About
the Above Image
During
their investigations of forced disappearances, the Special Prosecutor's
office reviewed documents produced by the Federal Security Directorate
(Dirección Federal de Seguridad-DFS), including their prisoner
files. These detainee registries included many individuals who were
detained extra judicially, and held in clandestine security facilities
where they were subject to torture. The above image is from chapter
8 of the Special Prosecutor's report, detailing the role of the
DFS in forced disappearances. When an individual was detained by
security officials, a DFS official filled out a biographical sketch.
The document included socio-economic information such as the prisoner's
religion, languages, political affiliation, and ideological affinity.
The
back of the document contained general observations, as well as
the date and motivation of detention. The record was then stamped,
and signed by the official in charge of the security section in
which the prisoner was registered. In most of the cases examined
by the Special Prosecutor's office, however, the signature of the
security authority was omitted from the documents. The report observes
that "the omission of the signature by those in charge of detention
appears to indicate that they were conscious of the crimes they
were committing and attempting to elude responsibility" (p.
504).
Related
Posting
February
26, 2006
Draft Report Documents 18 Years
of 'Dirty War' in Mexico
Special Prosecutor: State Responsible for Hundreds of Killings,
Disappearances
In
the news
"Mexican
Report Cites Leaders for 'Dirty War'"
By James C. McKinley Jr.
The New York Times
November 23, 2006
"Mexican
Ex-Presidents Blasted in Report"
By Julie Watson
Associated Press via CBS News
November 19, 2006
Mexico
Project Homepage
|
Update
- December 12, 2006
Communiqué
from Authors of the Draft Report of the Special Prosecutor
(in Spanish)
Click here to read the press
release (also in Spanish)
The authors of the draft report
of the Special Prosecutor, "¡Que no vuelva a suceder…!"
(parts of which were posted
by the National Security Archive on February 26, 2006),
have written a critique of the government's official report,
"Informe Histórico a la Sociedad Mexicana - 2006."
In their communiqué, the authors object to changes
made to their original findings and ask the government to
recognize the conclusions and recommendations of their version
of the report. The Mexico Project is posting this document,
which José Sotelo Marbán, coordinator of the
Special Prosecutor's investigations, sent to the National
Security Archive in an e-mail last week.
NOTE: The
National Security Archive would like to clarify a factual
error made in footnote 2 of the Communiqué, which states
that the Archive surreptitiously ("subrepticiamente")
obtained draft chapters of the "Informe" for the
posting of
February 26. In point of fact, Kate Doyle was offered
an unsolicited copy of the document by one of the many people
who had it in February 2006. When we learned that a national
magazine also had a copy and was planning to publish a detailed
article about its contents, we proposed that the Archive post
the document in full on our Web site - thereby granting victims
of Mexico's dirty war and families of the disappeared the
same access that a group of notable writers, academics and
journalists in Mexico City already had.
NOTA: El National
Security Archive quisiera esclarecer un error factual en la
nota número dos que aparece al pie de página
del comunicado, en la cual se establece que el Archive subrepticiamente
obtuvo borradores de capítulos del informe publicado
en nuestra página de Internet el 26 de febrero de 2006.
A manera de aclaración, Kate Doyle no solicitó
a nadie una copia del documento. Esta copia le fue ofrecida
por una de las muchas personas que la tenía en su poder
en febrero de 2006. Al enterarnos que una revista de circulación
nacional también tenía una copia del documento
y que además tenía planeado publicar un artículo
sobre su contenido, propusimos que el National Security Archive
publicara el documento en su totalidad- permitiendo a las
víctimas de la guerra sucia y a los familiares de los
desaparecidos el mismo acceso que un grupo de destacados escritores,
académicos y periodistas en la Cuidad de México
ya tenían.
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Washington
D.C., November 21, 2006 - Mexican authorities
released a groundbreaking report over the weekend on the government's
use of violent repression to crush its opponents during the
1960s-80s. The full report has now been posted
here on the Web site of the National Security Archive.
The report by the Office of Special Prosecutor Ignacio Carrillo
Prieto, named by President Vicente Fox in 2002 to investigate
past human rights crimes, accuses three Mexican presidents of
a sustained policy of violence targeting armed guerrillas and
student protesters alike, including the use of "massacres,
forced disappearance, systematic torture, and genocide."
The report makes clear that the abuses were not the work of
individual military units or renegade officers, but official
practice under Presidents Díaz Ordaz (1964-1970), Echeverría
(1970-1976) and López Portillo (1976-1982).
The document's release marks the first time the Mexican government
has accepted responsibility for waging a secret and illicit
war against its perceived enemies. Unlike prior investigations
into the Mexican "dirty war," the Special Prosecutor's
report draws on thousands of secret records from the vaults
of Mexican military, intelligence and police agencies. It traces
for the first time the flow of orders from the President, the
Defense Secretary and the Interior Ministry down to the soldiers
and security agents in the field, and the returning flow of
reports back to Mexico City. The official sources are complemented
by testimonies and eyewitness accounts gathered by the investigators.
Last February, the National Security Archive posted an earlier
draft of the report, when it became clear that the Fox government
was hesitating to publish the official document. Today's version
was released late on Friday night, November 17, at the start
of a long weekend in Mexico, and posted on the Web site of the
Mexican Attorney
General's office. It is over 800 pages long, and contains
photographs, declassified government records, and lengthy indexes
to organizations and names.
The report includes chapters on the 1968 and 1971 student massacres
in Mexico City, the counterinsurgency waged against armed guerrillas
in Guerrero during the 1970s, and the broader attack on dissidence
throughout the country over the almost two decades covered by
the investigation. The report describes and names the victims
in 645 disappearances, 99 extrajudicial executions, and more
than two thousand cases of torture, among other human rights
violations documented.
"The release of the Special Prosecutor's report is a direct
result of the demand of Mexican citizens to know what happened
during the dirty war," Kate Doyle, Director of the Archive's
Mexico Project, said today, "and is unique in the annals
of Latin American truth commissions for the access investigators
had to government records. In the past, not only did the authoritarian
regime violently attack its opponents, it sought to cover up
its role through lies, terror and intimidation for years afterwards.
But while the report takes an important step toward reversing
Mexico's legacy of impunity, the Fox administration failed in
its attempts to prosecute those responsible for the crimes described
in it. That job is left to the new government of Felipe Calderón,
who takes office on December 1."
Informe
Histórico a la Sociedad Mexicana - 2006
Historical
Report to the Mexican Society - 2006
Note:
The following documents are in PDF format.
You will need to download and install the free Adobe
Acrobat Reader to view.
Introducción
- Informe Histórico a la Sociedad Mexicana
Introduction - Historical Report to the Mexican Society
Tema
1 - Mandato y procedimiento de trabajo
Chapter 1 - Mandate and work procedure
Tema
2 - La Segunda Guerra Mundial prefigura el escenario que
nos ocupa
Chapter 2- World War II and how it prefigures the modern day
situation
Tema
3 - Movimiento Estudiantil de 1968
Chapter 3 - The student movement of 1968
Tema
4 - El 10 de Junio de 1971 y la disidencia Estudiantil
Chapter 4 - 10 June 1971 and student dissidence
Tema
5 - Orígenes de la Guerrilla Moderna en México
Chapter 5 - Origins of Mexico's modern day guerrilla movement
Tema
6 - Lo que explica el surgimiento de la guerra sucia
Chapter 6 - The explanation of the origins of the dirty war
Tema
7 - Grupos Armados: La guerrilla se extiende por todo el
país
Chapter 7 - Armed Groups: The guerrilla extends throughout the
entire country
Tema
8 - Genocidio
Chapter 8 - Genocide
Tema
9 - Se acreditan las condiciones de un Conflicto Armado
Interno en que aplica el Derecho Humanitario Internacional
Chapter 9 - Applying the conditions of Internal Armed Conflict
to the applications of International Human Rights
Tema
10 - Desviaciones del poder por el régimen autoritario
y corrupción de las instituciones de estado
Chapter 10 - Deviations of power by the authoritarian regime
and corruption of the state institutions
Tema
11 - Derecho a la verdad, al duelo y al reconocimiento del
honor de los caídos en la lucha por la justicia
Chapter 11 - The right to truth, recognition and the honor of
those fallen in the fight for justice.
Tema
12 - Luchadores sociales y organismos que demandan verdad
y justicia
Chapter 12 - Civil society organizations that demand truth and
justice
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