Associated Press
November 27, 2001
By John Rice

MEXICO CITY -- More than two decades after Mexico's so-called "dirty war," the government's human rights agency reported Tuesday that 275 leftists vanished while in government hands.

President Vicente Fox ordered creation of a special prosecutor to investigate and bring charges. He also ordered federal agencies to open tens of thousands of files that might hold evidence of many other human rights violations between 1960 and the present.

It was by far the most dramatic move by any Mexican government to lift the veil from abuses committed by secret police, troops and other forces in the past.

"The justice that has been awaited for decades is beginning to become a reality," said Fox, whose election last year ended 71 years of often-authoritarian rule by the Institutional Revolutionary Party.

Fox also ordered all government departments to send files that could deal with human rights violations to the National Archives, where they could be "consulted by anyone interested."

It was the first time the government released significant information on the disappearances, and partly fulfills campaign promises Fox made as he took office a year ago.

The nearly 3,000-page report analyzed the disappearances case by case, and found that many of the victims were seized by municipal, state or federal agents.

More than 532 leftists dropped from sight in the 1970s and early 1980s and were believed to have been imprisoned, killed and secretly buried. But human rights officials said there wasn't enough evidence to prove that they had disappeared in government hands. More investigations were possible.

Human Rights Ombudsman Jose Luis Soberanes said that while his agency could confirm only 275 of the cases, further investigation might confirm others.

Soberanes began the event with a bone-chilling recounting of a story from a survivor: a woman who said she was forced to watch the beating and electric shock torture of her husband and her 1-year-old daughter after agents had gruesomely raped and tortured her as well.

Although municipal, state and federal agencies all were implicated by the report, the majority of the cases appeared to involve the former Federal Security Department.

The report was released at a news conference Tuesday and sent to the attorney general's office for possible legal action.

Fox had been criticized for failing to move quickly to solve human rights problems, including the recent murder of prominent human rights lawyer Digna Ochoa.

The missing from Tuesday's report include members of radical socialist groups that carried out bombings, kidnappings and sometimes murders during the 1970s in hopes of creating a communist state in Mexico. They also apparently included students, farmers and social activists suspected of such activities or of contacts with radicals.

Soberanes said that human rights laws barred his agency from naming the 74 officials -- 59 federal and 15 from states -- implicated in the forced disappearances, but he turned the report and its files over to prosecutors so that they could bring charges.

Although 37 municipal, state and federal agencies were all implicated by the report, the majority of the abuses appeared to involve the army or the former Federal Security Directorate.

In addition to a special prosecutor, Fox ordered all government agencies to turn over files on possible rights abuses between 1960 and 1985 to the national archives where they could be "consulted by anyone interested." More recent files would be available to prosecutors and the human rights commission.

He also ordered creation of a committee to consider ways of compensating relatives of the victims.

The presentation of the report took place in the Lecumberri Palace, which long housed Mexico's main center for political prisoners and is now the National Archive.