Mexican Movement of 1968
Mexican Movement of 1968 | |
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Part of Protests of 1968 and Mexican Dirty War | |
Date | 26 July 1968 – 2 October 1968 |
Location | |
Caused by | |
Goals | Democratic changes, civil liberties, freedom for Student strike , demonstrations, assemblies, social organization |
Resulted in |
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The Mexican Movement of 1968, also known as the Mexican Student Movement (Movimiento Estudiantil) was a social movement composed of a broad coalition of students from Mexico's leading universities that garnered widespread public support for political change in Mexico. A major factor in its emergence publicly was the Mexican government's lavish spending to build Olympic facilities for the 1968 Olympics in Mexico City. The movement demanded greater political freedoms and an end to the authoritarianism of the PRI regime, which had been in power since 1929.
Student mobilization on the campuses of the
The movement had a list of demands for Mexican president Gustavo Díaz Ordaz and the government of Mexico for specific student issues as well as broader ones, especially the reduction or elimination of authoritarianism. Simultaneous with the movement in Mexico and influencing it were global protests of 1968. Demands in Mexico were for a democratic change in the country, more political and civil liberties, the reduction of inequality and the resignation of the government of the ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) that they considered authoritarian and by then had governed Mexico since 1929, with only weak political opposition.
The political movement was violently suppressed by the government following a series of mass demonstrations and culminating in a massacre of participants in a peaceful demonstration on 2 October 1968, known as the Tlatelolco massacre. There were lasting changes in Mexican political and cultural life because of the 1968 mobilization.[1]
Background
For several years prior to the protests, Mexico had experienced a period of strong economic performance called the
Student activism prior to 1968
Student activism in Mexico was traditionally largely confined to issues dealing with their circumstances while studying at university. There were two strikes at the National Polytechnic Institute in 1942 and 1956, as well as a strike at the National Teachers' School (Escuela Nacional de Maestras) in 1950, organized by the Federación de Estudiantes y Campesinos Socialistas de México (FECSUM).
In the 1960s, the Mexican government wanted to showcase its economic progress to the world by hosting the 1968 Olympics in Mexico City. Economic growth had not been spread evenly, and students saw an opportunity to bring reforms and more democracy to Mexico.[5][6] Arising from reaction to the government's violent repression of fights between rival groups of preparatory students, 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.[7]
Mexico City Olympic Games
The
Sparking events of the student movement
On July 22 and 23, 1968, a confrontation took place between students at Vocational Schools #2 and #5—affiliated with the
On 26 July 1968 there were two simultaneous demonstrations took place, one summoned students from the IPN to protest the assault of the grenadiers on students from Vocational School 5. The other demonstration was organized by the Estudiantes Democráticos, a Communist youth organization that was holding a "Youth March for July 26" demonstration commemorated the 15th anniversary of the 1952 assault on the Moncada barracks in Cuba and in solidarity with the Cuban Revolution. The two demonstrations intersected and joined together, marching to the Zócalo. However, they were prevented from entering the central square by mounted police. In the following days, students demonstrated in the streets of downtown Mexico City and set fire to empty buses. During this period hundreds were injured and perhaps a thousand were jailed. Some students fled to the San Ildefonso Preparatory School, where police blew open the 18th century carved wooden door with a bazooka. The government claimed that all the agitation and the official response concerned the Mexican Communist Party. What had been a relatively low-level local police matter was "elevated ... to an issue of national security."[14] The Attorney General of the Republic, Julio Sánchez Vargas, issued arrest warrants against "people linked to the disorders", among them were several members of the Mexican Communist Party (PCM).
On 1 August 1968, the rector of the UNAM,
August to October 1968
National Strike Council (CNH)
Following the protest march led by UNAM's rector, students from several institutions formed the National Strike Council (Consejo Nacional de Huelga or CNH), which organized all subsequent protests against the Díaz Ordaz government.[18][page needed] The CNH was a democratic delegation of students from 70 universities and preparatory schools in Mexico; it coordinated protests to promote social, educational, and political reforms.[19] At its apex, the CNH had 240 student delegates and made all decisions by majority vote, had equal representation by female students, and reduced animosity among rival institutions.[20] Raúl Álvarez Garín, Sócrates Campos Lemus, Marcelino Perelló, and Gilberto Guevara Niebla served as the four de facto leaders of the CNH.[21] As the world focused on Mexico City for the Olympics, the CNH leaders sought to gain peaceful progress for festering political and social grievances. Sergio Zermeño has argued that the students were united by a desire for democracy, but their understanding of what democracy meant varied widely.[7]
The movement began to gain support from students outside the capital and from other segments of society, which continued to build until that October. Students formed brigadas (brigades), groups of six or more students who distributed leaflets about the issues in the streets, markets, and most often on public buses.[22] These organizations, the smallest units of the CNH, decided the scope and issues which the student movement would take up. These included both rural and urban concerns.[23] The brigadistas boarded buses to speak to the passengers about the government's corruption and repression, while others distributed leaflets and collected donations.[24] Eventually, the passengers and bus drivers began to sympathize with the students' demands for democracy and justice, and the students collected increasing amounts of money.[25] But the aggressive militancy among the students began to disillusion some bus drivers about the students' motives, and they suspected the youths of seeking power for its own sake.[21]
Protests at UNAM
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."[21] 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.[21] 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.[21] 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.
Silence March
The Silence March was a silent demonstration that took place on September 13, meant to prove that the movement was not a series of riots but had discipline and self-control.[21]
September Occupation of IPN (the Polytechnic)
Students began to prepare for defensive operations in other institutions. They put on a much stronger resistance when the police and the army tried to occupy the
The Polytechnic students held their campuses against the army for more than twelve hours, which aroused strong opposition by the government. The French journal L'Express stated that 15 people died in the battles and that more than one thousand bullets were fired; the government reported three dead and 45 injured people.[27] Students from the Santo Tomás campus who were arrested in the occupations later said that they had been concentrated for defense in the entry lobbies. The military shot students at random and some of their friends did not survive.[citation needed]
Tlatelolco massacre
The movement was permanently repressed by the government and finally tried to annihilate on the Tlatelolco massacre on October 2, 1968. The massacre was planned and executed under the code name Operation Galeana, by the paramilitary group called Olimpia Battalion, the Federal Security Direction (DFS), then the so-called Secret Police and the Mexican Army simulating a shooting in the Plaza de las Tres Culturas after the conclusion of a concentration of the CNH. One year after, in 1969, President Gustavo Díaz Ordaz – also a CIA informant – assumed responsibility for the massacre. On October 2, 1968, at 5 PM in the
Government strategies to counter the movement
During the presidency of Vicente Fox (2000-2006), his administration created a commission to investigate the Mexican government's activities during the so-called dirty war. The report, Informe Documenta sobre 18 años de "Guerra Sucia" en México, written by the
Fiscal Especial: Responsabilidad del Estado en Cientos de Asesinatos y Desapariciones, was digitally published in draft form.
Aftermath of the 1968 Movement
This social movement brought unavoidable consequences which permanently changed the future of Mexico,
The major change caused by this movement came at a political level. The citizens had the opportunity to live a new democracy in which their opinion could actually bring change in society. People no longer completely trusted the government and would no longer live completely under the conscious control of their government, nor tolerate it anymore,
Human rights violations
Twenty-two years after the Government of Mexico established a Special Prosecutor for the Social and Political Movements of the Past, the Fiscalía Especial para Movimientos Sociales y Políticos del Pasado (FEMOSSP).[31] After the reopening of the case, it was concluded that the movement marked an inflection "in the political times of Mexico" and was "independent, rebellious and close to civil resistance", the latter officially recognizing the main argument of Gustavo Díaz Ordaz's official version that the reason behind the movement was the aim to install a Communist regime as false.[31] With this argument the Mexican government justified its strategy to combat the movement and characterizing it as a foreign risk with terrorists pretensions.[31]
In that order the Mexican government planned and ordered an extermination campaign during the months of the movement and after based on a massive strategy of
Some victims of the Tlatelolco massacre tried to sue the October 2 killings on national and international courts as a
References
- ^ Jesús Vargas Valdez "Student Movement of 1968" in Encyclopedia of Mexico, Chicago: Fitzroy Dearborn 1997, pages 1379-1382
- ^ Enrique Krauze, Mexico: Biography of Power. New York: HarperCollins 1997: 680-685
- ^ https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu//NSAEBB/NSAEBB180/030_Movimiento%20de%201968.pdf [bare URL PDF]
- ^ quoted in Krauze, Mexico: Biography of Power, p. 690.
- ^ Trufelman, Avery (28 June 2017). "Mexico 68". 99% Invisible. Retrieved 14 July 2017.
- ^ "Mexican students protest for greater democracy, 1968". Global Nonviolent Action Database.
- ^ a b ""La democracia, punto de unión universal entre quienes animamos ese movimiento, se vuelve un espejismo cuando nos acercamos tratando de precisar su contenido." See Sergio Zermeño, México, una democracia utópica: El movimiento estudiantil del 68, 5th Edition (Mexico City: Siglo Veitiuno, 1985), 1.
- ^ a b c Ponitowska, Elena (September 1998). "Son cuerpos, señor...". Equis. pp. 3–8.
- ^ a b Xypolia, Ilia (2013). Gokay, Bulent; Xypolia, Ilia (eds.). "Turmoils and Economic Miracles: Turkey '13 and Mexico '68" (PDF). Keele, UK: Keele European Research Centre. p. 33.
- ^ Enrique Krauze, Mexico: Biography of Power, p. 694
- ^ Jesús Vargas Valdez. "Student Movement of 1968" in Encyclopedia of Mexico: History, Society & Culture. Vol. 2 Chicago: Fitzroy Dearborn Publishers, 1997, p. 1379.
- ^ Earl Shorris. The Life and Times of Mexico. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2004.
- ^ Poniatowska, Elena 1991
- ^ Krauze, Mexico: Biography of Power, p. 695.
- ^ Krauze, Mexico: Biography of Power, p. 696.
- ^ a b Donald C. Hodges and Ross Gandy. Mexico, the End of the Revolution, Westport, Connecticut: Praeger, 2001.
- .
- ^ Donald C. Hodges and Ross Gandy. Mexico: the End of the Revolution. Westport, Connecticut: Praeger, 2001.
- ^ .Jesús Vargas Valdez, "Student Movement of 1968" in Encyclopedia of Mexico. Fitzroy Dearbon 1997, pp. 1379-1382
- ^ Vargas Valdez, "Student Movement of 1968.
- ^ a b c d e f g Poniatowska, Elena. Massacre in Mexico, trans. Helen R. Lane Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1991.
- ^ Vargas Valdez, "Student Movement of 1968
- ^ Vargas Valdez, "Student Movement of 1968"
- ^ Vargas Valdez. "Student Movement of 1968"
- ^ Vargas Valdez "Student Movement of 1968"
- ^ Justo Igor de León Loyola, La noche de Santo Tomás, Ediciones de Cultura Popular, Mexico, 1988.
- ^ a b Juan Arvizu Arrioja, "México 68: Toman Casco de Santo Tomás tras 12 horas de combate", El universal, Mexico, 22 September 2008.
- ^ a b González, Víctor M. (June 2003). "México 1968...¡No se olvida!". Instituto Tecnológico y de Estudios Superiores de Occidente. Archived from the original on November 3, 2007. Retrieved 2007-11-07.
- ^ Youtube footage in which flare drop is visible. Footage was recorded secretly by the government on the day of the massacre. See: Radiodiaries.org
- ^ a b Informe Documenta sobre 18 años de "Guerra Sucia" en México. Fiscal Especial: Responsabilidad del Estado en Cientos de Asesinatos y Desapariciones https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu//NSAEBB/NSAEBB180/030_Movimiento%20de%201968.pdf accessed 17 March 2019
- ^ ISBN 9789700510262.
- ^ Morley Jefferson (18 October 2006). "LITEMPO: Los ojos de la CIA en Tlatelolco (Litempo: the CIA's eyes on Tlatelolco)". National Security Archive.
Further reading
- Pensado, Jaime M. and Enrique C. Ochoa, eds. México Beyond 1968: Revolutionaries, Radicals, and Repression During the Global Sixties and Subversive Seventies. Tucson: University of Arizona Press 2018. ISBN 978-0-8165-3842-3
- Villanueva, Carla Irina. "'For the Liberation of Exploited Youth': Campesino-Students, the FECSM, and Mexican Student Politics in the 1960s". In Pensado and Ochoa, Mexico Beyond 1968, pp. 134-152.