How Army Buried Abuses During Mexico's War on Dissent
Mexico's Dirty War in Guerrero saw army abuses reign supreme: disappearances, torture, rape. Brave voices, like Pompeya Muñoz Rentería, dared to break silence, exposing atrocities despite fear and government impunity. Their stories, unearthed from archives.
The Mexican Army was one of the State institutions involved in the repressive actions that characterized the so-called Dirty War, which, among other groups and organizations, fought the guerrilla groups established in various states of the republic. Guerrero was one of the highest points where this persecution occurred: at the beginning of the 1970s the army deployed about a third of its forces to combat the movement of Genaro Vázquez and Lucio Cabañas.
During the period in which the military forces were deployed in that entity, various operations were carried out with the aim of capturing the guerrilla leaders, and. In this process, some soldiers and military leaders were involved in cases of arbitrary detentions, forced disappearances, extrajudicial executions and human rights violations, acts that were denounced by their victims, despite the fear and risk they ran by denouncing the bad actions of who were supposed to provide security.
The complaints that were raised are evidence of how the population of Guerrero experienced firsthand the atrocities of the Dirty War. Unfortunately, the victims who dared to break the silence were rarely heard by the authorities; since it constituted a policy aimed at eradicating all dissident movements regardless of the means.
The Mexican Army was one of the organizations in charge of directly intervening in the fight against the guerrilla in the state of Guerrero during the period known as the Dirty War. In the following story, learn about the complaint that some people filed against the abuses committed by the military forces.
One of the institutions involved in the actions carried out during the period known as the Dirty War was the Mexican Army; which was deployed in the areas where guerrilla groups emerged. Among them was the state of Guerrero, where Genaro Vázquez and Lucio Cabañas declared an armed struggle as a means of transition to a socialist State.
Initially, the army's activities were limited to small operations, almost imperceptible to the communities of Guerrero, unlike the actions of the police who were involved in acts of abuse of authority. However, with the arrival of President Luis Echeverría, a counterinsurgency strategy was formulated, whose combat plans were generated from within the Secretariat of National Defense, such as operations Amistad, Telaraña and Rastrillo.
In this way, the Mexican Army became the main operator of combat actions against the guerrillas in Guerrero, to the point of concentrating a third of its troops in that state of the republic, that is, nearly 24,000 armed soldiers. And equipped with helicopters, planes and combat tanks.
The performance that these armed forces had in the Guerrero community was marked by arbitrary arrests, forced disappearances, extrajudicial executions and human rights violations, all under the shelter of the government.
Despite the victims' fear of reporting these events, there were voices that broke the silence and denounced the multiple abuses committed by the military against civilians; testimonies that did not result in justice actions and, in the worst of cases, cost the life of the complainant.
Some of these complaints were presented to the same Secretariat of National Defense, which is why we can point out that the high command of said State agency was fully aware of the way its members acted. By reviewing the SEDENA collection of the General Archive of the Nation, we can learn about these stories of abuses of power and violations of rights during the Dirty War.
One of these cases was the situation denounced by the Committee of the Zapatista Front of the Republic regarding the arbitrary detention carried out by military personnel of a peasant who had mental problems. According to testimonies, the victim was drunk when she was picked up by a group of soldiers, appearing dead a few hours later.
Other ways in which the abuse of power was manifested were the rapes committed by the military on women and minors. One of those cases was that of Pompeya Muñoz Rentería from the community of San Luis Acatlán, Guerrero, who reported the rape she suffered at the hands of a lieutenant, stating that her 14-year-old niece had also been violated in the act by two soldiers. We can affirm that, during that period of the Dirty War, the girls from the town of San Luis Acatlán and other locations lived in constant fear of suffering some harm to their person and physical integrity.
Unfortunately, the extent of these complaints is unknown, since the files do not provide continuity to the investigations that were carried out. However, knowing these testimonies of the people who witnessed or lived firsthand the terror of the Dirty War is essential to reveal the abuses committed by the institutions that past governments used to put an end to social and political dissidence.
Full Citation: Archivo General de la Nación. ‘El Ejército mexicano durante la Guerra Sucia’. gob.mx, http://www.gob.mx/agn/articulos/el-ejercito-mexicano-durante-la-guerra-sucia?idiom=es. Accessed 27 Jan. 2024.
