Posted on 07/23/2004 7:11:19 PM PDT by sarcasm
EXICO CITY, July 23 — A special prosecutor filed murder charges today against former President Luis Echevarría and several former government officials and military officers in the killings of student protestors 33 years ago, one of the darkest and most divisive chapters in the shaping of democracy in modern Mexico.
The prosecutor, Ignacio Carrillo Prieto, filed evidence against Mr. Echevarría and his aides in killings of at least 25 protesters who were attacked with clubs and chains by government shock troops called the Falcons as they marched peacefully through Mexico City on June 10, 1971, in support of an education unsullied by government control.
The indictments are the first ever against a former president here, and a direct blow against a leader of the authoritarian government that dominated this country for more than 70 years under the Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, until the election of President Vincente Fox in 2000.
They also pose a clear challege to Mr. Fox to fulfill promises to improve human rights in Mexico since he came to power as the country's first democratically elected president.
In Latin America, where decades of government atrocities have gone unpunished, the indictments move Mexico into uncharted political terrain. They confront both Mr. Echeverría, 82, the oldest living lion of the PRI , as well as the military, still Mexico's most impenetrable institution.
A buoyant Mr. Carrillo said in an interview this morning that the indictments send the message that "there is no one, and there will be no one above the law in Mexico."
He said that he will seek the arrests of several former government officials and military officers. The charge, Mr. Carrillo said, was genocide, defined in the Mexican penal code as "systematic crimes against the lives of members of any national group," including political dissidents.
Those accused include Mr. Echeverría, president from 1970 to 1976; a former internal-security minister, Mario Moya; and a former attorney general, Julio Sanchez Vargas. Three former army generals may also face charges in the case.
Political analysts suspect that Mr. Fox, who has been weakened by his government's failure to deliver on many of his promises for change, will not be able to withstand the pressure from the military and his political opponents.
He has given little political backing, and limited government funds, to the special prosecutor since creating the post two years ago. And Mr. Fox has distanced himself from the prosecutor, saying two weeks ago that he had fulfilled his promise to establish an agency that would deliver justice in the crimes of the past, and that now the matter is for the courts to decide.
Legal scholars, however, point out that Mexicos creaky and corrupt court system is barely able to resolve simple robberies — much less the most politically charged case in recent years.
They say the chances Mr. Echeverria will be tried and convicted for a crime that happened 33 years ago are slim. They also suspect that the evidence will not meet the standards for genocide.
Even former members of Mr. Fox's administration warn that this first major step in Mexico's reckoning with the past could be its last.
"If the case against Echeverría is not sufficiently substantiated, it will destroy the credibility of the whole process," said Adolfo Aguilar Zinser, a former national security adviser to President Fox.
"Such an extraordinary and bold move could lead to shattering disappointment," he said. "And the truth will never be known. And it will bring Mexicos reckoning with the past to a dead end."
Speaking to reporters who had gathered outside his home after reports that he had fled the country, Mr. Echeverría, 82, put up a defiant front. He told them there had never been genocide in Mexico.
"I am at peace," he said. "I have no reason to leave the country."
What a zoo.
more "suspicious timing"
"Mr. Echeverría, 82, the oldest living lion of the PRI"
Why does the Times always refer to old leftists as "lions"? They do this with Ted Kennedy all the time. Do you become a lion because you lie?
__________________________
Yep. Uh-huh. Correcto Mundo.
Is FOX next?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.