Tlatelolco massacre

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Memorial stele dedicated to the massacre victims at Tlatelolco.

The Tlatelolco massacre, also known as the Night of Tlatelolco (from a book title by the Mexican writer Elena Poniatowska), was a killing of an estimated 30 to 300 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 10 days before the opening of the 1968 Summer Olympics in Mexico City. More than 1,300 people were arrested by security police. There has been no consensus on how many were killed that day in the plaza area.

At the time the government and the mainstream media in Mexico claimed that government forces had been provoked by protesters shooting at them.[1] But government documents made public since 2000 suggest that the snipers had been employed by the government. Estimates of the death toll ranged from 30 to 300, with eyewitnesses reporting hundreds dead.[2][3][4][5][6][7] According to US national security archives, Kate Doyle, a Senior Analyst of US policy in Latin America, documented the deaths of 44 people.[8] The head of the Federal Directorate of Security reported the arrests of 1,345 people on October 2.[9]


Main article: Mexico 68


Dissent Magazine [10]

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 $7.5 billion by today's terms.[11] Mexican President Gustavo Díaz Ordaz struggled to maintain peace during a time of rising social tensions but suppressed movements by labor unions and farmers to improve their lot. He wanted to present the country in a positive light without protests. 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.[12]

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 understandings of what democracy meant varied widely.[13]

National Strike Council (CNH)[edit]

Students demonstration, August 13, 1968.

Officially formed after the Mexican government's violation of university autonomy during the summer of 1968, the National Strike Council (Consejo Nacional de Huelga or CNH) organized all subsequent protests against the Diaz Ordaz government.[14][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.[15] 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.[15] Raúl Álvarez Garín, Sócrates Campos Lemus, Marcelino Perelló, and Gilberto Guevara Niebla served as the four de facto leaders of the CNH.[12] As the world focused on Mexico City for the Olympics, the CNH leaders sought to gain peaceful progress for festering political and social grievances.

The CNH demanded:[16]

  3. Freedom for political prisoners.

Assault on Vocational School #5[edit]


On July 23, 1968, the police entered with force into Vocational School #5; they claimed it was to capture members of street gangs who had enrolled in the school.[15] The granaderos (riot police) were used by the Mexican government to control and suppress the student demonstrators and they were first used against the students in July 1968. However, the riot police assaulted numerous students and teachers in the process of clearing Vocational School #5.[17] In an informal interview with some granaderos, Antonio Careaga recounted that, "the granaderos said that the authorities gave the men in the riot squad thirty pesos (three dollars) for every student they clubbed and hauled off to jail."[12]

The student movement began to coalesce after the government's assault on Vocational School #5, which marked the first major infringement on student autonomy. 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.[15] These parochial 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.[15] The brigadistas would board buses to speak to the passengers about the government's corruption and repression, while others distributed leaflets and collected donations.[15] 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.[15] 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.[12]

Protest at UNAM[edit]


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.[18]

The August 27 student demonstration on Juárez Avenue.


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."[12] 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.[12] 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.[12] 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.

Occupation of IPN (the Polytechnic)[edit]

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 Polytechnic campuses of Zacatenco and Santo Tomas. The battle lasted from 17:00 hours on September 23 to the early hours of September 24.[12] The physician Justo Igor de León Loyola wrote in his book, La Noche de Santo Tomás (Santo Tomas' night): Today I have seen bloodier fights, unequal battles: Both sides are armed... but what a difference in the weapons, handguns caliber 22 against military rifles M-1, bazookas against Molotov bombs.[19][20]

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.[20] Students from the Santo Tomas campus who were arrested in the occupations later said that they had been concentrated for defense in the entry lobbies. The military shot at them randomly and some of their friends did not survive.[citation needed]


Students in a burned bus.

On 2 October 1968, around 10,000 university and high school students gathered in the Plaza de las Tres Culturas to protest the government's actions and listen peacefully to speeches.[15] Many men and women not associated with the CNH gathered in the plaza to watch and listen; they included neighbors from the Residential complex, bystanders and children. The students had congregated outside the Chihuahua Building, a three-moduled thirteen-story apartment complex in the Plaza de las Tres Culturas. Among their chants were ¡No queremos olimpiadas, queremos revolución! ("We don't want Olympics, we want revolution!"). Rally organizers did not try to call off the protest when they noticed an increased military presence in the area.

Two helicopters, one from the police, and another one from the army, flew over the plaza. Around 5:55 P.M. red flares were shot from the nearby S.R.E. (Mexican Ministry of Foreign Relations) tower. Around 6:15 P.M. another two flares were shot, this time from a helicopter (one was green and another one was red) as 5,000 soldiers, 200 tankettes[21] and trucks surrounded the plaza.[15] Much of what proceeded after the first shots were fired in the plaza remained ill defined for decades after 1968. Records and information released by American and Mexican government sources since 2000 have enabled researchers to study the events and draw new conclusions.

The question of who fired first remained unresolved years after the massacre. The Mexican government said gunfire from the surrounding apartments prompted the army's attack. But the students said that the helicopters appeared to signal the army to fire into the crowd. Journalist Elena Poniatowska culled interviews from those present and described events in her book Massacre in Mexico: "Flares suddenly appeared in the sky overhead and everyone automatically looked up. The first shots were heard then. The crowd panicked…[and] started running in all directions."[12] Despite CNH efforts to restore order, the crowd on the plaza quickly fell into chaos.

Shortly thereafter, the Olympia Battalion, a secret government branch made for the security of the Olympic Games composed of soldiers, police officers, and federal security agents,[21] were ordered to arrest the leaders of the CNH and advanced into the plaza. The Olympia Battalion members wore white gloves or white handkerchiefs tied to their left hands to distinguish themselves from the civilians and prevent the soldiers from shooting them.[12] Captain Ernesto Morales Soto stated that "immediately upon sighting a flare in the sky, the prearranged signal, we were to seal off the aforementioned two entrances and prevent anyone from entering or leaving."[12]

The ensuing assault into the plaza left dozens dead and many more wounded in its aftermath. The soldiers responded by firing into the nearby buildings and onto the crowd, hitting not only the protesters, but also watchers and bystanders. Demonstrators and passersby alike, including youngsters, journalists (one of which was Italian Oriana Fallaci), and children, were hit by bullets, and mounds of bodies soon lay on the ground. Meanwhile, on the Chihuahua building, where the speakers stood, Olympia Battalion members pushed people and ordered them to lie on the ground near the elevator walls. People claim these men were the people who shot first at the soldiers and the crowd.[21]

Video evidence also points out that at least two companies of the Olympia Battalion hid themselves in the nearby apartment buildings, including setting up a machine gun in an apartment on the Molino del Rey Building, where a sister-in-law of then-Secretary of State Luis Echeverría lived; the church of Santiago de Tlatelolco, where snipers were positioned into the roof; the nearby convent and the Foreign Relations Tower, where there were many people involved including -but not limited to- the ones who fired the first two flares; a machine gun on the 19th floor; and a video camera on the 17th floor. Interestingly enough, video evidence shows 10 white-gloved men leaving the church and bumping into soldiers, who point their weapons at them. One of the men shows what appears to be an ID, and they are let go.[21]


3000 attendees were taken to the convent next to the church and were left there until early in the morning, most of these being people that had little to nothing in common with the students and were only neighbors, bystanders, passersby and others who were on the plaza just to listen to the speech. Other witnesses claim that in the later days, Olympia Battalion members would disguise themselves as light and water employees and inspect the houses in search of students.


Most of the Mexican media reported that the students provoked the army's murderous response with sniper fire from the apartment buildings surrounding the plaza. El Día '​s morning headline on October 3, 1968 read as followed: "Criminal Provocation at the Tlatelolco Meeting Causes Terrible Bloodshed." The government-controlled media dutifully reported the Mexican government's side of the events that night, but the truth eventually emerged: A 2001 investigation revealed documents showing that the snipers were members of the Presidential Guard, who were instructed to fire on the military forces in order to provoke them.[22]

Investigation and response[edit]




President Fox also appointed Ignacio Carrillo Prieto in 2002 to prosecute those responsible for ordering the massacre.[25] In 2006, former President Luis Echeverría was arrested on charges of genocide. However, in March 2009, after a convoluted appeal process, the genocide charges against Echeverria were dismissed. The Mexican newspaper The News reported that "a tribunal of three circuit court judges ruled that there was not enough proof to link Echeverria to the violent suppression of hundreds of protesting students on Oct. 2, 1968."[26] Despite the ruling, prosecutor Carrillo Prieto said he would continue his investigation and seek charges against Echeverria before the United Nations International Court of Justice and the Inter-American Human Rights Commission.[26]

US government records[edit]


The old foreign ministry building sits where the event took place.

The documents detail:


In 1993, in remembrance of the 25th anniversary of the events, a stele was dedicated with the names of a few of the students and persons who lost their lives during the event. The Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation has a mural commemorating the massacre.

During June 2006, days before the controversial presidential election of 2006, 84-year-old Echeverría was charged with genocide in connection with the massacre. He was placed under house arrest pending trial. In early July of that year (after the presidential elections), he was cleared of genocide charges, as the judge found that Echeverría could not be put on trial because the statute of limitations had expired.


Media portrayals[edit]


Alejandro Jodorowsky dramatized the massacre in The Holy Mountain (1973), with birds, fruits, vegetables, liquids and other things falling and being ripped out of the wounds of the dying students.


Richard Dindo, a documentary filmmaker, has made Ni olvido, ni perdón (2004),[29] which includes contemporary interviews with witnesses and participants as well as footage from the time.

A new feature film, Tlatelolco, verano del '68,[30] released in Mexico, November, 2012, written and directed by Carlos Bolado.

Roberto Bolaño released Amulet, a Spanish-language novel, in 1999,[31] recounting the tragedy from the point of view of a woman named Auxilio. Auxilio was caught in the university bathroom at the time of the police ambush. Chris Andrews' English translation of the novel was published in 2005 by New Directions.

Borrar de la Memoria, a movie about a journalist who investigates a girl who was killed in July 1968 lightly touches the massacre, which is filmed by Roberto Rentería, a C.U.E.C. student who was making a documentary about said girl, known popularly as La empaquetada for the way her dismembered body was found inside a box.

40th anniversary march[edit]


See also[edit]


  1. ^ Kara Michelle Borden, Mexico '68: An Analysis of the Tlatelolco Massacre and its Legacy, University of Oregon thesis, p. 3.
  8. ^ >
  11. ^ Henry Giniger. "Hundreds Seized in Mexico Clashes," New York Times. September 23, 1968.
  18. ^ a b Donald C. Hodges and Ross Gandy. Mexico, the End of the Revolution, Westport, Connecticut: Praeger, 2001.
  20. ^ a b Juan Arvizu Arrioja, "México 68: Toman Casco de Santo Tomás tras 12 horas de combate", El universal, Mexico, 22 September 2008.
  27. ^
  28. ^ University of Melbourne
  29. ^ Tlatelolco massacre at the Internet Movie Database
  30. ^ Tlatelolco massacre at the Internet Movie Database
  31. ^

Further reading[edit]

External links[edit]

Coordinates: 19°27′05″N 99°08′11″W﻿ / ﻿19.4515°N 99.1365°W﻿ / 19.4515; -99.1365