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 Editorials | November 2006 
Coming to Grips with Mexico's Bloody Past
 McClatchy-Tribune
| | The Mexican government acknowledged responsibility for massacres, torture, disappearances and genocide. The report describes and names the victims in 645 disappearances, 99 extrajudicial executions, and more than two thousand cases of torture, among other human rights violations documented. |
Of nearly all the countries in Latin America with a hidden history of involvement in political repression and human-rights violations, none has been more reluctant to confront its past than Mexico. That's why a recent government report that three Mexican presidents from the 1960s to the 1980s were involved in massacres, tortures and the murder of political opponents is both useful and necessary.
Useful because it opens the door to a full-scale examination of how a nation that claimed democratic status could have tolerated such abuses. The report must be followed up by public hearings that allow Mexicans to know all the sordid details: Who gave what orders? Who carried them out? Only then will the people of Mexico be able to come to terms with their nation's history.
But, above all, the report was necessary because there is a fundamental principle at stake. If Mexico is ever to blossom into a society in which people believe in the possibility of justice for all, it is essential to pierce the veil of secrecy that protects the reputation of former presidents who committed these crimes. From now on, no Mexican leader who blocks an inquiry can claim the mantle of democracy.
President Vicente Fox deserves credit for appointing a prosecutor to shed light on these past crimes. It is too bad, however, that he didn't act earlier.
Fox, let us remember, came to office in 2000 after a campaign that ended the stranglehold of the PRI, the old-guard party that ran Mexico for 75 years. He vowed to change things, promising that the aura of the presidency would not shield any predecessors who had violated the law. But when the moment of truth came, he blinked.
An earlier release of this report would have sent the message that Fox indeed intended his presidency to represent a break with the PRI's authoritarian past. Instead, the investigation into political crimes was held in abeyance until these waning days of his tenure, effectively ensuring that incoming President Felipe Calderon, who takes the oath of office next Friday, will have to deal with this hot potato.
Even worse is the political mess that Fox is passing on to Calderon in the state capital of Oaxaca, where violent protests led by striking teachers have shut down the city for months. The protesters are using the local university as a safe haven and practically daring authorities to come and get them.
Eventually, they will have to be dislodged by force. Calderon, as the ultimate authority, will be blamed, if unfairly, for any bloodshed. This began on Fox's watch. He should have cleaned it up. Instead, he has passed the buck to Calderon, practically ensuring that his tenure gets off to a bad start. |
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