Tlatelolco Massacre Issues - Essay Example

Tlatelolco Massacre All these centuries have brought different types of incidents to occur in this world, incidents which are of a cruel and harsh nature. These incidents can also be referred to as massacres which have taken place at many instances in the world today. The acts of massacres have basically been taken out through a strategy in which innocent people lose their lives. One such incident can be quoted in which General Dyer with his troops killed thousands of people in the Jallian Wala Bagh incident. This incident took place in the subcontinent ruled over by the British Raj. In this incident many innocent lives were lost because of the mass massacre taken on the order of General Dyer. The incident clearly violated the human rights of this century as it killed many innocent people of the subcontinent. Massacres have taken place through out the world at different instances. At some instances the governments of states itself has been involved in carrying out the massacres. In other words massacres can also be defined as the mass killing of people without any concrete reason. Furthermore the causes of some of the mass massacres which have taken place in the history of this world are yet to be known. One of the massacres of such intensity is known as Tlatelolco Massacre. This took place in the city of Mexico on the date of October 2, 1968. It is known to be the deadliest of massacres which took place over a century in the city of Mexico. This essay would further analyze the massacre from all view points and would further examine the role of CIA in response to the massacre which happened. The incident of Tlatelolco took place in October 1968 at Plaza de las Tres Culturas. It was an armed incident which took place in the response of student demonstrations in Mexico. The year 1968 marked different demonstrations of students taking place all over the world which inspired the Mexican students also. Furthermore the students started having different rallies all over the city to get some of their demands accepted. The students further started to threaten the authorities of dire consequences if their demands were not met. The students had different demands which in totality wanted abolition of certain authorities and wanted to get some officers dismissed. The students also had other demands which were not being accepted by the government. At that time the President of Mexico was Gustavo Diaz Ordaz. He was determined to end the student demonstrations through out Mexico through different means and he even took aggressive methods to end it up. Till October the demands of the students were yet not met and they threatened the event of Olympics which were to take place in Mexico 1968. This took the authorities with surprise and it is reported that the government asked for support from the US to stop any mishap from happening in the Olympics. The rallies of the students extended to such a number that it became alarming for the authorities and on the eve of October 2 at Plaza de las Tres Culturas aggressive means of methods were used against these students to make them finish their demonstrations. However after the massacre it was till 2003 not established as to who was responsible for the massacre. The government at that time claimed that some of the students hiding in other buildings had started firing on the security forces and in response the security forces did the same. Although different stories have been put up by the State department, FBI and CIA the view points of CIA would be emphasized more in this essay. The State department which was being informed by different sources about the incident is still not having clear claims as to how the incident occurred all the authorities have contradictory views as to from the first shot took place. The army is not blamed at by the authorities as the general of army was trying to disperse the crowd when the first shot was fired. The Federal Bureau of Investigation also had no prior knowledge as to how the incident was to occur. Furthermore the report of FBI showed that the incident of Tlatelolco occurred because of the confusion between military agents and security forces. According to FBI the Olympia Brigade a student association made to disrupt Olympics played a major role in making the incident of Tlatelolco occur. According to FBI some of the students positioned themselves on the nearby buildings as snipers and were the first ones to fire. This created confusion in the area and made the security forces to fire back in defense. The army general was the first one to be fired according to the FBI reports which further made the army and security officials to retaliate with gun shots. This story was almost the same as claimed by the government which also made the students responsible for the massacre. However CIA had a major role to track down the whole movement of students and putting it in piece. The CIA was tracking the student demonstrations from the very start of the demonstrations. According to the CIA student demonstrations may have been led due to political reasons by other rivals too. Luis Echevveria is believed to be one important figure which took part in dispersing the student demonstration by the CIA, however according to Luis himself he did not play any significant role to disperse the demonstrations. According to the CIA the government after all its tries went in vain tried to use force against the demonstrators. This force was specially designed by the government agencies to curb out the negatives of the demonstration and tried to solve matters by the method of force. The CIA documents have much helped to retrieve some of the original events which took place in 1968 as the then Embassy was covering up the major events which took place in that era. Since the demonstrations started the CIA started to give reports to the State Department. The CIA used many methods to gather intelligence i.e. by having sources in the students university and the government itself. Furthermore the intelligence had its own officers allocated to the demonstrations so that the whole situation could be analyzed according to its intensity. Most of the reports given by CIA emphasized on the information given out on students who wanted political revolution. The demonstrations were viewed as a movement of the Communist Party members or students by the CIA. Furthermore the CIA also took notice of the changes made within the universities by the regime only. The regimes move was closely taken into notice by the CIA. According to the sources of CIA the work done by the government to avoid any disorder during the rallies in August was effective and made the rallies peaceful. The government used the inside professors and members to make the students do a peace and calm rally. However the views of the CIA changed when they saw a change in the number of students taking part in the rallies. At first the CIA recognized the governments influence on the students but after a considerable time the agency came to the conclusion that the students were unifying for one clear objective i.e. defeating the views of the government and making them accept their demands. According to the CIA the main inspiration that the students of Mexico took was from other student uprisings all over the world. However in September the agency realized the rallies were getting aggressive and the regime of Diaz was aiming to bring an end to the movement either through aggressive or through peaceful means. The first aggressive act broke out on September 26 when clashes occurred between the government deployed forces and the students. This resulted in casualties and further made the students revolt and gather an even stronger group of students. The CIA could sense something foul to happen after this ugly incident occurred and showed in their documents that the Olympics which were to happen in Mexico were not safe enough. The CIA was the first organization to realize the government's stance hardening on the students as on September 29th the military forces were deployed in the city to disperse the student demonstrations. This can be viewed as a negative action taken by the government to disperse the crowd as it would further worsen the conditions of Mexico. The different types of involvement of military in the student matters were viewed as a negative by the CIA. It also stated in its reports that the military at times got aggressive with the students to make them accept the demands. In one report CIA is not pointing to anything particular but at the dissatisfaction of the Secretary of Defense with his officers due to their negligence of orders. This clearly shows that a role was played by these officers in the Tlatelolco incident. The reports of the CIA clearly show a role of military in the demonstrations being held in the city. The CIA felt that the conditions of Mexico had worsened till this extent that the security forces would not be able to protect the presidential candidate even. They believed that some of the elements which were against the United States could play a role in disturbing the security. However after the incident of Tlatelolco occurred on 2nd October it was established that none of the foreign obstacles played a role in it. Furthermore, CIA also established that a role was played by the security forces or the students to start the massacre, however not by the army. This is because the army general was trying to disperse the crowd when the first shot was fired from a nearby building. The students were helped by funding of the outsiders however not by weaponry. The CIA after examining different reports concluded that a group made by the students called Olympia Brigada was to bring hindrance to the Olympic Games held in Mexico. CIA had a limited role to play in avoiding the conflict but according to the documents it has previously given it can be said that CIA had expected such a response of the student uprisings. The CIA could clearly see as to where the uprisings were heading to and thus they advised the presidential candidate not to come to Mexico because of security concerns. Furthermore CIA played a major role in investigating as to how the incident occurred and they wrote a report of significance to the White House. The report though not directly but showed that the uprisings of the students clearly portrayed their aggressiveness and could have led to such a huge massacre to occur. This could be avoided if the government then had taken wise decisions so as to avoid such a major conflict. Different reports have been given in by the FBI CIA and State Department authorities which still clearly do not show as to which side started the gunshots first. Some of the major documents of the concerned authorities are still not open to public thus it cannot be concluded as to which party made the incident occur. Furthermore the role of CIA can be considered to be important in determining the factors which led to the massacre to occur. As it is mentioned above the CIA was able to determine the consequence of the situation in Mexico and warned the authorities before. The massacres original cause is also not determined by the CIA as some of their reports are still confined to the authorities and not shown the public. Bibliography Tlatelolco Massacre: Declassified U.S. Documents on Mexico and the Events of 1968. . Borden, Kara Michelle. Mexico '68: An Analysis of the Tlatelolco Massacre and Its Legacy. Thesis (Honors)--University of Oregon, 2005, 2005. Poniatowska, Elena. Massacre in Mexico. New York: Viking Press, 1975. Sherman, S. "Remembering Tlatelolco: Thirty Years After a Massacre of Demonstrators, Mexicans Want the Truth." NATION -NEW YORK-. 267. 19 (1998): 22-24. Read More