The Tlatelolco massacre

On the evening of October 2, 1968, thousands of students and residents gathered in the Plaza of the Three Cultures in the Tlatelolco district of Mexico City. Helicopters dropped flares, and soldiers and members of a plainclothes unit called the Olimpia Battalion opened fire. The government first said four people were killed. Researchers and journalists have estimated hundreds, and some say more than 300, but the true number has never been established.¹

The student movement began in July 1968 after police broke up a fight between students, and grew into a demand for civil liberties, release of political prisoners and an end to police repression. It challenged an authoritarian system run by the ruling PRI under President Gustavo Diaz Ordaz. The government feared disruption before the Olympic Games, the first in Latin America, which opened on October 12. The army had occupied the national university in September.¹

Mexico's government denied responsibility for decades. Declassified documents, including US reports, later pointed to government planning of the operation. In 2002 a special prosecutor was appointed, and in 2006 former president Luis Echeverria, who was Diaz Ordaz's interior minister, was charged with genocide, but courts dismissed the case. October 2 is now commemorated each year with marches. The massacre damaged the credibility of the PRI regime and is seen as a turning point toward Mexico's slow democratization.²⁴¹