Murder Charges Filed Against Former President of Mexico

[Rose Siding]

MEXICO CITY, July 23 — A special prosecutor filed murder charges today against former President Luis Echevarría and several former government officials and military officers in the killings of student protestors 33 years ago, one of the darkest and most divisive chapters in the shaping of democracy in modern Mexico.

The prosecutor, Ignacio Carrillo Prieto, filed evidence against Mr. Echevarría and his aides in killings of at least 25 protesters who were attacked with clubs and chains by government shock troops called the Falcons as they marched peacefully through Mexico City on June 10, 1971, in support of an education unsullied by government control.

The indictments are the first ever against a former president here, and a direct blow against a leader of the authoritarian government that dominated this country for more than 70 years under the Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, until the election of President Vincente Fox in 2000.

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/07/23/international/americas/23CND-MEXI.html?hp

[Bridget Burke]

1. This is great news.

At first, I thought this was an investigation of the Tlatelolco Massacre in 1969. (Need to remember my login to get the details of this other one.)

But the Fox administration definitely started this dig into the past.

(edited to remove description of another atrocity--so many atrocities, so little time)

[demosincebirth]

2. There is much

garbage under the PRI heap.

[Maestro]

3. Amen!

Unfortunatley corruption still runs high at the civil government level pretty much negating many of the reforms Fox has tried to implement.

[Jack_DeLeon]

4. Wow...

Kind of big news.

Sadly this kind of thing probably wouldnt happen in the US. Isnt it a tradition for Presidents to pardon each other whenever something happens.

[yardwork]

5. Well, Mexico's politics are a little different.

The PRI was essentially a dictatorship for decades. They're still the opposition party, and Vicente Fox would have no reason to give them a break, and every reason to try to get rid of their influence.

[Minstrel Boy]

6. I was sure this was going to be Salinas.

Remember him?

The NAFTA boys: Salinas, Bush and Mulroney


Former Mexican President Implicated in Brother's Scandals
New York Times, April 10, 1997

MEXICO CITY -- Mexican prosecutors released evidence Wednesday suggesting that former President Carlos Salinas de Gortari took part in a cover-up of the role his brother is accused of playing in a 1994 political assassination.

The special prosecutor said Wednesday that, according to new testimony, the former president was officially informed early on that his older brother's name had come up repeatedly in the investigation of the shooting death of a prominent politician.

Within days of the murder, Carlos Salinas arranged a meeting at the presidential palace for his brother, Raul, and the Mexican attorney general, and at that meeting, Raul Salinas asked to be left out of the inquiry, according to the testimony.
http://www.owlnet.rice.edu/~poli354/Mexico_pages/970410Salinas.html


Carlos Salinas de Gortari - President 1988 - 1994

...

Then came a cycle of high profile political murders.

In March 1994 Luis Donaldo Colosio, who surely would have been the next president of Mexico, was shot to death in Tijuana. Two weeks earlier, on March 6, he had made a speech that distanced him from the Salinas government. Stating that Mexico was still a Third World country, he pledged to implement political reform and to separate the ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) from the government. Though a half-crazed young man, instantly labeled as "the lone gunman," was arrested for the shooting, Mexicans are still asking themselves whether or not this was a political execution. As presidential candidate, Colosio was replaced by Ernesto Zedillo, who had been his campaign manager. The son of a poor family who once shined shoes but proved sufficiently upwardly mobile to get an education at Yale, Zedillo won in what was considered by international observers to be a fair election. A competent and intelligent technocrat, honest but colorless, Zedillo has been referred to by political satirists as "Nerdedillo."

In September 1994 there was another high-level political assassination that tarnished the prestige of the Salinas family. The victim was PRI secretary general José Francisco Ruiz Massieu, Salinas's former brother-in-law. The marriage to the president's sister had terminated in a bitter divorce. Charged with masterminding the murder was Raill Salinas, the president's older brother. (He was recently found guilty of the crime and sentenced to fifty years in prison.)

Raul Salinas proved to be a detriment to his brother in more ways than one. It was discovered that he was at the center of a vast web of corruption and influence peddling and that the Salinas economic "miracle" consisted more in creating twenty-one new billionaires than in raising the general standard of living.
http://www.mexconnect.com/mex_/history/jtuck/jtsalinas.html

[Judi Lynn]

8. Thanks for the info on Carlos Salinas de Gortari. He surely sounds like

a long, lost sibling of the _Bush brothers. Had no idea of his background.

His remark about land redistribution sounded EXACTLY like something _W would say, if he could manage it.

[Judi Lynn]

7. Update on your story:

Jul 24, 4:54 AM EDT

Mexican Ex-Leader Faces Genocide Charges

By E. EDUARDO CASTILLO
Associated Press Writer





MEXICO CITY (AP) -- Prosecutors sought charges against a former Mexican president in the deaths of student demonstrators more than 20 years ago, a first for a country whose leaders have long enjoyed impunity.

The case against Luis Echeverria threatens to create a crisis in President Vicente Fox's already troubled relationship with Congress. Echeverria's Institutional Revolutionary Party holds the largest bloc of seats and could stop cooperating with Fox if the charges go through.

Special Prosecutor Ignacio Carrillo said he presented findings in a two-year investigation to a federal judge, asking the court to confirm charges of genocide, but he did not say against whom. He said the law prohibited him from saying more.

Echeverria's attorney, Juan Velazquez, confirmed the genocide charges had been sought against the former president, and two of his other clients, former Interior Secretary Mario Moya and former Attorney General Julio Sanchez Vargas. Local media reported at least seven other officials could also be charged.
(snip/...)

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/M/MEXICO_PAST_CRIMES?SITE=FLDAY&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

How is it our country could have not been aware that Echevarría had massacred "his own people?" As far as I've ever known, Mexico was just fine with our gummint.

[struggle4progress]

9. At last! At last! At last! eom