Ex-Mexico Leader Faces Arrest for Genocide

AP ^ | July 23, 2004 | E. EDUARDO CASTILLO

[Cultural Jihad]

Ex-Mexico Leader Faces Arrest for Genocide

By E. EDUARDO CASTILLO
ASSOCIATED PRESS

MEXICO CITY (AP) -

A special prosecutor has requested the arrest of former President Luis Echeverria and other senior officials accused of genocide for allegedly ordering the killing of student demonstrators in 1971, Echeverria's attorney said Friday.

It is the first time a former Mexican president has faced criminal charges, and the case threatens to create a political confrontation between President Vicente Fox and Echeverria's Institutional Revolutionary Party - still the largest force in Congress.

Special Prosecutor Ignacio Carrillo carried nine heavy cardboard boxes of evidence into a courthouse at Mexico City's Northern Prison late Thursday and turned them over to personnel there. However, he refused to comment on the case.

Mexican laws limit what prosecutors can say before a judge's ruling.

"I know that he asked for arrest orders against my clients for genocide," attorney Juan Velazquez told The Associated Press.

He represents Echeverria, former Interior Secretary Mario Moya and former Attorney General Julio Sanchez Vargas.

In the June 10, 1971, attack, a government-organized group attacked student protesters, and 11 people died.

The judge handling the case has 24 hours to rule on Carrillo's request. Velazquez said it was unclear when the judge received the case.

Fox promised while campaigning for the presidency to lift the veil of secrecy and impunity over so-called "past crimes," massacres of student demonstrators in 1968 and 1971 and the "dirty war" by government forces against radical guerrillas and their supporters in the 1960s and 1970s.

But the effort has angered powerful figures in the Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, which ruled Mexico from 1929 until Fox's election in 2000.

The party, which has the largest bloc in Congress, recently threatened to restrict cooperation with Fox if Echeverria was charged. Party leaders said Friday they are helping organize a team of top lawyers to defend those charged.

Velazquez argued that an arrest warrant would be improper.

"There was no genocide ... in the sense of a state policy of exterminating a population," he said.

Velazquez said the incident was "a confrontation."

"There is not a single proof of criminal responsibility by any of those I defend," he said.

Velazquez also noted that under Mexican law in effect at the time, the crime of genocide had a 30-year statute of limitations that he said expired on June 10, 2001.

While Mexico endorsed an international treaty in 2002 eliminating that statute of limitations, Velazquez argued it cannot be applied retroactively.

Carrillo earlier said the statute of limitation issue was for the courts to decide.

[Torie]

A retroactive application of a repeal of a statute of limitations, after the period has expired for a given crime, would not cut it in Anglo Saxon law. I am not absolutely sure of that, but I think it is the case.

[Clemenza]

Couldn't have happenned to a nicer guy. A friend of Fidel to boot.

[endthematrix]

Welcome to INTERNATIONAL law. If Mexican socalists love the UN then they will follow it.

6. Convention on the non-applicability of statutory limitations to war crimes and crimes against humanity

Article 1

No statutory limitation shall apply to the following crimes, irrespective of the date of their commission:

Mexico is a signatory since 3 Jul 1969

[gaspar]

This is truly a misrepresentation of the word genocide. But what can you expect from the media?

[Cultural Jihad]

It isn't the media using the word. I am not familiar with the events of the late 60s and early 70s in Mexico, But I believe a lot more than 11 were murdered.

[dsc]

"A retroactive application of a repeal of a statute of limitations, after the period has expired for a given crime, would not cut it in Anglo Saxon law."

Some states are doing it now in molestation cases.

[FITZ]

Yes some say it was more like 300 killed --- many more than that were beaten and injured. The protest took place in the plaza of Tlatelolco and Echeverria sent the army --- a couple thousand to seal off an exit routes for the unarmed students and others who just happened to be there. The government just mowed the people down with machine guns --- and they say it's because the Olympic Games in Mexico were about to begin and the government didn't want the embarassment of protests going on that would make foreign visitors think the people didn't like the government.

[FITZ]

But this is Mexico --- the PAN party has never cared much about the Tlateloco Massacre but the PRD which keeps the incident alive is rising in power. There's an election in 2 years.

[gcruse]

A retroactive application of a repeal of a statute of limitations, after the period has expired for a given crime, would not cut it in Anglo Saxon law.

I don't know.  But didn't Ashcroft threaten to have someone arrested for promulgating material which he classified retroactively?

[gcruse]

Couldn't have happenned to a nicer guy. A friend of Fidel to boot.

When killing eleven demonstrators is charged as 'genocide,' don't your spidey senses get in the least bit tingly?

When killing eleven demonstrators is charged as 'genocide,' don't your spidey senses get in the least bit tingly?

[Clemenza]

Echevarria always thought of himself as a progressive and when the student protesters implicated him for a role in the earlier Tlateloco massacre (in which considerably more than 11 students were slaughtered shortly before the Olympics in 68), he felt he had to "protect his image" as Mr. Progressive while asserting his authority as head of the PRI, which isn't exactly a right-wing party if you know what I mean, even by Mexican standards.