Washington D.C., June 10, 2021 – Fifty years ago today, a group of pay-for-hire thugs known as the “Halcones” or “Falcons” swarmed the streets of Mexico City in a coordinated attack against some 10,000 student demonstrators. Wielding rudimentary weapons including chains and bamboo sticks, the Halcones violently dismantled the protest in a bloody clash that left dozens of students dead and more than one hundred injured – all as police turned a blind eye. The 1971 Corpus Christi Massacre, or * Halconazo*, was then-President Luis Echeverría Alvarez’s response to the first large-scale student protest since 1968, a year marked by its own tragic massacre at La Plaza de las Tres Culturas <https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB99/> at Tlatelolco, Mexico City.
In the decades since the attack, survivors and families of the victims continue to seek justice; yet their calls remain unanswered. Despite a five-year investigation by the Office of the Special Prosecutor for Social and Political Movements of the Past (*Fiscalía Especial para Movimientos Sociales y Políticos del Pasado* – FEMOSPP), whose official report on Mexico’s Dirty War <https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB209/index.htm#informe> included a chapter specific to the Corpus Christi massacre <https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB209/informe/tema04.pdf>, the Mexican Government has failed to land a single conviction in this case. Instead, the impunity that shrouded the 1971 attack was echoed year after year, resulting in the State’s proven inability to prosecute human rights crimes even today. Marking the 50th anniversary of this massacre, today the National Security Archive is publishing additional records to expand upon our previous set of 40 documents <https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB91/> made public in 2003. Released in response to the Archive’s Freedom of Information Act requests, these new documents provide a glimpse into U.S. perceptions of the attempted prosecutions against Echeverría, his interior secretary, Mario Moya Palencia, and former mayor of Mexico City Alfonso Martínez Dominguez. The records also demonstrate how unprepared Special Prosecutor Ignacio Carrillo Prieto was to achieve justice in these cases, noting concerns held by legal observers. In 2006, the FEMOSPP closed for good, thereby eliminating a recourse to hold responsible officials accountable. https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/mexico/2021-06-10/corpus-christi-massacre-fifty-years -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Groups.io Links: You receive all messages sent to this group. View/Reply Online (#9117): https://groups.io/g/marxmail/message/9117 Mute This Topic: https://groups.io/mt/83456891/21656 -=-=- POSTING RULES & NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. #4 Do not exceed five posts a day. -=-=- Group Owner: [email protected] Unsubscribe: https://groups.io/g/marxmail/leave/8674936/21656/1316126222/xyzzy [[email protected]] -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
