Judge Rejects Genocide Charges Against Ex-President of Mexico

MEXICO CITY —  A judge in effect threw out genocide charges against former Mexican President Luis Echeverria on Saturday by refusing to issue an arrest warrant based on his alleged role in the violent suppression of a 1971 student protest that left scores dead.

Echeverria’s lawyer said Judge Julio Cesar Flores told him that he would not grant the warrant request because the 30-year statute of limitations on the killings had lapsed. Special prosecutor Ignacio Carrillo Prieto, who requested the warrant Thursday night, said he would appeal the decision.

The rejection represents a serious setback for President Vicente Fox, who swept into office in 2000 on promises that he would prosecute those responsible for the killings of hundreds of dissidents during Mexico’s “dirty war” of the 1970s and ‘80s.

Fox has little to show for his promises, and the political fallout for him and his National Action Party may be significant. Those who supported him four years ago in ousting the long-ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, including human rights groups, are increasingly disappointed with Fox, said Jorge Chabat, a professor and crime expert at the Center for Economic Research and Teaching here.

“Fox won under the flag of transparency and rule of law, so now people who voted for him are disenchanted,” Chabat said.

The judge’s decision also may have cross-border ramifications. The United States has often expressed its support of Fox’s efforts to promote greater rule of law, believing that it furthers both countries’ social and economic integration.

Many of the “dirty war” deaths, including the so-called Corpus Christi massacre, occurred during Echeverria’s 1970-76 presidency. Echeverria, a member of the PRI, was interior minister in the late 1960s when the government’s oppression of leftist dissidents reached its peak of notoriety with the so-called Tlatelolco massacre in October 1968.

Special prosecutor Carrillo had sought the arrest of Echeverria and 11 others, including two of his Cabinet members.

Echeverria’s lawyer, Juan Velasquez, praised the judge’s decision. “This is a great victory for the rule of law,” he told radio reporters.

Echeverria did not appear in public or make a statement Saturday but has maintained his innocence in the killings.

“It’s an absurdity to think the events of June 10, 1971, were a genocide like what the Nazis perpetrated on the Jews in the Second World War,” Velasquez said.

Also celebrating was the PRI, which had said Echeverria’s arrest would sow instability in a country still trying to come to grips with its violent past.

“The PRI has faith in the judiciary and believes that the decision of Judge Julio Cesar Flores confirms that principles of legality and impartiality prevail in the nation,” PRI spokesman Sergio Martinez said.

Victims’ families expressed outrage. “We won’t permit that Echeverria and his people go without punishment,” said Robert Garcia Flores, brother of Juan Garcia, a student killed in the Corpus Christi march. “Sooner or later they will pay for their actions.”

Human rights activists also criticized Saturday’s ruling.

“Today’s decision is a tremendous disappointment for the human rights community and the families of the students who were killed,” said Kerry Howard, deputy director of the Americas for Amnesty International. “We hope this is a temporary hurdle and that the authorities find swift and effective means to overcome the impunity that has haunted this case for decades.”

On June 10, 1971, special government police called Falcons opened fire on more than 10,000 demonstrators as they marched near the National Polytechnic Institute in Mexico City calling for education reform. The government put the death toll at 25. Since beginning his investigation, Carrillo has said as many as 80 marchers, mainly students, were killed outright and 200 were kidnapped, never to be seen again. In his indictment Thursday, Carrillo put the number of dead at 45 and did not mention a total for disappearances.

Carrillo pledged at a news conference Saturday that he would appeal the judge’s decision based on an international pact that Mexico signed in 1966 that obligates the country to place no time limits on prosecution of those responsible for genocide.

“The judge didn’t analyze with profundity the argument of the special prosecutor’s office and did not adequately value the evidence,” Carrillo told reporters outside his office. “We will exhaust all legal remedies, including an appeal.”

A similar appeal by Carrillo was successful last year. Initially denied a warrant for the arrest of former secret police chief Miguel Nazar Haro for his role in the 1975 disappearance of a communist militant, Carrillo got the decision overturned by the Mexican Supreme Court. Nazar Haro is now in jail.

The jailing is one of Carrillo’s few victories, and he has been criticized for acting too slowly. He has complained that his office is underfunded and overwhelmed by its caseload.

Many observers have said that the case against Echeverria appeared weak, with little direct evidence connecting him to the killings. Even if he had been arrested, no one expected him to spend time in jail or face a trial.

A National Human Rights Commission report issued at Fox’s urging in November 2001 listed 532 victims as casualties of the dirty war. Carrillo built his case based on 1 million previously secret files on Mexican citizens kept by the Federal Security Directorate, which Fox ordered be made public.

Though Echeverria accepted no guilt for civilian deaths, he and his successor, President Jose Lopez Portillo, said after the report was released that Mexico was in a fight for survival against subversive groups during their terms in office.

The setback is also certain to renew criticism of Fox for naming a special prosecutor instead of a so-called truth commission to investigate atrocities, as happened in Chile and South Africa. Such a panel would not have brought charges but could have aired cases in open hearings and provided what one observer described as “public catharsis.”

Fox decided on the narrower scope of a special prosecutor, believing that a broad investigative swath cut by a truth commission would have been too politically divisive for Mexico.

“Now, we don’t have the truth, and we don’t have many people in jail,” crime expert Chabat said.

Fox was also said to prefer the special prosecutor option because he knew such an investigation would take years, giving him time to pursue cooperation from the PRI for his legislative program. So far, such support has eluded Fox, and his reform packages have largely foundered.