MEXICO: Students march to mark anniversary of Tlatelolco massacre; scuffles break out

Record ID: 304034

  • Title: MEXICO: Students march to mark anniversary of Tlatelolco massacre; scuffles break out
  • Date: 3rd October 2007
  • Summary: MEXICAN FLAG AND PEOPLE IN THE ZOCALO, THE CAPITAL CITY'S MAIN SQUARE
  • Embargoed: 18th October 2007 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Mexico
  • Country: Mexico
  • Topics: History,Domestic Politics
  • Reuters ID: LVA8QWK3V04913SQ7CPREONGJ9FJ
  • Story Text: Thousands march in Mexico City to mark anniversary of 1968 Tlatelolco student massacre while scuffles with police break out.
    Scuffles broke out on Tuesday (October 2) as thousands of students and political activists marched through Mexico City to mark the 39th anniversary of the massacre of hundreds of student protesters on October 2, 1968 in Tlatelolco Square.
    It was led by the 1968 Student Movement as well as various student organisations from the UNAM (National Autonomous University of Mexico) and the IPN (National Polytechnic Institute).
    Some 8,000 people gathered in the Tlatelolco Square and then marched to the Zocalo, the capital city's main square.
    More than 1,200 federal police officers followed the procession by land and air and riot policemen were on call for possible violence. Small groups of demonstrators who separated from the main march tossed stones at police, spray-painted walls, smashed store and restaurant windows and damaged telephone booths. Eight people were arrested according to local media.
    Security forces and senior government officials from the Institutional Revolutionary Party, which ruled Mexico for seven decades, crushed leftist student and guerrilla movements in a "dirty war" in the 1960s and 1970s.
    Attempts to convict former President Luis Echeverria for involvement in a 1968 massacre of leftist students just days before the Olympic Games in Mexico City have foundered, although efforts officially continue.
    Echeverria was interior minister when security forces stormed a student rally in a square in the capital's Tlatelolco district. Two years later, he became president.
    Officials say about 30 people died in the 1968 killing, although witnesses and rights activists put the toll as high as 300.
    Demonstrator, Ruben Banda, who wore a chain covering his mouth said that no justice will ever be had.
    "This chain on my mouth means that however much one talks, however much one protests and demands, there will never be a solution to this that will bring about justice."
    President Felipe Calderon, who took office in December 2006, has said little about plans to investigate the decades-old rights abuses.
    He has used the army and elite police to wage a war against violent drug gangs in several states, raising concerns among some critics about possible human rights violations.
    Other Latin American countries have managed to make former officials accountable for human rights crimes despite amnesty laws impeding actual convictions, Human Rights Watch said in a statement.
    A report published last year by Mexico's special prosecutor accused three former presidents, including Echeverria, of overseeing systematic violence.
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