Luis Echeverria, former Mexican President blamed for massacres, dies

Echeverria positioned himself as a left-leaning maverick allied with Third World causes during his presidency, but his role in the notorious massacres of leftist students in 1968 and 1971 made him hated by Mexican leftists

Former Mexican President Luis Echeverria, blamed for some of Mexico’s worst political killings of the 20th century, has died at the age of 100, current President Andrés Manuel López Obrador confirmed Saturday.

In his Twitter account, López Obrador sent condolences to Echeverria’s family and friends “in the name of the government of Mexico,” but did not express any personal sadness about the death. López Obrador did not provide a cause of death for Echeverria, who governed Mexico from 1970 to 1976.

He had been hospitalized for pulmonary problems in 2018 and also had neurological difficulties in recent years.

Echeverria positioned himself as a left-leaning maverick allied with Third World causes during his presidency, but his role in the notorious massacres of leftist students in 1968 and 1971 made him hated by Mexican leftists, who for for decades tried unsuccessfully to have him put on trial.

In 2004, he became the first former Mexican head of state formally accused of criminal wrongdoing. Prosecutors linked Echeverria to the country’s so-called “dirty war” in which hundreds of leftist activists and members of fringe guerrilla groups were imprisoned, killed, or simply disappeared without a trace.

Special prosecutor Ignacio Carrillo asked a judge to issue an arrest warrant against Echeverria on genocide charges in the two student massacres, the first of which occurred when served as interior secretary, overseeing domestic security affairs.

On October 2, 1968, a few weeks before the Summer Olympics in Mexico City, government sharpshooters opened fire on student protesters in the Tlatelolco plaza and soldiers posted there opened fire. Estimates of the dead have ranged from 25 to more than 300. Echeverria had denied any participation in the attacks.