Voices of Tlatelolco
The people back the movement because it has catalyzed the discontent they feel at not having the barest necessities. The people take part in the movement because it is their children who have...
...Gilberto Guevara Niebla of the CNH 20 Voices of Tlatelolco We were marching along behind a huge red flag...
...F61ix Goded Andrew, student, Communist Youth member hen the torture started again...
...A policeman climbed up on the platform to speak at a meeting in Atzcapotzalco...
...chant...
...The other occupants of the rostrum try to escape...
...Ernesto Morales Soto, Cavalry Captain official statement no...
...Claude Kiejman Le Monde, Oct 5 We were interrogated by an American agent and two Mexican ones...
...1978 Mexico, Mexico, Libertad...
...They attended, all right, but not in the spirit the government had expected...
...Do you have a United States visa...
...I saw four girls from my school get on the bus from Economics...
...I worked nights and studied in the afternoon...
...Mexico, Mexico, Libertad...
...when poor people-who show by their clothing that they scarcely have enough of what is necessary for survival-approach the demonstrators, applaud them, pick up propaganda and try to communicate, sharing with them bread or fruit...
...Luckily nothing happened there at the high school, and we all got back safe and sound to CU...
...By using the victories they won in the Olympics as a political weapon, the black champions made a great im- pression on the Mexican spectators, and even though it had only an indirect effect, it helped our Movement...
...The horror begins...
...54832/68 Sept./Oct...
...The prisoners pass with their hands behind their heads shoved along by soldiers who are beating them...
...The Mexican students have the support of decent people in every country in the world...
...We men are the only ones who are going this time," I told them...
...A certain number of them are completely undressed and are made to lie naked on the terraces which form the roofs of the buildings...
...The specific questions were: "Are you members of the Communist Party...
...They flocked out of the public offices shouting, "We're sheep, they're herding us around...
...Others were achieving politicization among the workers...
...I didn't join any organizations...
...I thought to myself that the best I could hope for now was just finding him alive...
...he said he was a decent person, took his uniform off, and stamped on it, and then asked us for money to go back to the part of the country he came from...
...After a while, the belligerent scene became almost festive, it might have been a student pep rally on the campus of the University of Kansas, seeking free love...
...Daniel Guian, director of an insurance company and Olympics visitor from France n October 2, I said a mass in Cuernavaca for those who had lost their lives at Tlatelolco, and wrote a sermon on the injustices being perpetrated throughout our country and the nationwide indifference to the fate of prisoners...
...Movement propaganda was delivered to the factory and the workers themselves would pass the handbills out...
...Any worker who pressed for his rights was kicked out...
...Do you have relatives in the United States...
...They are seized by plainclothesmen coming out of the apartments behind them...
...On the esplanade is an ancient Aztec pyramid surrounded by ditches, and the crowd tried to escape without really understanding what is happening, but finds itself facing five hundred helmeted soldiers with machine guns and rifles in their hands advancing upon them in riot formation...
...The Plaza of the Three Cultures is strewn with wounded and dead, many of them children...
...The eyes of the entire world were focused on Mexico...
...Are you members of the Communist Youth...
...workers in their fight against exploitation...
...They were highly indignant, and immediately replied that Che [Guevara] allowed women to fight in his brigade, and the hell with me...
...Bob Ottum, Sports Illustrated...
...Victor Rico Galdn, journalist, prisoner Mi any workers sympathized with the Movement but lots of them didn't dare show it for fear of reprisals, or because they were lazy or indifferent, since all of us were very tired when we got off work, but it was mostly because they were afraid of losing their jobs...
...He was so angry that tears were streaming down his face...
...W/hen, in the big demonstrations that you carry out, the people throw down to you from the buildings pieces of plastic or paper so you can protect yourself from the rain...
...Then they finally stopped torturing me, and the soldier said to me, "Don't kid yourselves, you Communist swine...
...And then, while the students and spectators milled around, came the scene that was to leave its mark on the 1968 Olympics...
...Daniel Esparza Lepe, student at ESIME, IPN "Ahe girl students once phoned us that right-wing student groups had taken over a University high school...
...We express our total solidarity with the undocumented workers, whose struggle carries on that of our Latin American peoples within the belly of the beast, along with Puerto Ricans and other national minorities...
...the panic is on...
...I insisted, and thought they'd finally agreed to get off the bus...
...Night falls...
...The only thing about the Olympic Games that made them worthwhile was the Black Power bit, the black fists in the air, the clenched fists of the Black athletes Tommie Smith, John Carlos, Lee Evans, Harry Edwards...
...Bertrand Russell Jean Paul Sartre t is already dusk and no one can understand the reason for the confusion...
...The representative of the do-nothing, government-approved union, the CTM, dropped around every once in a while to collect dues and all he ever said was, "Everything's going fine, men...
...But, indeed, the ones to be "politicized" were the students themselves...
...The majority of the students help the women to flee and protect them...
...I sent copies of this sermon to all the faithful in my diocese, and requested that it be read on December 12, the feast day of the Virgin of Guadalupe...
...Those arrested, myself among them, are lined up with their hands in the air alongside the church...
...Statement by workers of the Federal Electricity Commission After the night of August 27, government employees were notified that they must attend a ceremony the government was going to hold to make amends for the insult to the national flag...
...We were very happy...
...The people take part in the movement because it is their children who have had the courage to denounce repression and the violation of constitutional rights...
...There are more than five thousand of them and three hundred tanks, and they are shooting to kill...
...However, plainclothesmen can be seen in the crowd with white gloves on their left hands signalling for the soldiers to fire on the demonstrators...
...l realize that the government could not possibly permit the student disturbances to continue since the Olympic Games were scheduled to begin in a few days...
...We also express our solidarity with the North American miners, who are blazing a trail that must be marched by millions of U.S...
...Margarita Nolasco, anthropologist THE SHOW WILL GO ON...
...Sol Arguedas Tres Culturas en Agonia NACLA Report[ was the sort of person who had no interest in political discussions...
...we don't want to go, baa, baaa, baaa...
...Luis Tomis Cervantes Cabeza de Vaca of the CNHWe like the Olympic Games," one of the leaders said, "but we feel our cause is more important . . Your way of life, with your mechanisms and your Olympics, does not suit us...
...I got more and more desperate: "Carlos, answer me, Carlitos, it's me...
...We jump over embankments nine feet high...
...Eduardo Valle Espinoza of the CNH Yesterday, October 2, I was put in command of two sections of cavalry troops, numbering seventy-five men, all of whom were attached to the 18th and 19th Cavalry Regiment, and given orders to take these two sections to the Tlatelolco housing unit, with my men and myself dressed in civilian clothes but wearing a white glove so that the authorities would be able to identify us, and upon arriving there we were to guard the two entrances to the Chihuahua building in the aforementioned housing unit and mingle with the crowd that had gathered there for unspecified reasons...
...I'd been discouraged, in fact, ever since I was twelve, when I began working in the oxygen factory...
...Eduardo Valle Espinoza, CNH 21'l1 I kept shouting, "Carlos, Carlitos, Carlitos, where are you...
...A sea of heads in every direction, hands in the air applauding...
...Immediately upon sighting a flare in the sky, the prearranged signal, we were to seal off the aforementioned two entrances and prevent anyone from entering or leaving...
...The News, Mexico City, Oct 3 Nothing short of the overthrow of this government will prevent further such atrocities...
...All this got me to thinking, and when I saw that the Student Movement was really making headway, I said to myself, This time I'm going to take part...
...The Paseo de la Reforma was jammed...
...If you won't talk, we have gringos here who'll take over...
...The most striking thing about those arrested is their courage and their determination...
...Three or four soldiers kept tagging along after me, but by that time I was past caring...
...The tanks rumble toward us...
...The Students would rally that evening, he said, at the Plaza de las Tres Culturas...
...Elena Gonzdlez Souza, Medical Student...
...They had to stop the students any way they could, at whatever cost...
...The speaker repeats the command to keep calm, but suddenly he is attacked and throttled by one of the people standing next to him...
...We immediately rounded up a whole bunch of students to go see what was happening...
...What I wanted most was to get ahead so my family wouldn't have to suffer any more...
...a torrential rain drenches us...
...People on the rooftops were shouting, applauding, laughing, and crying, too...
...it was even worse this time though, and lasted longer...
...I writhed like a rattlesnake, crying and moaning and screaming and swearing...
...F1lix SAnchez Hernindez, worker & prisoner 7 hen peasants from Topilejo, weary of knocking at unopening doors, turned to the students for solidarity and help, and when the students responded with health and literacy and art brigades, what was this if not dialogue...
...From a letter signed by 21 groups, members of the Committee of Ten Years of Revolutionary Struggle 1968-1978 The quotes on these pages are from Elena Poniatowska's Massacre in Mexico, Viking Press, and other sources...
...Contrary to the version in most of the Mexican newspapers, there are no rifle shots yet, either from the buildings surrounding the plaza or from the roofs...
...when all this happens, it is because the people, even without controlling their own organizations, even without the possibility of making their combined voices heard, search for ways to express their support, their solidarity, their spirit...
...Some three hundred of us men students arrived at the high school-plus the four girl students sitting way at the back of the bus from Economics, where I wasn't likely to spot them...
...it's me, Carlitos...
...Soldiers are coming at us from all the streets...
...You girls get out of there this minute...
...Power to the People...
...Sergio Mendez Arceo, Bishop of Cuernavaca Important among the international struggles of young people is that of the undocumented workers of Mexican origin in the U.S., against whom imperialism is using the Carter Immigration Plan in an attempt to deny their rights as workers...
...We have a company union at the Sanborn chocolate factory...
...baa, baa, baa...
...Listen to the people, students...
...Power to the people...
...JuliAn Acevedo Maldonado, law student The government of this country ought to be wary of kids who were ten or twelve or fifteen in 1968...
Vol. 12 • September 1978 • No. 5
