Mexico's president Diaz Ordaz saw the student movement not only as a threat to his almost absolute
power, a challenge to his authority, and as a serious social problem, but basically as a very bad image at
the precise time when the eyes of the world were on the country of Mexico.
power, a challenge to his authority, and as a serious social problem, but basically as a very bad image at
the precise time when the eyes of the world were on the country of Mexico.
By Eduardo Barraza
Tlatelolco, Mexico City - The story is widely known: what became a social movement of large and tragic
proportions in Mexico City, originated from an irrelevant street fight between students from rival schools.
The Student Movement of 1968 began that way: violence at a smaller scale leading into a slaughter of
atrocious scope. Therefore, four decades after the bloody night of October 2, 1968, the memory of the
events that stained the Plaza of the Three Cultures with blood, remains as an irredeemable tragedy in
the social consciousness of Mexicans.
The use of excessive force by the "granaderos" —the special police trained to suppress protests and
riots— turned that irrelevant fight of students against students into a conflict of this riot police against
students, and later into a spiral of conflict that led to a clash between the government and the people.
The brutality used by this riot police at the beginning of the movement sparked stronger student
protests, which nobody could predict would lead to a larger student movement. From then on, the
clashes between students and the “granaderos” unit would become the violent characteristic of the
interaction between a youth social movement and a repressive government determined to dismantle it.
In his determination to maintain the social order and political stability, President Gustavo Díaz Ordaz
(1964-1970) reached a drastic decision to accomplish a nefarious purpose: to kill the rising student
movement. Diaz Ordaz’ lethal answer against a crowd of young people thus marked forever Mexican
society with one of the most brutal actions of government repression against unarmed civilians.
The persistent and escalating use of excessive force deepened the outrage and anger in the students,
forcing them to retaliate in the extent of their limited resources. In an attempt to suppress them, the
government rushed to stop the growing outbreak of students’ protests, but the brutal repression caused
an opposite effect. This repression would increase the intensity of the students' struggle, resulting in the
participation of a growing number of youth who were joining the powerful but threatening movement.
However, the clashes between riot police and soldiers against the youth quickly produced students being
arrested, wounded and even killed.
As a social movement, the students lacked the level of preparedness and experience in organizing
demonstrations of such proportion, which were necessary to shape and equilibrate the magnitude of this
movement that would increase in strength every day. Nevertheless, the upward spiral of their struggle
fueled by the government’s repression began to give them a strong sense of identity as a homogenous
group, and helped them to devise at the very core of their protests, a stronger cause of deeper and
greater scope. In the government’s eyes, the youth’s activism was reckless, irreverent and subversive
and would become the inevitable target of its rage.
proportions in Mexico City, originated from an irrelevant street fight between students from rival schools.
The Student Movement of 1968 began that way: violence at a smaller scale leading into a slaughter of
atrocious scope. Therefore, four decades after the bloody night of October 2, 1968, the memory of the
events that stained the Plaza of the Three Cultures with blood, remains as an irredeemable tragedy in
the social consciousness of Mexicans.
The use of excessive force by the "granaderos" —the special police trained to suppress protests and
riots— turned that irrelevant fight of students against students into a conflict of this riot police against
students, and later into a spiral of conflict that led to a clash between the government and the people.
The brutality used by this riot police at the beginning of the movement sparked stronger student
protests, which nobody could predict would lead to a larger student movement. From then on, the
clashes between students and the “granaderos” unit would become the violent characteristic of the
interaction between a youth social movement and a repressive government determined to dismantle it.
In his determination to maintain the social order and political stability, President Gustavo Díaz Ordaz
(1964-1970) reached a drastic decision to accomplish a nefarious purpose: to kill the rising student
movement. Diaz Ordaz’ lethal answer against a crowd of young people thus marked forever Mexican
society with one of the most brutal actions of government repression against unarmed civilians.
The persistent and escalating use of excessive force deepened the outrage and anger in the students,
forcing them to retaliate in the extent of their limited resources. In an attempt to suppress them, the
government rushed to stop the growing outbreak of students’ protests, but the brutal repression caused
an opposite effect. This repression would increase the intensity of the students' struggle, resulting in the
participation of a growing number of youth who were joining the powerful but threatening movement.
However, the clashes between riot police and soldiers against the youth quickly produced students being
arrested, wounded and even killed.
As a social movement, the students lacked the level of preparedness and experience in organizing
demonstrations of such proportion, which were necessary to shape and equilibrate the magnitude of this
movement that would increase in strength every day. Nevertheless, the upward spiral of their struggle
fueled by the government’s repression began to give them a strong sense of identity as a homogenous
group, and helped them to devise at the very core of their protests, a stronger cause of deeper and
greater scope. In the government’s eyes, the youth’s activism was reckless, irreverent and subversive
and would become the inevitable target of its rage.
Tlatelolco 1968: How to Kill a Social Movement
Eduardo Barraza is a journalist and writer,
Barriozona Magazine's editor, and director of
the Hispanic Insitute of Social Issues.
E-mail: editor@barriozona.com
Barriozona Magazine's editor, and director of
the Hispanic Insitute of Social Issues.
E-mail: editor@barriozona.com
Published by the Hispanic Institute of Social Issues in Phoenix, Arizona
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While it is true that the degree of repression and
turmoil caused by the violence perpetrated against
the youth helped students create a common front to
defend against the government's tactics, their initial
strategies of resistance —seizing and burning buses,
occupation of educational facilities, and tagging of
walls— actually worked out to show their vulnerability.
On the other hand, the rudimentary and limited
resources and methods of the students were only
able to build weak levees that the government’s
reaction would eventually overcome. The students’
decision to lead their movement through democratic
means was evident when they prepared and
presented a formal list of demands –a document that
would fuel their impetus and strength, but the
government would only interpret their actions as a
direct and constant threat. The youth movement was
inevitably heading towards a dead-end alley where
the crushing power of a government disposed to do
turmoil caused by the violence perpetrated against
the youth helped students create a common front to
defend against the government's tactics, their initial
strategies of resistance —seizing and burning buses,
occupation of educational facilities, and tagging of
walls— actually worked out to show their vulnerability.
On the other hand, the rudimentary and limited
resources and methods of the students were only
able to build weak levees that the government’s
reaction would eventually overcome. The students’
decision to lead their movement through democratic
means was evident when they prepared and
presented a formal list of demands –a document that
would fuel their impetus and strength, but the
government would only interpret their actions as a
direct and constant threat. The youth movement was
inevitably heading towards a dead-end alley where
the crushing power of a government disposed to do
anything —even kill them— awaited them.
The antagonism between rival schools —vocational and preparatory, hotbeds of the National Polytechnic
Institute (IPN) and Autonomous National University of Mexico (UNAM) respectively— that had been the
cause of their street fights, and unintentionally giving birth to the youth movement, paradoxically
dissipated when they realized they needed a common front. Their rivalry was channeled consequently in
that way, by creating an inter-schools mutual cooperation to confront the repression that both sides were
facing.
The attempts to formally systematize and unify the movement led to the emergence of the Strike National
Committee (CNH was the acronym in Spanish for Comité Nacional de Huelga). Through this organizational
structure, rallies, protests, and students’ strikes became the main means of action to confront the attacks
of the administration of President Diaz Ordaz’, and of Mexico City’s mayor Alfonso Coronal del Rosal, a
president’s ally. The fire of the movement spread through the leadership of the CNH, and incorporated to
the struggle a total of 128 schools and 250 representatives.
The Committee gave shape and direction to the movement. It transformed it from a series of dispersed
protests into a real social force. Public and private schools became part of this committee and then
established sub-committees of struggle and brigades of action. Members of the Left and the opposition
joined the movement. Through the activities organized by the students’ board, the message of their cause
began to appeal the general public through posters and leaflets produced underground, and speeches
given on the streets and inside buses. The students’ organization followed democratic principles in the
form of free assembly, free speech and participatory democracy.
The authoritarian government, however, did not recognize these democratic methods, much less respected
them. The advancement and the tactics of the student’s movement represented a serious and direct
challenge to the government, which despite its repressive attitude could not decrease the tide students
were having. In his State of the Union address in September of 1968, Diaz Ordaz, made it clear that he
would not tolerate nor allow students to continue challenging his administration, the office of the president
and his meager patience. Bluntly said, there would be no negotiation between the presidency and the
students’ movement.
Through a method of plural, revolving and evolving leadership, the Strike Committee prevented authorities
from identifying a single leader to who direct its retaliation. Unfortunately, this approach of multiple and
rotating leadership employed by the movement would backfire later. Despite the temporary success of this
style of leadership, the arrests and torturing continued against any suspects the police got their hands on;
to be a student was equivalent to being a seditious and an agitator. The government, coupled with some
media either gagged or sold out, tried to paint the movement as a bunch of disgruntled students who
were being manipulated by foreign forces and outside communist organizers.
Despite the authorities’ attempts to extinguish the flame of the students’ struggle, this continued thriving
and attracting more and more adherents to the ranks of their daring militancy. Due to the prevailing social
discontent in Mexico, many citizens began to be attracted and to sympathize with the bravery of the
students. Many others agreed that the students’ movement was the opportunity to seek a more profound
social change in Mexico. Thus, what began as a local nightmare for the Diaz Ordaz’ administration, evolved
into a national yearning for social and economic change.
The approaching and imminent celebration of the XIX Olympic Games in Mexico City, came to represent a
powerful symbol for both the government and the students, but with an opposing meaning. For the
students, holding a sporting and cultural event of such magnitude and millionaire infrastructure in Mexico
was a shocking paradox. They realized that while the government was trying to give an impression of
progress to the rest of the world, it had largely failed the people by not meeting their most essential needs
of housing, health care, and basic education.
Conversely, the government wanted to seize the opportunity to host the games to place Mexico on the
map of economic progress and prosperity. Therefore, Diaz Ordaz saw the student movement not only as a
threat to his almost absolute power, a challenge to his authority, and as a serious social problem, but
basically as a very bad image at the precise time when the eyes of the world were on the country of
Mexico.
The evolving forces of the students’ movement led to a more fundamental and defined struggle, which
became the focus of the widespread social discontent, due to the manner in which the economic priorities
of the people had been managed and distorted by the government. The millions spent on organizing the
Olympic Games in the midst of the millions of hungry and unemployed individuals was a terrible discrepancy
between the real and urgent social reforms of Mexicans. And to cap it off, it was the young people who
were leading this movement, something the despotic government of Diaz Ordaz —who wanted to give the
world a false impression of Mexico as a country in progress, and a modern and democratic nation— was
not about to allow.
Given this divergence, the movement focused on trying to remove the mask of hypocrisy and of false
democracy portrayed by the government, thus creating a youth culture of protest and discontent over the
lack of opportunities for advancement. The students realized there were social constraints blocking their
way to success in society, something they could not achieve unless they became part of the official and
corrupt machinery of the ruling party, the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI,) the political apparatus
they held responsible for their situation in the first place. Ultimately, these young people would taste the
sour truth that when there is no alliance with this monster of repressive power, the monster will crush its
opponents with no mercy.
Nevertheless, the students were focused on reaching a solution to the conflict in the midst of the clashes
and the oppression, so the National Strike Committee targeted the players and the mechanisms of the
repression by requesting the following: the release of political prisoners; reforms to the penal code; the
abolition of the riot police; the resignation of police chiefs; the investigation of the abuses and acts of
brutality; and the Army’s departure from the educational facilities occupied. By requesting these demands,
the students showed that they still recognized the authority of the government and that they needed its
intervention. In fact, the movement essentially called for the recognition of constitutional rights and civil
guarantees, which were being blatantly ignored by the government.
The ineffective and momentary failure of the government's repressive methods, and the imminent
beginning of the Olympics, pressured the president to take a conclusive decision: to employ large-scale
violence. His ultimatum was to perpetrate a brutal slaughter against the defenseless and unarmed crowd
that had gathered for a peaceful rally in the Plaza of the Three Cultures, in the working class housing
complex of Tlatelolco. The sinister and well-planned event happened on the fateful October 2, 1968, just
ten days before the inauguration of the Olympic Games.
At the end, the tactics of deterrence that had not worked for the government against the students until
that day was achieved through brutal force. The mass action carried out by the joint operation of the army
and paramilitary forces not only resulted in hundreds of dead people and thousands injured; it also led to
a spreading terror among the students and the general population, and mainly to the fatal blow of the
student’s movement. Thus, the roar of the high-caliber weapons silenced the dissenting voices and bluntly
killed the students’ struggle.
A month and a half after the killings, the CNH asked the students to return to classes. Many leaders and
students were made prisoners or were missing; many others were never accounted for. New and
emerging leaders lacked an ideological cohesion to revive the movement. Their way of thinking would only
revolve around making massive marches and demonstrations, which the bloody events of October 2, 1968
had proved powerless and ineffective.
The Olympic Games would begin on October 12. A smiling Diaz Ordaz led the opening ceremony within the
festive framework of thousands of white doves flying, a symbol of apparent peace juxtaposed to a dead
struggle and an asphyxiated mourning.
The antagonism between rival schools —vocational and preparatory, hotbeds of the National Polytechnic
Institute (IPN) and Autonomous National University of Mexico (UNAM) respectively— that had been the
cause of their street fights, and unintentionally giving birth to the youth movement, paradoxically
dissipated when they realized they needed a common front. Their rivalry was channeled consequently in
that way, by creating an inter-schools mutual cooperation to confront the repression that both sides were
facing.
The attempts to formally systematize and unify the movement led to the emergence of the Strike National
Committee (CNH was the acronym in Spanish for Comité Nacional de Huelga). Through this organizational
structure, rallies, protests, and students’ strikes became the main means of action to confront the attacks
of the administration of President Diaz Ordaz’, and of Mexico City’s mayor Alfonso Coronal del Rosal, a
president’s ally. The fire of the movement spread through the leadership of the CNH, and incorporated to
the struggle a total of 128 schools and 250 representatives.
The Committee gave shape and direction to the movement. It transformed it from a series of dispersed
protests into a real social force. Public and private schools became part of this committee and then
established sub-committees of struggle and brigades of action. Members of the Left and the opposition
joined the movement. Through the activities organized by the students’ board, the message of their cause
began to appeal the general public through posters and leaflets produced underground, and speeches
given on the streets and inside buses. The students’ organization followed democratic principles in the
form of free assembly, free speech and participatory democracy.
The authoritarian government, however, did not recognize these democratic methods, much less respected
them. The advancement and the tactics of the student’s movement represented a serious and direct
challenge to the government, which despite its repressive attitude could not decrease the tide students
were having. In his State of the Union address in September of 1968, Diaz Ordaz, made it clear that he
would not tolerate nor allow students to continue challenging his administration, the office of the president
and his meager patience. Bluntly said, there would be no negotiation between the presidency and the
students’ movement.
Through a method of plural, revolving and evolving leadership, the Strike Committee prevented authorities
from identifying a single leader to who direct its retaliation. Unfortunately, this approach of multiple and
rotating leadership employed by the movement would backfire later. Despite the temporary success of this
style of leadership, the arrests and torturing continued against any suspects the police got their hands on;
to be a student was equivalent to being a seditious and an agitator. The government, coupled with some
media either gagged or sold out, tried to paint the movement as a bunch of disgruntled students who
were being manipulated by foreign forces and outside communist organizers.
Despite the authorities’ attempts to extinguish the flame of the students’ struggle, this continued thriving
and attracting more and more adherents to the ranks of their daring militancy. Due to the prevailing social
discontent in Mexico, many citizens began to be attracted and to sympathize with the bravery of the
students. Many others agreed that the students’ movement was the opportunity to seek a more profound
social change in Mexico. Thus, what began as a local nightmare for the Diaz Ordaz’ administration, evolved
into a national yearning for social and economic change.
The approaching and imminent celebration of the XIX Olympic Games in Mexico City, came to represent a
powerful symbol for both the government and the students, but with an opposing meaning. For the
students, holding a sporting and cultural event of such magnitude and millionaire infrastructure in Mexico
was a shocking paradox. They realized that while the government was trying to give an impression of
progress to the rest of the world, it had largely failed the people by not meeting their most essential needs
of housing, health care, and basic education.
Conversely, the government wanted to seize the opportunity to host the games to place Mexico on the
map of economic progress and prosperity. Therefore, Diaz Ordaz saw the student movement not only as a
threat to his almost absolute power, a challenge to his authority, and as a serious social problem, but
basically as a very bad image at the precise time when the eyes of the world were on the country of
Mexico.
The evolving forces of the students’ movement led to a more fundamental and defined struggle, which
became the focus of the widespread social discontent, due to the manner in which the economic priorities
of the people had been managed and distorted by the government. The millions spent on organizing the
Olympic Games in the midst of the millions of hungry and unemployed individuals was a terrible discrepancy
between the real and urgent social reforms of Mexicans. And to cap it off, it was the young people who
were leading this movement, something the despotic government of Diaz Ordaz —who wanted to give the
world a false impression of Mexico as a country in progress, and a modern and democratic nation— was
not about to allow.
Given this divergence, the movement focused on trying to remove the mask of hypocrisy and of false
democracy portrayed by the government, thus creating a youth culture of protest and discontent over the
lack of opportunities for advancement. The students realized there were social constraints blocking their
way to success in society, something they could not achieve unless they became part of the official and
corrupt machinery of the ruling party, the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI,) the political apparatus
they held responsible for their situation in the first place. Ultimately, these young people would taste the
sour truth that when there is no alliance with this monster of repressive power, the monster will crush its
opponents with no mercy.
Nevertheless, the students were focused on reaching a solution to the conflict in the midst of the clashes
and the oppression, so the National Strike Committee targeted the players and the mechanisms of the
repression by requesting the following: the release of political prisoners; reforms to the penal code; the
abolition of the riot police; the resignation of police chiefs; the investigation of the abuses and acts of
brutality; and the Army’s departure from the educational facilities occupied. By requesting these demands,
the students showed that they still recognized the authority of the government and that they needed its
intervention. In fact, the movement essentially called for the recognition of constitutional rights and civil
guarantees, which were being blatantly ignored by the government.
The ineffective and momentary failure of the government's repressive methods, and the imminent
beginning of the Olympics, pressured the president to take a conclusive decision: to employ large-scale
violence. His ultimatum was to perpetrate a brutal slaughter against the defenseless and unarmed crowd
that had gathered for a peaceful rally in the Plaza of the Three Cultures, in the working class housing
complex of Tlatelolco. The sinister and well-planned event happened on the fateful October 2, 1968, just
ten days before the inauguration of the Olympic Games.
At the end, the tactics of deterrence that had not worked for the government against the students until
that day was achieved through brutal force. The mass action carried out by the joint operation of the army
and paramilitary forces not only resulted in hundreds of dead people and thousands injured; it also led to
a spreading terror among the students and the general population, and mainly to the fatal blow of the
student’s movement. Thus, the roar of the high-caliber weapons silenced the dissenting voices and bluntly
killed the students’ struggle.
A month and a half after the killings, the CNH asked the students to return to classes. Many leaders and
students were made prisoners or were missing; many others were never accounted for. New and
emerging leaders lacked an ideological cohesion to revive the movement. Their way of thinking would only
revolve around making massive marches and demonstrations, which the bloody events of October 2, 1968
had proved powerless and ineffective.
The Olympic Games would begin on October 12. A smiling Diaz Ordaz led the opening ceremony within the
festive framework of thousands of white doves flying, a symbol of apparent peace juxtaposed to a dead
struggle and an asphyxiated mourning.
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