Breathe
By Sofía Guadarrama Collado
One of the most effective formulas in politics is to "create conflicts and then solve them".
The 1966 university strike, like all student strikes in Mexico, was a manipulation by a group of PRI supporters to remove Ignacio Chávez and place Javier Barros Sierra as rector. The street fight between IPN and UNAM students was just the bait to defeat Luis Echeverría, then Secretary of the Interior, and position his own presidential candidate: Emilio Martínez Manautou, Secretary of the Presidency.
Javier Barros Sierra's mistake was not to measure the consequences. Diaz Ordaz was on a work tour on the day of the bazooka attack on High School 1. The order had been given by Luis Echeverría to Alfonso Corona del Rosal and the Secretary of Defense, Marcelino García Barragán . In other words, Echeverría had taken the bait. According to Barros Sierra's predictions, Echeverría Álvarez had dug his own grave.
No one imagined that something worse than the bazooka could happen. The rector of UNAM gambled everything. He believed that the demonstrations would force Echeverría to resign as Secretary of the Interior and the presidential candidacy. He was wrong.
Barros Sierra, by leading the protest marches, went down in history as the hero of 1968, but he got the students into a time bomb. A malevolent dispute for the 1970 presidential candidacy.
When he wanted to establish a dialogue between the university students and the government, it was too late. Luis Echeverría had infiltrated people into the movement, injected money and provided weapons so that the movement would grow, get out of control, become violent and in turn become a national conflict. At the same time, Echeverría managed to ensure that President Díaz Ordaz found in his Secretary of the Interior a loyal and efficient official capable of maintaining the country's stability before the inauguration of the Olympic Games.
On October 2, 1968, the massacre of students in the Plaza de las Tres Culturas took place on the orders of the Secretary of the Interior, Luis Echeverría Álvarez.
Irma Serrano, who was Diaz Ordaz's mistress for practically the entire six-year term, narrated in her memoirs:
Gustavo lived in my house (in El Pedregal). That is why I can confirm that on that day he had gone to visit four towns in Jalisco that were cut off from communication and when he returned on October 3, he was banging on the doors, and when he found Echeverría, who did not want to face him, he filled him with insults and shouted "Assassin! He ordered that under no circumstances should the students be touched. It was the worm who was responsible, who dictated the precise orders. And he overplayed his hand. Diaz Ordaz took all the responsibility on his shoulders because that was his character: proud to a fault.
On September 1, 1969, when delivering his fifth Government Report, Gustavo Díaz Ordaz said: I assume full personal, ethical, social, legal, political and historical responsibility for the decisions made by the federal government last year.
It was a responsible and courageous act, because at the end of the day he was the president and had to assume the blame for everything that happened in the country. It was very different from López Obrador 's attitude of blaming former presidents, neoliberals, conservatives, opponents and the press.
Gustavo Díaz Ordaz was Mexico's last great president. Thanks to him, the highest economic status was achieved:
Sustained annual growth of 7%.
Inflation of 3%.
3. Lowest foreign debt in history: $3.8 billion dollars.
4. The dollar remained at $12.50 from the end of the Ruíz Cortines administration until the departure of Díaz Ordaz. In other words, twelve years of stability.
But Luis Echeverría took it upon himself to tarnish his image throughout his six-year term, just as López Obrador did with Felipe Calderón's reputation.
Years after leaving office, Gustavo Díaz Ordaz said: "They made jokes on me because I was ugly, on Luis Echeverría because he was an asshole".
The opinions expressed are the responsibility of the authors and are absolutely independent of the position and editorial line of the company. Opinion 51.
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