More evidence has emerged that Mexican authorities disposed of the bodies of dissidents in “death flights” during the country's 1965-1990 “dirty war.” Mexico's governmental Truth Commission said in a report Friday that recollections by witnesses and documents leaked over the years describe the chilling last moments of the victims.
FILE - A visitor looks at an exhibit during the inauguration of a memorial to victims of Mexico ’s “dirty war” at the former Federal Security headquarters where student protesters were taken in 1971 following a violent crackdown in Mexico City, June 10, 2019. Demonstrators march in remembrance of the 1968 Tlatelolco student massacre, an event considered part of the Mexico ’s “dirty war” when the government used its forces to suppress political opposition in Mexico City, Oct. 2, 2019.
According to testimony by Gustavo Tarín, who served in a military police unit at the time, the same pistol was used so often in the killings that soldiers came up with a nickname for it: “the sword of justice.” That statement, which had long been held in the archives of a now-deceased rights activist, included a list of 183 names of likely victims on the “death flights.” Several of those names match people who disappeared during the government counter-insurgency campaign., little is known about the ones carried out by Mexico, mainly in the 1970s, from a small airbase at Pie de la Cuesta, just west of Acapulco.
In Mexico, the less-widespread executions appeared to target small rural guerrilla movements in Guerrero state, where Acapulco is located. But a broad range of people were apparently swept up in the killings. The victims of the “death flights” were just one small part of a bigger strategy of repression. Overall, the truth commission cited evidence that nationwide there were about 4,500 identified victims of severe abuses during the so-called “dirty war.” It documented 1,450 were killed and another 517 simply disappeared without a trace.
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