Luis Echeverría
Encyclopedia
Luis Echeverría Álvarez (born 17 January 1922) served as President of Mexico
from 1970 to 1976.
in 1947 and taught political theory. He rose in the hierarchy of the Institutional Revolutionary Party
(PRI) and eventually became the private secretary of the party president, General Rodolfo Sánchez Taboada. Echeverría served as Interior Secretary under President Gustavo Díaz Ordaz
from 1964 to 1970. He maintained a hard line against student protesters throughout 1968. Clashes between the government and protesters culminated in the Tlatelolco massacre
in October 1968, a few days before the 1968 Summer Olympics
were held in Mexico City
. In a separate incident, he ordered the transfer of 15% of the Mexican military to the state of Guerrero
to counter guerrilla groups operating there.
political and economic reform, nationalizing the mining and electrical industries, redistributing private land in the states of Sinaloa
and Sonora
to peasants, opposing American "expansionism," supporting the leftist Chile
an leader Salvador Allende
, condemning Zionism
, allowing the Palestine Liberation Organization
to open an office in the capital, and imposing limits on foreign investment, and extending Mexico's patrimonial waters to 370 kilometres (229.9 mi). He also created a special commission to destroy Mexico's forests, believing they were of no economic benefit, using that land for agriculture. State spending on health, housing construction, education, and food subsidies was also significantly increased, while the percentage of the population covered by the social security system was doubled.
At the same time, he enraged the left because he did not bring the perpetrators of the Corpus Christi Massacre
to justice, and he angered the business community with his populist rhetoric and his moves to nationalize industries and redistribute land. He was also unpopular within the rank and file of his own party.
Echeverría's candidacy rode a wave of anger by citizens in northwestern Mexico against the United States for its use (and perceived misappropriation) of water from the Colorado River, which drains much of the U.S. southwest before crossing into Mexico. The established treaty between the U.S. and Mexico called for the U.S. to allow a specified volume of water, 1.85 cubic kilometre (0.44383860341793 cu mi), to pass the U.S.-Mexican border
, but it did not establish any quality levels. Throughout the 20th century, the United States, through its water policy managed through the United States Bureau of Reclamation
, had developed wide-ranging irrigation
along the river which had led to progressively higher levels of salinity
in the water as it moved downstream. By the late 1960s, the high salinity of the water crossing into Mexico had resulted in the ruin of large tracts of the irrigated
land along the lower Colorado. The sudden increase in oil prices in 1973 coupled with the possibility of new Mexican oil deposits in the Bay of Campeche
, gave Echeverría a strong bargaining position against the Nixon Administration
in the United States. Echeverría threatened to bring the issue to the World Court
, prompting the Nixon Administration to renegotiate the treaty to include a salinity-control agreement. The implementation of salinity control at the border (specified to be at U.S. expense) has been on-going and slow, however, and the lower Colorado remains largely a desolate shadow of what it once was.
He is accused of irresponsible government spending, increasing inflation, and cronyism
– which is symbolized by appointing his good friend and eventual successor José López Portillo
as Finance Minister – violent devaluations of the peso, from 12.50 MXP per dollar in 1954 to 20 per dollar in late 1976, as well as for rising debt. During his period, the country's external debt soared from $6 billion in 1970 to $20 billion in 1976. This caused the ruling party, at least in terms of its economic policies, to gradually lose prestige at home and abroad.
Echeverría’s brother-in-law, Rubén Zuno Arce, was convicted by a California court in 1992 and sentenced to life for his role as leader of the Guadalajara drug cartel and the murder of a U.S. federal agent seven years earlier. Echeverría repeatedly requested President Carlos Salinas
to pressure Washington
for the release of Zuno Arce, to no avail.
After leaving office, Salinas
(who was president from 1988 to 1994) publicly accused Echeverría of inspiring the murder of their party’s presidential candidate in March 1994 and of leading a conspiracy against his reformist allies inside the PRI, which had led to a systemic political and economic crisis. Salinas claimed that Echeverría pressed him to replace the murdered candidate, Luis Donaldo Colosio
, with an old-guard figure. Echeverría brushed off the accusations as absurd.
After the defeat of the PRI in the general elections of July 2000, it emerged that Vicente Fox
(president from 2000 to 2006) had met privately with Echeverría at the latter’s home in Mexico City
numerous times during his presidential campaign in 1999 and 2000. Fox did appoint several Echeverría loyalists to top positions in his government, such as Adolfo Aguilar
(who headed Echeverría’s “Third World University” in the 1970s) as national security advisor, and Juan José Bremer (Echeverría’s personal secretary) as ambassador to Washington. The most controversial was Alejandro Gertz Manero, who had been accused by the Mexican press of bearing responsibility for the suicide of a museum owner in 1972, as Gertz, then working for Echeverría’s attorney general, attempted to confiscate his private collection of pre-Hispanic artefacts (Echeverría has a collection of such artefacts). Fox appointed Gertz as chief of the Federal Police. Shortly thereafter, a major drug boss, Joaquín Guzmán
(“El Chapo”), escaped from a maximum-security penitentiary. He had been with the Sinaloa drug cartel, but had worked for Zuno Arce in the Guadalajara drug cartel in the 1980s.
over education funding on 10 June 1971; the incident became known as the Corpus Christi Massacre
for the feast day on which it took place, but also as the – "Falcon Strike" – since the special unit involved was called ("The Falcons"). The evidence against Echeverría appeared to be based on documents that allegedly show that he ordered the formation of special army units that committed the killings and that he received regular updates about the episode and its aftermath from his chief of secret police. At the time, the government argued police forces and civilian demonstrators were attacked (and people on both sides killed) by armed civilians, who were convicted and later freed because of a general amnesty
.
After the political transition of 2000, Echeverría was charged with genocide
by the special prosecutor (an untested charge in the Mexican legal system), partly because the statute of limitations
for charges of homicide
had expired (charges of genocide under Mexican law have no statute of limitations from 2002). On 24 July 2004, a judge refused to issue an arrest warrant for Echeverría because of statute of limitations problems with the indictment, apparently rejecting the special prosecutor's assertion of genocide-based special circumstances. The special prosecutor said that he would appeal the judge's decision. Echeverría has steadfastly denied any complicity in the killings.
On 24 February 2005 the Supreme Court of Justice decided, four votes against one, that the statute of limitations (30 years) had expired by the time the prosecution began, and that Mexico's ratification by Congress in 2002 to the United Nations convention against war crimes from 26 November 1968, signed by the President on 3 July 1969 but ratified by Congress on 10 December 2001 and coming into effect 90 days later, stating that genocide has no statute of limitations could not be applied retroactively to Echeverría's case, since only Congress can make those agreements part of the legal system.
Charges of genocide (which would have been difficult to sustain if accepted) were about the last hope of the prosecution and while the case is still technically open in court it will be difficult to obtain a conviction. The prosecution argued before the Supreme Court that (a) political conditions prevented an earlier prosecution, (b) the president was constitutionally protected against charges for his full term so the statute of limitations should be extended because of that and (c) the UN convention accepted by Mexico covered past events of genocide. The Supreme Court said that the law did not take into account political conditions and presidential immunity when calculating the statute of limitations, that the prosecution failed to prove earlier charges against the defendants (producing only photocopies with no legal value of supposed legal proceedings from the late 1970s and early 1980s) and that article 14 of the Mexican constitution establishes the principle of non-retroactivity.
On 20 September 2005 the special prosecutor for crimes of the past filed genocide charges against Echeverría for his responsibility, as interior minister at the time, in the 2 October 1968 Tlatelolco massacre
. Again, the assigned criminal judge dismissed the filing, holding, first, that the statute of limitations had expired and, second, that the massacre did not constitute genocide. An arrest warrant for Echeverría was issued by a Mexican court on 30 June 2006, but was found not guilty of charges on 8 July 2006. Echeverría is now suing the PRD for untrue allegations. On 29 November 2006, he was charged with the massacres and ordered under house arrest by a Mexican judge.
Finally, on 26 March 2009 a federal court ordered the absolute freedom of ex-president as well as exemptions from the charge of genocide for the events of Tlatelolco.
In February 2006, at 84, was hospitalized for a problem of blood supply to the brain.
On 4 April 2006 he seized a total of 14 sites in Cozumel accumulated tax debt in 30 years. These debts accumulated nearly 2 million pesos.
On 30 June 2006 a federal judge ordered his arrest for the 1968 massacre.
It acquitted on 8 July 2006 due to statute of limitations in November 2005, that declared his house arrest had ended.
On 26 March 2009 a federal court ordered the absolute freedom of ex-president as well as exemptions from the charge of genocide for the acts of Tlatelolco.
President of Mexico
The President of the United Mexican States is the head of state and government of Mexico. Under the Constitution, the president is also the Supreme Commander of the Mexican armed forces...
from 1970 to 1976.
Early history
Echeverría joined the faculty of the National Autonomous University of MexicoNational Autonomous University of Mexico
The Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México is a university in Mexico. UNAM was founded on 22 September 1910 by Justo Sierra as a liberal alternative to the Roman Catholic-sponsored Royal and Pontifical University of Mexico The Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM) (National Autonomous...
in 1947 and taught political theory. He rose in the hierarchy of the Institutional Revolutionary Party
Institutional Revolutionary Party
The Institutional Revolutionary Party is a Mexican political party that held power in the country—under a succession of names—for more than 70 years. The PRI is a member of the Socialist International, as is the rival Party of the Democratic Revolution , making Mexico one of the few...
(PRI) and eventually became the private secretary of the party president, General Rodolfo Sánchez Taboada. Echeverría served as Interior Secretary under President Gustavo Díaz Ordaz
Gustavo Díaz Ordaz
Gustavo Díaz Ordaz Bolaños served as the President of Mexico from 1964 to 1970.- Political career :Díaz Ordaz was born in San Andrés Chalchícomula . His father, Ramón Díaz Ordaz Redonet, worked as an accountant, while his mother, Sabina Bolaños Cacho de Díaz Ordaz, worked as a school teacher...
from 1964 to 1970. He maintained a hard line against student protesters throughout 1968. Clashes between the government and protesters culminated in the Tlatelolco massacre
Tlatelolco massacre
The Tlatelolco massacre, also known as The Night of Tlatelolco , was a government massacre of student and civilian protesters and bystanders that took place during the afternoon and night of October 2, 1968, in the Plaza de las Tres Culturas in the Tlatelolco section of Mexico City...
in October 1968, a few days before the 1968 Summer Olympics
1968 Summer Olympics
The 1968 Summer Olympics, officially known as the Games of the XIX Olympiad, were an international multi-sport event held in Mexico City, Mexico in October 1968. The 1968 Games were the first Olympic Games hosted by a developing country, and the first Games hosted by a Spanish-speaking country...
were held in Mexico City
Mexico City
Mexico City is the Federal District , capital of Mexico and seat of the federal powers of the Mexican Union. It is a federal entity within Mexico which is not part of any one of the 31 Mexican states but belongs to the federation as a whole...
. In a separate incident, he ordered the transfer of 15% of the Mexican military to the state of Guerrero
Guerrero
Guerrero officially Estado Libre y Soberano de Guerrero is one of the 31 states which, with the Federal District, comprise the 32 Federal Entities of Mexico. It is divided in 81 municipalities and its capital city is Chilpancingo....
to counter guerrilla groups operating there.
Presidency
At one point during his campaign for the presidency, Echeverría called for a moment of silence to remember the victims of the Tlatelolco massacre, an act which enraged President Díaz Ordaz and almost prompted him to call for Echeverría's resignation. Once Echeverría became president, he embarked on a far-reaching program of populistPopulism
Populism can be defined as an ideology, political philosophy, or type of discourse. Generally, a common theme compares "the people" against "the elite", and urges social and political system changes. It can also be defined as a rhetorical style employed by members of various political or social...
political and economic reform, nationalizing the mining and electrical industries, redistributing private land in the states of Sinaloa
Sinaloa
Sinaloa officially Estado Libre y Soberano de Sinaloa is one of the 31 states which, with the Federal District, comprise the 32 Federal Entities of Mexico. It is divided in 18 municipalities and its capital city is Culiacán Rosales....
and Sonora
Sonora
Sonora officially Estado Libre y Soberano de Sonora is one of the 31 states which, with the Federal District, comprise the 32 Federal Entities of Mexico. It is divided into 72 municipalities; the capital city is Hermosillo....
to peasants, opposing American "expansionism," supporting the leftist Chile
Chile
Chile ,officially the Republic of Chile , is a country in South America occupying a long, narrow coastal strip between the Andes mountains to the east and the Pacific Ocean to the west. It borders Peru to the north, Bolivia to the northeast, Argentina to the east, and the Drake Passage in the far...
an leader Salvador Allende
Salvador Allende
Salvador Allende Gossens was a Chilean physician and politician who is generally considered the first democratically elected Marxist to become president of a country in Latin America....
, condemning Zionism
Zionism
Zionism is a Jewish political movement that, in its broadest sense, has supported the self-determination of the Jewish people in a sovereign Jewish national homeland. Since the establishment of the State of Israel, the Zionist movement continues primarily to advocate on behalf of the Jewish state...
, allowing the Palestine Liberation Organization
Palestine Liberation Organization
The Palestine Liberation Organization is a political and paramilitary organization which was created in 1964. It is recognized as the "sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people" by the United Nations and over 100 states with which it holds diplomatic relations, and has enjoyed...
to open an office in the capital, and imposing limits on foreign investment, and extending Mexico's patrimonial waters to 370 kilometres (229.9 mi). He also created a special commission to destroy Mexico's forests, believing they were of no economic benefit, using that land for agriculture. State spending on health, housing construction, education, and food subsidies was also significantly increased, while the percentage of the population covered by the social security system was doubled.
At the same time, he enraged the left because he did not bring the perpetrators of the Corpus Christi Massacre
Corpus Christi massacre
The Corpus Christi Massacre, Corpus Christi Thursday Massacre The Corpus Christi Massacre, Corpus Christi Thursday Massacre The Corpus Christi Massacre, Corpus Christi Thursday Massacre (or El Halconazo (The hawk strike) because of the participation of a group of elite Mexican army men known as Los...
to justice, and he angered the business community with his populist rhetoric and his moves to nationalize industries and redistribute land. He was also unpopular within the rank and file of his own party.
Echeverría's candidacy rode a wave of anger by citizens in northwestern Mexico against the United States for its use (and perceived misappropriation) of water from the Colorado River, which drains much of the U.S. southwest before crossing into Mexico. The established treaty between the U.S. and Mexico called for the U.S. to allow a specified volume of water, 1.85 cubic kilometre (0.44383860341793 cu mi), to pass the U.S.-Mexican border
United States–Mexico border
The United States–Mexico border is the international border between the United States and Mexico. It runs from Imperial Beach, California, and Tijuana, Baja California, in the west to Matamoros, Tamaulipas, and Brownsville, Texas, in the east, and traverses a variety of terrains, ranging from major...
, but it did not establish any quality levels. Throughout the 20th century, the United States, through its water policy managed through the United States Bureau of Reclamation
United States Bureau of Reclamation
The United States Bureau of Reclamation , and formerly the United States Reclamation Service , is an agency under the U.S...
, had developed wide-ranging irrigation
Irrigation
Irrigation may be defined as the science of artificial application of water to the land or soil. It is used to assist in the growing of agricultural crops, maintenance of landscapes, and revegetation of disturbed soils in dry areas and during periods of inadequate rainfall...
along the river which had led to progressively higher levels of salinity
Salinity
Salinity is the saltiness or dissolved salt content of a body of water. It is a general term used to describe the levels of different salts such as sodium chloride, magnesium and calcium sulfates, and bicarbonates...
in the water as it moved downstream. By the late 1960s, the high salinity of the water crossing into Mexico had resulted in the ruin of large tracts of the irrigated
Irrigation
Irrigation may be defined as the science of artificial application of water to the land or soil. It is used to assist in the growing of agricultural crops, maintenance of landscapes, and revegetation of disturbed soils in dry areas and during periods of inadequate rainfall...
land along the lower Colorado. The sudden increase in oil prices in 1973 coupled with the possibility of new Mexican oil deposits in the Bay of Campeche
Bay of Campeche
The Bay of Campeche is the southern bight of the Gulf of Mexico. It is surrounded on three sides by the Mexican states of Campeche, Tabasco and Veracruz. It was named by Francisco Hernández de Córdoba and Antonio de Alaminos during their expedition in 1517...
, gave Echeverría a strong bargaining position against the Nixon Administration
Richard Nixon
Richard Milhous Nixon was the 37th President of the United States, serving from 1969 to 1974. The only president to resign the office, Nixon had previously served as a US representative and senator from California and as the 36th Vice President of the United States from 1953 to 1961 under...
in the United States. Echeverría threatened to bring the issue to the World Court
World Court
* any of the international courts located in The Hague:**the International Court of Justice , a UN court that settles disputes between nations...
, prompting the Nixon Administration to renegotiate the treaty to include a salinity-control agreement. The implementation of salinity control at the border (specified to be at U.S. expense) has been on-going and slow, however, and the lower Colorado remains largely a desolate shadow of what it once was.
He is accused of irresponsible government spending, increasing inflation, and cronyism
Cronyism
Cronyism is partiality to long-standing friends, especially by appointing them to positions of authority, regardless of their qualifications. Hence, cronyism is contrary in practice and principle to meritocracy....
– which is symbolized by appointing his good friend and eventual successor José López Portillo
José López Portillo
José López Portillo y Pacheco was the President of Mexico from 1976 to 1982.Born in Mexico City, López Portillo studied Law at the National Autonomous University of Mexico before beginning his political career with the Institutional Revolutionary Party in 1959.He held several positions in the...
as Finance Minister – violent devaluations of the peso, from 12.50 MXP per dollar in 1954 to 20 per dollar in late 1976, as well as for rising debt. During his period, the country's external debt soared from $6 billion in 1970 to $20 billion in 1976. This caused the ruling party, at least in terms of its economic policies, to gradually lose prestige at home and abroad.
Continued influence
Echeverría has been suspected of wielding power behind the throne even long after his presidential term ended, mostly through his alleged influence over the “old guard” wing of the PRI, the myriad special police forces in Mexico, as well as the drug cartels.Echeverría’s brother-in-law, Rubén Zuno Arce, was convicted by a California court in 1992 and sentenced to life for his role as leader of the Guadalajara drug cartel and the murder of a U.S. federal agent seven years earlier. Echeverría repeatedly requested President Carlos Salinas
Carlos Salinas
Carlos Salinas de Gortari is a Mexican economist and politician affiliated to the Institutional Revolutionary Party who served as President of Mexico from 1988 to 1994. Earlier in his career he worked in the Budget Secretariat all the way up to Secretary...
to pressure Washington
Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution....
for the release of Zuno Arce, to no avail.
After leaving office, Salinas
Carlos Salinas
Carlos Salinas de Gortari is a Mexican economist and politician affiliated to the Institutional Revolutionary Party who served as President of Mexico from 1988 to 1994. Earlier in his career he worked in the Budget Secretariat all the way up to Secretary...
(who was president from 1988 to 1994) publicly accused Echeverría of inspiring the murder of their party’s presidential candidate in March 1994 and of leading a conspiracy against his reformist allies inside the PRI, which had led to a systemic political and economic crisis. Salinas claimed that Echeverría pressed him to replace the murdered candidate, Luis Donaldo Colosio
Luis Donaldo Colosio
Luis Donaldo Colosio Murrieta was a Mexican politician, and PRI presidential candidate, who was assassinated at a campaign rally in Tijuana during the Mexican Presidential campaign of 1994.-Political history:...
, with an old-guard figure. Echeverría brushed off the accusations as absurd.
After the defeat of the PRI in the general elections of July 2000, it emerged that Vicente Fox
Vicente Fox
Vicente Fox Quesada is a Mexican former politician who served as President of Mexico from 1 December 2000 to 30 November 2006 and currently serves as co-President of the Centrist Democrat International, an international organization of Christian democratic political parties.Fox was elected...
(president from 2000 to 2006) had met privately with Echeverría at the latter’s home in Mexico City
Mexico City
Mexico City is the Federal District , capital of Mexico and seat of the federal powers of the Mexican Union. It is a federal entity within Mexico which is not part of any one of the 31 Mexican states but belongs to the federation as a whole...
numerous times during his presidential campaign in 1999 and 2000. Fox did appoint several Echeverría loyalists to top positions in his government, such as Adolfo Aguilar
Adolfo Aguilar Zínser
Adolfo Aguilar Zínser was a Mexican scholar, diplomat and politician who served as a National Security Advisor to President Vicente Fox and as a UN Security Council Ambassador in the midst of the US invasion of Iraq....
(who headed Echeverría’s “Third World University” in the 1970s) as national security advisor, and Juan José Bremer (Echeverría’s personal secretary) as ambassador to Washington. The most controversial was Alejandro Gertz Manero, who had been accused by the Mexican press of bearing responsibility for the suicide of a museum owner in 1972, as Gertz, then working for Echeverría’s attorney general, attempted to confiscate his private collection of pre-Hispanic artefacts (Echeverría has a collection of such artefacts). Fox appointed Gertz as chief of the Federal Police. Shortly thereafter, a major drug boss, Joaquín Guzmán
Joaquín Guzmán
Joaquín Archivaldo Guzmán Loera nicknamed "El Chapo" for his stature, is a Mexican drug lord who heads Mexico's and the world's largest and most powerful drug trafficking organization referred to as the Sinaloa Cartel, named after the Mexican Pacific coast state of Sinaloa where it was initially...
(“El Chapo”), escaped from a maximum-security penitentiary. He had been with the Sinaloa drug cartel, but had worked for Zuno Arce in the Guadalajara drug cartel in the 1980s.
Later years
On 23 July 2006 a special prosecutor indicted Echeverría and requested his arrest for allegedly ordering the killing of 25 student demonstrators and the wounding of dozens of others during a student protest in Mexico CityMexico City
Mexico City is the Federal District , capital of Mexico and seat of the federal powers of the Mexican Union. It is a federal entity within Mexico which is not part of any one of the 31 Mexican states but belongs to the federation as a whole...
over education funding on 10 June 1971; the incident became known as the Corpus Christi Massacre
Corpus Christi massacre
The Corpus Christi Massacre, Corpus Christi Thursday Massacre The Corpus Christi Massacre, Corpus Christi Thursday Massacre The Corpus Christi Massacre, Corpus Christi Thursday Massacre (or El Halconazo (The hawk strike) because of the participation of a group of elite Mexican army men known as Los...
for the feast day on which it took place, but also as the – "Falcon Strike" – since the special unit involved was called ("The Falcons"). The evidence against Echeverría appeared to be based on documents that allegedly show that he ordered the formation of special army units that committed the killings and that he received regular updates about the episode and its aftermath from his chief of secret police. At the time, the government argued police forces and civilian demonstrators were attacked (and people on both sides killed) by armed civilians, who were convicted and later freed because of a general amnesty
Amnesty
Amnesty is a legislative or executive act by which a state restores those who may have been guilty of an offense against it to the positions of innocent people, without changing the laws defining the offense. It includes more than pardon, in as much as it obliterates all legal remembrance of the...
.
After the political transition of 2000, Echeverría was charged with genocide
Genocide
Genocide is defined as "the deliberate and systematic destruction, in whole or in part, of an ethnic, racial, religious, or national group", though what constitutes enough of a "part" to qualify as genocide has been subject to much debate by legal scholars...
by the special prosecutor (an untested charge in the Mexican legal system), partly because the statute of limitations
Statute of limitations
A statute of limitations is an enactment in a common law legal system that sets the maximum time after an event that legal proceedings based on that event may be initiated...
for charges of homicide
Homicide
Homicide refers to the act of a human killing another human. Murder, for example, is a type of homicide. It can also describe a person who has committed such an act, though this use is rare in modern English...
had expired (charges of genocide under Mexican law have no statute of limitations from 2002). On 24 July 2004, a judge refused to issue an arrest warrant for Echeverría because of statute of limitations problems with the indictment, apparently rejecting the special prosecutor's assertion of genocide-based special circumstances. The special prosecutor said that he would appeal the judge's decision. Echeverría has steadfastly denied any complicity in the killings.
On 24 February 2005 the Supreme Court of Justice decided, four votes against one, that the statute of limitations (30 years) had expired by the time the prosecution began, and that Mexico's ratification by Congress in 2002 to the United Nations convention against war crimes from 26 November 1968, signed by the President on 3 July 1969 but ratified by Congress on 10 December 2001 and coming into effect 90 days later, stating that genocide has no statute of limitations could not be applied retroactively to Echeverría's case, since only Congress can make those agreements part of the legal system.
Charges of genocide (which would have been difficult to sustain if accepted) were about the last hope of the prosecution and while the case is still technically open in court it will be difficult to obtain a conviction. The prosecution argued before the Supreme Court that (a) political conditions prevented an earlier prosecution, (b) the president was constitutionally protected against charges for his full term so the statute of limitations should be extended because of that and (c) the UN convention accepted by Mexico covered past events of genocide. The Supreme Court said that the law did not take into account political conditions and presidential immunity when calculating the statute of limitations, that the prosecution failed to prove earlier charges against the defendants (producing only photocopies with no legal value of supposed legal proceedings from the late 1970s and early 1980s) and that article 14 of the Mexican constitution establishes the principle of non-retroactivity.
On 20 September 2005 the special prosecutor for crimes of the past filed genocide charges against Echeverría for his responsibility, as interior minister at the time, in the 2 October 1968 Tlatelolco massacre
Tlatelolco massacre
The Tlatelolco massacre, also known as The Night of Tlatelolco , was a government massacre of student and civilian protesters and bystanders that took place during the afternoon and night of October 2, 1968, in the Plaza de las Tres Culturas in the Tlatelolco section of Mexico City...
. Again, the assigned criminal judge dismissed the filing, holding, first, that the statute of limitations had expired and, second, that the massacre did not constitute genocide. An arrest warrant for Echeverría was issued by a Mexican court on 30 June 2006, but was found not guilty of charges on 8 July 2006. Echeverría is now suing the PRD for untrue allegations. On 29 November 2006, he was charged with the massacres and ordered under house arrest by a Mexican judge.
Finally, on 26 March 2009 a federal court ordered the absolute freedom of ex-president as well as exemptions from the charge of genocide for the events of Tlatelolco.
Post-presidential Events
In 2002 was the first political officer called to testify before the Mexican justice for the massacre of students in the Plaza de las Tres Culturas in Tlatelolco massacre in 1968 and 1971.In February 2006, at 84, was hospitalized for a problem of blood supply to the brain.
On 4 April 2006 he seized a total of 14 sites in Cozumel accumulated tax debt in 30 years. These debts accumulated nearly 2 million pesos.
On 30 June 2006 a federal judge ordered his arrest for the 1968 massacre.
It acquitted on 8 July 2006 due to statute of limitations in November 2005, that declared his house arrest had ended.
On 26 March 2009 a federal court ordered the absolute freedom of ex-president as well as exemptions from the charge of genocide for the acts of Tlatelolco.
Sources
- Werner, Michael. (Ed.) (1997). Encyclopedia of Mexico: History, Society, and Culture. Chicago: Fitzroy Dearborn.
- Cadillac DesertCadillac DesertCadillac Desert, by Marc Reisner, is a 1986 book published by Viking about land development and water policy in the western United States. Subtitled The American West and its Disappearing Water, it gives the history of the Bureau of Reclamation and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, and their struggle...
, Marc ReisnerMarc ReisnerMarc Reisner was an American environmentalist and writer best known for his book Cadillac Desert, a history of water management in the American West....
(regarding lower Colorado water issues)
- Schmidt, Samuel. (1972). El deterioro del presidencialismo mexicano. Mexico D.F.: EDAMEX