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 News Around the Republic of Mexico | July 2006 
Former Mexico President Declares Innocence
 E. Eduardo Castillo - Associated Press
| | People that participated in a 1968 protest that ended in a massacre when Mexican troops ambushed a mostly peaceful protest, paste signs on the door of former Mexican President Luis Echeverria's home in Mexico City, Mexico, Wednesday, July 5, 2006. A judge on Wednesday took Echeverria's statement for his involvement in the massacre. Signs read 'October 2 is not forgotten.' and 'Jail for the Assassin.' (AP/Marco Ugarte) |
Former President Luis Echeverria, who is under house arrest on genocide charges stemming from a 1968 student massacre, declared his innocence to a judge Wednesday and asked to be freed.
"Nothing proves that I was the author of or participated in any crime," Echeverria said in a written statement delivered to the judge.
Echeverria was placed under house arrest Friday, marking the first time a former Mexican president has been arrested.
Special prosecutor Ignacio Carrillo, appointed by President Vicente Fox, has brought criminal charges against Echeverria for his alleged involvement in the killings of dozens of students in two separate Mexico City protests: in 1968, when he was Mexico's interior secretary, and in 1971, when he was president.
Echeverria was interior secretary, a powerful position overseeing domestic security, when Mexican troops ambushed mostly peaceful student protesters at Mexico City's Tlatelolco Plaza on Oct. 2, 1968, just before the capital hosted the Olympics. Officially, 25 people were killed. Human rights activists say as many as 350 people may have lost their lives.
The president at the time, Gustavo Diaz Ordaz, died in 1979.
Echeverria said in his statement Wednesday that 43 civilians and soldiers died after clashing that day and that there was no government extermination policy, which international law requires for a genocide charge.
"To say that genocide was committed against students on Oct. 2, 1968 is an absurd distortion of the clash that happened that day," he said.
The 84-year-old Echeverria was under house arrest because a 2004 law allows judges to keep elderly suspects out of overcrowded jails. The former president has been briefly hospitalized twice in the past year and is considered to be in poor health.
In February, a leaked draft of a government report on Mexico's "dirty war" alleged the government ordered soldiers to torture, rape and execute people as part of a counterinsurgency campaign from 1960-1980.
The most brutal period occurred under Echeverria's presidency, from 1970-1976, when military bases allegedly served as "concentration camps" and the government "implemented a genocide plan that was closely followed during his reign," according to the report. During that time, guerrillas were blamed for a series of kidnappings and attacks on soldiers. |
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