Call for justice continues at presentation of report on ‘dirty war’

Mexico CityThe demand for justice resounded once again in the Tlatelolco University Cultural Center (CCU), it was the voice of the victims and survivors of the dirty war “perpetrated by the Mexican State” between 1965 and 1990, following the presentation of the final report on these serious human rights violations presented by Commissioners Abel Barrera, David Fernández Dávalos and Carlos Pérez Ricart, members of the Historical Clarification Mechanism (MEH) of the Truth Commission.

In front of dozens of victims and their relatives, such as Tita Radilla, Alicia de los Ríos and some members of the Cabañas family, Abel Barrera pointed out that the content of this collection of reports, which consists of six volumes, is not just words, “it is stories, lives, blood.”

Beforehand, the attendees observed a minute of silence for those who suffered atrocities such as forced disappearance, torture and extrajudicial execution, as well as for those who died for demanding truth and justice.

Pérez Ricart detailed the findings: documentation of 8,594 victims, as well as 11,743 serious human rights violations, 46 massacres and 123,034 forcibly displaced persons.

“This is only part of the final report of the mechanism, which in no way closes the investigation of truth and justice, which will continue and must continue in the future,” said Fernández Dávalos.

He said the investigation revealed that “the State was responsible for the serious human rights violations that we are documenting” and that “it was the one that implemented and operated this State violence in a systematic and widespread manner in different contexts.”

The above confirms that “it was not a coincidence, that it was not a few bad apples, as is now said about the Army; but that there was a real plan and the structuring of a State to commit these violations, to systematically attack different dissident groups.”

Pérez Ricart also referred to the obstacles they faced in accessing intelligence archives. “Our researchers bravely documented how, probably and almost certainly, before 2018, the Cisen purged and removed documents from the National General Archives, and here we show evidence of that plunder, which I am not wrong in calling a plunder of the Nation and of the history of Mexico.”

He said that “it is false that the Sedena has opened its archives, they closed them to the MEH. We were a presidential commission without presidential support to access the archives.”

At the presentation, the MEH members presented some of the more than one hundred recommendations they leave to respond to and continue the work they have carried out in just over two years. Among them, that the president offer a public apology and acknowledge the State’s responsibility in these acts of violence perpetrated between 1965 and 1990.

Also, the creation of a National Center of Memories for Human Rights, the change of nomenclature of public spaces and roads, the formation of truth commissions at the local level and for later periods.

Likewise, the Executive Commission for Victim Assistance (CEAV) should be eliminated in order to form a new assistance body, which “in its current state is no longer useful, it does not work.” She considered that this is “a structural problem, not a problem of who the director is.”

The emotional presentation was accompanied at times by slogans shouted by those in attendance: “Because they were taken alive, we want them back alive! For the love of Mexico, no repetition! and There is no political freedom if there is no sexual freedom!”

The deputy representative of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights’ office in Mexico, Jesús Peña, encouraged the next authorities “to strengthen their commitment and alliance with the victims. Only an unbreakable will will ensure that the effort has not been in vain, and that the frustration and hopelessness that overwhelms the victims and survivors will disappear.”