![]() ![]() Īrising from reaction to the government's violent repression of a July 1968 fight between rival porros (gangs), the student movement in Mexico City quickly grew to include large segments of the university students who were dissatisfied with the regime of the PRI, most especially at the Autonomous National University of Mexico (UNAM) and the National Polytechnic Institute (IPN) but also at other universities. In 1958, under the previous administration of Adolfo López Mateos (when Díaz Ordaz was Minister of the Interior), labor leader Demetrio Vallejo was arrested and peasant activist Rubén Jaramillo was murdered. His administration suppressed independent labor unions and farmers and heavy-handedly tried to direct the economy. Mexican President Gustavo Díaz Ordaz struggled to maintain public order during a time of rising social tensions but suppressed movements by labor unions and farmers fighting to improve their lot. A revolution was happening - not Che's revolution - but a revolution from within the system, nonviolent, driven by euphoria, conviction, and the excitement of experimentation on the ground. Families were drawn in, whole apartment buildings and neighborhoods. Students were out in the streets, in the plazas, on the buses, forming brigades, "going to the people." There were movement committees at each school and heady experiences of argument, exploration, and democratic practice. It was a time of great hope, seemingly on the verge of transformation. The year 1968 in Mexico City was a time of expansiveness and the breaking down of barriers: a time for forging alliances among students, workers, and the marginal urban poor and challenging the political regime. The event occurred ten days before the opening ceremony of the Olympics, which were carried out normally. The massacre followed a series of large demonstrations called the Mexican Movement of 1968 and is considered part of the Mexican Dirty War, when the U.S.-backed Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) government violently repressed political and social opposition. Additionally, the head of the Federal Directorate of Security reported that 1,345 people were arrested. national security archives, American analyst Kate Doyle documented the deaths of 44 people however, estimates of the actual death toll range from 300 to 400, with eyewitnesses reporting hundreds dead. The number of deaths resulting from the event is disputed. ![]() The Mexican government and media claimed that the Armed Forces had been provoked by protesters shooting at them, but government documents made public since 2000 suggest that snipers had been employed by the government. On Octoin the Tlatelolco section of Mexico City, the Mexican Armed Forces opened fire on a group of unarmed civilians in the Plaza de las Tres Culturas who were protesting the upcoming 1968 Summer Olympics.
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