Mexican Dirty War

Mexican Dirty War
Part of the Cold War and Operation Condor
Mexican Army soldiers in the streets in 1968
Date 1964–1982[1][3] Location Mexico Result Government victory Continued rule of the Institutional Revolutionary Party Most leftist guerrilla groups disbanded After the conflict Several acts of violence have not yet been clarified.[4] Political defeat of the PRI in the 2000 presidential elections before the National Action Party (PAN). Grouping of the political left and formation of the Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD).[5] Dissolution of Dirección Federal de Seguridad for crimes committed during Mexican Dirty War and for having alliances with Guadalajara Cartel and drug lords like Ernesto Fonseca Carrillo and Rafael Caro Quintero
Belligerents
Left-wing groups[1] People's Guerrilla Group Party of the Poor National Revolutionary Civic Association [es] Liga Comunista 23 de Septiembre National Liberation Forces Various other social and armed movements in the country	Mexico Institutional Revolutionary Party DFS - Security Directorate (Intelligence) Armed Forces (Military) Judicial Police (Law enforcement)  United States (small arms, ammunition, and explosives)[2]
Casualties and losses
Estimated at least 3,000 people disappeared and executed, 3,000 political prisoners, and 7,000 tortured[1]: 8

The Mexican Dirty War (Spanish: Guerra sucia) was the Mexican theater of the Cold War, an internal conflict from the 1960s to the 1980s between the Mexican Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI)-ruled government under the presidencies of Gustavo Díaz Ordaz, Luis Echeverría and José López Portillo, which were backed by the US government, and left-wing student and guerrilla groups.^[6][7] During the war, government forces carried out disappearances (estimated at 1,200),^[8] systematic torture, and "probable extrajudicial executions".^[9]

In the 1960s and 1970s, Mexico was persuaded to be part of both Operation Intercept^[10] and Operation Condor,^[11] developed between 1975 and 1978, with the pretext to fight against the cultivation of opium and marijuana in the "Golden Triangle", particularly in Sinaloa.^[12]

The operation, commanded by General José Hernández Toledo,^[13] was a flop with no major drug-lord captures; however, many abuses and acts of repression were committed.^[14]

The judicial investigation into State crimes against political movements was not opened until the end of the 71-year long PRI regime and the accession to power of Vicente Fox in 2000, which created the Special Prosecutor's Office for Social and Political Movements of the Past (FEMOSPP). However, despite revealing much about the history of the conflict, the FEMOSPP has not been able to finalize prosecutions against the main instigators of the Dirty War.^[15]

In the early 1960s, previously schoolteachers, Genaro Vázquez Rojas and Lucio Cabañas, created their own “armed rebellion” in Guerrero’s mountains. Rojas and Cabañas’ rebellion group would work together to attack other groups for their own gain, rob others, and kidnap for ransom. Wherever there was an attack meant for the Mexican government or military, Mexican civilians suffered the consequences of being robbed, kidnapped or having their homes overthrown. An example of these events occurred in 1971 with three major kidnappings which produced “millions of pesos” through ransom for the rebelling forces.^[16]

In March 2019, the President of Mexico, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, publicly released the archives of the defunct Federal Security Directorate, which contain a great amount of previously undisclosed information about the Dirty War and the political persecution by the PRI governments in the 20th century. López Obrador stated that "We lived for decades under an authoritarian regime which limited freedoms and persecuted those who struggled for social change" and issued an official apology on behalf of the Mexican State towards the victims of the repression. López Obrador further stated that judicial action will be taken against the surviving perpetrators of the repression, and promised that the surviving victims will be able to claim compensation under the law.^[17][18]