Mexico: Genocide Case Against Former President 'To Be Reopened'

The Committee 68, an organization dedicated to finding justice for the 1968 student massacre in Mexico, is appealing the Judicial Power of the Federation (PJF) to reopen the case against former President Luis Echeverria.

کد خبر: ۸۳۶۱۹۱

تاریخ: ۰۱ مهر ۱۳۹۷ - ۰۸:۱۲

Echeverria, now 96, was secretary of the interior during the presidency of Gustavo Diaz Ordaz, when the massacre took place, and president at the time of the 1971 ‘massacre of Corpus Christi.’

The repressive policies against social movements under his administration became known as the ‘dirty war,’ in which hundreds of people were forcibly disappeared and many murdered in extrajudicial killings.

“When we first denounced the crimes in 1998, the judge rejected them because they had expired,” said Felix Gonzalez, of Committee 68, a student leader in the 1968 movement.

The appeal aims to reopen 54 lines of investigation by the Special Prosecuting Office for Social and Political Movements of the Past (Femospp).

The Supreme Court said now that the process has restarted, the case can’t be closed - not even by the General Prosecuting Office.

Femospp had already issued two arrest warrants for Echeverria, accused of genocide, for both the massacres and his 'dirty war' policies, making him the first Mexican president required to testify in court.

On October 2, 1968, a student political meeting at Three Cultures Square in Tlatelolco, Mexico City, resulted in bloodshed after military and paramilitary forces opened fire from neighboring buildings. The number of people killed runs into the hundreds.

The student movement demanding better education conditions and an end to the repressive regime of Diaz Ordaz and Echeverria was crushed before the Olympic Games began in Mexico.