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October 2, 1968: 45 Years Ago – the Mexico City Massacre During Olympic Games

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Memorial to those who fell October 2, 1968 in Tlatelolco, Mexico City.by Daniel Hernandez / Intersections

Editor: The following was originally written in 2008.

[Forty-five] years ago today the Mexican government opened fire indiscriminately on a crowd of peaceful protesters at the Plaza de las Tres Culturas in Tlatelolco, Mexico City, killing still-unknown numbers of students, bystanders, and demonstrators. The operation was a brutal smashing of the grassroots movement for social reform that had swept across Mexico and the world in that turbulent year, 1968.

Troops opened fire on protesters in La Plaza de las Tres Culturas - APOctober 2 is a date that forever remains a dark mark on the Mexican calendar and the Mexican psyche. Its significance in the country’s history has been finally recognized with a permanent exhibit and UNAM cultural center at the former foreign relations ministry complex near the plaza. Today there are marches planned by the Comite 68, survivors who are still seeking justice, and by various student and youth groups from the Tlatelolco plaza, to the Zocalo.

GO HERE FOR EYE-WITNESS ACCOUNTS.

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In late 1968, Mexico was getting ready to host the Olympics. But social tensions were also simmering.
oct2c.jpg Security forces opened fire on a crowd protesting against the government in Mexico City's Tlatelolco Square.Hundreds were rounded up but the number of dead remains unclear to this day. As the security forces continued the crackdown, the government said some 30 people, including police officers, had died, which was grossly inaccurate, basically beginning the government's cover-up which lasted decades. Here soldiers are cutting protesters' hair. But families of people who went missing, rights groups and the media believe the true figure is around 300. There was an official silence about the massacre for many years and subsequent inquiries shed little light. No-one has ever been punished

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Comments

  1. I’ve been to the Plaza of Three Cultures (Tlatelolco) and my friends who took me there told me that when the shooting started, the church in the Plaza (representing the Spanish culture, built from the stones of the pyramid they tore down) locked their doors so the people could not get in for shelter from the gunfire. I wrote a story-poem called Taxqueña where I wrote about the massacre. It’s on my website.

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