Ex-president charged with genocide

MEXICO CITY -- A special prosecutor made history Friday by filing genocide charges against former Mexican President Luis Echeverria, who is linked to the military massacre of at least 30 students during a June 1971 free speech protest.

Mexicans are in suspense, waiting to see whether a judge in Mexico City will agree to issue arrest warrants for Echeverria, 82, and others that were requested by special prosecutor Ignacio Carrillo Prieto.

Carrillo was appointed in 2002 to investigate the 1971 incident and other past killings and disappearances of dissidents during a repressive period in Mexico known as "the dirty war." Judge Jose Cesar Flores is required to respond within 24 hours, sometime today, to Carrillo's request.

If Echeverria, who was president from 1970 to 1976, ends up facing trial, it will mark the first time that a Mexican president is charged with a crime. Among international human rights groups, the case against Echeverria is considered pivotal in Mexico's ongoing attempts to strengthen democracy after the end of 71 years of authoritarian one-party rule in 2000.

"By bringing a case against a former president, the special prosecutor has done what for years was unthinkable in Mexico," said Jose Miguel Vivanco, Washington, D.C.-based executive director of Human Rights Watch's Americas division.

Echeverria's lawyer denies the genocide charges. But former students who were fired upon by a secretive military squad known as the Falcons insist he was responsible for an alleged state policy to eliminate dissidents.

Echeverria was one of a long series of presidents representing Mexico's Institutional Revolutionary Party, the PRI, which lost the presidency in 2000 but still wields considerable political power.

"This would be an achievement for all my generation, for all of us who suffered repression," said Jesus Martin del Campo, 55, whose brother Edmundo, then 20, was shot to death during the June 10, 1971, protest.

Del Campo filed the initial complaint with Carrillo against Echeverria.

"We obviously have believed all along that the way for Mexico to come to terms with its past and build a future is to investigate and prosecute these crimes," said Eric Olson, Americas Advocate for Amnesty International in Washington, D.C.

"If Mexicans can see that prosecutors can bring former presidents to justice, that will go a long way to increase public confidence in the justice system," Olson said.

Carrillo's accusation has prompted outrage and threats from the PRI, which holds a majority in Mexico's two houses of Congress and most gubernatorial seats.

If Echeverria is arrested, some in the PRI have threatened to cease all political negotiations with President Vicente Fox of the National Action Party.

Echeverria's lawyer, Juan Velasquez, said, "In Mexico, there has never been genocide."

He said the 1971 incident was a "confrontation" between "two bands" during a tumultuous time.

Echeverria's defenders -- including some military figures -- have also said that protesters in the incident fired at soldiers first. They have said that previous governments were forced to respond with tough measures to combat violent dissidents. From the 1960s to the 1980s, hundreds of dissidents disappeared or were killed in Mexico.

Mexican reporters staked out Echeverria's home in Mexico City yesterday and rumors swirled that he might not be in the country. Echeverria is also widely viewed in Mexico as a symbol of repression because he was a key Cabinet member during Mexico's infamous 1968 Olympics Games massacre.

On Oct. 2, 1968, before the Olympics opened here, Mexican soldiers shot and killed dozens of protesters marching for free speech and democracy.