Tlatelolco Massacre - Massacre

Massacre

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. Along with the CNH members, many men and women not associated with the CNH gathered in the plaza as spectators of the demonstration, including -but not limited to- neighbors of the Residential complex, bystanders and children. The students had congregated outside the Chihuahua Building, a three-moduled thirteen stories tall apartment complex in the Plaza de las Tres Culturas in Tlatelolco, for what was supposed to be a peaceful rally. Among their chants were ¡No queremos olimpiadas, queremos revolución! ("We don't want Olympics, we want revolution!"). Rally organizers did not attempt 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, overflew 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 and trucks surrounded the plaza. Much of what proceeded after the first shots were fired in the plaza remained ill defined for decades after 1968; however, much has been corroborated by since released information from American and Mexican government sources.

The question of who fired first remained unresolved years after the massacre. The Mexican government stated that gunfire from the surrounding apartments were the impetus for the army's attack, while the student protesters claimed that helicopters overhead signaled the army to begin firing into the crowd. Author and journalist Elena Poniatowska culled interviews from those present that night and described what proceeded 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… started running in all directions." Despite the efforts of the CNH members to reestablish order, 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; 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. 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."

The ensuing assault into the plaza left hundreds 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.

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.

The killing continued throughout the night, with soldiers and policemen operating on a house-to-house basis in the apartment buildings adjacent to the square. The Chihuahua Building as well as the rest of the neighborhood got its electric energy and phones cut off. Witnesses to the event claim that the bodies were first removed in ambulances and later military officials came and piled up bodies, not knowing if they were dead or alive, into the military trucks, while some say that the bodies were piled up on garbage trucks and sent to unknown destinations. The soldiers rounded up the students onto the Chihuahua Building's elevator walls, stripped them and beat them up.

3000 atendees 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, passerby people and others who were on the plaza just to listen to the speech. Other witnesses claim that on the later days Olympia Battalion members would disguise themselves as light and water employees and inspect the houses in search of students.

The official government explanation of the incident was that armed provocateurs among the demonstrators, stationed in buildings overlooking the crowd, had begun the firefight. Suddenly finding themselves sniper targets, the security forces had simply returned the shooting in self-defense. By the next morning, newspapers reported that 20 to 28 people had been killed, hundreds wounded, and hundreds more arrested.

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.