TLALTELOLCO by Ricardo21

History in The books

ric_1000f — 2018-10-03 15:24:50 UTC

Today marks half a century of the massacre on October 2 in Tlatelolco. It took 43 years for the word "crime" to appear for the first time in the history books of the Secretariat of Public Education (SEP) that are delivered to public elementary schools throughout Mexico since 1962.
However, the event has never been spoken of as a massacre, nor of the victims of the repression and the Dirty War, despite the existence of a bibliography that reported the events that took place in the Plaza de las Tres Culturas as "La Noche de Tlatelolco ", by Elena Poniatowska, or" Los Días y Los Años ", by Luis González de Alba, both published in 1971. In addition, from" Mexico 68: Youth and Revolution ", by José Revueltas, which came out in 1978.

What hapen

ric_1000f — 2018-10-03 15:29:17 UTC

The anti-riot group of the capital police, known as the Grenadier Corps, intervened to calm the fight. But he did it brutally.

He hit dozens of students and witnesses to the fight. He chased the young people to the schools where they sought refuge and also attacked students and teachers who taught classes there.
Four days later, students from the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) and the National Polytechnic Institute (IPN) organized a march against police violence.
But the walk, which was joined by members of the Mexican Communist Party, was suppressed by the grenadiers.

From that moment on, a student movement began that in a few weeks grew rapidly. The UNAM, the IPN and other universities in the country went on strike.

"There are many things that are not yet known" of the Tlatelolco massacre: Elena Poniatowska, chronicler of the student movement and the massacre of 1968

Authorities reported burned buses and the explosion of explosive devices. Dozens of young people were arrested and in the Zócalo, the central square of the country, tanks and dozens of soldiers were deployed.

Tlatelolco massacre

ric_1000f — 2018-10-03 15:31:52 UTC

The Tlatelolco massacre was the killing of students and civilians by military and police on October 2, 1968, in the Plaza de las Tres Culturas in the Tlatelolco section of Mexico City. The events are considered part of the Mexican Dirty War, when the government used its forces to suppress political opposition. The massacre occurred roughly 10 days before the opening of the 1968 Summer Olympics in Mexico City.

The head of the Federal Directorate of Security reported that 1,345 people were arrested. At the time, the government and the media in Mexico claimed that government forces had been provoked by protesters shooting at them, but government documents made public since 2000 suggest that snipers had been employed by the government. According to US national security archives, Kate Doyle, a Senior Analyst of US policy in Latin America, documented the deaths of 44 people; however, estimates of the death toll range the actual number from 300 to 400, with eyewitnesses reporting hundreds dead

Background

ric_1000f — 2018-10-03 15:34:00 UTC

The Mexican government invested a massive $150 million in preparation for the 1968 Olympics to be hosted in Mexico City. That amount was equal to roughly $1 billion by today's terms. Mexican President Gustavo Díaz Ordaz struggled to maintain peace during a time of rising social tensions but suppressed movements by labor unions and farmers fighting to improve their lot. His administration suppressed independent labor unions, farmers, and was heavy-handed in trying to direct the economy. In 1958 under the previous administration of Adolfo López Mateos, labor leader Demetrio Vallejo had tried to organize independent railroad unions, which the Mexican government quickly ended. It arrested Vallejo under a violation of Article 145 of the Penal Code, which defined "social dissolution" as a crime

Arising from reaction to the government's violent repression of fights between rival porros (gangs), the student movement in Mexico City quickly grew to include large segments of the student body who were dissatisfied with the regime of the PRI. Sergio Zermeño has argued that the students were united by a desire for democracy, but their understanding of what democracy meant varied widely.

Protest at UNAM

ric_1000f — 2018-10-03 15:36:26 UTC

On August 1, National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) Rector Barros Sierra led 50,000 students in a peaceful protest against the repressive actions of the government and violation of university autonomy.

The August 27 student demonstration on Juárez Avenue.
The orderliness of the demonstration proved to the Mexican public that the students were not rabble-rousers; additionally, the demonstration showed it unlikely that communist agitators could have coordinated the students’ actions. The protest route was planned specifically to avoid the Zócalo (Mexico City's main plaza). The current UNAM website stated that the march route began from "University City (CU), ran along Insurgentes Avenue to Félix Cuevas, turned on Félix Cuevas towards Coyoacán Avenue, and returned by University Avenue back to the starting point." The march proceeded without any major disturbances or arrests.

On September 9, Barros Sierra issued a statement to the students and teachers to return to class as "our institutional demands… have been essentially satisfied by the recent annual message by the Citizen President of the Republic." The CNH issued a paid announcement in the newspaper, El Día, for the Silent March on September 13; it invited "all workers, farmers, teachers, students, and the general public" to participate in the march. The CNH emphasized that it had no "connection with the Twentieth Olympic Games…or with the national holidays commemorating [Mexico's] Independence, and that this Committee has no intention of interfering with them in any way. The announcement reiterated the list of six demands from the CNH.

With the opening of the Olympics approaching, Díaz Ordaz was determined to stop these demonstrations. In September, he ordered the army to occupy the UNAM campus. They took the campus without firing a bullet, but beat and arrested students indiscriminately. Barros Sierra resigned in protest on September 23.

ric_1000f — 2018-10-03 15:42:38 UTC