* OAXACA UPDATE: APPO SUPPORTERS ENDURE TORTURE
* VERACRUZ: ANOTHER REPORTER FOUND MURDERED
* CALDERON SWORN IN AS PRESIDENT DESPITE PROTESTS
* CALDERON CABINET I: FREE-MARKET APPROACH TO PREVAIL
* CALDERON CABINET II: FILL IT WITH FRIENDS
* CALDERON WILL BEGIN TO FALL FROM THE DAY HE TAKES OFFICE, WARN ZAPATISTAS
* JUAREZ FEMICIDES: JUST A DROP IN THE OCEAN OF WOMEN'S BLOOD
* DIRTY WAR UPDATE: NEW ARREST WARRANT IS ISSUED FOR EX-LEADER
Committee of Indigenous Solidarity (CIS). CIS is a Washington, D.C.
based activist group committed to the ongoing struggles of Indigenous
peoples in the Americas. CIS is actively supporting the struggles
of the Indigenous peoples of Mexico while simultaneously combating
related structures of oppression within our own communities.
To view newsletter archives, visit:
http://lists.mutualaid.org/pipermail/mexico-week/
"Para Todos, Todo; Para Nosotros Nada"
OAXACA UPDATE: APPO SUPPORTERS ENDURE TORTURE
Rene Trujillo Martinez, a thin 25-year-old lawyer and volunteer radio
announcer with the Oaxaca People's Assembly (APPO), holds the
uncomfortable distinction of having survived a disappearance.
Trujillo was recently abducted from his apartment by armed men in
civilian clothes, brutally beaten at gunpoint, taken to a safe house
and tortured. He says he was then held incommunicado for two days
while being interrogated by federal authorities, and then,
miraculously, released on bail. According to APPO spokespeople and
the Mexican League for Human Rights Defense in Oaxaca, at least 30
APPO protesters are currently missing, awaiting a similar miracle.
"Usually the disappearances are not so massive as they are now, 30 in
just a few days," said Florentino Lopez, a spokesperson for the APPO,
referring to the number of protesters who have allegedly been
abducted or gone missing in the past two weeks since the arrival of
federal police in Oaxaca. "Like torture, disappearances are a part of
state terrorism against social movements," he said. Federal and state
authorities denied interview requests for this article.
On Nov. 7, at about 2:15 p.m., Trujillo and two friends got out of a
taxi and began walking up Santo Toms, the narrow, hilly side street
that leads to Trujillo's rented room. They noticed a group of men
following them and began to run. The men also broke into a sprint,
catching up to Trujillo and his friends just as they were closing the
garage door. The men, at least six of them according to several
eye-witness accounts, forced their way into the garage with pistols
in hand, firing and then beating the three young men, forcing them
out into the street. "I don't know if they were waiting for him or
following him, but they came in with pistols and everything," said
one witness (all witnesses interviewed spoke on the condition of
anonymity). "They were dressed in civilian clothes. They came in
hitting him; they pulled him out violently. They didn't even talk; it
was pure violence."
Trujillo and his two friends, Mauricio Marmolejo and Benito Pereda
Fernandez, were each held down and beaten in the street by two men.
But it was Trujillo they were after, and Trujillo who received the
most intense beating: after being struck repeatedly in the face with
the barrel of a pistol, Trujillo's assailant stuck his gun into
Trujillo's mouth while slamming his head against the wall. Days later
Trujillo's blood was still visible on the rocks outside his house.
Trujillo participated in the June 14 takeover of Radio Universidad
and volunteered around the station until a paid saboteur threw acid
on the transmitter and the station went off the air. But Trujillo
hung around, helping maintain the barricade protecting the university
station. He then began as a program announcer on Oct. 21 when the
radio went back on the air with a repaired transmitter. Trujillo ran
the 3 a.m. to 5 a.m. program, known as Barricade Radio, providing
information about police movements around town and barricades that
needed reinforcement. APPO protesters began to build hundreds of
barricades throughout Oaxaca City after gunmen linked to local police
opened fire on their protest camps on Aug. 22, killing one protester.
The gunmen forced Trujillo and his friends into a yellow rental
pick-up truck, which they had called for by cell phone during the
beatings, according to witnesses. The assailants then covered the
men's faces with their shirts and forced them face down in the back
of the truck, knees pinning down their backs. After driving for about
20 minutes, the gunmen stopped and switched to a white pick-up truck,
where they placed nylon hoods over the three men and then took them
to a warehouse - they think near the airport. At the warehouse the
gunmen tortured them, sticking needles under their finger nails (the
scars were visible three days later), applying electric shocks to
their feet, beating them on the head, and choking them, according to
the three men, who were later released. They asked them to identify
militants in the APPO, the most active people at Radio Universidad,
and the men who had captured two soldiers, and later released them, a
few days before. The men had Oaxaca, Mexico City and northern Mexican
accents.
After some 10 hours of torture, the gunmen made them hold guns and
then took pictures and filmed them with the guns in their hands. The
three men were then taken to the federal Attorney General's Office
(PGR) complex in Oaxaca and charged with the federal crime of
possession of illegal firearms. They were held incommunicado at the
PGR, where again they were interrogated and terrorized by threats. On
Nov. 9, they were released on bail. Trujillo says he paid US$4,000
for his liberty.
It is unclear how many protesters have disappeared in the past weeks.
With rumors constantly circulating through town, the number could be
significantly less, or higher, than 30 - the number of known APPO
protesters reported missing by family members. The involvement of
several levels of authorities also complicates the issue, says
Jessica Sanchez, the president of the Mexican League for Human Rights
Defense in Oaxaca. Local, state and federal authorities make
detentions without regard to jurisdiction, she said, and they take
prisoners to random jails across the state. The victims are refused
access to lawyers and human rights workers, making the job of
locating and identifying those on the list of disappeared extremely
difficult, Sanchez said. "This is testimony to the state of suspended
guarantees in Oaxaca," she said, "of the lack of governability and
the failure of public institutions."
Source: El Universal: 11/20
====
VERACRUZ: ANOTHER REPORTER FOUND MURDERED
The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) said it was investigating
whether the shooting death of Adolfo Sánchez Guzmán was related to
his work as reporter for the Mexican news Web site Orizaba en Vivo.
The journalist's body was found Thursday (11/30) on the banks of the
Blanco river near Mendoza, 74 miles (120 kilometers) from Xalapa,
capital of the southeastern state of Veracruz. He had been shot twice
in the back of the head, and had bruises and stab wounds to the
chest, a police source in Mendoza told CPJ. Nearby lay the body of
another man, César Martínez López, who had also been shot in the
head, the source said.
On November 21, Roberto Marcos García, another local reporter, was
found shot to death near the city of Veracruz. Five other journalists
have been killed in Mexico this year. CPJ has confirmed that one of
the five journalists was slain in connection with his reporting. It
continues to investigate the killings of the others. Sánchez, 31,
left his home in Orizaba, just east of Mendoza, on November 28 with
three people, said Rodolfo Mendoza, administrative director of
Orizaba en Vivo. His car was found abandoned the next day.
The reporter's family and colleagues do not know of any threats
against him, Rodolfo Mendoza told CPJ. However, Martínez was
reportedly involved in criminal activity, including robbery,
according to Mendoza and local press reports. Local prosecutor
Emeterio López Márquez was quoted by the Mexico City newspaper La
Jornada as saying that Sánchez was investigating the activities of a
local gang of thieves. Sánchez normally covered regional politics.
Police have opened an investigation into the murder. "We are saddened
by the death of our colleague Adolfo Sánchez Guzmán, and express our
condolences to his family and friends," said CPJ Executive Director
Joel Simon. "We are gravely concerned by the growing number of
killings of Mexican journalists this year. Given this level of
violence newly inaugurated President Felipe Calderon Hinojosa needs
to strengthen protection for journalists throughout Mexico and
support efforts to bring their killers to justice."
(CPJ is a New York-based, independent, nonprofit organization that
works to safeguard press freedom around the world.)
Source: Committee to Protect Journalists: 12/01
====
CALDERON SWORN IN AS PRESIDENT DESPITE PROTESTS
Felipe Calderon has formally taken the oath of office to become
Mexico's new president, despite a fistfight that erupted in Congress
hours earlier between his supporters and lawmakers seeking to thwart
his inauguration. Calderon received the presidential sash -- the
symbol of Mexico's presidency -- from President Vicente Fox at the
ceremony, amid vociferous howls of protest from opposition lawmakers.
Deputies from the Democratic Revolution Party (PRD) of leftist
candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, who fiercely contested
Calderon's victory and insisted that he won the presidential election
through fraud, had been holed up in the chamber for more than two
days along with members of Calderon's National Action Party (PAN).
Fox had previously presented the sash to Calderon in a symbolic
ceremony at midnight Friday, aimed at thwarting protests in Congress
from leftist legislators. A military cadet held onto the sash until
the formal inauguration. "I am taking over the presidency of the
republic, and with this the legitimate mandate to serve you for the
next six years," Calderon, 44, said in a brief speech at the midnight
ceremony, which was also attended by the new secretaries of defense,
navy and interior. The unprecedented event, broadcast live on
television, took place at the presidential palace at Los Pinos.
Leftist legislators with the opposition PRD had vowed to physically
prevent Calderon from completing the swearing-in ceremony in Congress
on Friday. PRD lawmakers had said they would let the official
inauguration ceremony go forward only if Calderon took office at a
different site and Fox did not attend. They shouted protests and
pumped their fists in the air as the proceedings began Friday, but
did not succeed in preventing the inauguration.
Tensions have been high in Mexico since Lopez Obrador lost the July 2
election by less than one percent of the vote and then led weeks of
disruptive mass protests. Calderon, an attorney and former energy
secretary, said he was "aware of the complexity of the political
moment that we live in and of our differences, but I am convinced
that today we must put an end to our disagreements. "We are entering
a new stage and, for the nation's interest, should overcome our
differences," he said.
In mid-session Tuesday, PAN and PRD legislators rushed for the
chamber rostrum as fists flew. Calderon supporters got there first,
but the opposition legislators camped out next to them and remain
determined to protest the event. The tactic had worked before:
Protesting leftist legislators took over the rostrum in Congress in
September and forced Fox to deliver his state of the union address
elsewhere. Claiming fraud, Lopez Obrador, 53, a popular former mayor
of Mexico City, has rejected Calderon as an "illegitimate president"
who was behind a "coup d'etat" and was sending "Mexico's institutions
to hell."
On November 20, he declared himself the legitimate president of
Mexico, held a swearing-in ceremony and even chose a cabinet. But an
early September poll showed that 74 percent of Mexicans are ready to
accept Calderon as their new president, despite his razor-thin ballot
box victory.
Thirteen presidents and dozens of foreign guests -- including former
US president George Bush, the current US president's father, and
California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, whose state borders Mexico
-- were expected to attend the inauguration. President George W. Bush
telephoned Fox on Thursday while flying back from Jordan to wish him
well as he leaves office, according to White House National Security
Council spokeswoman Kate Starr. However, at least two inauguration
ceremony guests -- the presidents of Ecuador and Peru -- canceled
their visits at the last minute.
Source: AFP: 12/01
====
CALDERON CABINET I: FREE-MARKET APPROACH TO PREVAIL
President-elect Felipe Calderon named a University of Chicago-trained
economist as finance minister and announced five other Cabinet
members, the core of an economic team endorsing free-market policies
as the solution to Mexico's ills. In a move that was widely
anticipated, Calderon selected Agustin Carstens, a respected former
official with the International Monetary Fund, as Mexico's equivalent
of the U.S. Treasury secretary. Carstens has pledged to keep
government spending in check and endorses job creation as the way to
reduce Mexico's grinding poverty. "This is exactly what Wall Street
was asking for," said Alberto Bernal-Leon, an emerging-markets
economist with Bear, Stearns & Co. in New York. Bernal-Leon and other
analysts praised Calderon's team as technically skilled and more
politically savvy than that of Calderon's predecessor Vicente Fox,
whose administration failed repeatedly to pass legislation aimed at
helping Mexico's economy grow faster.
But the party of Calderon's bitter rival, defeated presidential
candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, criticized the selections as
more of the same for a nation that has struggled to create employment
and opportunities for its people. "Today it was decided to continue
with an economic policy that has restrained the country's growth,
that has generated more poverty and social inequality over the last
25 years," said Guadalupe Acosta Naranjo, secretary general of the
Democratic Revolutionary Party.
Calderon named Georgina Kessel Martinez, an economics professor and
former Energy Ministry official, to be the next secretary of energy.
Eduardo Sojo, a public policy coordinator for President Fox, will be
the next secretary of the economy. The president-elect tapped Luis
Tellez, a former energy minister and a member of the former ruling
Institutional Revolutionary Party, to head the Ministry of
Communications and Transport. The Institutional Revolutionary Party,
which is struggling to remain relevant after a thumping in July's
elections, has formed an alliance with Calderon's National Action
Party. Fox appointee Rodolfo Elizondo will continue in his current
post as secretary of tourism. Javier Lozano, former president of
Mexico's Federal Telecommunications Commission, was named secretary
of labor.
The biggest surprise to some observers was Kessel, the only woman
named to the Cabinet so far and one with limited experience in the
energy sector. Modernizing Mexico's state-dominated energy sector is
one of the nation's biggest challenges. Mexico's electricity supply
isn't growing fast enough to keep up with demand, and rates are among
the highest in Latin America. Some have advocated opening the
government electricity and oil monopolies to foreign investors - a
controversial proposition in Mexico, where energy resources are seen
as a sacred national patrimony. Some analysts see Kessel's
appointment as a sign that Calderon won't be pushing hard on that
front at a time when Mexico is so divided. "It's going to be
extremely difficult and therefore quite unlikely that he get serious
energy reform through," said Pamela Starr, Latin America analyst for
the Washington-based Eurasia Group. "This is recognition of that
reality."
Another of Calderon's Cabinet choices would appear to reveal his
unwillingness to take on the business oligopolies that analysts say
are stifling competition and economic growth. Lozano, a Calderon
loyalist and a telecommunications expert, was seen as a natural to
head the Ministry of Communications and Transport. Some believe he
was given the labor post instead because he had spoken out against
the dominance of Mexico's telephone and television giants, whose
backers were instrumental in getting Calderon elected. "Lozano
criticized the communications monopolies. That was his sin," said Leo
Zuckermann, a researcher and political analyst at the Center for
Economic Research and Teaching in Mexico City.
Source: Los Angeles Times: 11/22
====
CALDERON CABINET II: FILL IT WITH FRIENDS
President-elect Felipe Calderon appointed close friends and party
allies to key Cabinet positions, a sign that he is closing ranks in
the face of street-level opposition to his narrowly won presidency.
The appointees reflect the conservative social and fiscal views of
Calderon and his National Action Party, or PAN, and contrast with his
promise made during his bitter campaign against leftist Andres Manuel
Lopez Obrador that he would appoint a multi-party Cabinet.
Calderon named a hard-liner and longtime family friend, outgoing
Jalisco Gov. Francisco Ramirez Acuña, as interior secretary, a
domestic security post considered the government's second-most
powerful job. Ramirez's first order of business will be to restore
calm in Oaxaca, where thousands of protesters seeking the ouster of
the state governor have controlled parts of the city since summer.
Fox's interior secretary, Carlos Abascal, negotiated an end to the
teachers strike that triggered the protests but failed to negotiate a
settlement with remaining dissidents. Street violence flared again
over the weekend, and the state supreme court building was burned.
Signaling his frustration with the Fox government's failure in
Oaxaca, Calderon said Ramirez, a former congressman who will leave
his governor's post two months early, would not be afraid to use his
authority. "During his career as a governor and representative,
Ramirez Acuña has confirmed the need and value of dialogue, and at
the same time the inalienable responsibility of the ruler to uphold
the law," Calderon said.
Ramirez was criticized by human rights groups for failing to
investigate police-abuse claims lodged by dozens of protesters
arrested during a May 2004 summit of European and Latin American
leaders in Guadalajara. That same week, Ramirez showed his loyalty to
Calderon, whose father was a PAN founder and a longtime supporter of
Ramirez. The governor was the host of a dinner where Calderon, then
Fox's energy secretary, was introduced to a cheering crowd as PAN's
next presidential candidate. Fox was furious, and Calderon soon
resigned to run against Fox's preferred candidate.
Calderon also announced the appointment of Juan Camilo Mourino, a
close campaign advisor, as Cabinet secretary, a post similar to the
White House chief of staff; Patricia Espinosa Castellano, a career
diplomat with a doctorate from Oxford, will head the Foreign
Ministry. Another key campaign advisor and diplomat, Arturo Sarukhan,
will oversee U.S.-Mexico relations.
Source: Los Angeles Times: 11/29
====
CALDERON WILL BEGIN TO FALL FROM THE DAY HE TAKES OFFICE, WARNS ZAPATISTAS
December 1, the day that Felipe Calderon takes office, will be "the
beginning of the end for a political system that, since the Mexican
Revolution, became deformed and began to cheat generation after
generation, until this one arrived and said, 'Enough,'" warned
Subcomandante Marcos during a press conference. Calderon, he added,
"will begin to fall from his first day." He stated, "we are on the
eve of either a great uprising or a civil war." As to the question of
who would lead the uprising, he responded, "the people, each one in
his or her own place, within a system of mutual support. If we can
not succeed in having it happen that way, there will have to be
spontaneous uprisings, civil explosions all over, a civil war in
which each person is only looking out for his or her own well-being,
because the possibility is already there for things to cross that
line." He cited the case of Oaxaca, where "there are no leaders or
political bosses; it is the people themselves who have organized. It
will be like that across the entire country."
With respect to the current phase of the Other Campaign, he
explained, "after the Zapatistas lifted the veil that was obscuring
the reality of indigenous communities in Chiapas, we ventured out to
find poverty in the countryside and in the cities, and now we see it
on the coast as well. In this country, there is a facade being
propped up by the political parties, and recently by Vicente Fox,
that says everything is fine." In the case of the northern part of
the country, he added, it "is chilling" how different reality is from
what they say it is: "they say the north supports the PAN, that they
love Fox, that everyone lives well. But what we saw was equal to what
is happening in the most humble of indigenous communities in the
southwest." He posited that Oaxaca is "an indicator" of what is
happening across the country. "In Nuevo Laredo, they told us that the
problem in Tamaulipas is that everyone here is like Ulises Ruiz: the
municipal president, the state congress, the governor. There are too
many in the mold of Ulises Ruiz and the people are getting tired of
it. If there is not a civil and peaceful way out, which is what we
propose in the Other Campaign, it will turn into each person finding
their own way however they can." He continued, "we do not recognize
the official president or the legitimate one. What happens at the top
does not matter at all to us. What matters is what will arise from
below. When we carry out this uprising, we will do away will the
entire political class, including those who call themselves the
'parliamentary leftists.'"
With regard to the violence and power of drug trafficking, he
asserted that these provide "another facade," which affects the
northern states more than anything, where the central focus is on
security, and not on the situation of poverty that exists. "The
conflicts between drug traffickers, or between drug traffickers and
security forces, or between drug traffickers and politicians, are
overstated, because we know that the politicians are in league with
some of the drug cartels. Meanwhile, the fundamental is forgotten;
for example, what is happening in Playa Bagdad, Nuevo Laredo or
Reynosa, to mention Tamaulipas. These places only make it into the
news when there are clashes between groups of criminals, while what
is happening to the people who are working and struggling is
forgotten."
Source: La Jornada: 11/24
====
JUAREZ FEMICIDES: JUST A DROP IN THE OCEAN OF WOMEN'S BLOOD
Ciudad Juarez in Mexico has been dubbed "the femicide capital" of the
world by human rights organizations because about 400 women have been
killed there in the last 13 years. But murders of women are also
frequent elsewhere in Mexico, as well as in Guatemala and El
Salvador, and so far there is little public discussion about them. An
average of 1,000 women a year were murdered in Mexico, a country of
103 million, between 1995 and 2005, according to official figures.
Ciudad Juarez does not even appear on the list of the places where
the largest number of killings occurred -- instead, they are Toluca,
a city close to the capital, and Guadalajara, in the central state of
Jalisco.
And across the border in Guatemala, which has a population of 13
million, 566 women were killed in the first 10 months of this year,
while in El Salvador, a country of 6.9 million, 286 were killed
between January and August.
Despite the high numbers, these crimes have not enjoyed the same
notoriety as in Ciudad Juarez, on Mexico's border with the United
States, where they have been the object of an outcry by human rights
groups, investigations by United Nations rapporteurs, films,
documentaries and books. "Juarez has become a by-word as a result of
all the denunciations and demonstrations that the femicides there
have provoked, but in other Mexican cities, and particularly in
Guatemala, the situation now is extremely serious," Teresa Rodrmguez,
head of the United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM) for
Mexico, Central America, Cuba and the Dominican Republic, told IPS.
"We are very concerned about these murders, which for the most part
go unpunished," Rodrmguez said ahead of the International Day for the
Elimination of Violence against Women, which since 1999 is
commemorated on Nov. 25. "There is a culture that continues to turn a
blind eye to this situation, and we cannot tolerate it. It must be
combated and prevented by means of public policies, but also, as has
happened in Ciudad Juarez, it must be exposed and denounced, and we
have to make it clear that these killings are not normal, just as
violence against women and girls in general is not normal," she said.
Femicide is a term that has been coined for misogynist or
gender-motivated murders of women, sometimes accompanied by sexual
violence.
In Ciudad Juarez, located next to the U.S. border town of El Paso,
about 400 women have been murdered since 1993. Sexual violence was
involved in 78 of these crimes, according to official reports. The
Special Prosecutor's Office Investigating Crimes Related to Violence
Against Women, created by the outgoing Vicente Fox administration,
reported in February that there is no pattern indicative of serial
killings in Juarez, contrary to what human rights organizations have
claimed. The report also said that 125 women died in their own homes,
at the hands of relatives or acquaintances. UNIFEM estimates that
between 20 and 30 percent of murdered women in Mexico and Central
America are killed by their partners or relatives.
In Juarez, most of the murdered women were in the 15-30 age group,
and many were from low-income social strata and worked in maquiladora
factories, which operate in tax-free zones and assemble products for
export using imported materials. These factories are concentrated in
Ciudad Juarez and other Mexican cities along the U.S. border. Their
work force mainly consists of young women, many of whom are living
away from their families.
Although the Guatemalan context is different, the killings are
similar. Deputy Nineth Montenegro, chair of the Guatemalan
Congressional Commission on Women, said on Nov. 20 that 566 women had
been murdered in her country between January and October. Femicides
in Guatemala are attributed mainly to drug trafficking, organized
crime and youth gangs. Montenegro said that in most of these deaths
the motive remained unknown, and it was evident that these crimes
were treated as of little importance, as they were spreading and
taking root in society.
UNIFEM's regional director said that there was a lot of work to be
done to curb and prevent the killing of women. "Better training is
needed for the police and in the justice system. These sectors are
especially lagging in Central America, but now draft laws towards
that end are being debated," she said. The "In-depth study on all
forms of violence against women", published in July by the United
Nations, mentioned the Ciudad Juarez murders for the zillionth time,
but also referred to the killings in Guatemala. "Femicide occurs
everywhere, but the scale of some cases of femicide within community
contexts -- for example, in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico and Guatemala --
has drawn attention to this aspect of violence against women," the
report said. In line with the complaints by human rights groups and
women's organizations, the U.N. states in its report that "impunity
for these crimes is seen as a key factor in these occurrences."
The report does not mention El Salvador, but the situation there is
also very serious. Between January and August, 286 murders of women
were reported in El Salvador, indicating an increase in the annual
average of such deaths. From 2001 to the end of 2005, 1,320 women
were killed, according to a study by the Office of the Human Rights
Ombudsperson (PDDH). Sixty percent of these killings, most of which
were committed in a domestic setting, remain unpunished. Rodrmguez
hopes that the exposure and denunciation of femicides in El Salvador,
Guatemala and several cities in Mexico will encourage civil society
and governments to create new programs and actions to combat them,
for what is happening "is totally unacceptable."
Source: InterPress Service: 11/24
====
DIRTY WAR UPDATE: NEW ARREST WARRANT IS ISSUED FOR EX-LEADER
A Mexican court reinstated an arrest warrant for former President
Luis Echeverria just four months after a federal judge dismissed the
same charges of genocide in a 1968 student massacre. It was unclear
whether police would immediately try to serve the warrant for
Echeverria, 84, who likely would face house arrest because of his
age. Echeverria's attorney, Juan Velasquez, confirmed the arrest
warrant had been reinstated on an appeal by prosecutors. The court
accepted prosecutors' arguments that Echeverria was protected from
prosecution until he left office Dec. 1, 1976, and that the 30-year
statute of limitations should be calculated from that date.
Echeverria, who was president of Mexico from 1970 to 1976, was the
country's interior secretary Oct. 2, 1968, when soldiers opened fire
on a student pro-democracy demonstration in Mexico City's Tlatelolco
Plaza just before the capital hosted the Summer Olympics. Official
reports said 25 people were killed, but rights activists say as many
as 350 may have died. Prosecutors have had little success in trying
Echeverria or other top officials for killings and disappearances
under a government campaign against leftists in the 1960s and '70s.
Echeverria was placed under house arrest in Mexico City in June - the
first time a warrant has been served against a former Mexican
president. But the case was dismissed in July after a judge ruled the
statute of limitations had expired.
Source: Associated Press: 11/29
====
The above articles were originally published and copyrighted by the
listed sources. These articles are offered for educational purposes
which CIS maintains is 'fair use' of copyrighted material as
provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law.
end: Mexico Week In Review: 11.27-12.03
--
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