MEXICO:A cultural centre has opened to explore the armay's massacre of democracy activists.
IT WAS like Bloody Sunday, only much bloodier, or Tiananmen Square in 1989, only more shrouded in secrecy.
Even today there is no definitive count of how many pro- democracy demonstrators were slaughtered by Mexican army troops in the Tlatelolco zone of Mexico City on October 2nd, 1968.
Was the death toll a few dozen, as the government claimed, or closer to 300, as some journalists reported? Did Mexican president Gustavo Díaz Ordaz approve the attack? No one knows for sure.
Finally, though, after decades of government stonewalling, Mexicans searching for answers have a place to turn: the Centro Cultural Universitario Tlatelolco, a cultural centre dedicated to exploring the massacre, its antecedents and aftermath.
Located in a mid-century modernist office tower that formerly housed Mexico's secretariat of foreign affairs, the centre sits smack on the edge of the so-called Plaza of the Three Cultures, where the massacre occurred almost 40 years ago.
The centrepiece is a multimedia exhibition that uses photographs, archival film footage, music snippets, newspaper clippings, taped interviews, poster displays and art installations to tell the murky, tragic story. Many Mexicans say it's about time the country had a living memorial to this watershed event.
"It takes you by the throat. I think it's very true to reality, it's very true to what happened," says Elena Poniatowska (75), who as a journalist helped to expose the truth of the massacre with her 1971 bestselling book of survivors' testimonies, La Noche de Tlatelolco, published in English as Massacre in Mexico. "I think it's a good memorial and it's a good way of honouring all these students that were killed."
The massacre occurred on the eve of the 1968 Olympics, which the Mexican government hoped to use as a showcase for the country's economic growth and seeming stability. The facade, however, masked growing discontent with decades of autocratic, one-party rule and a persistent gap between haves and have-nots.
After gaining size and strength that summer, the student-led protests culminated on the evening of October 2nd, when thousands massed in the Plaza of the Three Cultures, so named because it contains Aztec ruins, a colonial-era church and modern apartment and office towers.
The bloodshed began when troops creeping in among the ruins and snipers began shooting down on the plaza from nearby buildings. Despite international protests, the Olympics went ahead a few days later.
For a long time, there was no mention in textbooks or state- controlled television of the massacre. Two independent "truth commissions" appointed in the 1990s fizzled out with few tangible results. So did a pledge by former president Vicente Fox to investigate Tlatelolco and the "dirty war" against dissidents.
"Sixty-eight practically didn't exist," says Sergio Raúl Arroyo García (53), the centre's director general. "On the level of our official history there has been a type of forgetfulness or amnesia in relation to the student movement."
In July 2005, the Mexico City government and National Autonomous University of Mexico, also the site of student protests in 1968, agreed to create a cultural centre with a memorial to the massacre.
Spread across two floors, the exhibition immerses visitors in an incendiary era. Snatches of Light My Fire and Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds flow out of speakers. One gallery bristles with colourful posters, witty bumper stickers and quasi-psychedelic handbills touting anti-government slogans.
Half a dozen small theatres allow visitors to watch dramatic black-and-white period footage of marches (including the summer's violent climax), interviews with eyewitnesses and reflections by writers, artists and intellectuals.
One stark gallery, resembling a prison cell, is lined with police mugshots of arrested protesters, dozens if not hundreds of whom were tortured and "disappeared".
Since opening in October, the centre has drawn enthusiastic crowds, including many students. Some remain sceptical that the spilled blood of that summer led to greater democracy. "I think that the same thing is going on," says Norma Zuniga (29).
But Saray Chavaro Cruz (15) was impressed by what a previous generation had achieved. "Today it's very different," she says. "Now we're allowed to express ourselves."
- (Los Angeles Times- Washington Post service)