editor’s Note: from July 23, Animal politician presents journalistic materials to know facts, names and key moments of the student movement of the 68 who lived in Mexico.
the chronology is published in real time, end to convey the intensity with which they lived those days and is, thus, a better understanding of how it arose and was braked at a very high price the most important social political movement of the 20th century.
is much to know and understand: 50 years later still do not know why a student Brawl – like many that there were previously – detonated the brutal repression of the Government.
what is true is that the 68 was, is much more than the October 2 massacre. there was a context that explains it. And thats how I present them here:
Mexico City, September 1, 1968: before the plenum of the Congress of the Union, President Gustavo Díaz Ordaz made an extensive allusion to the student movement, he dismissed as a conspiracy to “sow the” disorder, confusion, and the rancor”, and launched a warning anything evening on the use of military force to put an end to”excesses”:”we have been tolerant to criticized excesses; but everything has its limit and we cannot let that continue forever breaking the rule of law, as it has been happening in the eyes of the world.”[1]
during his message on the occasion of the IV report of Government, the President argued that his Government has tried to open a dialogue, but that his intentions to find a peaceful exit has stumbled upon the closure of those who seek to create chaos in the country, and to prevent the holding of the next Olympic Games.
Therefore invoked bluntly to article 89 of the Constitution, which empowers the President to use the armed forces to ensure peace of mind: “media that advise the good judgment and experience have been exhausted, exercise, wherever strictly necessary, the Faculty contained in article 89, fraction VI, of the Constitution which, literally, says: ‘ the powers and duties of the President are as follows: have all of permanent armed force or army land, of the Navy and air force for internal security and external defence of the Federation ‘ “.”[2]
before continuous applause from the political class – almost in its entirety, belonging to the PRI-, special guests and representatives of foreign Governments, the President of the Republic left no doubts about the meaning of your message: “, you do not want to see us in the case measures that do not want, but take if necessary; What ours should be done, we will do it; to where you are obliged to arrive, arrive”.[3]
“hatred is not born in me” Diaz Ordaz insisted that he has sought peaceful exits to the situation that exists in the country. “I invited to view with objectivity the facts and face them with serene equanimity, calling the dialogue”, he said and not concealed their discomfort by the response he received once the past 1 August, during a tour in Jalisco, convened to find a solution to the conflict.
“A hand is outstretched: is the hand of a man who has shown that he knows how to be loyal through the little story of his life.” Mexicans say if that hand is left hanging in the air”, said Diaz Ordaz before an audience of industrialists in Guadalajara.[4]
the response of the students did not hesitate to get: “The test of paraffin to the outstretched hand”.[5]
in his fourth presidential report, yielded to the legislators and constantly interrupted by applause, Diaz Ordaz showed their anger by the student response. “Some, who not warned that nothing asked for me and that took the friendly gesture towards them as a sign of weakness, responded with slanders, not with facts; with insults, not with reasons; with struggle, not with generous passion”.[6]
e emphasised what concerned him personally: “insult me not offend; slander does not become me; hate not born in me”.
The President spent just over 10 pages of his speech to review the situation in the country, which it attributed to “forces of the interior and external”. It is clear, he argued, that “in the recent unrest intervened not student hands”. And it developed a little more of what was considered a conspiracy with international elements.
He denounced the “obvious and repeated purposes of creating a climate of social unrest, street riots or larger, found and bitter political tendencies and ideologies and of the most varied interests actions”.[7]
Diaz reiterated that the presence of “those who proposed sow disorder, confusion, and anger, to prevent the attention and the solution of the problems, in order to discredit Mexico,” is evident in the “recent unrest” and prevent the realization of the Olympic Games.
University autonomy was violated, nor there are political prisoners a month that members of the army destroyed the colonial gate high school 1 UNAM, that the rector Javier Barros Sierra leading a March to protest against the aggression with a bazucazo against the University and raised the national flag at half mast as a sign of mourning for the violation of university autonomy, and that the University Council made a manifestation of censorship by official violence against the institution, President Díaz Ordaz He addressed the topic in his report.
He said he was respectful of the autonomy and despised accusations that the punch-through military and police on college campuses, as well as the harassment of students and professors, constituted a violation of the same.
“I must add that I consider it, and that coincides with this criterion of leading lawyers, if you look at the recent events with serene objectivity and technical rigor, legally there was no violation of university autonomy”.[8]
also referred to some of the points of the list of demands raised by the National Council of strike (CNH): announced that I would put to question the relevance of legal to eliminate the crime of social dissolution and that it did not accept that there were “prisoners politicians”in Mexico.
“I do not accept (that) there are ‘political prisoners’. Political prisoner is who is deprived of his liberty exclusively for his political ideas, without having committed any crime”.[9]
and of those, he argued, there are none. Moreover, boasted the President, “if I know the name of someone who is prisoner without judicial process in which have been met or the essential procedural formalities, are serving accused of ideas, not of executed acts, orders are flipped from” immediate and unconditional freedom”.[10]
his speech acquired tones of moral censure for several actors: “it has come to the debauchery in the use of all means of expression and dissemination; It has enjoyed vast freedoms and guarantees to make demonstrations, ordered in certain aspects, but contrary to the express constitutional article 9 text”.[11]
“have been tolerant to criticized excesses; but everything has its limit and we cannot let that continue forever breaking the rule of law, as it has been happening in the eyes of the world”, said Diaz Ordaz.
And concluded with an outline of his mission as President: “we have the undeniable duty to prevent the destruction of essential formulas, under which we live and progress…” I know that I will have to face those who have a great capacity for propaganda, broadcast, deceitfulness, of libel, of perversity. I know that, on the other hand, millions of compatriots are decidedly in favour of the order and against anarchy.”[12]
references:
[1] Gustavo Diaz Ordaz, IV Government report. In www.diputados.gob.mx/sedia/sia/re/RE-ISS-09-06-13.pdf.
[2] Idem.
[3] Idem.
[4] Jacinto Rodríguez Munguía, another secret war. Forbidden files of press and power, Debate, Mexico, 2007.
[5] Sergio Aguayo Quezada, 68. Students, the President and the CIA, editions process, Mexico, 2018.
[6] Díaz Gustavo Ordaz, op. cit.
[7] Díaz Gustavo Ordaz, op.cit.
[8] Idem.
[9] Diaz Ordaz, op. cit.
[10] Idem.
[11] Idem.
[12] Idem.
