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 had the courage to denounce repression and the violation of constitutional rights. 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. They attended, all right, but not in the spirit the government had expected. They flocked out of the public offices shouting, “We’re sheep, they’re herding us around … baa, baa, baa … we don’t want to go, baa, baaa, baaa.” Gilberto Guevara Niebla of the CNH ____________________________________ Voices of Tlatelolco We were marching along behind a huge red flag. The Paseo de la Reforma was jammed. People on the rooftops were shouting, applauding, laughing, and crying, too. A sea of heads in every direction, hands in the air applauding. We were very happy. Power to the people! Power to the People! Elena Gonzdlez Souza, Medical Student. When, 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; 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; 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. Listen to the people, students! Victor Rico Galdn, journalist, prisoner Many 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. We have a company union at the Sanborn chocolate factory. Movement propaganda was delivered to the factory and the workers themselves would pass the handbills out. F1lix SAnchez Hernindez, worker & prisoner. When 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? … Others were achieving politicization among the workers. But, indeed, the ones to be “politicized” were the students themselves. Sol Arguedas Tres Culturas en Agonia I was the sort of person who had no interest in political discussions. What I wanted most was to get ahead so my family wouldn’t have to suffer any more. I worked nights and studied in the afternoon; I didn’t join any organizations … I’d been discouraged, in fact, ever since I was twelve, when I began working in the oxygen factory. 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.” Any worker who pressed for his rights was kicked out. 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. Daniel Esparza Lepe, student at ESIME, IPN The girl students once phoned us that right-wing student groups had taken over a University high school. We immediately rounded up a whole bunch of students to go see what was happening. I saw four girls from my school get on the bus from Economics. “You girls get out of there this minute. We men are the only ones who are going this time,” I told them. They were highly indignant, and immediately replied that Che [Guevara] allowed women to fight in his brigade, and the hell with me. I insisted, and thought they’d finally agreed to get off the bus. 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. Luckily nothing happened there at the high school, and we all got back safe and sound to CU. 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. 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. Ernesto Morales Soto, Cavalry Captain official statement no. 54832/68 Mexico, Mexico, Libertad! Mexico, Mexico, Libertad! -chant. A policeman climbed up on the platform to speak at a meeting in Atzcapotzalco; 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. He was so angry that tears were streaming down his face. 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. Eduardo Valle Espinoza, CNH I kept shouting, “Carlos, Carlitos, Carlitos, where are you?” I got more and more desperate: “Carlos, answer me, Carlitos, it’s me … it’s me, Carlitos …. ” Three or four soldiers kept tagging along after me, but by that time I was past caring; I thought to myself that the best I could hope for now was just finding him alive. Margarita Nolasco, anthropologist THE SHOW WILL GO ON! The News, Mexico City, Oct 3 Nothing short of the overthrow of this government will prevent further such atrocities. The Mexican students have the support of decent people in every country in the world. Bertrand Russell; Jean Paul Sartre. It is already dusk and no one can understand the reason for the confusion. The speaker repeats the command to keep calm, but suddenly he is attacked and throttled by one of the people standing next to him. The other occupants of the rostrum try to escape. 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. 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. However, plainclothesmen can be seen in the crowd with white gloves on their left hands signalling for the soldiers to fire on the demonstrators. The horror begins. We jump over embankments nine feet high; the panic is on. Soldiers are coming at us from all the streets. There are more than five thousand of them and three hundred tanks, and they are shooting to kill. The majority of the students help the women to flee and protect them. Night falls; a torrential rain drenches us. The tanks rumble toward us. The prisoners pass with their hands behind their heads shoved along by soldiers who are beating 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 Plaza of the Three Cultures is strewn with wounded and dead, many of them children. Those arrested, myself among them, are lined up with their hands in the air alongside the church. The most striking thing about those arrested is their courage and their determination. Claude Kiejman; Le Monde, Oct 5. We were interrogated by an American agent and two Mexican ones. The specific questions were: “Are you members of the Communist Party?” “Are you members of the Communist Youth?” “Do you have a United States visa?” “Do you have relatives in the United States?” Fe1ix Goded Andrew, student, Communist Youth member. Then the torture started again; it was even worse this time though, and lasted longer. I writhed like a rattlesnake, crying and moaning and screaming and swearing. Then they finally stopped torturing me, and the soldier said to me, “Don’t kid yourselves, you Communist swine! If you won’t talk, we have gringos here who’ll take over.” Luis Tomas Cervantes Cabeza de Vaca; of the CNH. We 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.” … The Students would rally that evening, he said, at the Plaza de las Tres Culturas … 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. And then, while the students and spectators milled around, came the scene that was to leave its mark on the 1968 Olympics. Bob Ottum, Sports Illustrated. I 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. The eyes of the entire world were focused on Mexico. They had to stop the students any way they could, at whatever cost! Daniel Guian, director of an insurance company; and Olympics visitor from France. On 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. 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. Dr. 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 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. We also express our solidarity with the North American miners, who are blazing a trail that must be marched by millions of U.S. workers in their fight against exploitation. 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. 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. By using the victories they won in the Olympics as a political weapon, the black champions made a great impression on the Mexican spectators, and even though it had only an indirect effect, it helped our Movement. Samuel Bello Duran; student,Dentistry.
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