Killing the Students

The Night of Tlatelolco. Students from UNAM and workers in repressed trade unions spent much of the summer demonstrating against police assaults on the autonomy of school campuses, and the general state of repression under the PRI's single party rule. In the beginning of August (during the Mexican school year), tens of thousands of colleged students undertook a notably non-violent march and began an occupation of the university. During massive marches in mid-September, the President sent troops in to violently break up the students' control of the campus and other parts of the city. During the military attacks on the occupation of the Polytechnic campuses on September 23rd, students put up resistance and were fired upon. Fifteen were killed. A demonstration was held on October 2nd in the Plaza de las Tres Culturas, ten days before the city was to host the 1968 Olympics. Thousands of soldiers and hundreds of armored trucks and tanks surrounded the students. From hundreds and up to a thousand were gunned down.
The repression convinces many activists to carry their struggle underground. Over the next decade, over two dozen urban guerilla groups develop through-out Mexico. The most active guerilla activity is between 1971 and 1975. Most movements disintegrate under brutal repression and a dirty war, which leave over hundreds of activists "disappeared" and over 1,000 dead.
An investigation completed in 2001 declared that the army's claim that students fired first from nearby apartments was false, and that it had been Presidential Guard agents who are begun firing at the soldiers to serve as the impetus for the massacre. In 2003, a series of Freedom of Information Act releases proved there was some United States complicity in the overall repression. The day is now remembered in Mexico City as the National Day of Mourning.