Mexico, October 2, 1968: The Night of Tlatelolco; the Death of the Student Movement

by Ernesto Páramo, translated by Machetera

The events of the night of Tlatelolco are still concealed, 40 years later, by a cold, dense fog that obscures the identity of a multitude of secondary actors, who nevertheless played important roles in the tragedy. The main actors who took the decisions and had direct responsibility for the events that led to the slaughter were: the President of the Republic, Gustavo Díaz Ordaz; the Interior Secretary, Luis Echeverría Álvarez, the head of the Presidential staff, Luis Gutiérrez Oropeza, the commander of the military operation in Tlatelolco, General José Herández Toledo, and the commander of the Olympia Battalion, Colonel Ernesto Gutiérrez Gomes Tagle, among others, along with those who dedicated themselves to sowing confusion as a strategy of disinformation in the days that followed the slaughter. All have remained beyond the reach of law and justice.

However, the blood of the young people and the tears of the adults are still fresh and painful.

The massive marches of more than 700,000 or 800,000 students, workers, housewives, and office workers that took more than three or four hours to arrive at the Zócalo from the Anthropology Museum, are still present and fresh in the memory of those who participated actively and those who formed a silent cordon along their path, to watch them march and lend their support.

It’s true that the National Strike Council was not dissolved until December 4th in a meeting at Zacatenco. However, it’s also true that after the night of October 2nd, and the massacre at Tlatelolco, with hundreds of students and spectators killed, thousands locked up in prisons and military camps or victims of persecution by the state and its repressive forces, the student movement really ceased to exist. Apart from isolated attempts at protest, during the Opening Ceremony of the 19th Olympic Games, which were rapidly and brutally suppressed, the movement practically disappeared.

There are two versions, apparently contradictory, of the events of the night of October 2nd, and they depend principally on the place in which the observers could be found, the time in which they made their reports, and their personal interpretation under circumstances of extreme danger.

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