Movimiento Estudiantil 1968

IN LATE 1968, MEXICO WAS GETTING READY TO HOST THE OLYMPICS. BUT SOCIAL TENSIONS WERE ALSO SIMMERING.

SECURITY FORCES OPENED FIRE ON A CROWD PROTESTING AGAINST GOVERNMENT IN MEXICO´S CITY TLATELOLCO SQUARE.

HUNDREDS WERE ROUNDED UP BUT THE NUMBER OF DEAD REMAINS UNCLEAR TO THIS DAY.

HERE SOLDIERS ARE CUTTING PROTESTERS’ HAIR.

In the summer of 1968, students in Mexico began to challenge the country's authoritarian government. But the movement was short-lived, lasting less than three months. It ended on October 2, 1968, ten days before the opening of the Olympics in Mexico City, when military troops opened fire on a peaceful student demonstration. The shooting lasted over two hours. The next day the government sent in cleaners to wash the blood from the plaza floor.

The official announcement was that four students were dead, but eyewitnesses said hundreds were killed. The death toll was not the only thing the government covered up about that event.

The Massacre of Tlatelolco has become a defining moment in Mexican history, but for forty years the truth of that day has remained hidden.

Members of the Olympia Battalion (whose members were dressed in civilian clothes with a handkerchief or white glove on the left) infiltrated the demonstration to reach the building "Chihuahua" where speakers of the movement and journalists were there.

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