Mexico's Obrador attends event commemorating 1968 massacre
881 views · Published 8 October 2018 · 2:15 · Indexed 21 September 2026
Channel: AP Archive · 2018 · News & Politics
(2 Oct 2018) Students and surviving leaders of Mexico's 1968 student democracy movement attended ceremonies on Tuesday marking the anniversary of an event that caused such revulsion it helped spur long-term political reforms. Today, the movement is credited with sparking Mexico's democratic transition and its participants and martyrs are treated as heroes. President-elect Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, who has given students part of the credit for his July 1 election victory, pledged he would never use the army to repress social movements. "Never ever, shall force be used to solve conflicts, differences, social protests," Lopez Obrador said during a ceremony at the centuries-old Tlatelolco plaza. Reviled at the time as trouble-makers, it is unclear how many protesters died after troops attacked the peaceful rally at Tlatelolco. Estimates range from the official version of 25 dead to a more recent investigation that identified 44. Activists at the time claimed hundreds, saying large numbers of bodies were carted off in garbage trucks. The government at the time was almost a one-party institution, dominated by the Institutional Revolutionary Party or PRI, which held the presidency from 1929 to 2000. While it faced little mass opposition - the government had been able to guarantee steady economic growth throughout the 1960s - officials harboured an almost paranoid fear that the students might try to disrupt the Olympic games held in Mexico City a few weeks later. Public discontent allowed the PRI to regain the presidency in 2012, but Lopez Obrador finally brought the Left to power in the July elections. Lopez Obrador has invoked social movements like the students of 1968, the Mexican Revolution and liberal reform president Benito Juarez in proposing what he calls the "fourth transformation" of Mexico, pledging an end to wealthy, corrupt, out-of-touch politicians. It remains to be seen whether the student movement will be truly revindicated by Lopez Obrador's "transformation". Lopez Obrador takes office on December 1, but the '68 generation is already dying off, and Tuesday's commemoration may be one of the last, big demonstrations to mark the date. Find out more about AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/HowWeWork Twitter: https://twitter.com/AP_Archive Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/APArchives Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/APNews/ You can license this story through AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/metadata/youtube/8ce3d968ff15242a5527b4457723b2be
