roofs aiming rocks and sticks on the uniforms below. Hundreds of youths from Vocas in surrounding poor barrios broke through the police cordon by blowing up police cars. Newspapers reported that “gangster youth” from Tepito also joined with the student fighters. Even after calling in reinforcements from the army, the security forces were often driven back. They finally gave up at 2 a.m.

A baby girl and at least three students were killed and many hundreds arrested during this battle. Twenty granaderos (antiriot police) were injured. Four more were shot–one fatally–by an army lieutenant who saw them beating his mother.

The police seized Voca 7 two days later in a fierce exchange of gunfire. In response, a woman representative of Tlatelolco residents called for a rent strike, to continue as long as the student conflict did.

On September 24-25 a similar but even more ferocious battle pitted 1,500 police and soldiers against up to 2,000 students at the Casco de Santo Tomás vocational school near the refinery district. The students, some armed, barricaded the neighborhood, cut trenches, set up a command post and runners, and fortified themselves on rooftops. The Washington Post reported that students commandeered an oil truck to firebomb police cars and that perhaps 15 students were killed.

It is no accident that the government forces chose Tlatelolco as the site of the massacre and that bystanders, even small children, were targeted. The participation of Tlatelolco residents showed the potential for the student movement to unleash an even more powerful wave of mass rebellion against the ruling class.

At 6:10 p.m.

On the evening of that fateful October 2, 10,000 students and residents filled the Plaza. Almost every rally in the previous two weeks had been broken up by police, with up to 1,000 arrests a day. Many more residents leaned out from their windows. Speakers had told the crowd that a planned march on the Casco de Santo Tomás campus would be canceled to avoid “provoking” a fight and that the rally was about to end. But the government didn’t need an excuse to launch what it had planned as a show of ruthless power. About 300 tanks, jeeps, and armored cars, 5,000 soldiers, and hundreds of police had crept up to surround the Plaza.

At 6:10 p.m. green signal flares burst in the sky. Police helicopters opened fire from above. Immediately the undercover Olympia Battalion (elite police in charge of security for the Olympics) seized speakers from the CNH (National Strike Council, the leadership of the student strike movement) on a balcony of the Chihuahua apartment building. The police beat the CNH speakers and forced many into the line of fire.

Other Olympia Battalion members and plainclothes police began to fire on people from the balcony and from inside the crowd. The Olympia Battalion police wore white gloves so that other security forces could tell them apart from the masses. These police provocateurs not only added to the terror against the people; later the government would blame “student snipers” for starting the massacre. At the same time, soldiers with fixed bayonets began to advance from two sides while raking the crowd with machine guns. Waves of people ran from one side of the Plaza to another where they met up with more gunfire which forced them back.

Autopsies showed that most of the officially recognized dead were shot in the back at close range or bayoneted. Hundreds banged on the doors of the church which blocks one side of the Plaza, begging priests to let them in. But the church remained closed–the archbishop had ordered the priests not to let any demonstrators in.

The tanks opened fire against the Chihuahua building, and its first three floors caught fire. So many bullets hit the building that the pipes and the boiler burst. Thousands of residents crouched for hours in wrecked apartments as bullets zinged around them. Heavy automatic fire lasted between 60 and 90 minutes and continued on and off into the early morning hours.

The shooting was so indiscriminate that the soldiers and police shot 12 of their own, killing two. An ambulance attendant was killed and a nurse injured as they tried to remove the wounded. Police sealed the Red Cross Hospital to arrest the wounded and to prevent any more ambulances from arriving on the scene. Even in the middle of this hellish scene, people struggled to fight fear and panic and protect one another. At the risk of their lives, many residents opened their doors to hide fleeing students.

There has never been an accurate count of how many people actually were murdered at Tlatelolco on October 2. Police admitted to only 32. The British newspaper Manchester Guardian reported that after careful investigation it found that 325 probably died and that the number could be much higher. There were reports that army trucks sneaked out hundreds of corpses and that bodies were burned or tossed into the sea.

About 1,500 people were arrested. Many were stripped naked and forced to stand in the rain for hours with their hands up while being beaten and stabbed with bayonets. In the streets outside the Plaza a wider ring of police fired tear gas at the angry crowds and arrested anyone who tried to enter. Soldiers rampaged through Tlatelolco, looting and tearing up apartments in search of weapons and escaped students. Remaining leaders were hunted down and jailed. Some disappeared.

Made in the USA

Many of those arrested were tortured. In the book Massacre in Mexico, a prisoner reports that a U.S. agent joined Mexican officers in the prison torture chambers. A policeman threatened another prisoner during his torture: If you don’t talk now, we have gringos here who know how to make you. But U.S. interrogation experts didn’t have to be physically present for “Made in the USA” to be clearly stamped on the crackdown.

The U.S. imperialists are very worried about the security of their southern border. By enforcing a bloody law and order, the Mexican regime helps protect the economic and political stranglehold of the U.S. over Mexico. But this repression is often directly supervised and coordinated by agencies of the U.S. government. Mexico is the only foreign country where the FBI openly operates, and the CIA’s Mexico City station is the largest in the hemisphere. Many Mexican military officers and police of strategic agencies are trained under the CIA or at U.S. police institutes.

Philip Agee, a former CIA agent who is now a critic of the CIA, was sent as a spy to Mexico in 1968 under the cover of organizing cultural exchanges during the Olympics. In his book Inside the Company, CIA Diary, Agee wrote: “In Mexico the government keeps our common enemy [the left and Soviets] rather well controlled with our help–and what the government fails to do, the [CIA] station can usually do by itself.”

Agee probably was not in on the most sensitive operations in Mexico City, including those which might tie the U.S. directly into the massacre. But he does report that the CIA exchanged intelligence reports daily with its most important liaison contacts. One such contact was President Díaz Ordaz. According to Agee, Díaz’s relationship with the CIA was “extremely close,” and he received expensive gifts.

Another important contact was Luis Echeverría, who as Interior Minister was directly in charge of carrying out the massacre and who later became president. The CIA’s intelligence on left and student organizations and activities, says Agee, was vastly superior to the Mexican government’s. The information gathered by the CIA helped the Mexican police carry out raids and arrests.

After the massacre, there were no statements of condemnation from the U.S. State Department or President Johnson. This silence amounted to complicity with the killings, if not outright approval. On October 3 the executive board of the International Olympic Committee met in emergency session to decide whether to go ahead with the Games in spite of the massacre. Led by the American chairman of the committee, Avery Brundage, a narrow majority voted to continue. Brundage explained that Mexican authorities had assured him “nothing will interfere with the peaceful entrance of the Olympic flame into the stadium on October 12, nor with the competitions which follow.”

So 10 days after Tlatelolco, the Games opened in an atmosphere of brutal hypocrisy. As streets rumbled with tanks, billboards grinned in a dozen languages: “Everything is possible with peace.” The Mexican government decked out young women in miniskirts to serve as “Olympic hostesses” to the athletes. One hostess, still in her bullet-shredded Olympic uniform, lay in the police morgue, where thousands of parents filed through hunting for their missing children.

The massacre shocked thousands out of the illusion that the government would not commit so inhumane an act or that it would be held back by public opinion in Mexico and worldwide. As Mao Tsetung said, “Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun”–and the imperialists and their henchmen proved it one more time at Tlatelolco. In an oppressed country like Mexico, whatever facade of democracy they may find convenient in “normal times” is ripped away very quickly when their rule is threatened.

Democratic Opening–
Cover for More Repression

Despite the lockdown atmosphere after the massacre, the student strike continued for two months with much support. In over a dozen cities in Europe, Latin America and the U.S., Mexican embassies were immediately hit by furious student actions protesting the massacre. Four hundred were arrested in Paris confrontations. Many protested the bloody hand behind the regime’s slaughter; for example, the U.S. embassy in Chile was stoned. Students in many countries demanded that their national teams withdraw from the Mexico City Olympics.

However, the arrests of most strike leaders and the government’s tactic of holding out the promise of negotiations while threatening more murder did have some effect. The student strike was increasingly dominated by the “soft-liners” who wanted to compromise with the government. In late November the council announced the end of the strike. The majority of students at the large and tumultuous meeting stormed out, shouting strike slogans. Several schools were briefly taken over by striking students to prevent a return to classes. But the movement was unable to continue in the face of mounting government threats and a leadership that had declared surrender.

Still, a deep disgust and outright hatred for the ruling regime had spread broadly throughout society. The true nature of this brutal, neocolonial state had been laid bare for all to see, and many illusions about the possibility of any real progress without its overthrow had been shattered. Clearly shaken by this situation, the U.S. and the Mexican regime launched some new initiatives to try and control the damage of ’68.

Interior Minister Echeverría, who became president in 1970, was just the man to carry out these initiatives. The man identified by Philip Agee as a top CIA liaison now put up a show of standing up to the Yanquis. Meanwhile, his administration relied on more U.S. loan capital than any administration had up to that point and used U.S. military assistance to eliminate armed opposition movements. The man who had been directly in charge of the Tlatelolco massacre now declared an amnesty for many political prisoners. Wages and services for some workers improved, and university attendance was also allowed to increase.

Under this “democratic opening,” parties which renounced violence and foreign ties were promised funds and seats in the powerless Congress. This “opening” was a chance for opportunists to stomp on the struggle of the masses while they asked for favors from the comprador bourgeoisie. Today this “democratic opening” is upheld by the electoral left as a major, or even the main, fruit of the ’68 struggle.

In fact, these initiatives under Echeverría were both a continuation of the old repression and a cover for the new. On the one hand, the ruling class desperately needed to renew illusions about the state’s legitimacy among sections of the urban middle classes. They hoped that the willing cooperation of members of the left, including some who had been leaders of the student movement, would help accomplish this. At the same time, other sections of the population and the movement which were considered more of a threat were isolated and viciously attacked. During the “democratic opening” period, Echeverría directed a harsh repression against Guerrero peasants and the “disappearances” of hundreds of people accused of being urban and rural guerrillas.

On June 10, 1971 a beginning renewal of the student movement was nipped in the bud by a new massacre. This time the murders were carried out by rightist paramilitary gangs brought to the scene of a demonstration by government trucks and given free rein. They killed at least 42 students, maybe many more, and injured over 100.

But the 1968 massacre continued to burn in the memory of students. When Echeverría attempted to speak on the campus of the Mexican National Autonomous University (UNAM), he was forced to take to his heels, bleeding from a hail of stones thrown by enraged students.

Part 3: Mexico 30 Years after the Tlatelolco Massacre

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The post Upsurge and massacre in Mexico 1968: part 2 blood at Tlatelolco appeared first on MexConnect.

This is the final part of a three-part series. Part 1 described the rising movement of the students and others in the days before the 1968 Olympic Games in Mexico City. Part 2 was an account of what happened on October 2, 1968 at the Plaza of the Three Cultures in the Tlatelolco apartment complex in Mexico City. Blood flowed that evening, as troops and police fired upon the people and carried out a brutal massacre.

This October 2, more than 100,000 people marched in Mexico City in honor of the martyrs of 1968 Tlatelolco Massacre. They included students from UNAM and the Poli, Tlatelolco residents, veterans of the ’68 struggle, and people from all over. They shouted with anger, “October 2nd is not forgotten!” and “We won’t forget, we won’t forgive!” There were mass protests in eight states. In San Cristobal de las Casas, Chiapas, demonstrators burned a portrait of former President Gustavo Diaz Ordaz and said, “Mexico today is exactly the same as in 1968… Repression continues throughout the country.”

This year’s commemorations also included roundtable discussions at the Poli, an exhibition of images of the 1968 movement and a series of film showings. One of the films was Rojo Amanecer (Red Dawn), starring Maria Rojo and Hector Bonilla, a powerful exposure of the massacre which was banned in Mexico for many years. Other cultural events included plays and performances by the Poli Symphony Orchestra. There are six books by Mexican authors on the Tlatelolco Massacre scheduled for publication this year.

The ’68 upsurge has continued to inspire and challenge people down to today. And there continues to be a great deal of debate and contention over the causes and meaning of the ’68 events and who is to blame for the massacre.

The Official Story
Has Not Changed

Even today, the butchers of Tlatelolco still defend the massacre. In the words of one intellectual, “The official story with regard to the student movement of 1968 has not changed in 30 years.” This official story goes like this: The students provoked the violence, there was no pre-planned police/military assault on the movement, the military and the government committed no crimes. Despite repeated protests and investigative commissions over the years, the key documents in the government’s long-secret files on Tlatelolco are still under lock and key. The Defense Ministry refuses to release even an inventory of what it has, saying, “Those files will not be opened for reasons of national security.”

Earlier this year it came to light that the government is also withholding many hours’ worth of film–120,000 feet of film to be exact–shot by movie crews sent to Tlatelolco by the Interior Minister at the time, Luis Echeverria. Six hidden cameras filmed the horrific events from different angles around the Plaza de las Tres Culturas, beginning at 2 p.m. on October 2.

In February of this year Echeverria–who was overall in charge of executing the massacre and went on to become Mexico’s next president–told politicians and the press gathered in his mansion, “I have a clean conscience and sleep well.” He went on to issue a not-so-veiled threat against today’s rising people’s struggles: “Suppose that there is the threat of revolution, that they are preparing to attack the National Palace. What should be done? What should the supreme commander of the Armed Forces do if there is another Tlatelolco, which is not desirable, but is possible, given so much injustice, poverty and the concentration of wealth in so few hands? Or if there is another Chiapas? Chiapas could happen again. It is not desirable, but it is possible. And what would the president do, send in the Army or order a retreat?”

“Peace” Talk and
Bloody Repression

Echeverria was referring to the January 1994 armed peasant uprising in the state of Chiapas under the leadership of the Zapatista National Liberation Army (EZLN). Thousands of indigenous campesinos with guns stormed out of the hills and jungles to bring their demands for justice, democracy, autonomy and land front and center.

The Chiapas rebellion touched off an upsurge in the campo which continues today. In addition to Chiapas, the Mexican states of Guerrero, Oaxaca, Veracruz, Nuevo Leon, Baja California, Tabasco, Morelos, and the Huasteca region have seen militant peasant struggles. In the rugged municipios of Chiapas as well as other states, peasants armed with sticks, stones and other rudimentary weapons have defied armed troops. All across the Mexican campo, those who used to live and die in humble obscurity, those whose daily struggle for survival and frequent death at the hands of the army and caciques (rural strongmen tied to the ruling PRI) went largely unnoticed, are stepping out of the shadows and are taking heroic action to try and change things.

In the cities, there have been continuous protests and strikes as well as massive outpourings of support for the struggle of the Indian campesinos.

The government’s response has been predictable–talk “peace” and wage war. They are applying the “Made in USA” doctrine of low-intensity warfare. The talks between the government and the EZLN led to the San Andres Larrainzar agreements which called for greater autonomy for indigenous people and made other promises. Although the EZLN refuse to lay down their guns, they have viewed their armed strength and the territory they control as a means to pressure the Mexican government and the political establishment for various reforms. Their goal and strategy are different from the Maoist road of seizing revolutionary state power through waging people’s war.

But the government has violated the San Andres Larrrainzar accords shamelessly and systematically at every turn. Large sections of the countryside have been militarized with patrolling troops and checkpoints along rural highways; the arming of paramilitary squads to carry out murder and mayhem; and psychological warfare designed to terrorize and demoralize the people. In the cities there have been increased repressive measures such as the hiring of more police, building of more prisons, and campaigns to discredit and attack all kinds of social activists.

Right now one-third of the entire Mexican army–some 70,000 troops–are stationed in Chiapas. These troops work hand-in-glove with the local police and paramilitary groups to brutalize the peasant masses. Some of the crimes committed by these reactionary armed forces in the past few months include:

• Acteal, Chiapas, December 22, 1997: 70 members of a pro-government and pro-landlord paramilitary armed with AK-47 and AR-15 combat rifles gunned down 45 men, women and children who were attending church. The official state police were just outside the village–close enough to hear the gunfire–but they did not intervene in the bloodbath.
• Ocosingo, Chiapas, January 12, 1998: As more than 6,000 people marched in protest of the Acteal massacre, Chiapas state police fired on the crowd. The gunfire killed Guadalupe Mendez Lopez, a 38-year-old Tzeltal Indian, and injured her two-year-old daughter and a young man.
• Taniperlas, Chiapas, April 11: 500 Mexican soldiers, police and immigration agents raided a peasant cooperative, the pro-Zapatista autonomous village of Flores Magon. (Over 30 towns and villages in Chiapas have set up such local governments independent of the Mexican state.) They arrested some 20 people without legal warrants and deported about a dozen foreign human rights activists and supporters.
• Nicolas Ruiz, Chiapas, June 3: 1000 army troops and police surrounded the town and proceeded to search 100 homes, breaking down the doors of the houses and arresting 164 people, without any warrants or charges. The governor of Chiapas said that the purpose of the raid was to bring its autonomous local government “into conformity with the law.”
• El Charco, Guerrero, June 8: The army arrived with 26 armored vehicles and two helicopters and surrounded a school in this small Mixtec village. According to press reports, guerrillas of the Popular Revolutionary Army (EPR) and peasants were sleeping in the school after a political meeting. The troops called on those inside to give themselves up, and then opened fire. Eleven people were killed, some of them executed after surrendering. Five others were injured and 21 arrested.
• El Bosque, Chiapas, June 10: 1,200 federal troops with tanks, bazookas, mortars and high caliber weapons laid siege to the municipality, killing at least seven peasants, injuring many others and arresting dozens of people. The troops went on a rampage of looting–breaking into houses, destroying furniture, taking what little belongings and money people have, stealing livestock and eating their food. Hundreds of villagers were forced to seek refuge in the nearby hills.

The government has plastered the walls of Tuxtla Gutierrez, the capital of Chiapas, with their slogan: “Let peace speak.” This brings to mind the slogan that appeared on billboards all over Mexico City when the 1968 Olympic Games opened, 10 days after the Massacre of Tlatelolco: “Everything is possible with peace.”

This is the “peace” of the graveyard. The “peace” that the big Mexican capitalists and the landowning classes want so they can continue their brutal exploitation of the people. A “peace” backed by the U.S. imperialists, who dominate Mexico and who want to keep their southern border “safe.”

Why is it that those whose hands are covered with the blood of the people always talk of “peace” and insist that violence is not the answer?

False Friends of the People

In this intense situation, the PRD–one of the main bourgeois opposition parties in Mexico–is trying to claim the mantle of the 1968 student movement. The PRD claims to be working in the interests of the people–but they are false friends of the people.

PRD leaders say that the lesson for today is that “repression can be avoided” as long as people rely on the system and opposition politicians and limit their struggle to “acceptable” aims and means. According to them, the greatest fruit of the ’68 struggle is that the PRD leader Cuauhtemoc Cardenas was elected as mayor of Mexico City earlier this year. (Cardenas is the first non-PRI politician to hold that post in the history of Mexico.) And they say that they now have a chance to win the presidential elections in the year 2000 and end 88 years of PRI presidents.

Mayor Cardenas declared October 2 an official Day of Mourning in the capital this year, and flags were flown at half mast. However, the city government has stipulated that they are honoring “all those who died that day in Tlatelolco, without exception.” In other words, those who died on the side of the forces of repression were also included among the “honored.” Cardenas went so far as to exonerate the Mexican Army as a whole. Speaking at a forum at the Universidad Iberoamericana, he said that it was “unjust” that the Army “be held responsible for the massacre.”

Another current PRD leader, Porfirio Munoz Ledo, was a prominent PRI politician in 1968 and praised the whitewash report on the Tlatelolco Massacre by then-president Diaz Ordaz. (Later, under President Echeverria, Munoz Ledo became the chairman of the PRI.)

This past May a furor erupted when it was revealed that the Subdirector of Security for the city government under Cardenas, General Hector Careaga, was an officer in the Olympia Battalion, the police unit that was at the center of the Tlatelolco Massacre. Careaga was recognized for “acts of valor at Tlatelolco” and promoted to the rank of major. Far from taking decisive action to remove him, the city government defended him and said he had been chosen for the post due to his military experience and “his experience with police matters.” He was finally forced to resign.

This spring, it was reported that Cuauhtemoc Cardenas was bringing an FBI team to Mexico City to train an elite unit of 50 police and 50 judicial agents, as well as supply them with the latest in computers, technology and arms. Cardenas reportedly has held talks with the police departments of New York City and Los Angeles, and wants to adopt important elements from N.Y. Mayor Giuliani’s “anti-crime” program. The LAPD is known around the world for the Rodney King beating. Amnesty International criticized the NYPD for brutality and compared it with vicious dictatorships in the Third World. What does it say about Cuauhtemoc Cardenas that he wants to learn “crime control” methods from these two police departments?

And Cardenas has proposed a “beautification” campaign for the Zocalo involving landscaping it with trees. This central plaza of Mexico City was claimed by the 1968 student movement as a center of protest, and it is the scene of literally hundreds of demonstrations each year. Cardenas’ tree-planting project appears to be an attempt to make the Zocalo off limits for huge public protests.

From 1968 to Today

The student struggle of ’68 and the Massacre of Tlatelolco laid bare the true nature of Mexican society before the eyes of the world, shattering the false showcase image of imperialist-sponsored economic growth and prosperity. The glitter, splendor and Olympic gala was for a handful. It was built on the oppression of the majority, the peasants and working class, and defended by means of bloody repression.

But far from proving the invincibility of the government, the Tlatelolco Massacre and the ’68 movement exposed the profound weakness of the comprador regime–its lack of popular support and its fundamental reliance on brute force. The students and broad masses who rose up in 1968 struck deep blows at the system, and Mexico’s rulers still have not recovered fully. By unleashing people’s rage and hopes, the 1968 upsurge rolled over the barriers of what was then called “possible.” And it continues to inspire and challenge people today.

Thirty years later, Mexico is once again being convulsed by an upsurge of mass struggle, this time centered in the countryside. The 1994 Chiapas rebellion demonstrated the deep revolutionary sentiments of the Mexican people. And the situation today points to the potential–and urgent need–for a Maoist new democratic revolution and people’s war to overthrow the reactionary ruling system and break the U.S. grip on Mexico.

In many ways, the U.S. imperialists face a more difficult situation in Mexico today than they did in 1968. Great stirrings are rumbling up from the peasants on the very bottom of society–and this has deeply shaken other sections of the people. The Mexican economy has become more tightly wrapped in the web of interdependency with the U.S. economy. Economic crisis in Mexico can send powerful shockwaves through the whole U.S. empire–as the 1994 collapse of the peso demonstrated.

There has been a barrage of propaganda about how the Mexican economy has been put “back on track” since 1994. In reality, the situation is very precarious with the potential for much deeper crisis. Real income has fallen 75 percent in the last 10 years, and large sections of the middle classes are deep in debt. Unemployment is sky high. The peso is steadily losing value. The situation in the countryside is abysmal. A recent UN report on nutrition classified Mexico in the same category as many African countries plagued by famine. There is much less maneuvering room for the Mexican ruling class to increase profits or to hand out concessions in the hopes of tying the masses to the government. Infighting and splits within the ruling class are very intense.

The cold-blooded government massacre of hundreds of Mexican youth on October 2, 1968–and many other outrages that have followed–cry out for the overthrow of the system responsible for these crimes. The boldness and dreams of the rebels of 1968 live on. October 2 is not forgotten!

This article is posted in English and Spanish on Revolutionary Worker Online
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Write: Box 3486, Merchandise Mart, Chicago, IL 60654
Phone: 773-227-4066 Fax: 773-227-4497
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The post Upsurge and massacre in Mexico, 1968 part 3: echoes in the 90s appeared first on MexConnect.

Thirty years ago, Mexico was shaken to its foundations by a fierce upsurge of the people–with rebel youth at the forefront.

On the evening of October 2, 1968, the Plaza of the Three Cultures in the Tlatelolco apartment complex in Mexico City filled up with thousands of students and Tlatelolco residents. The students and residents boldly defied army troops and escalating government brutality. This was happening as hundreds of international journalists gathered in Mexico City for the 1968 Olympic Games, which were just about to get underway.

As darkness fell, soldiers, tanks, and police secretly surrounded the crowd. At a preset signal, helicopters, undercover agents in the crowd, two columns of soldiers advancing in a pincer movement, and tanks opened fire. Over 300 people were murdered and thousands wounded and jailed on that October 2 evening–known as the Massacre of Tlatelolco.

With this savage act, the U.S.-controlled regime of the PRI (Institutional Revolutionary Party) hoped to isolate and terrorize the student upsurge. Instead, the massacre exposed the real nature of the government–and compelled many people in Mexico to grapple with the question of what it will take to bring about real change.

The events of October 2, 1968 continue to be a very important question in Mexico. New books, newspaper articles and photos are bringing more facts to light about the massacre. Meanwhile, the “official story” still claims that the troops had been “provoked” into firing their guns. And the government refuses to release key evidence, including hours of film footage shot by their own film crews.

This continuing controversy shows that the questions raised by the Tlatelolco Massacre– including the need for revolution –are as urgent as ever in Mexico. The U.S. imperialists, in league with Mexico’s bureaucrat bourgeosie and landowning classes, have tightened their domination over the country–as millions suffer from deepening poverty. From Chiapas to Mexico City, people are in struggle–as the government steps up bloody repression.

On the 30th anniversary of the Tlatelolco Massacre, the legacy of the rebel youth of 1968 remains alive. October 2 is not forgotten!

“We Don’t Want Olympic Games,
We Want a Revolution!”

The International Olympic Committee–headed by Avery Brundage from the U.S.–had chosen Mexico as the first Third World country ever to host the Olympic Games. This was aimed both to draw oppressed countries into imperialist-dominated world sport and to showcase Mexico as a model of U.S.-sponsored growth and relative stability. Mexico was supposed to provide a contrast to the national liberation struggles which were shaking most of Latin America, Asia, and Africa and sparking rebellions in the imperialist citadels from Detroit to Paris as well.

Then, two months before the start of the Games, Mexico added itself to the list of world trouble spots. A student rebellion erupted with a speed that shocked the government and various political organizations and ignited broader masses.

The Mexican government and their Western backers had hoped to send impressive images of the new $175 million sports arena, new hotels, and scrubbed streets to viewers around the world. Instead, buses burned on downtown corners and the U.S. embassy suffered attacks of anti-Yankee and anti-PRI graffiti. One of the popular slogans was, “We don’t want Olympic Games, We want revolution!” The student strike council sent a “Manifesto to Students of the World,” proclaiming that the myth “that our country is a model for other underdeveloped countries to follow, has been destroyed by the government forces themselves.”

This movement of rebellious students was touched off on July 24 when a fight between gangs at two high schools connected with the longtime rivals, the Mexican National Autonomous University (UNAM) and National Politechnical Institute (IPN, or “Poli”), was viciously put down by antiriot police called granaderos. When outraged vocational students protested, granaderos attacked again, killing many.

In response, students seized buses and put up barricades to defend their schools. Student strikes and takeovers hit high schools all over the capital. The high school students were supported by UNAM and Poli students. They formed a grassroots National Strike Council (CNH) and put forward six strike demands: disband the granaderos; fire police chiefs; investigate and punish higher officials responsible for the repression; pay compensation for students killed and injured; repeal laws making “social dissolution”–breaking down of society–a crime (under these laws many independent unionists and communists had been jailed); and free political prisoners, including students arrested in the recent disturbances as well as those seized earlier for social dissolution.

Within three days the government had to call in the army to take back several Mexico City prepas ( preparatorias–high schools connected to universities). There were clashes which led to many hundreds of arrests and injuries. Thirty-two students had been killed since the first confrontation, but this only fired up the youths’ resistance. The student strike spread to the UNAM, Poli, and universities throughout the country, supported by a majority of professors. By late August and September the students were calling marches of 300,000 to 600,000 people; important contingents of workers and peasants participated regularly.

Taking the Stage
on a School Bus Roof

The ferment and questioning of the youth, together with the visible weakness of the government in the face of the swelling upsurge, opened up a long-jammed door to political life for hundreds of thousands of workers, urban poor, and the poorer middle strata who in one way or another participated in the struggle.

Student brigades strained their creativity and skills to foil police and get the word out. Engineering students designed balloons which would burst when they got to a certain height and rain leaflets on the heads of pedestrians. Acting students put on realistic street theater in which a student and a conservative woman in pearls and heels carried out loud debates in crowded markets. Hundreds of observers would be drawn in, the majority on the side of the youth, and the advanced would be quietly contacted by “undercover” students in the crowd.

Some students found that they and the barrio or slum dwellers spoke what seemed to be two different languages. They had to throw out “bookish” talk and learn from the vivid “caló” slang of the streets. After a full day of brigade work, they would spend the night in classrooms they had taken over, discussing the conditions and outrages the masses had exposed them to and figuring out how to use this new knowledge in their leaflets and agitation.

The red and white buses of the IPN, always with some daring students and a loudspeaker perched on the roof, became famous for a kind of roving speak-in. Workers, market vendors, and even mariachi singers would climb up on the bus roof one after another to voice their support or disagreement with the students’ demands or tactics and to air their grievances. In some neighborhoods, just the appearance of a Poli bus was enough to immediately attract crowds of hundreds of people who would gather around.

Peasants and Oil Workers

A particularly rich relationship developed between students and peasants from Topilejo, a small village in the mountains outside the capital. When a number of townspeople were killed in a bus accident in August, Topilejo residents seized buses and went to UNAM students to get support for their demand for safe roads, new buses, and fair compensation for the victims. Students sent university buses to take over the route. Nursing, agriculture, social work, and medical students set up a camp in Topilejo, “the Soviet,” to provide information and assistance. Hundreds of brigades traveled into all the villages in the area to help expose many peasants to political ideas and in turn learn from the conditions and the rich history of rebellion of the peasants. After this, peasants from Topilejo participated at every student meeting in the capital.

Significant contingents of electrical, railroad, and petroleum workers defied threats from their government-run unions to join the movement. In many factories a few workers regularly took leaflets to distribute to others.

In one example, young oil workers in the Atzcapotzalco refinery district of northern Mexico City formed a “struggle committee” and contacted students in the nearby Casco de Santo Tomás vocational high school. Students and sympathetic workers conducted daily rallies at the gates and in the surrounding barrios where many oil workers’ families lived.

The state took very seriously the potential for the student upsurge to infect wider sections of the working class, including relatively better-off workers in the strategic state-owned oil industry. According to a complaint published by a group of oil workers on August 30, undercover police infiltrated the plant and then the army was sent in. Outside, a cordon of soldiers would cock their machine guns and jab bayonets at workers as they left work to prevent them from gathering; inside, the troops supervised production to prevent strikes or sabotage.

The regime’s overseers in the U.S. were also very worried. The New York Times warned on September 21: “The implications of [the brigades], if carried out on a large enough scale, are enormous. It is in effect an attack on the political and social structure as it now exists, and in this sense, quite apart from the presence of Communist groups in the student movement, the activity is subversive.”

Women Brigades
and Acelerados

In the course of and alongside all this activity, the movement wrangled over many crucial questions–from day-to-day tactics to what kind of revolution Mexico needed, what was its principal target, the role of the working class and peasants, and women’s oppression. The pro-Soviet Communist Party, Guevarists, Trotskyists, and Maoists contended for leadership.

Women were particularly supportive of the movement. This was notable among middle-class women although not confined to them. The book Massacre in Mexico ( La Noche de Tlatelolco) by Elena Poniatowska quotes several middle-class women who felt drawn to the youth because they were challenging society’s rules, in contrast to how the women had been stifled and boxed in all their lives.

Among the students, young women upset the old reformist wisdom of women “supporting their men” and battled to participate–often against the tide–in all aspects of the struggle, whether debates or the physical defense of schools. In Massacre in Mexico, a male leader ruefully remembers how he had declared in a speech urging students not to give up territory to police and right-wing thugs: “Let us not have to weep like women for what we could not defend like men.” When he returned to his apartment, he found two brigades of women students waiting for him. For the next few hours he got a well-deserved earful for his use of a degrading stereotype.

One wing of the movement became known as the acelerados, literally the sped-up ones, because they insisted on always going toe-to-toe with the forces of the state. The bulk of the acelerados came from the IPN and its vocational high schools as well as the prepas. Most were in their teens, and a larger percentage were from working-class families than in the university as a whole. The term ” acelerado” was used as a put-down by the “soft-liners” who always tried to limit the scope and fury of the movement. But these rebel “sped-up” youth took the name as a badge of honor, and it was their defiance which characterized the movement and set the pace for much of the upsurge.

Baa…We’re Sheep!

The student rebellion even spread into very respectable sections of middle-class people in Mexico City. On August 28, after a huge and unruly demonstration in the central Zócalo Plaza–up till then considered sacred turf reserved for PRI mobilizations–the government said that national symbols had been “insulted.” Thousands of bureaucrats and government office employees were herded onto buses and taken to the Zócalo for a ceremony to “right the wrong.” The government expected these government employees to be their most loyal followers. But hundreds began to bleat loudly: “Baa…we don’t want to go, we’re sheep…Baa!”

Students who had infiltrated the crowd began to call impromptu meetings then and there. Political discussion broke out in every small group of bureaucrats. The government had to call in tanks and soldiers to disperse its own rally, as running battles erupted through the center of town and a hail of bottles fell from the rooftops.

Then, on September 18, 10,000 troops invaded UNAM in an attempt to break it as a base for student actions and to nab CNH members meeting there. But the CNH had received hundreds of warning calls, and the members were long gone when the troops arrived. What the invasion did was to shatter the sham of the university’s autonomy from the state and to outrage intellectuals and students all over the country and the world. Mexican embassies were stoned in the Caribbean; many university administrators in Latin America denounced the invasion; students in Latin America and the U.S. protested. UNAM’s president announced his resignation. A group of 150 reporters and editors in the capital published a protest against the UNAM invasion and against the government’s propaganda attack on the university and its president.

Wide sections of the middle classes, including professionals, were drawn into motion. For example, in late September doctors and nurses in the capital’s two main hospitals were arrested for treating students wounded by police. Resident doctors went on strike in support of the CNH. Contingents of the Revolutionary Teachers Movement, dissidents from the government-run teachers’ union, were regular participants as well.

Overlords and Agents

The Yankee overlords to the North viewed the gathering force of the movement in Mexico with great alarm. Here was a student upsurge centered in the two main universities of the capital, the UNAM and the Poli, which was gaining much support and drawing in broader and broader sections of society. The threat to U.S. imperialism’s plan to showcase Mexico as a model of Third World stability was all too real (not to mention the larger dangers the movement posed).

The main stadium for the Olympics was located on the UNAM campus, in the middle of the ferment. CIA agent Philip Agee, who had been sent to Mexico as a spy in 1968 under the cover of organizing cultural exchanges during the Olympics, was forced to dismantle a Jupiter missile exhibition at UNAM before students tore it down. The opening of an Atomic energy exhibit at the Poli was postponed while another site was found. Right on the eve of the Olympics, the students were shattering the false picture of imperialist-sponsored development, economic prosperity and social peace. They were determined that the eyes of the world see the real Mexico.

Clearly things were getting out of hand, and the U.S. was certainly in a position to dictate policy behind the scenes. Mexico is the only foreign country where the FBI openly operates, and the CIA’s Mexico City station is the largest in the hemisphere. Winston Scott, the CIA station chief there, was so thick with the Mexican elite that a Mexican president was the official witness at Scott’s wedding. A CIA-prepared summary of leftist plans and activities was placed on President Diaz Ordaz’s desk every morning. According to Agee (now a well-known critic of the CIA), the station was “of great assistance in planning for raids, arrests, and other repressive action.”

On September 27-28, CIA big-wigs Allen Dulles and Richard Helms flew into Mexico City to consult with station chief Scott. The Tlatelolco Massacre, which will be the subject of Part 2 of the series, followed on October 2.

Part 2

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The post October 2 is not forgotten – upsurge and massacre In Mexico, 1968 part 1: the youth revolt appeared first on MexConnect.

Este es el último de tres artículos sobre el 2 de octubre de 1968 en México. La primera parte describió el desarrollo del movimiento estudiantil y de otros sectores en vísperas de las olimpiadas en ciudad de México. La segunda parte describió lo que pasó el 2 de octubre en la plaza de las Tres Culturas de la unidad habitacional Tlatelolco, cuando los soldados y la policía abrieron fuego y cometieron una sangrienta masacre.

Este 2 de octubre más de 100.000 personas–estudiantes de la UNAM y el Poli, vecinos de Tlatelolco, gente que participó en la lucha del 68 y gente de todo México–se sumaron a la marcha en el D.F. para conmemorar a los mártires del 68. Gritaron con furia: “¡El 2 de octubre no se olvida!”, “¡Ni olvido ni perdón!”. Asimismo, hubo actos multitudinarios en ocho estados. En San Cristóbal de las Casas, Chiapas, quemaron el retrato del ex presidente Gustavo Díaz Ordaz y dijeron: “El México de hoy es exactamente el mismo de 1968”, porque “la represión continúa en todo el país”.

Aparte se efectuaron doce mesas redondas en el Poli, además de una exposición de imágenes del movimiento y un ciclo de cine que presentó películas como Rojo amanecer, una contundente denuncia de la masacre con María Rojo y Héctor Bonilla, prohibida en México durante muchos años. Asimismo se presentaron obras teatrales e interpretaciones musicales de la Orquesta Sinfónica del IPN. Además, seis libros sobre la Masacre de Tlatelolco saldrán este año.

El tema es muy candente; el movimiento del 68 sigue brindando inspiración y presentando retos; hay mucho debate acerca de las causas del movimiento, su significado y en cuanto a deslindar responsabilidades por la masacre.

La historia oficial
no ha cambiado

Los asesinos de Tlatelolco son totalmente intransigentes. Como dijo un intelectual mexicano: “La verdad oficial sobre el movimiento estudiantil de 1968 no ha cambiado en 30 años”; según dicha versión, los estudiantes provocaron la violencia, es decir, las autoridades civiles y militares no planearon el ataque ni cometieron ningún crimen. A pesar de tantas protestas y comisiones investigativas a lo largo de tres décadas, los archivos oficiales todavía siguen cerrados; la Secretaría de Defensa Nacional ni siquiera dará un inventario de los documentos en su poder “por razones de seguridad nacional”.

A principios de año, salió a la luz que existen 120.000 pies de película de la masacre filmados desde seis cámaras por órdenes del Secretario de Gobernación, Luis Echeverría. Las cámaras ocultas filmaron los horripilantes sucesos desde distintos ángulos de la Plaza de las Tres Culturas a partir de las dos de la tarde el día 2 de octubre.

En febrero, Echeverría, el principal responsable directo de la masacre, quien posteriormente subió a la presidencia del país, platicó con políticos y reporteros reunidos en su mansión, donde aseveró: “Yo sí estoy limpio y duermo tranquilo”. Luego lanzó una amenaza no muy sutil al movimiento popular de hoy: “Supongamos que existe la amenaza de una revolución. Si se disponen a atacar el Palacio Nacional, ¿qué se debe hacer? ¿Qué debe hacer el comandante supremo de las Fuerzas Armadas si hay otro Tlatelolco, que no es deseable, pero sí posible, dada tanta injusticia, pobreza y el acaparamiento del dinero en tan pocas manos, o si hay otro Chiapas?… Chiapas podría repetirse. No es deseable pero es posible. ¿Y qué hará el presidente con el ejército? ¿Mandarlo o retirarlo?”

Represión sangrienta
y palabras de paz

Echeverría se refería al levantamiento armado de campesinos indígenas en el estado de Chiapas bajo la dirección del Ejército Zapatista de Liberación Nacional (EZLN) en enero de 1994. Miles de campesinos se alzaron en armas, salieron de la sierra y la selva, y presentaron sus demandas contundentes de justicia, democracia, autonomía y tierra. La rebelión de Chiapas prendió una ola de lucha en el campo que sigue hasta hoy. Se han presenciado combativas luchas campesinas en los estados de Guerrero, Oaxaca, Veracruz, Nuevo León, Baja California, Tabasco, Morelos y la región de las Huastecas; en los municipios apartados de Chiapas y otros estados, campesinos con armas rudimentarias como palos y piedras han enfrentado a las tropas del ejército. Por todo México, los campesinos humildes que antes vivían y morían en la oscuridad, cuya lucha cotidiana por la subsistencia y cuya muerte a manos del ejército y los caciques apenas se percibía, ahora salen de las sombras y con sus acciones heroicas luchan por un cambio.

En las ciudades hay protestas y paros constantes, además de manifestaciones multitudinarias de solidaridad con la lucha de los campesinos indígenas.

Y, ¿cuál ha sido la respuesta del gobierno? Como siempre, habla de paz y libra la guerra; aplica la doctrina de guerra de baja intensidad “Made in USA”. Las pláticas entre el gobierno y el EZLN llevaron a los acuerdos de San Andrés Larrainzar, que tenían una serie de promesas, como mayor autonomía indígena. El EZLN no ha depuesto las armas, pero su estrategia y metas son distintas a las de los maoístas: usa la fuerza militar y las zonas que controla para presionar por reformas, a diferencia del camino maoísta de establecer el poder revolucionario por medio de una guerra popular.

Por su parte, el gobierno ha violado los acuerdos de San Andrés Larrainzar sistemática y descaradamente. Ha militarizado vastas zonas del campo con patrullas y puntos de control en las carreteras; escuadrones de la muerte asesinan y cometen barbaridades; libra una guerra psicológica para desmoralizar y sembrar terror. En las ciudades, la represión aumenta; hay más policías, construyen más cárceles y desacreditan a los luchadores sociales.

La tercera parte del ejército federal de México, 70.000 efectivos, está en Chiapas trabajando de la mano con la policía y los paramilitares. A continuación, algunos de los crímenes que han cometido en los últimos meses:

• Acteal, Chiapas: El 22 de diciembre, 1997, 70 miembros de uno de los grupos paramilitares que trabajan para el gobierno y los terratenientes entraron a la comunidad armados con fusiles militares AK-47 y AR-15, y asesinaron a 45 mujeres, hombres y niños que estaban rezando en la iglesia. La policía estatal se encontraba en las afueras de Acteal pero no intervino, aunque se oían los disparos.
• Ocosingo, Chiapas: El 12 de enero, la policía estatal abrió fuego contra una multitud de 6000 personas que protestaban por la masacre de Acteal. Mataron a Guadalupe Méndez López, una tzeltal de 38 años; su hija de dos años, que llevaba cargada, y un joven resultaron heridos.
• Taniperlas, Chiapas: El 11 de abril, 500 soldados, policías y agentes de inmigración allanaron una cooperativa campesina, el municipio autónomo de Flores Magón, arrestaron a unas 20 personas sin orden y deportaron a una docena de extranjeros, activistas de derechos humanos y gente solidaria. (Más de 30 comunidades han establecido gobiernos autónomos, es decir, independientes del estado mexicano.)
• Nicolás Ruiz, Chiapas: El 3 de junio, unos 1000 elementos del ejército y de la policía rodearon la comunidad e iniciaron un cateo de 100 casas; tumbaron puertas y arrestaron a 164 personas sin órdenes ni acusaciones. El gobernador del estado dijo que el operativo se dio con el fin de “rescatar la constitucionalidad y hacer que la ley impere”.
• El Charco, Guerrero: El 8 de junio, llegaron 26 vehículos artillados y dos helicópteros del ejército; según notas periodísticas, cercaron la escuela del pequeño poblado mixteco donde estaban durmiendo campesinos y guerrilleros del Ejército Revolucionario Popular (EPR) después de realizar una asamblea política. Les mandaron rendirse y luego abrieron fuego. Masacraron a 11 personas y ejecutaron a varios después de rendirse. Hubo cinco heridos y 21 detenidos.
• El Bosque, Chiapas: El 10 de junio, 1200 efectivos del gobierno con tanquetas, bazukas, morteros y armas de alto calibre sitiaron el municipio. Durante ese operativo mataron a siete campesinos, hirieron a muchos más y arrestaron a docenas. Los militares saquearon y robaron casas, rompieron muebles, se llevaron las pocas pertenencias y dinero de la población, se comieron sus animales y comida. Cientos de campesinos se refugiaron en los cerros cercanos.

La consigna gubernamental “Dejemos que la paz hable” pintada en las paredes de Tuxtla Gutiérrez, capital del estado de Chiapas, recuerda otra que apareció por todo el D.F. al iniciarse los Juegos Olímpicos diez días después de la Masacre de Tlatelolco: “Todo se puede con paz”.

Tal “paz” es la paz de la tumba; la “paz” tan amada por los grandes capitalistas y terratenientes mexicanos porque permite la bárbara explotación del pueblo; la “paz” que el imperialismo yanqui impone para garantizar la “seguridad” de la frontera sur.

Una y otra vez, los que están empapados de la sangre del pueblo hablan de “paz” y dicen que la violencia no es el camino.

Falsos amigos del pueblo

En esta situación candente, el PRD (uno de los principales partidos de oposición burguesa) se pone el manto del movimiento estudiantil del 68; se pinta como un gran amigo que trabaja para el beneficio del pueblo, pero en realidad es un amigo falso.

Para los dirigentes del PRD, la lección clave del 68 es que “se puede evitar la represión” siempre y cuando el pueblo confíe en el sistema y los políticos de oposición, y limite su lucha a metas y medios “aceptables”. Opinan que el gran fruto del 68 es que el dirigente perredista Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas pudo llegar a la alcaldía del D.F. este año–el primer regente de la capital que no es del PRI–y que ahora tienen posibilidades de ganar las elecciones presidenciales en el año 2000 y poner fin a 88 años de gobierno del PRI.

Cárdenas declaró el 2 de octubre un Día de Luto en la capital y la bandera nacional se izó a media asta. Sin embargo, se dejó claro que se conmemoraba a “todos los muertos, sin excepción en ese día en Tlatelolco”; mejor dicho, se conmemoraba a los militares al igual que a los demás. Cárdenas hasta exculpó a todo el ejército. Hablando en un foro en la Universidad Iberoamericana, dijo que es injusto echarle la culpa al ejército por la masacre.

Otro líder del PRD, Porfirio Muñoz Ledo, era un importante dirigente del PRI en 1968, cuando alabó el informe del presidente Gustavo Díaz Ordaz sobre la masacre, un informe que le lavó las manos al gobierno. (Muñoz Ledo ocupó la presidencia del PRI en el gobierno de Luis Echeverría, el siguiente presidente de México.)

En mayo, estalló un escándalo cuando se dio a conocer que el subsecretario de Seguridad Pública de Cárdenas, el general Héctor Careaga, participó en el Batallón Olimpia, el cuerpo policial que jugó un papel central en la Masacre de Tlatelolco, y ascendió a mayor por “actos de valor en Tlatelolco”. Sin embargo, el gobierno capitalino no lo destituyó; al contrario, lo defendió. Dijo que en el caso de su designación se tomó en cuenta su experiencia militar y “en asuntos policiales”. Finalmente, se vio obligado a renunciar.

Hace varios meses, se informó que Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas invitó a un equipo del FBI al D.F. para entrenar a una unidad élite de 50 policías y 50 judiciales, además de dotarlos con lo último en computadoras, tecnología y armas. Asimismo, realizó reuniones con los departamentos de policía de Nueva York y Los Angeles, y propone adoptar elementos importantes del programa “contra la delincuencia” del alcalde de Nueva York, Rudolph Giuliani. Así que Cárdenas quiere que tales departamentos de policía le enseñen métodos para “combatir la delincuencia”. ¡Vaya! El DPLA tiene fama en todo el mundo por la golpiza a Rodney King, y Amnistía Internacional condenó al DPNY, comparándolo con las horripilantes dictaduras del tercer mundo.

Aparte, Cárdenas propone una renovación del Zócalo en que se sembrarán muchos árboles. A raíz de la lucha estudiantil del 68, el Zócalo se convirtió en un centro de protesta que presencia centenares de manifestaciones al año. Al parecer, Cárdenas pretende sacar de ahí las grandes protestas.

La lucha del 68
y la situación actual

El movimiento estudiantil del 68 y la Masacre de Tlatelolco desenmascararon la verdadera naturaleza de la sociedad mexicana ante los ojos del mundo. Hicieron añicos la falsa imagen de prosperidad y crecimiento económico fomentado por el imperialismo. El esplendor de las olimpiadas era para un puñado; se logró a costa de la opresión de la vasta mayoría, los obreros y campesinos; y se defendió con la represión sangrienta.

Lejos de mostrar la invencibilidad del sistema, la Masacre de Tlatelolco y el movimiento del 68 mostraron la profunda debilidad del gobierno comprador, su falta de apoyo popular y que depende fundamentalmente de la violencia. Los estudiantes y las amplias masas que se alzaron en 68 asestaron golpes contundentes al sistema, de los cuales no se ha recuperado del todo. Liberando el coraje y las esperanzas, el levantamiento del 68 tumbó las barreras de lo que se consideraba “posible” en ese entonces, y sigue siendo una inspiración y presentando grandes retos a los luchadores de hoy.

Han pasado 30 años; un nuevo auge de lucha popular sacude a México, solo que ahora se centra en el campo. El levantamiento de 1994 en Chiapas puso de relieve los profundos sentimientos revolucionarios del pueblo mexicano; en la situación actual se destaca el potencial y la apremiante necesidad de una revolución de nueva democracia maoísta y una guerra popular para tumbar el sistema reaccionario imperante y eliminar el dominio del imperialismo yanqui.

Para los imperialistas, en muchos aspectos la situación actual de México es más difícil de manejar que la de 1968. Las luchas poderosas de los campesinos, la gente del fondo de la sociedad, han sacudido a otros sectores del pueblo. La economía mexicana está más entrelazada en una red de interdependencia con la economía estadounidense; una crisis económica en México fácilmente repercute en todo el imperio, como se vio con el desplome del peso en 1994.

Según la propaganda oficial, la economía mexicana se ha recuperado de la crisis de 1994. En realidad, la situación es muy insegura; podría producirse una crisis mucho más profunda. Los ingresos reales han disminuido en un 75% durante los últimos diez años; la cartera vencida (principalmente deudas de la clase media) es altísima. Hay muchísimo desempleo. El peso se desliza. La situación en el campo es espantosa; un informe de la ONU sobre nutrición clasificó a México en la misma categoría de muchos países africanos azotados por hambruna. La clase dominante tiene menos espacio de maniobra para aumentar sus ganancias o hacer concesiones para congraciar a las masas. Hay luchas intestinas y divisiones en el seno de la clase dominante.

La despiadada masacre de centenares de jóvenes mexicanos el 2 de octubre de 1968 y tantas infamias más claman por el derrocamiento del asesino sistema culpable. La osadía y los sueños de los rebeldes del 68 viven. ¡El 2 de octubre no se olvida!

La mano sangrienta de los yanquis

Desde hace mucho, los yanquis han considerado a México como su coto exclusivo para explotar al máximo. Han invertido 26 billones de dólares en fábricas como Ford, GE e IBM, donde se paga la sexta parte de lo que recibe un obrero estadounidense. La mayoría de los mexicanos ganan mucho menos. Mueren 158.000 niños al año por desnutrición y enfermedades curables; sin embargo, México produce el 69% de las legumbres y frutas que se consumen en Estados Unidos durante el invierno.

El levantamiento de 1994 en Chiapas les dio pavor a los imperialistas yanquis y al gobierno mexicano, y la venta de armas de Estados Unidos a México aumentó de 16 millones a 54 millones de dólares.

Actualmente, México es el país que manda más oficiales a entrenarse en Estados Unidos; el año pasado, mandó 330 oficiales a la infame Escuela de las Américas en el cuartel Benning de Georgia.

El apoyo militar yanqui tiene el pretexto de la “guerra contra la droga”, pero como se comentó en el New York Times en diciembre pasado: “Nada puede impedir que los agentes adiestrados por Estados Unidos sean trasladados a unidades especiales que combaten a las insurgencias izquierdistas en los estados sureños de Guerrero y Chiapas”.

En mayo, Frank Houde, un teniente coronel retirado de Estados Unidos, le dijo a La Jornada que vio dos helicópteros Huey de Estados Unidos en varias ocasiones durante el mes de abril en Tuxtla Gutiérrez, la capital de Chiapas, y otro en el estado de Oaxaca. Houde viajó a México con una delegación de Veteranos por la Paz; señaló que es una violación de acuerdos que especifican que dichos helicópteros solo se deben destinar a la lucha contra la droga.

This article is posted in English and Spanish on Revolutionary Worker Online
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Write: Box 3486, Merchandise Mart, Chicago, IL 60654
Phone: 773-227-4066 Fax: 773-227-4497
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Parte 1

Cuando las mujeres de Tlatelolco hirvieron agua…
pero no para cocinar

A medida que las batallas entre los estudiantes y las fuerzas de seguridad cobraban furia–y el apoyo era más arriesgado–más sectores del pueblo tomaron partido con los estudiantes. Eso ocurrió muy especialmente en la unidad habitacional Tlatelolco, un enorme conjunto de torres de edificios para familias de la clase media, donde también viven muchas familias de la clase trabajadora y familias pobres. Un análisis de prensa calculó que 12.000 habitantes de Tlatelolco entraron al movimiento del lado de los estudiantes.

El 21 de septiembre mil policías atacaron la Vocacional 7, que queda en Tlatelolco, y tropezaron con la encarnizada resistencia de los estudiantes. La policía prendió incendios en dos edificios, balaceó la escuela e inundó de gas lacrimógeno los apartamentos vecinos.

Esa noche, muchas amas de casa de Tlatelolco la pasaron hirviendo agua para aventársela desde las ventanas a los soldados o buscando trapos, botellas y combustible para hacer cocteles molotov para los estudiantes. Los niños les echaban piedras desde los tejados a los uniformados de abajo. Cientos de estudiantes de escuelas vocacionales de las colonias pobres cercanas rompieron el cerco policial quemando los carros de la policía. La prensa informó que muchachos “pandilleros” de Tepito también se unieron al combate. Llegaron refuerzos del ejército, pero así y todo las fuerzas de seguridad se tuvieron que retirar muchas veces. Por fin, a las 2 de la madrugada, abandonaron la lucha.

En esa batalla mataron a una bebita y por lo menos a tres estudiantes; se llevaron presos a centenares. Veinte granaderos salieron heridos; cuatro recibieron disparos: a uno lo mató un teniente del ejército porque le estaba pegando a su mamá.

Dos días después, en una nutrida balacera, la policía se tomó la Vocacional 7. En respuesta, una representante de los inquilinos de Tlatelolco pidió una huelga de alquiler por la misma duración que el conflicto estudiantil.

El 24 y el 25 de septiembre tuvo lugar una batalla similar, pero más intensa, de 1500 policías y soldados contra 2000 estudiantes en el Casco de Santo Tomás del Instituto Politécnico Nacional, cerca de las refinerías. Los estudiantes, algunos armados, montaron barricadas, cavaron trincheras, organizaron un puesto de guardia, crearon un sistema de mensajeros y se atrincheraron en los techos. El Washington Post escribió que unos estudiantes se apropiaron de un carrotanque para dispararle a la policía y que esta mató por lo menos a 15.

El gobierno no escogió por pura casualidad a Tlatelolco como escenario de la masacre ni fue accidental que las fuerzas armadas dispararan contra todos por parejo… hasta niños. La participación de los habitantes de Tlatelolco mostró el potencial que tenía el movimiento estudiantil de desencadenar una ola mucho más poderosa de rebelión popular contra la clase dominante.

A las 6:10 p.m.

Al anochecer de ese fatídico 2 de octubre, 10.000 estudiantes y vecinos llenaban la plaza de las Tres Culturas. En las últimas dos semanas la policía había disuelto casi todos los mítines y hecho hasta 1000 arrestos diarios. Muchos vecinos estaban asomados por los balcones para presenciar la reunión. Un orador anunció que no se iba a llevar a cabo la marcha programada al Casco de Santo Tomás para no “provocar” una pelea y que ya pronto terminaba el mitin. Pero el gobierno no necesitaba excusa para el implacable despliegue de fuerza que tenía planeado. Ya la plaza estaba rodeada por unos 300 tanques, vehículos blindados y jeeps, 5000 soldados y centenares de policías.

A las 6:10 aparecieron en el cielo unas luces de bengala verdes. Los helicópteros de la policía abrieron fuego. Inmediatamente, elementos de civil del batallón Olimpia (un batallón especial de la policía encargado de seguridad en las olimpiadas) atacaron a los oradores del Consejo Nacional de Huelga (CNH) que estaban en un balcón del tercer piso del edificio Chihuahua: los golpearon y empujaron a algunos a la línea de fuego.

Otros elementos de civil del batallón Olimpia comenzaron a disparar contra los manifestantes desde el balcón y desde el interior de la multitud. Tenían guantes blancos para que las fuerzas de seguridad los distinguieran. (Su papel fue doble: fuera de contribuir al pánico, al día siguiente el gobierno dijo que unos “estudiantes francotiradores” dispararon contra el ejército y comenzaron la masacre.) Desde ambos lados de la plaza comenzaron a avanzar soldados con la bayoneta calada mientras las ametralladoras batían los bordes de la muchedumbre. Oleadas humanas corrían de un lado de la plaza al otro, detenidas y devueltas por el tableteo de las ametralladoras.

Muchos de los muertos recibieron disparos por la espalda a quemarropa o bayonetazos, demostraron las autopsias. La multitud golpeó a las puertas de la iglesia de Santiago Tlatelolco, pero estas no se abrieron: el arzobispo había dado la orden de no dejar entrar a ningún manifestante.

Los tanques abrieron fuego contra el edificio Chihuahua y en sus primeros tres pisos prendieron incendios: el edificio recibió tanta bala que las tuberías y el calentador estallaron. Miles pasaron horas acurrucados mientras a su alrededor volaban balas y vidrio. El fuego parejo de armas automáticas duró entre hora y hora y media; después siguieron disparos más distantes hasta la madrugada.

La balacera fue tan general que los soldados se hirieron entre sí; quedaron 12 heridos y dos muertos. Mataron al auxiliar de una ambulancia e hirieron a una enfermera cuando fueron por los heridos. La policía acordonó el hospital de la Cruz Roja para arrestar a los heridos y para que no entraran más ambulancias. Pero en medio de ese infierno, muchos luchaban contra el pánico y se resguardaban unos a otros. Poniendo en peligro la vida, los dueños de muchos apartamentos abrieron las puertas y dejaron entrar a los que huían.

Hasta ahora no se sabe exactamente cuánta gente fue asesinada en Tlatelolco el 2 de octubre: solo 32 según la policía; 325 según una cuidadosa investigación del periódico inglés Manchester Guardian. Corrió el rumor de que los camiones del ejército se llevaron montones de cadáveres y los quemaron o los aventaron al mar.

Esa noche hicieron 1500 arrestos. A muchos los desnudaron y los dejaron parados horas bajo la lluvia con las manos arriba mientras los chuzaban y golpeaban con bayonetas. Alrededor de la plaza de Tlatelolco, un cerco de policía disparaba gas lacrimógeno contra multitudes enfurecidas y arrestaba a los que trataban de entrar a ayudar. Los soldados se desbocaron por todo Tlatelolco esa noche y catearon apartamentos en busca de armas y estudiantes. Cazaron y encarcelaron a los dirigentes estudiantiles. Algunos desaparecieron.

Made in the USA

Muchos arrestados sufrieron torturas. En el libro Masacre en México, un preso relata que un agente estadounidense estuvo presente en las cámaras de tortura mientras los agentes mexicanos “lo trabajaban”. Un policía amenazó: “Si no sueltas la lengua, tenemos gringos que te harán cantar”. Pero la presencia física de los expertos en interrogación de Estados Unidos no era necesaria para ver la marca “Made in the USA” de toda la ola de represión.

Para los imperialistas estadounidenses la seguridad de su frontera sur es un motivo de preocupación. Imponiendo su sangriento orden público, el gobierno mexicano protege la opresión económica y política de Estados Unidos sobre México. Pero las dependencias del gobierno estadounidense a menudo coordinan y supervisan directamente esa represión. México es el único país del extranjero donde el FBI opera abiertamente y la estación de la CIA en ciudad de México es la mayor del hemisferio. Muchos oficiales del ejército y de la policía estudian en los institutos de la CIA o de la policía estadounidense.

Philip Agee, ex agente de la CIA que ahora es su crítico, fue a México como espía en 1968 con la fachada de organizar intercambios culturales durante las olimpiadas. En su libro Dentro de la compañía, Diario de la CIA, escribió: “En México el gobierno mantiene a nuestro enemigo común [la izquierda y los soviéticos] bastante bien controlados con nuestra ayuda–y cuando el gobierno no da abasto, la estación [de la CIA] por lo general puede hacerlo por su cuenta”.

Probablemente Agee no trabajó en las operaciones más delicadas de México, por ejemplo las que vinculan directamente al gobierno estadounidense con la masacre de Tlatelolco. Pero relata que la CIA intercambiaba a diario informes de espionaje con sus enlaces más importantes. Uno de esos contactos era el presidente Díaz Ordaz, cuya relación con la CIA era “supremamente cercana” y de la cual recibía costosos regalos, dice Agee.

Otro contacto importante era Luis Echeverría, quien como secretario de Gobernación tuvo a su cargo directo la masacre. Echeverría fue el siguiente presidente del país. Los archivos de la CIA sobre las organizaciones y actividades estudiantiles y de izquierda eran muy superiores a las del gobierno, dice Agee. Con la información de la CIA la policía hizo numerosas redadas y arrestos.

Después de la masacre ni el presidente Johnson ni su secretario de Estado hicieron declaraciones de protesta: un silencio que es complicidad, si no aprobación. El 3 de octubre, la junta ejecutiva del Comité Olímpico Internacional celebró una reunión de emergencia para decidir si seguir adelante con las olimpiadas a pesar de la masacre. Con Avery Brundage (el presidente estadounidense del comité) a la cabeza, la junta decidió que sí, por escasos votos. Brundage explicó que las autoridades mexicanas le habían asegurado que “nada interferiría con la entrada pacífica de la antorcha olímpica al estadio el 12 de octubre ni con las competencias”.

Así que diez días después de la masacre se inauguraron las olimpiadas en una atmósfera de brutal hipocresía. Las calles temblablan al paso de los tanques, pero los murales proclamaban en una docena de idiomas y colores: “Todo se puede con paz”. El gobierno vistió de minifalda a miles de jovencitas para que fueran “embajadoras olímpicas”. Una de ellas, con el uniforme olímpico apelmazado de sangre y perforado por las balas, yacía en la morgue donde desfilaban miles de padres en busca de sus hijos.

Los millares que creían que el gobierno nunca haría algo tan inhumano o que lo refrenaría la opinión pública nacional e internacional, se despertaron horrorizados. Como dijo Mao Tsetung, “el Poder nace del fusil”… y los imperialistas y sus secuaces lo recontraprobaron una vez más en Tlatelolco. En un país oprimido como México, la fachada de medio-democracia que les parece conveniente en “tiempos normales” se va al diablo cuando ven su dominio en peligro.

Apertura democrática:
Fachada de mayor represión

La huelga estudiantil continuó con mucho apoyo dos meses más, a pesar de la fuerte represión después de la masacre. Inmediatamente estallaron protestas estudiantiles contra las embajadas de México en más de una docena de ciudades de Europa, Latinoamérica y Estados Unidos: en las confrontaciones de París hubo 400 arrestos. Muchos protestaron contra la sangrienta mano del titiritero; por ejemplo, en Santiago de Chile, la embajada estadounidense fue apedreada. Los estudiantes de muchos países exigieron el retiro de sus delegaciones nacionales a las olimpiadas.

Pero el arresto de la mayoría de los dirigentes de la huelga y la táctica dual del gobierno–de ofrecer negociaciones o más muerte, según las circunstancias–tuvieron efecto. La huelga cayó más y más bajo la batuta de “sensatos” que querían llegar a un acuerdo con el gobierno. Para fines de noviembre el CNH levantó la huelga. La mayoría de los estudiantes se salieron furiosos de la enorme y tumultuosa reunión, gritando consignas de huelga. Se tomaron varias escuelas por corto tiempo para impedir el regreso a clases. Pero ante el aumento de amenazas del gobierno y ante una dirección que se había rendido, el movimiento no pudo continuar mucho tiempo.

Sin embargo, muchos sectores de la sociedad sentían una profunda aversión y un franco odio al gobierno. El brutal estado neocolonial había mostrado su verdadera naturaleza sin disimulos y había hecho añicos muchas falsas ilusiones de que puede haber progreso sin derrocarlo. Claramente alarmados por esa situación, los gobiernos de Estados Unidos y México se inventaron varias iniciativas para mitigar los daños del 68.

El secretario de Gobernación Luis Echeverría, que subió a la presidencia en 1970, era el tipo perfecto para poner en práctica esas iniciativas. El hombre identificado por Philip Agee como enlace de alto nivel de la CIA, ahora montó el show de plantárseles a los yanquis. Pero su gobierno solicitó y recibió más préstamos de Estados Unidos que ningún otro gobierno de la historia de México y usó la asistencia militar estadounidense para eliminar los movimientos armados de oposición. El hombre que estuvo a cargo de la masacre de Tlatelolco ahora declaró amnistía para muchos presos políticos. Aumentó los salarios y prestaciones para algunos sectores de la clase trabajadora y aumentó los cupos universitarios.

Bajo esta “apertura democrática”, a los partidos que renunciaran a la violencia y cortaran lazos con el extranjero les prometieron fondos y escaños en el impotente Congreso. Esa “apertura” fue para los oportunistas un chance de pisotear la lucha de las masas y pedirle favores a la burguesía compradora. Hoy, la izquierda electoral considera que esa “apertura democrática” fue un importante, o quizá el mayor, fruto de la lucha del 68.

Pero en realidad esas iniciativas del gobierno de Echeverría fueron una continuación de la vieja represión y una fachada para una nueva represión. Por una parte, la clase dominante necesitaba urgentemente renovar la confianza de sectores de la clase media urbana en la legitimidad del gobierno. Esperaba que la cooperación de miembros de la izquierda, entre ellos algunos dirigentes del movimiento estudiantil, contribuyera a eso. Por otra parte, el gobierno aisló y atacó canallamente a otros sectores de la población y del movimiento que consideraba más peligrosos. Durante la “apertura democrática”, Echeverría lanzó una encarnizada represión contra los campesinos de Guerrero y “desapareció” a centenares, sindicados de ser miembros de guerrillas urbanas y rurales.

Una nueva masacre cortó de raíz un nuevo brote del movimiento estudiantil el 10 de junio de 1971. Esa vez, el gobierno llevó camionados de “halcones” (pandillas paramilitares derechistas) a una manifestación y les dio rienda suelta. Mataron a 42 estudiantes e hirieron a más de 100.

Pero los estudiantes no olvidaron la masacre de 1968. Cuando Echeverría trató de hablar en la Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, tuvo que batirse en retirada con la cara sangrando por pedreas de los estudiantes.

Parte 3: México 30 años después de la masacre de Tlatelolco.

This article is posted in English and Spanish on Revolutionary Worker Online
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Cogan’s Reviews

“The action never stops at the border. There is no other place like it on the globe. The international boundary stretches for almost two thousand miles, from the Pacific Ocean through the mountains, the deserts, the valleys of the Rio Grande to the Gulf of Mexico. The region is a vast world unto itself. And the westernmost, fourteen-mile strip between San Diego and Tijuana, the border’s biggest and richest cities, is the most intense microcosm of that world. The U.S. Border Patrol records half a million yearly arrests of illegal immigrants here, accounting for almost half of all its arrests. This is the corridor for billions of dollars worth of cocaine, heroin, methamphetamine and marijuana smuggled by the international drug cartels that have converted Mexico into the supply route to the United States, the world’s hungriest consumer of narcotics. And Tijuana has historically served as a hub for gambling and money laundering, as well as southbound guns, stolen vehicles and trunkloads of drug profits.”

Thus Sebastian Rotella starts his book about a really interesting piece of real estate. Rotella is the Los Angeles Times Bureau Chief for South America. He knows his stuff. His book is a well-researched document.

I just had no idea that the traffic was quite as heavy as it is. The San Ysidro port of entry alone records more than 40 million legal crossings a year. The surprise to me, however, is that the number of illegal crossings is as high as it is. In my ignorance, I believed that there were “coyotes” who, for a price, escorted small groups of illegals across after dark, sometimes successfully, sometimes unsuccessfully. The actual numbers, however, would appear to be in the hundreds of thousands. One Mexican family was estimated to be making a million dollars a month smuggling people across the border. Some are simply driven through border crossing points manned by officials who have been bribed not to ask questions. Others go on foot. Here, for example, is how the author describes that process:

“The guide led them across at dawn, taking advantage of the Border Patrol shift change. Sunrise illuminated a mile-long trek through marshes that brought them to the Robin Hood Homes. It was one of those housing tracts that fulfill California’s promise to the working middle class: relatively affordable, generic-looking. The placid air was deceiving. The first neighborhood past the marshes constituted a second border, a bastion on the edge of no-man’s land. Frenzied guard dogs barked all night at the hundreds of border-crossers hurrying through the streets, yards and driveways, racing the Border Patrol to the freeway.

“The smuggler led the way over a wall that was scuffed and blackened with footmarks from previous climbers. The group crept through backyards, a shortcut to the I-4 freeway that angles northwest beyond the subdivision. The houses bristled with bars and barbed wire. Fences sagged. A few homeowners had simply left their gates open, giving in to the trespassers whose dashes were as much a part of neighborhood rhythms as cars pulling out of driveways and children walking home from school.”

Then there are the migrants who have been working illegally in the U.S. for years and have moved their families up close to the border, on the Mexican side, who routinely – and illegally – cross back and forth every weekend to visit.

It’s just a joke when one reads, on page 29 about presidential candidate Pat Buchanan holding a press conference at the border and promising more ditches, more walls, more barbed wire, more agents, more troops, to protect against this “national disgrace”. I loved the comment made to the author by one observer of all this prehistoric posturing, a man who might just have been an illegal pausing for a moment in mid-crossing: “Ask him if he can give me a lift to Los Angeles.”

Rotella does an excellent job of describing the attitudes of people on both sides of the border, many of whom are only too happy to employ the migrants – for low wages, of course. The migrants, for example, are regarded as enterprising people. And there’s a really interesting chapter on the Border Patrol, the cops who make more arrests than any other police force in the nation – except that they catch the same people over and over. The job is a metaphor for futility. As an ex-agent describes it: “The Border Patrol is a band-aid on a hemorrhage.”

It’s impossible to see how the situation will ever improve. There’s just too much money involved. The Mexican mafias earn up to $30 billion a year in profits from all their activities. They spend an estimated $500 million a year exclusively on the bribery of public officials. As one Mexican human rights advocate states: “Their talent is to convert corruption into a practice that overwhelms everything.” Indeed, as I read this book I asked myself the question: What would I do if someone came and offered me a hundred thousand dollars cash to look the other way?

Where “Twilight on the Line” slowed down for this reader was when it moved back into Mexico. Rotella has a chapter on the murder of the Roman Catholic Cardinal Ocampo in Guadalajara airport and another on the assassination of presidential candidate Luis Donaldo Colosio in Tiajuana. These stories of corrupt politicians, bribed officials, crooked cops, drug lords, youth gangs, killers-for-hire, investigations that go nowhere by corrupt attorneys-general….these stories become almost too depressing to read. Ultimately, you know you’re never going to learn the truth. And the sleaze factor is unbelievably high, at all levels. In the aftermath to the murder of the Cardinal, for example, a Vatican emissary acts as an intermediary between President Salinas and the two drug lords most widely believed to be responsible, the Arellano brothers. “My conscience is clear,” says the Papal emissary piously. “I have not acted outside the law.”

This is a book that makes me very angry. But in the end the people I’m angriest at are the millions of American drug users who pay billions of dollars to sniff and snort and ingest and inject just to make their unhappy selves feel better. They’re the ones who are most responsible for the mess that Sebastian Rotella describes so vividly. The world’s biggest drug consuming nation has a lot to answer for.

Verdict: It provides valuable insight into what is NOT a normal International Border.
It will probably make you angry.
Read it anyway.

Twilight on the Line
Underworlds and politics at the U.S. – Mexico border
By Sebastian Rotella

Norton. 1998

Available from Amazon Books: Hardcover

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