By JULIE WATSON, Associated Press Writer
Mon Feb 27, 5:57 PM ET
MEXICO CITY - A leaked draft of a government report on Mexico's "dirty war" alleges that the country's presidency orchestrated an anti-insurgency campaign in which soldiers carried out summary executions, raped women, and set entire villages on fire.
ADVERTISEMENT
Based partly on declassified Mexican military documents, the report was prepared by a special prosecutor assigned to investigate alleged atrocities by soldiers. Prosecutors said the report has not yet been officially released and was undergoing changes.
The report was leaked to several prominent Mexican writers and published Sunday in the Mexican magazine, Erme-Equis.
The unedited draft states the alleged crimes were committed during the administrations of presidents Gustavo Diaz Ordaz, Luis Echeverria, Jose Lopez Portillo, and Adolfo Lopez Mateos.
The most brutal period allegedly occurred under Echeverria's rule from 1970-76, when military bases allegedly served as "concentration camps," according to the report, and hundreds of suspected subversives in the southern state of Guerrero were killed or disappeared.
Under Echeverria's so-called "Friendship Operation" launched by the military in 1970 in Guerrero, the report says it has evidence the army conducted "illegal searches, arbitrary detentions, torture, the raping of women in the presence of their husbands, and the possible extrajudicial executions of groups of people."
"With this operation, a state policy was established in which all authorities connected to the military — the president ... the presidential guard, the commanders of Guerrero's two military regions, officers and their troops — participated in human rights violations with the justification of pursuing a bad fugitive," the report said.
"Such an open counter-guerrilla strategy could not have been possible without the explicit consent and approval of the president," it added.
The Washington-based National Security Archive, a private, nonpartisan research group, also posted the report on their web site Sunday, saying it believed all Mexicans should have access to it.
"This is the most extensive documented description of how the state unleashed a savage counterinsurgency campaign that targeted a tiny armed insurgency and swept up thousands of civilians in its wake," said Kate Doyle, director of the research group's Mexico Project.
Jose Luis Contreras, a spokesman for Special Prosecutor Ignacio Carrillo, said Carrillo planned to present the report to President Vicente Fox this week.
But Carrillo first planned to make changes — including erasing the words "concentration camps" from the draft.
"Obviously this does not apply to this country," Contreras said.
The special prosecutor also is revising the report's allegations that Echeverria's presidency was directly behind the abuses, Contreras said.
Carrillo did not return calls seeking comment. A spokeswoman from Fox's office said the president had not yet received the report and could not comment.
Fox has vowed to prosecute Mexico's past crimes, but has done little so far.
Carrillo's office has unsuccessfully sought to bring genocide charges against Echeverria for mass killings committed during two anti-government protests of mostly university students, in 1968 and 1971. The former president has denied wrongdoing in both cases.
But until now, there has been little more than witness accounts of what took place in Guerrero's villages.
The report for the first time names soldiers and cites telegrams from the Defense Department describing exactly who would be targeted in Mexico's war against guerrilla leaders Lucio Cabanas and Genaro Vazquez.
It gives a grisly account — during the administration of Lopez Mateos — of soldiers in 1963 mutilation killing of a leader of coffee farmers in the community of El Ticui.
The report states that when Echeverria came to power, the government "implemented a genocide plan that was closely followed during his reign." During that time, guerrillas were blamed for a series of kidnappings and attacks on soldiers.
The report describes soldiers dressed in civilian clothes gunning down five men in the community of Los Piloncillos in front of their families, friends and neighbors.
After guerrillas ambushed and killed 18 troops in 1972, the army detained at least 90 men in the village of El Quemado and took many of them to three different military bases that served as "concentration camps," according to the report.
Seven of the men died from being tortured, the report states.
Mon Feb 27, 5:57 PM ET
MEXICO CITY - A leaked draft of a government report on Mexico's "dirty war" alleges that the country's presidency orchestrated an anti-insurgency campaign in which soldiers carried out summary executions, raped women, and set entire villages on fire.
ADVERTISEMENT
Based partly on declassified Mexican military documents, the report was prepared by a special prosecutor assigned to investigate alleged atrocities by soldiers. Prosecutors said the report has not yet been officially released and was undergoing changes.
The report was leaked to several prominent Mexican writers and published Sunday in the Mexican magazine, Erme-Equis.
The unedited draft states the alleged crimes were committed during the administrations of presidents Gustavo Diaz Ordaz, Luis Echeverria, Jose Lopez Portillo, and Adolfo Lopez Mateos.
The most brutal period allegedly occurred under Echeverria's rule from 1970-76, when military bases allegedly served as "concentration camps," according to the report, and hundreds of suspected subversives in the southern state of Guerrero were killed or disappeared.
Under Echeverria's so-called "Friendship Operation" launched by the military in 1970 in Guerrero, the report says it has evidence the army conducted "illegal searches, arbitrary detentions, torture, the raping of women in the presence of their husbands, and the possible extrajudicial executions of groups of people."
"With this operation, a state policy was established in which all authorities connected to the military — the president ... the presidential guard, the commanders of Guerrero's two military regions, officers and their troops — participated in human rights violations with the justification of pursuing a bad fugitive," the report said.
"Such an open counter-guerrilla strategy could not have been possible without the explicit consent and approval of the president," it added.
The Washington-based National Security Archive, a private, nonpartisan research group, also posted the report on their web site Sunday, saying it believed all Mexicans should have access to it.
"This is the most extensive documented description of how the state unleashed a savage counterinsurgency campaign that targeted a tiny armed insurgency and swept up thousands of civilians in its wake," said Kate Doyle, director of the research group's Mexico Project.
Jose Luis Contreras, a spokesman for Special Prosecutor Ignacio Carrillo, said Carrillo planned to present the report to President Vicente Fox this week.
But Carrillo first planned to make changes — including erasing the words "concentration camps" from the draft.
"Obviously this does not apply to this country," Contreras said.
The special prosecutor also is revising the report's allegations that Echeverria's presidency was directly behind the abuses, Contreras said.
Carrillo did not return calls seeking comment. A spokeswoman from Fox's office said the president had not yet received the report and could not comment.
Fox has vowed to prosecute Mexico's past crimes, but has done little so far.
Carrillo's office has unsuccessfully sought to bring genocide charges against Echeverria for mass killings committed during two anti-government protests of mostly university students, in 1968 and 1971. The former president has denied wrongdoing in both cases.
But until now, there has been little more than witness accounts of what took place in Guerrero's villages.
The report for the first time names soldiers and cites telegrams from the Defense Department describing exactly who would be targeted in Mexico's war against guerrilla leaders Lucio Cabanas and Genaro Vazquez.
It gives a grisly account — during the administration of Lopez Mateos — of soldiers in 1963 mutilation killing of a leader of coffee farmers in the community of El Ticui.
The report states that when Echeverria came to power, the government "implemented a genocide plan that was closely followed during his reign." During that time, guerrillas were blamed for a series of kidnappings and attacks on soldiers.
The report describes soldiers dressed in civilian clothes gunning down five men in the community of Los Piloncillos in front of their families, friends and neighbors.
After guerrillas ambushed and killed 18 troops in 1972, the army detained at least 90 men in the village of El Quemado and took many of them to three different military bases that served as "concentration camps," according to the report.
Seven of the men died from being tortured, the report states.
