50 Years-Mexico And The Legacy Of The Dirty War

Fifty Years of Silence: Mexico Faces the Legacy of its Dirty War coffins on the square Image courtesy Jorge León / Archivo Histórico del PRD, reproduced in Fue el Estado (1965-1990). Country’s First National Truth Commission Releases Monumental Reports on State Violence Government Archives Played Essential Role in Investigating Past Abuses Declassified Documents Reveal U.S. Prioritized Stability of Mexican Regime over Human Rights Concerns Published: Dec 20, 2024 Briefing Book # 879 Edited by Kate Doyle and Claire Dorfman Special thanks to Salvador Leyva and Laura Sánchez Ley For more information, contact: 202-994-7000 or nsarchiv@gwu.edu Subjects Cold War – General Human Rights and Genocide Regions Mexico and Central America Project Mexico Commissioner Eugenia Allier Montaño presents the report “Verdades Innegables. Por un México sin impunidad” at the Centro Cultural Universitario Tlatelolco in Mexico City, October 10, 2024. Commissioners Abel Barrera Hernández, David Fernández Dávalos, and Carlos A. Pérez Ricart present the report “Fue el Estado (1965-1990)” at the Centro Cultural Universitario Tlatelolco in Mexico City, August 16, 2024. It was the State (1965-1990), Volume 1, Chapter 1 (in English) Mechanism for Truth and Historical Clarification, It was the State (1965-1990), Volume 1, Chapter 1 (in English) Undeniable Truths: For a Mexico Without Impunity, Volume 1, Executive Summary (in English) Mechanism for Truth and Historical Clarification, Undeniable Truths: For a Mexico Without Impunity, Volume 1, Executive Summary (in English) Washington, D.C., December 20, 2024—Half a century ago, Mexico was convulsed by state violence and social upheaval. The year 1974 witnessed some of the most emblematic human rights abuses to occur during the country’s long-running Dirty War: the forced disappearance of community activist Rosendo Radilla Pacheco, the killing of revolutionary guerrilla leader Lucio Cabañas, and the Mexican military’s use of “death flights” to eliminate suspected subversives by throwing their bodies from planes into the Pacific Ocean. These and thousands of other grave human rights violations were documented in two monumental and comprehensive reports released this year by Mexico’s first major truth commission. Today, the National Security Archive is publishing a selection of declassified U.S. documents about the Dirty War, along with translated excerpts from the two reports in order to give English-readers a sense of the scope and methodologies encompassed in the truth commission’s investigations. Taken together, the materials offer a clearer picture than has ever been available of the “systematic and widespread” human rights abuses committed by Mexican intelligence, military, police, and parastate forces that targeted “broad sectors of the population” between 1965 and 1990.[1] Mexico’s government did not launch this massive transitional justice project on its own initiative. The impulse for national reckoning came from survivors and collectives of family members and activists. It was their decades-long persistence in defying the state’s permanent silence and demanding answers that finally led then-president Andrés Manuel López Obrador to agree to create the Commission. On October 6, 2021, the president published his decree establishing the Commission for Access to Truth, Historical Clarification and the Promotion of Justice for Grave Human Rights Violations committed between 1965 and 1990 (CoVEH, in Spanish), which in turn launched five working groups to grapple with different dimensions of the project. While the Mechanism for Truth and Historical Clarification was responsible for investigating abuses and producing the truth commission’s report, other groups examined the promotion of justice, the search for the disappeared, reparations, and the promotion of memory and non-repetition.[2] In many countries in Latin America, the end of the Cold War spurred a profound reflection about the state’s role in political violence, and how it was rationalized by anti-communist national security and counterinsurgency concerns. By contrast, Mexican efforts were anemic, few, and far between. The earliest official initiative to investigate forced disappearance during the Dirty War was carried out by the National Human Rights Commission in 2001, decades after the fact.[3] Successive governments refused calls for a truth commission, paradigmatic cases such as the 1968 Tlatelolco student massacre remained chronically unresolved, and a special prosecutor assigned to investigate historical human rights crimes closed his office after five years without holding anyone accountable for anything. In this instance, the scale of the truth commission’s efforts was unprecedented, and the CoVEH completed its mandate with a whirlwind of milestones, conclusions, and recommendations for the future. In its Executive Summary of the Reports of the Five Instruments of the CoVEH,the Commission points out some of the achievements of the enormous project. The working group on the Promotion of Justice led Mexico’s Attorney General to create a new “Special Investigations and Litigation Team” to consider prosecuting dozens of criminal human rights cases from the Dirty War era. On the Search for the Disappeared, the group launched a massive database called Sistema Angelus to organize and make accessible thousands of government records, and prepared plans to exhume cemeteries and potential clandestine burial sites on military installations. The Reparations working group contributed to a registry of more than 2,500 victims of the Dirty War who may be eligible for future compensation. And the Memory and Non-repetition group organized public forums about the Dirty War, issued publications, and helped create a memory center at the Circular de Morelia in Mexico City, a former Dirección Federal de Seguridad (Federal Security Directorate, DFS) building where detainees were tortured.[4] The work of the Mechanism for Truth and Historical Clarification – while also extraordinary, was complicated by internal differences among the five commissioners. A central friction had to do with how the Mechanism identified the scope of repression – whether political violence was limited to armed revolutionary groups and militant activists, or whether the Dirty War included abuses committed against more diverse sectors, such as journalists, indigenous leaders, and LGBTQ activists. After the Mechanism was established in 2021, one commissioner resigned (historian Aleida García Aguirre). Three commissioners – Abel Barrera, David Fernández, and Carlos Pérez Ricart – chose to define the universe of Dirty War victims much more broadly than historically recognized. That left a single commissioner, Eugenia Allier, to assemble a team focused on traditional categories of victims: guerrillas, student activists, dissident labor and union organizers, and human rights defenders. As a result of these differences, the reports that resulted from the two separate investigations pursued the same objective – the historical clarification of the Dirty War – but landed on very distinct conclusions. Allier’s emphasis on the Mexican State’s intent to destroy armed revolutionary groups such as Lucio Cabañas’ Party of the Poor in Guerrero focused on the essential political nature of the Dirty War; its anti-communist, counterinsurgent objectives and its determination to “suffocate and eliminate any form of political dissidence and popular protest.”[5] Her team’s report, Undeniable Truths: For a Mexico Without Impunity, reveals a multiplicity of plans coordinated between the Army, police forces, and intelligence agencies that was designed to hunt down and detain or kill suspected subversives around the country, including, for example, the “Rosa de los Vientos” plan, which targeted members of the radical 23 September Communist League during the late 1970s. The report contains new details about the location of clandestine detention centers, the widespread use of torture, and the forced disappearance of victims. It lists 1,103 missing or disappeared persons, and names more than 2,000 public officials “involved in the repressive system,” including 200 DFS members. It analyzes the military’s use of “death flights” in Guerrero state, based on testimonies and archival documents. It identifies previously unknown military units involved in repression, the systematic use of sexual violence during counterinsurgency operations, the State’s reliance on hired thugs to injure and kill student protesters, and its permanent surveillance and repression of dissident labor activists and human rights defenders. The other team’s report, It was the State (1965-1990), determined that the targets of the state’s counterinsurgency campaigns were not limited to guerrillas or student and labor activists, but included a sprawling range of social actors and sometimes entire communities. The commissioners behind this analysis – Barrera, Fernández and Pérez Ricart – concluded that repression and political violence perpetrated by state security agencies aimed to crush social mobilization among “at least eleven groups of victims who until now remained invisible.”[6] Altogether, the team identified more than 8,500 victims of repression. This “new narrative,” as the report calls it, describes a uniquely intolerant State, which used espionage, harassment, imprisonment, torture, rape, forced disappearance, and execution against a wide array of marginalized groups, including refugee and indigenous communities, Afro-Mexicans, and religious dissidents. This conclusion is an innovation in the historiography of political violence in Mexico, and one that may help to explain the ferocity of the ongoing violence and inequality that Mexico continues to experience. At the same time, the decision to widen the lens to encompass sprawling categories of victims dilutes the specificity of the State’s political counterinsurgency objectives during the Dirty War: when the security apparatus of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) set out to annihilate revolution. The perspective expressed in It was the State (1965-1990) was not entirely welcomed by historians of the Dirty War era or by human rights organizations. The Commission’s executive body itself, the CoVEH, criticized the decision of the three commissioners, writing that their report: [. . .] exceeded the objectives of the Commission. The report investigated human rights violations that were not necessarily related to State violence within the context of counterinsurgency, as well as episodes of violence that took place after 1990, even spanning circumstances from recent years. [. . .] The concern that led the [Mechanism’s] commissioners to delve into these subjects in their report is understandable, but the mandate of the Commission is clear, as were the demands of the victims’ families, survivors, and collectives with respect to knowing the truth and achieving justice for the atrocities committed through State violence in 1965 to 1990. Important sections of the [Mechanism’s] final report did not address these historic demands.[7] That said, the two separate reports do have much in common; both excoriate the Mexican State’s silence and persistent impunity around Dirty War human rights crimes. As It was the State (1965-1990) put it, “The problem is that these violations have been denied or justified by the perpetrators and by the State that has sheltered them. The point is not so much a lack of knowledge as a refusal by those involved to acknowledge the existence of these atrocities, their unjustifiable nature, and their own role in them. This is a political question.”[8] And both reports agreed that it was the victims themselves and their families who brought about Mexico’s first real transitional justice effort. Undeniable Truths contains an entire section devoted to highlighting “the importance of the struggle for memory, truth and justice that has been sustained for decades by relatives, survivors, groups, and companions of survivors of this period of violence. Throughout these years of struggle, they have not only encountered the State’s response of denial, silencing, impunity for those responsible, and inaction in the face of their demands, but also persecution, surveillance, harassment, repression, continuous insult and revictimization. In this sense, this Report recognizes them as the principal guardians of memory, who with their struggle and resistance have sustained their demand for justice and prevented the erasure of the crimes committed by the Mexican State during this period.”[9] Both reports also address the vital role that archives played in shaping their understanding of the Dirty War. As part of the government’s mandate for the Commission, investigators were supposed to have full and unfettered access to state records from the era, and certain agencies complied without a problem.[10] But the issue quickly became a source of conflict when the Secretariat of National Defense (Sedena) and the Center for National Intelligence (CNI) refused to turn over relevant files. The Mechanism denounced this publicly and eventually released six separate “technical reports” detailing the missing documentation and the nature of the government’s secrecy. The Mechanism’s objections led to growing anger on the part of President López Obrador, who slammed the investigators as liars, declaring that Sedena had turned over all records and that the government was committed to “clarify everything, to hide absolutely nothing, to make everything transparent….” The government’s hostility towards the Commission was even more evident when the Washington Post revealed that historian and CoVEH coordinator, Camilo Vicente Ovalle, had been targeted by the Israeli spyware Pegasus since at least December 2022. Pegasus contracts were controlled by the Mexican Armed Forces, which meant that the same Army denying access to critical files for Mexico’s first national truth commission was secretly spying on the man leading the investigations. Alejandro Encinas, former undersecretary for human rights and president of the CoVEH, was also targeted by Pegasus. When the Commission concluded its work in September of this year, outgoing President López Obrador held no public reception or unifying presentation, but left the Mechanism for Truth and Historical Clarification to deliver its two reports to the public on its own. Despite López Obrador’s abandonment of the truth commission, the CoVEH remains an unprecedented achievement for transitional justice in Mexico. The reports the Mechanism produced – more than 5,000 pages together – reveal a trove of new information about how State agencies planned, implemented, and covered up the atrocities of the Dirty War. They build on decades of work from family members, human rights advocates, and scholars, and will be central to future studies about the era for years to come. The Mechanism’s investigations help explain how the legacy of past impunity has grown into the monstrous injustice that Mexico lives with today. They take accountability seriously and acknowledge the power that memory, truth-telling, and transparency have to vindicate the lives lost and damaged by the State’s cruelty. The National Security Archive will continue to mine these two massive reports for future postings and commentary about the Dirty War. The National Security Archive’s Mexico Project curated a special collection of 240 declassified U.S. documents and provided expert analysis to support the Mechanism’s investigations. While we continue to push for further declassification, records related to key events in the history of the Dirty War reveal a wide variability in the quality of U.S. government reporting on Mexico. Some documents contain detailed and critical analysis from political officers at the U.S. Embassy. For example, a confidential cable from 1965 assessed a surprise attack by a band of guerrillas from the Ejército Popular Revolucionario Mexicano (EPRM) on the Mexican Army garrison in Ciudad Madera, Chihuahua. The Embassy determined the violence would likely worsen as the government had given “no evidence to date” that it was addressing the legitimate concerns of small farmers in the area. (Document 1) Other records exhibit a remarkable degree of trust in the Mexican security forces to maintain order, even after significant episodes of state violence such as the Tlatelolco and Corpus Christi student massacres. The National Security Archive has posted extensively on Tlatelolco and Corpus Christi and published hundreds of declassified government documents related to the violence against student protestors. Documents from U.S. consulates provided invaluable granular reporting for the truth commission’s investigations. A confidential cable from the U.S. Consulate in Monterrey reported on the visit of three top Nuevo León security officials in 1967 to the AID International Police Academy in the United States. This document was reproduced in the It was the State (1965-1990) report as evidence of U.S. assistance for the “professionalization” of state security forces in counterinsurgency tactics. (Document 4)[11] The United States closely followed Mexico’s growing armed guerrilla movement, as they considered the country a frontline in the Cold War and the hemispheric battle against communism. While U.S. officials maintained a watchful eye over the activities of groups like the Party of the Poor in Guerrero, a top secret National Intelligence Daily article from the CIA concluded in 1974 that the insurgency was a “nuisance” and not a substantial threat to the stability of the Mexican regime, despite the “massive application of military manpower” deployed to combat the guerrillas. (Document 7)[12] The U.S. also monitored developments within the military, including key personnel changes and appointments. A secret Intelligence Information cable from the CIA established that General Francisco Quirós Hermosillo, who moved to third in command of Mexico's Secretariat of National Defense in 1980, was the former head of the Brigada Blanca, the “extra legal anti-terrorist organization,”. The Brigada Blanca was a brutal intelligence and operational unit responsible for forced disappearances, torture, and assassinations of suspected subversives. Quirós Hermosillo has been named an intellectual author in the military’s “death flights” in Guerrero. (Document 13) The records published today provide a sense of the concerns and priorities of U.S. foreign policy during Mexico’s Dirty War. The documents make clear the United States government valued the Mexican regime’s stability over all else, and U.S. reporting justified human rights violations as a necessary evil to contain the threat of communism. The Documents ebb 878 doc 1 Document 1 Armed Attack on the Garrison at Ciudad Madera, and Related Matters Oct 9, 1965 Source U.S. Embassy in Mexico, Confidential cable The U.S. Embassy in Mexico City reports on an assault on the Mexican Army’s garrison in Ciudad Madera, Chihuahua, by a band of guerrillas from the Ejército Popular Revolucionario Mexicano (EPRM). According to the cable, after the garrison’s soldiers quashed the attack, killing ten of the EPRM’s members, the government announced that “tranquility is expected to return to the area.” The embassy believes the source of the conflict is rooted in “an impoverished peasantry and a bitter land struggle” and determines it will likely worsen as the government has given “no evidence to date” that it is addressing the legitimate concerns of small farmers in the area. In attempting to establish a history of the insurgency in Chihuahua state predating the attack, the cable’s author admits to a lack of knowledge, most notably due to the Mexican government’s own suppression of information on civil disturbances. The Madera incident sparked years of political unrest in the region, armed insurgency, and brutal State violence. This would prove to be a crucial event in the history of Mexico’s armed insurgency; its date would later become part of the name of one of the country’s most active revolutionary organizations, the September 23rd Communist League. ebb 878 doc 2 Document 2 Security Conditions in Mexico -- and elsewhere in Latin America May 6, 1966 Source Central Intelligence Agency, Office of National Estimates, Secret National Intelligence memorandum Just weeks before being named Director of Central Intelligence, CIA Deputy Director Richard Helms forwards a memorandum to National Security Advisor Walt Rostow that extols the “favorable security conditions” created by the Mexican government in preparation for President Johnson’s visit to Mexico. In it, Sherman Kent of the CIA’s Office of National Estimates observes that the ruling government party exercises a virtual monopoly on political power and is “an outstanding force for stability,” noting that security forces, when ordered, “carry out missions without overmuch regard for legalisms.” To prepare for President Johnson’s visit, Mexico detained around 500 “potential troublemakers” and raided the offices of the local Communist party. The report is careful to note that some of the measures taken by the Mexican government would have been “out of the question in many countries.” ebb 878 doc 3 Document 3 Mexico: The Problems of Progress Oct 20, 1967 Source Central Intelligence Agency, Secret special report This CIA analysis neatly outlines the growing conflict between Mexico’s revolutionary history and recent attempts to modernize the country and encourage integration into the world economy. The report considers that a major obstacle for the government is dealing with rural unrest, which is “bound to grow and become more explosive” as education and communication improvements connect the peasant class with the rest of the country. However, according to the Agency, leftist groups sympathetic with the campesinos remain “divided and weak,” while the Mexican military is a “model institution” and “both brutally effective and politically astute.” The report focuses on the security forces’ ability to contain violence that the CIA considers a political inevitability. ebb 878 doc 4 Document 4 Training for Nuevo León State Security Officials Nov 6, 1967 Source U.S. Consulate Monterrey, Confidential cable A confidential cable from the U.S. Consulate in Monterrey reports on the visit of three top Nuevo León security officials to the AID International Police Academy in the United States at the request of the state’s governor. The consulate describes training, orientation, and visits to the Police Academy, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and police facilities in other U.S. cities to help the officials prepare to restructure Nuevo León’s state security organization. The cable stresses the importance of this request for assistance by the Mexican governor and indicates that a request of this nature is an anomaly in the present bilateral security relationship, “given that the degree of confidence…has not always been present on either side.” ebb 878 doc 5 Document 5 Addendum to “Mexican Student Crisis,” 4 October 1968 Oct 5, 1968 Source Central Intelligence Agency, Secret memorandum The CIA analyzes possible Soviet and Cuban influence on the student protests that culminated in the massacre at Tlatelolco in Mexico City. In evaluating whether there was overt Soviet or Cuban participation in encouraging the students, the CIA concludes that both powers are reluctant to jeopardize their relationship with the Mexican government, especially given that the Soviet and Cuban embassies in Mexico City provide an invaluable location to mount operations against the U.S. and other adversaries. The Agency determines that the recent student unrest derives primarily from domestic concerns, most notably the Mexican government’s own “rigidity and corruption.” ebb 878 doc 6 Document 6 Mexico: An Emerging Internal Security Problem? Sep 23, 1971 Source State Department, Bureau of Intelligence and Research, Secret report The State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research evaluates the growing unrest in Mexico following the Corpus Christi massacre, in which student demonstrators were attacked by a group of plain-clothed paramilitaries known as the Halcones during a protest in Mexico City, leaving dozens dead and over a hundred injured. According to the State Department, the Halcones, a “government-organized group of toughs,” formed alongside other clandestine groups, allowing the Mexican regime to confront the growing student unrest while “avoiding the use of uniformed security forces.” The Corpus Christi massacre was a seminal event in Mexico’s dirty war and prompted the United States to assess the stability of the Mexican regime following the public outcry over the government’s complicity in the violence. This secret report from the Bureau of Intelligence and Research reviews three issues facing President Echeverría at the time: the student movement, the increased guerrilla presence in the countryside, and alleged discontent among members of the military. However, the State Department is clear to emphasize the ability of the Mexican security forces in maintaining order, and acknowledges that “the troops have little love for students and would probably be willing to forget their difficulties temporarily if given the chance to crack a few heads.” ebb 878 doc 7 Document 7 Guerrillas Are Nuisance to Mexican Government Sep 10, 1974 Source Central Intelligence Agency, Top Secret National Intelligence Daily article The CIA finds that, despite recent activities by armed guerrilla groups, the insurgency is a “nuisance” and not a substantial threat to the stability of the Mexican regime. The Agency is critical of the government’s counterinsurgency capabilities, however, noting that it required a “massive application of military manpower” to combat revolutionary leader Lucio Cabañas and his “perhaps 50 to 75 hard-core followers.” ebb 878 doc 8 Document 8 Death of Lucio Cabañas Barrientos Dec 4, 1974 Source U.S. Embassy cable The U.S. Embassy in Mexico City reports on the death of guerrilla leader Lucio Cabañas, who was killed by the military on December 2. Despite the government’s highly publicized victory, the cable notes that political violence in the cities has always been “cause for greater concern” than Cabañas and the remaining rural guerrilla presence. ebb 878 doc 9 Document 9 Army Operations in Campaign Against Lucio Cabañas Apr 23, 1975 Source Defense Intelligence Agency, Confidential Intelligence Information Report The DIA records a conversation with the commander of the Mexican Army paratroop battalion tasked with searching for Cabañas in Guerrero state. According to the report, Colonel Lázaro de la Vega was trained in the U.S. and Central America. After his battalion killed Cabañas in an ambush, de la Vega was promoted to full colonel. ebb 878 doc 10 Document 10 Human Rights in Mexico Mar 24, 1976 Source U.S. Embassy, Confidential cable An embassy cable outlines the human rights landscape in Mexico in a report on countries receiving security assistance from the U.S. government. The embassy finds that torture and cruel or inhumane treatment frequently occurs during police detention after both criminal and political arrests. However, Mexico’s single-party system allows the executive branch “a certain flexibility” in its adherence to human rights standards, so long as the abuses do not result in “embarrassing public disclosures.” The cable acknowledges patterns in human rights violations committed by the Mexican regime, but “[doubts] that Mexico qualifies as a country where a ‘consistent pattern of gross violations’ occurs.” In other words, the United States can continue to provide security assistance to Mexico despite the Embassy’s own documentation of human rights abuses. ebb 878 doc 11 Document 11 Incident Between Mexican Army and Farmers May 12, 1976 Source Defense Intelligence Agency, Secret intelligence report The DIA reports on a confrontation between local farmers, known as ejidatarios, and the military in Chiapas. While the farmers staged a protest to the local authorities for more communal land, the local army security detachment and two military battalions were dispatched to restore order. In the escalating situation, two civilians were killed and three soldiers wounded. The DIA determines that these types of altercations will continue to intensify ahead of the presidential elections, and that the army’s presence as the sole security force in isolated regions “demonstrates the potential for the army’s being caught in the…crossfire,” which could lead to “national exposure and criticism.” The DIA effectively warns that situations in which the army kills civilians protesting for land redistribution is likely to continue and could create a scandal for the military. ebb 878 doc 12 Document 12 Review of US Policies Toward Mexico Nov 21, 1978 Source National Security Council, Confidential Presidential Review Memorandum [extract] The National Security Council reviews U.S. policies in Mexico at the end of the Carter administration’s second year. Despite their support for international human rights issues, “Mexico’s domestic human rights record leaves room for significant improvement.” The memo highlights contradictions in the Mexican government’s relationship to human rights; the regime offers asylum to political refugees from other countries while criminalizing and persecuting domestic opposition. The NSC determines that state repression is not limited to armed guerrilla groups and acknowledges that “occasional extra legal actions by the security forces have also affected agrarian, labor, and student strike leaders.” ebb 878 doc 13 Document 13 Imminent Appointment of General Francisco Quiroz Hermosillo… Jan 15, 1980 Source Central Intelligence Agency, Secret Intelligence Information cable The CIA reports on the appointment of General Francisco Quirós Hermosillo to his new post as third in command of Mexico’s Defense Ministry. Quirós was previously head of the notorious Brigada Blanca, described here as an “extra legal anti-terrorist organization,” known by Mexicans to be a brutal intelligence and operational unit responsible for forced disappearances, torture, and assassinations of suspected subversives. From his new position inside Sedena, the general will oversee military and civilian counterinsurgency operations nationwide, as well as command the intelligence and logistics sections of the Armed Forces. ebb 878 doc 14 Document 14 Meeting with Human Rights Activist Mar 9, 1989 Source U.S. Embassy, Confidential cable A U.S. Embassy officer meets with activist Rosario Ibarra de Piedra to discuss human rights and steps the administration of President Carlos Salinas has taken to address abuses. Ibarra de Piedra is optimistic about some of the government’s recent actions – such as the pardon of hundreds of political prisoners – but describes them as a political strategy to “appear more open and thereby improve the [government’s] image.” In a comment at the end of the cable, the embassy officer observes that, while the Salinas administration is “moving in the right direction,” these measures “will not preempt future abuses motivated by local conditions in other parts of Mexico.” ebb 878 doc 15 Document 15 [Redacted] History of the Mexican Airborne Brigade Aug 26, 1992 Source Defense Intelligence Agency, Confidential Intelligence Information Report The DIA records a history of the Mexican Airborne Brigade from its creation in 1946. According to the report, the first round of officers and soldiers were trained in the United States at Fort Benning. In the course of the brigade’s existence, members have been deployed for diverse activities including “maintaining order” in the midst of student and labor protests in the cities, conducting counterinsurgency missions in Guerrero to “combat bandits” such as the guerrilla leaders Genaro Vázquez and Lucio Cabañas, engaging in counternarcotics operations, and providing humanitarian assistance and relief to civilians. The document is evidence of the level of intelligence gathered by U.S. defense attachés on the Armed Forces in Mexico. Notes [1] Mechanism for Truth and Historical Clarification, It was the State (1965-1990), vol. 1, pp. 12. [2] Commission for Access to Truth, Historical Clarification and the Promotion of Justice for Grave Human Rights Violations committed between 1965 and 1990 (CoVEH), Executive Summary of the Reports of the Five Instruments of the CoVEH, pp. 9. [3] Comisión Nacional de los Derechos Humanos, Recomendación 26/2001, 27 November 2001. [4] CoVEH, Executive Summary of the Reports of the Five Instruments of the CoVEH, pp. 15-19. [5] CoVEH, Executive Summary of the Reports of the Five Instruments of the CoVEH, pp. 41. [6] The violence was directed, according to the report, “against peasant, indigenous and Afro-Mexican communities, against those who were active in urban-popular movements, against communities violated by the imposition of development policies, against political-partisan dissidents, against people from the gender-diverse community, against journalists, against refugees on the southern border of Mexico, against residents of areas where the fight against drug trafficking was carried out, against people marginalized and criminalized due to their vulnerable conditions, against people who were part of some religious dissidence, and even serious violations committed against members of the armed forces and police at the hands of their own commanders.” See It was the State (1965-1990), vol. 1, pp. 14. [7] CoVEH, Executive Summary of the Reports of the Five Instruments of the CoVEH, pp. 12-13. [8] Mechanism for Truth and Historical Clarification, It was the State (1965-1990), vol. 1, pp. 27. [9] Mechanism for Truth and Historical Clarification, Undeniable Truths: For a Mexico Without Impunity, vol. 1, Executive Summary, pp. XXXI. [10] The Ministry of Foreign Affairs was one such agency. See, for example, It was the State (1965-1990), vol. 1, pp. 193. [11] Mechanism for Truth and Historical Clarification, It was the State (1965-1990), vol. 4, pp. 415. [12] Editors’ note: the Mexico Project conducted a thorough review of U.S. documents in our collection that have since been further declassified. This document was partially released to us in 2000 through FOIA and has now been declassified in full by the CIA. Key details that were previously redacted were thus able to be turned over to the Mechanism’s investigators.

Argentina-A Small Victory

A Small Victory Argentina Argentina officially emerged from recession in the third quarter of 2024, marking a significant milestone for President Javier Milei and his sweeping economic reforms that have sought to stabilize the country’s crisis-ridden economy, the Financial Times reported this week. The country’s gross domestic product (GDP) grew 3.9 percent between July and September compared with the previous quarter, according to data released Monday by Argentina’s statistics agency. This marks the first expansion of the economy since late 2023, although GDP was still 2.1 percent lower than the same period last year. Growth was driven by agriculture and mining exports, alongside a rebound in consumer spending and capital investment. Still, the manufacturing and construction sectors remain severely depressed. Milei’s austerity measures, termed radical and brutal by many Argentinians and which include deep spending cuts and deregulation, have brought inflation down from a staggering 211 percent in December 2023 while bolstering investor optimism, CNN added. On Monday, Argentina’s Merval stock index rose by seven percent, marking a 174 percent increase this year, while the risk premium on sovereign bonds fell to 677 basis points, a sharp improvement from a figure of more than 2,000 basis points when Milei took office. However, these reforms have come at a social cost, say critics: The poverty rate increased to 53 percent in the first half of this year, while unemployment has also climbed. The International Monetary Fund forecasts a 3.5 percent contraction for 2024 but predicts five percent growth next year. While the rebound signals investor confidence and improved growth prospects, economists warned that Milei’s administration must lift capital and currency controls for Argentina to achieve sustained growth. Others added that the libertarian president must also deliver lasting growth that boosts the living standards for Argentines in order for Milei’s party La Libertad Avanza to gain enough support in the mid-term elections slated for late 2025.

Brasil: Bolsonaro-The Yen ANd THe Yang

The Yin and the Yang Brazil Right-wing Brazilian populist Jair Bolsonaro, who served as president from 2019 to 2023, is technically banned from running for president again until 2030. He also is facing criminal charges for allegedly attempting a coup. Still, he recently told the Wall Street Journal that he plans to file papers for the election in 2026. If he runs, he would repeat the face-off that he lost in 2023 to his ideological rival, left-wing President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. A former army officer who tortured civilians under the military junta that ruled Brazil from 1964 to 1985, the Guardian explained, Bolsonaro has denied the allegations that he planned a coup, saying the accusations are politically motivated. But the Economist wrote that his chances of facing jail time are increasing as the case against him becomes clearer, stronger, and the charges broader – they also include theft and corruption. Prosecutors cite undercover agents who helped Bolsonaro hatch a plan to seize power. In one taped conversation among the coup plotters, a colonel tells a top commander in the Brazilian military that they need to act after voters elect Lula to a third, non-consecutive term in the presidency, according to the Associated Press. “It will be either a civil war now or civil war later. We have a justification now for civil war; people are on the streets. We have massive support,” the colonel said. “Let’s do this now. Speak to 01,” 01 being code for the president. Video evidence even showed Bolsonaro staying at the Hungarian Embassy in the capital Brasília, where some wondered if he was seeking diplomatic asylum, the Jerusalem Post reported. Bolsonaro has close ties with the illiberal leader of Hungary, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán. Bolsonaro is also close to President-Elect Donald Trump, Argentina’s libertarian President Javier Milei, and others who met recently in Buenos Aires to discuss free markets and conservative causes, added Reuters. Those international connections are one reason Bolsonaro still enjoys the support of half of the Brazilian electorate, World Politics Review noted. Corruption remains endemic in the country, too, souring many on Lula and his socialist allies, who have dominated the country’s politics for the past 20 years. Still, Lula’s base of working-class Brazilians who depend on public services is vast and well-organized, as a New York Times story showed. Lula has advocated for protecting the Amazon, recognizing Indigenous rights, and “reconciling economic growth with social inclusion,” as a Brazilian government press release explained. As the Jerusalem Post noted, the problems faced by Bolsonaro show voters there is accountability in Brazil. However, his prosecution also has consequences for Brazil’s political landscape. “These legal challenges mark a steep decline for Bolsonaro, who once positioned himself as a champion of Brazil’s right-wing movement,” it wrote. “(But) his absence from politics could leave a leadership vacuum in Brazil’s conservative ranks, (even as it is) reshaping the country’s political landscape and reinforcing accountability for undermining democracy. Share this story

Colombia Askes The US To Declassify Records On 1985 Palace Of Justice Case

Colombia Asks U.S. to Declassify Records on 1985 Palace of Justice Case Still from from the 2011 documentary film La Toma (The Siege) Still from from the 2011 documentary film La Toma (The Siege) Questions Remain About U.S. Role in Colombian Army Assault, Disappearances Nearly 40 Years Later, U.S. Should Declassify Still-Secret Documents Published: Dec 6, 2024 Edited by Michael Evans For more information, contact: 202-994-7000 or nsarchiv@gwu.edu Subjects Human Rights and Genocide Secrecy and FOIA Regions South America Project Colombia The Palace of Justice building on fire The Palace of Justice building on fire during the night of November 6-7, 1985. (Vicky Ospina, Dirección Distrital Archivo de Bogotá) Helena Urán’s book, Mi vida y el Palacio: 6 y 7 de noviembre de 1985 Helena Urán’s book, Mi vida y el Palacio: 6 y 7 de noviembre de 1985, cites a number of declassified U.S. documents obtained by the National Security Archive. Washington, D.C., December 6, 2024 - Yesterday, Colombian President Gustavo Petro announced that he has asked the United States to expedite the declassification of archival records on the 1985 Palace of Justice case. The request is an important step forward for human rights advocates seeking to clarify the motivations and actions of the M-19 insurgents who stormed the building on November 6, 1985, and the Colombian government’s responsibility for those who died in the fire that tore through the seat of Colombia’s judicial branch and for the disappearances that occurred in the aftermath. The request was welcomed by Helena Urán Bidegain, author of Mi Vida y El Palacio (My Life and the Palace), a memoir of her own investigation of the disappearance of her father, Carlos Urán, an auxiliary magistrate who is believed to have been tortured and murdered by the Colombian Army after surviving the initial assault on the building. The latest edition of the book includes cites a number of declassified documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act by the National Security Archive that raise important questions about the U.S. role in the episode that remain unanswered. In seeking the records, Petro is complying in part with a recommendation made by Colombia’s truth commission, which said that the president should ask the U.S. to declassify records relating to human rights violations in Colombia, including the Palace of Justice case, among others. President Petro’s request to President Biden is also made in compliance with the 2014 ruling of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, which found the Colombian state responsible for deaths and disappearances during the episode and ordered Colombia to satisfy the victims’ right to know the truth about what happened (the “Right to Truth”). The case is of particular interest to President Petro, who was a member of the M-19 insurgent group that seized the Palace on November 6, 1985, but was detained at the time and was not involved in the takeover of the building. The request for declassification comes less than two months before President Joe Biden leaves the White House and turns the office over to Donald Trump. The Palace of Justice case has long been a focus of the Archive’s Colombia documentation project. Last year, as part of a call by Urán and others for Petro to request such a declassification, the Archive published a collection of U.S. records on the case, highlighting some important revelations and raising questions about documents and portions of documents that remain secret. U.S. military reports included in the posting confirm that Colombian military intelligence knew about the M-19 assault at least a week in advance and that Colombian President Belisario Betancur “gave the military a green light, telling them to do whatever was necessary to resolve the situation as quickly as possible.” The CIA ultimately found that Betancur acted mainly out of “fear that failure to act forcefully would anger military leaders.” A U.S. Embassy cable written years later found that the Colombian Army was responsible for deaths and disappearances during the Palace of Justice case. Other documents raise more questions than they answer. One describes how U.S. Southern Command dispatched a C-130 aircraft and a six-person “support team” carrying high-powered C4 explosives and detonating cord to Bogotá during the crisis, raising questions as to whether these were used just a few hours later to blow open a large metal door on the third floor of the building—an explosion that was determined to have caused many civilian casualties. The U.S. also pondered a Colombian request for “asbestos suits” so that security forces could continue “pressing their efforts” inside the “fire gutted building,” but redactions in these records make it hard to tell what became of these requests. The U.S. has also failed to declassify any contemporaneous records about the people who were disappeared in the wake of the assault and whose surviving family members have waited years to learn the truth about what happened to their loved ones. Also of interest are the still-hidden lessons that the U.S. drew from the outcome of the Palace of Justice episode, especially as a means of understanding the fragile state of civil-military relations in Colombia at the time. In its post-mortem on the case, the U.S. Embassy said that the Colombian military was anticipating “the swing of political opinion towards more forceful tactics against insurgents” and that they would have “a free hand” against the guerrilla groups when Betancur left office the next year. “President Petro’s request for a U.S. declassification on the Palace of Justice case is an important step in Colombia’s long-overdue reckoning with one of the most searing episodes in its history,” said Michael Evans, director of the Archive’s Colombia documentation project. “President Biden should seize this opportunity to use declassified diplomacy to help shed light on one of the country’s most important and most debated human rights tragedies.”

Purchasing Power In Argentina Slumps To The Lowest Level Since 2001

ECONOMY | Yesterday 00:06 Purchasing power loss in Argentina slumps to levels not seen since 2001 crisis Soaring utility bills and basic shopping-basket prices have eroded the capacity of families to buy everyday goods. Minimum wage has fallen 28% in terms of purchasing power over last 12 months, UBA report finds. Share this News A woman looks at the window of a clothing store that reads 'Clearance Last Days' in Buenos Aires on May 14, 2024, on the day of the announcement of April's inflation index. A woman looks at the window of a clothing store that reads 'Clearance Last Days' in Buenos Aires on May 14, 2024, on the day of the announcement of April's inflation index. | JUAN MABROMATA / AFP The purchasing power of families in Argentina has fallen this year to record levels not seen since 2001 economic crisis. Argentina’s minimum wage lost 1.3 percent in October, accumulating a loss of 28 percent over the 12 months between last November and this, according to a report prepared by the Instituto Interdisciplinario de Economía Política at the University of Buenos Aires’ Economics Faculty. It is the steepest annual decline in incomes since the 2001 crisis, said the report. The abrupt fall is explained mostly by increased inflation – currently at an annual 193 percent – with a post-devaluation peak of 25.5 percent last December when President Javier Milei took office. Soaring utility bills also explain the fall in purchasing power. Milei evaluates Argentina’s future in Mercosur Read more... Milei evaluates Argentina’s future in Mercosur The institute’s report – "Panorama of formal wage-earning employment and its remuneration" – shows that wages started to plunge last December when they contracted 15 percent due to accelerating inflation, nosediving yet further in January with a fall of 17 percent. This trend was temporarily interrupted in the following months, a period during which nominal wages accompanied inflation so that additional reductions were not observed. Last June there was a new fall (minus 4.4 percent), followed by a certain recovery in July (plus 4.3 percent) and by consecutive reductions in the following three months. Lula: Brussels, not Paris, will decide EU-Mercosur free-trade deal Read more... Lula: Brussels, not Paris, will decide EU-Mercosur free-trade deal The downward trend of the previous years, added to the sharp contraction of those months, positioned the minimum wage below the levels registered in 2001, prior to the convertibility crisis, as well as Implying an erosion of almost 60 percent from the highest level in that series in September, 2011. The average wage of the formally employed as surveyed by the INDEC national statistics bureau also registered a sharp contraction between November and December last year. Milei confirms his ‘chainsaw’ will keep running next year Read more... Milei confirms his ‘chainsaw’ will keep running next year However, decelerating inflation, added to the wage negotiations within the framework of collective-bargaining agreements, have prevented the fall in the purchasing power from continuing with a process of recovery beginning afterwards. Last August registered an increase of 0.8 percent with 0.3 percent in September. Despite that, last September (the last available figure) the purchasing power of the average wage continued to be 1.5 percent inferior to last November with the percentage of increase diminishing markedly since August. The panorama of August and September becomes more critical when analysing the data of the average remuneration of registered private- sector wage-earners, as recorded by the SIPA pension system. Betting on Milei, Argentine investors choose longer duration Read more... Betting on Milei, Argentine investors choose longer duration After growing in real terms in June (+four percent) and July (+2.8 percent), a fall of 2.5 percent was experienced in August while in September the preliminary data released by the Labour Department show a new fall of one percent. This implies a loss of purchasing power of three percent below that registered last November while accumulating a fall of 20 percent from the maximum level of the series registered in May, 2013. – TIMES/NA

Trump BENDS THE KNEE to Mexico President in 24 Hours

Uruguay Elects A New President

The Politics of Humility Uruguay Center-left opposition candidate Yamandú Orsi won the presidential election in Uruguay, ousting the conservative government coalition candidate, Alvaro Delgado, by a few points in Sunday’s runoff elections, the Guardian reported Monday. Orsi, a 57-year-old former history teacher from humble beginnings, secured 49.8 percent of the vote while Delgado won 45.9 percent, official results showed. Orsi’s party, the Broad Front, also won a majority in the upper house of parliament, but neither coalition clinched an absolute majority in the lower house. “The horizon is brightening,” said Orsi, addressing his supporters. Delgado and Uruguay’s current President Luis Lacalle Pou, both from the National party, conceded the election and offered to help with the transition of power ahead of the swearing-in on March 1. The Broad Front alliance, headed by Orsi, will now return to power after five years of a conservative coalition government. The Broad Front had governed Uruguay for 15 years before it was beaten by Lacalle Pou, according to the BBC. Orsi is seen as the protege of former President José Mujica, a popular leader who, known for his modesty, was labeled with the moniker, “the world’s poorest president.” Orsi himself grew up in a rural area in a house without electricity. He then worked as a history teacher, becoming active in local politics, and later becoming mayor of Canelones, a small city in southern Uruguay. Addressing the nation after his win, Orsi said, “I’m going to be the president who builds a more integrated country, where we set aside our differences and nobody is left behind, not economically, socially or politically.” He intends to govern with a “moderate left” approach and refrain from major policy shifts in the traditional and relatively wealthy nation.