Today’s Video: Tlatelolco – four decades later

October 2, 1968 was one of the most infamous dates in Mexican history. It was on that day that the Tlatelolco massacre occurred in Mexico City where dozens (if not a few hundred) people were gunned down by Mexican forces. The killings occurred days before the Summer Games as the authoritarian government tried to justify the actions during a peaceful student march.

Then-Interior Minister Luis Echeverría is under house arrest and could possibly be tried for his role in the massacre. Yet in the four decades since the massacre justice has been far from served which was why Amnesty International called on President Felipe Calderon “to establish the truth” and help bring those responsible to justice.

The clip below is from a Spanish-language Discovery Channel documentary on the Tlatelolco massacre. It describes how the growth of the Mexican student movement and the increasingly repressive nature of the government would lead to that fateful day at the Tlatelolco square.


Sources- The Latin Americanist, Wikipedia, YouTube, IPS, Herald Sun