1. Events

2. Guerrilla groups

3. Torture

4. Aftermath

5. See also

6. References

• Implementation of neoliberal policies.^[3]
• Several acts of violence have not yet been clarified.^[4]
• Political defeat of the PRI in the 2000 presidential elections before the National Action Party (PAN).
• Grouping of the political left and formation of the Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD).^[5]

• Ruben Jaramillo^[6]
• Arnoldo Martinez Verdugo^[7]
• Raul Alvarez Garín
• Valerio Campa^[8]

• People's Guerrilla Group
• Party of the Poor
• National Revolutionary Civic Association
• Liga Comunista 23 de Septiembre
• Various other social and armed movements in the country

• {{PRI party}}
  • DFS - Security Directorate (Intelligence)
  • {{Flagicon image|Flag of the Mexican Army.svg|size=23px}} Armed Forces (Military)
  • {{Flagicon image|Mexico Federal Police Shield.png|size=23px}} Judicial Police (Law enforcement)

• {{flagicon|United States}} United States (support)
  • {{Flagicon image|Flag of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency.svg|size=23px}} Central Intelligence Agency
• Special "White Brigade" and other death squads^[9][10]

The Mexican Dirty War ({{lang-es|Guerra sucia}}) refers to the Mexican theater of the Cold War, an internal conflict between the Mexican PRI-ruled government, backed by the US, and left-wing student and guerrilla groups in the 1960s and 1970s under the presidencies of Gustavo Díaz Ordaz, Luis Echeverría and José López Portillo.^[11][12] During the war, government forces carried out disappearances, estimated at 1,200,^[13] systematic torture, and "probable extrajudicial executions".^[16]

The judicial investigation into State crimes against political movements was opened only until the end of the 71-year long PRI regime and the accession to power of Vicente Fox in 2000, which created the Special Prosecutor's Office for Social and Political Movements of the Past (FEMOSPP). However, despite the fact that it has advanced in the knowledge of the historical facts, the FEMOSPP has not been able to finalize concrete legal ramifications against the main instigators of the dirty war.^[14]

In March 2019, the President of Mexico, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, publicly released the archives of the defunct Federal Security Directorate, which contain a great amount of previously undisclosed information about the Dirty War and the political persecution by the PRI governments in the 20th century. López Obrador stated that "We lived for decades under an authoritarian regime which limited freedoms and persecuted those who struggled for social change" and issued an official apology on behalf of the Mexican State towards the victims of the reppresion. López Obrador further stated that judicial action will be taken against the surviving perpetrators of the repression, and promised that the surviving victims will be able to claim compensation under the law.^[15][16]

Events

The war was characterized by a backlash against the active student movement of the late 1960s which ended in the Tlatelolco massacre at a 1968 student rally in Mexico City,^[17] in which 30 to 300 (according to official reports; non-governmental sources claim death toll in the thousands) students were killed, and in the Corpus Christi massacre, the massacre of student demonstrators in Mexico City on June 10, 1971.^[11]

There were several barely connected groups fighting against the government during this period. Among the most important, the September 23 Communist League was at the forefront of the conflict, active in several cities throughout Mexico, drawing heavily from Christian Socialist and Marxist student organizations. They carried out confrontations with Mexican security forces, several kidnappings, and attempted to kidnap Margarita López Portillo, the sister of the president. In Guerrero, the Party of the Poor, ostensibly fighting against landholder impunity and oppressive police practices in rural areas, was led by the ex-teacher Lucio Cabañas; they carried out ambushes of the army and security forces and the abduction of Guerrero's governor-elect.^[17]

The legalization of left-wing political parties in 1978 along with the amnesty of imprisoned and at large guerrillas caused a number of combatants to end militant struggle against the government. However, certain groups continued fighting, and the National Human Rights Commission states the hostilities continued into 1982.^[17]

In June 2002, a report prepared for Vicente Fox, the first president not from the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) in 70 years, detailed the government's actions from 1964 to 1982. The report states, according to BBC News, that the Mexican army "kidnapped, tortured, and killed hundreds of rebel suspects" in the period and accused the Mexican state of genocide. The Mexican Special Prosecutor claimed the report was overly biased against the military and that it failed to detail crimes committed by rebels, including kidnappings, bank robberies, and assassinations.^[17][18] However, general consensus is that the report accurately assessed the government's culpability. Instead of ensuring the security of innocent civilians, it victimized them and killed them alike.^{[19][20][21][22][23][24]}

Guerrilla groups

The year 1960 marked the beginning of a decade of terror in the region of Guerrero as the state slowly began to deal with the citizens and peasants there ever-more violently.^[1]{{rp|46}} The state enacted the acts of suppression on Guerrero to keep the numerous different political reform movements stifled, as the local people over time grew agitated with the way the government was wielding its power and meddling with their rights. As the citizens grew more determined to speak out against the government in the 1960s, the PRI continued to increase its terror tactics in the region. While that was done to keep the populace under its control, the constant stream of violence pushed many guerrillas to consider raising up arms against the PRI.^[1]{{rp|46}}

The rising of guerrilla groups in the 1960s and 1970s provided the state an excuse to focus its resources on suppressing the armed activities of the guerrillas. The army would become infamous for its tactics in repressing the rebels in the rural areas of Mexico, where such practices such as the death flights were initiated.^[25]

This period of state violence in the state of Guerrero helped to bring about numerous guerrilla organizations. One of the groups was the Party of the Poor (PDLP), which was influenced by Marxism and people like Che Guevara.^[26] That group tended to be focused more on the rural regions like Guerrero, where they would be more likely to find support among the peasants there. The PDLP actions become more violent towards the rich after events such as the 1967 Atoyac massacre, where leaders like Lucio Cabañas tried to use the peasants anger to bring about true revolution.^[27]

As the 1960s and 1970s would go on, the PDLP would gain attention around the nation for acts like its kidnapping of Ruben Figueroa who was a prominent leader of the PRI.^[28] While this act inspired those downtrodden by the government, this also marked the decline of the organization as the government began to focus more on taking out this guerrilla group. Eventually the army found and killed Cabañas on December 2, 1974 in an attempt to cause his movement to fall apart.^[29] Another school teacher turned revolutionary, Genaro Vázquez Rojas, founded the National Revolutionary Civic Association (ACNR) as a response to the governments actions in Guerrero. These two leaders and their movements emerged as the armed phase of this social struggle against a corrupt government, which would continue long after the deaths of the leaders.^[1]{{rp|42}}

Torture

Torture was one of the many tools used by the PRI-run state in its drive to keep the numerous guerrilla groups and political dissidents repressed. While torture was illegal in many countries during this time, the numerous authoritarian regimes that sprung up from the Cold War used it to great effect. The Mexican state used torture to get information from captured rebels and guerrillas about attacks and plans. This torturing would be done at any number of clandestine detention centers, where guerrillas would be sent to before arriving at a legal prison so as the state's activities would be kept secret from outside sources.^[30] Typically both male and female guerrilla prisoners would be tortured at these areas. It was more common for women to be sexually assaulted by their guards. This, combined with other forms of physical and psychological gender-based transgressions leads some to believe that the state employed this form of gender policing to try and deter women from breaking the regimes social and political norms.^[31]

The detaining and torturing of political prisoners became more systematic after the student uprisings in 1968, for the government decided that heavy-handed responses were necessary to deal with the unrest.{{what|date=December 2018}} ^[32] This stage of violent and public repression of differing ideals was similar to the regimes of the Southern Cone governments, such as Argentina.

Aftermath

While Mexico's Dirty War has been over for several years, not much is known of the extent of the number of victims the war claimed, due to its elusive nature throughout its length.^[33] Part of the reason for this problem is that since there was no large-scale truth commission to bring justice to the perpetrators and closure for the victim's families, Mexico never had its "Pinochet moment" in regards to the war.^[1]{{rp|207}} Another problem was the lack of response in the wake of the 2006 report by Carillo Prieto, which documented some of the atrocities inflicted by the PRI regime. Despite this evidence of numerous crimes that violated human rights, ex-president Echeverria and several other PRI officials had their cases dismissed and became free men.{{rp|207}} The failure by the government to address these problems of the past has been a cause of tension at times in Mexico, as citizens become distrustful of a state that does not address the old regime and its reign of terror.

See also

• Arturo Durazo Moreno
• Central American crisis
• List of wars involving Mexico
• Mario Arturo Acosta Chaparro
• Miguel Nazar Haro
• Rosario Ybarra
• Operation Condor
• Timeline of 1960s counterculture
• Roma (2018 film)

References

• Meinhard Gorke
• Meinhard Görke
• Meinhard Hemp
• Meinhard I
• Meinhard II
• Meinhard III
• Meinhard Lonyay
• Meinhard Miltenberger
• Meinhard Mittenberger
• Meinhard of Latvia
• Meinhard of Livonia
• Meinhard of Segeberg
• Meinhard of Üxküll
• Meinhardt
• Meinhardt (disambiguation)
• Meinhard v Salmon
• Meinhart Maur
• Mein Herze schwimmt im Blut
• Meinhof
• Me In Honey
• Me in Honey
• Mein hoon na
• Meinickeoyane
• Meinickeøyane
• Meinig Arthur