How the PRI Turned Nepantla into a War Zone
In 1974, Mexico's dark history reached a bloody crescendo when government forces stormed an FLN safe house in Nepantla. Over 100 heavily armed agents massacred five revolutionaries, showcasing the PRI regime's brutal repression during the "Dirty War."
In 1974, Mexico was a land simmering in tension, a pressure cooker with the lid held down tight by the iron fist of the Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI. The decade was marked not by disco fever and bell-bottoms, but by a pervasive, suffocating aura of fear, violence, and authoritarian control. A nation where every conversation might be overheard, every letter read, and every peaceful gathering a potential prelude to bloodshed. Democracy was as absent as a Formula 1 car in a horse race, and repression was served hot, with extra brutality.
To truly capture the spirit of the 1970s in Mexico, you need to understand that the government was absolutely obsessed with maintaining its grip on power. The PRI, ruling with an authoritarian flair that would make even the most power-hungry autocrats blush, didn’t just suppress dissent—they annihilated it. And anyone brave or foolhardy enough to stand against them, whether peaceful activist or committed guerrilla fighter, was treated to the most imaginative and cruel forms of state-sponsored wrath.
