Bodies Found in Mexico City May Be Victims of 1968 Massacre
Bettmann/Corbis
Mexican federal police officers opened fire on student demonstrators in October 1968; thousands were arrested, above, and hundreds were killed.
By JAMES C. McKINLEY Jr.
Published: July 11, 2007
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The architect, Rosa María Alvarado Martínez, said late Monday that she was forced to keep quiet about the grisly discovery after men identifying themselves as police officers said they would kidnap and kill her son if she went public.
The three bodies were discovered in 1981 as Ms. Alvarado and a construction crew were remodeling a Mexico City hospital that had previously been a vocational school where radical students clashed with the federal police and soldiers.
The federal authorities and the president’s office did not immediately respond to Ms. Alvarado’s accusations, which prompted calls for an investigation from human rights advocates and the families of students who disappeared.
Ms. Alvarado said workers were digging up a small garden to expand the hospital’s cafeteria when they discovered a cement layer. After breaking through the cement, they discovered a grave with at least three skulls, a tangle of other large human bones and at least one slug from a military rifle, she said.
Plainclothes police officers, who never showed any identification, arrived at the hospital and interviewed the people in charge of the renovation in separate rooms. Ms. Alvarado said that four officers spent several hours trying to convince her “there was no reason to file a complaint because these bodies were not important.”
As the day wore on, she said, the engineer in charge of the job and the hospital director both pleaded with her to do as the officers said. She said the officers told her “to quit being foolish and put the remains back.” Finally at 4 p.m., one of the officers said her 3-year-old son would be killed unless she cooperated.
“He said, ‘If you don’t do it, we will make your son disappear,’ ” said Ms. Alvarado, 52. “ ‘It is very easy to make him disappear.’ ”
More:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/11/world/americas/11students.html?_r=1&oref=slogin