On October 2, 1968 in the Tlatelolco section of Mexico City, the Mexican Armed Forces opened fire on a group of unarmed civilians in the Plaza de las Tres Culturas who were protesting the upcoming Olympics.

Mexican President Gustavo Díaz Ordaz struggled to maintain public order during a time of rising social tensions but suppressed movements by labor unions and farmers fighting to improve their lot.

In 1958, under the previous administration of Adolfo López Mateos (when Díaz Ordaz was Minister of the Interior), labor leader Demetrio Vallejo was arrested and peasant activist Rubén Jaramillo was murdered.

However, the Díaz Ordaz government and troops marched into the plaza and gunmen in surrounding buildings opened fire on the unarmed civilians in what is now known as the Tlatelolco massacre.

On October 2, 1968, around 10,000 university and high school students gathered in the Plaza de las Tres Culturas to protest the government's actions and listen peacefully to speeches.

Journalist Elena Poniatowska culled interviews from those present and described events in her book Massacre in Mexico: "Flares suddenly appeared in the sky overhead and everyone automatically looked up.

[11] Captain Ernesto Morales Soto stated that "immediately upon sighting a flare in the sky, the prearranged signal, we were to seal off the aforementioned two entrances and prevent anyone from entering or leaving.

Demonstrators and passersby alike, including students, journalists (one of which was Italian reporter Oriana Fallaci), and children, were hit by bullets, and mounds of bodies soon lay on the ground.

His appointment revived the debate over his responsibility regarding the Tlatelolco massacre, to which Díaz Ordaz responded by firmly defending his handling of the incident; in an interview on 13 April 1977, shortly before leaving for Spain, a journalist told the former president that his appointment as ambassador "touched a sore spot", to which an upset Díaz Ordaz replied: "I'm very proud of having been President of the Republic and having thus served Mexico, but what I'm most proud of, from those six years, is the year 1968, because it allowed me to serve and save the country, whether you all like it or not, with something other than hours of bureaucratic work [...], fortunately, we got through, and if it hadn't been for that, you wouldn't have the chance, little boy, of being here asking questions.

In fact, former president Miguel de la Madrid was interviewed yesterday in the press, and said that he had asked the military and the interior secretary for documents and for photographs of the demonstrations, and was subjected to tremendous political pressure not to investigate.

Well, there's been pretty clear evidence now that there was a unit that was called the Brigada Olímpica, or the Olympic Brigade, that was made up of special forces of the presidential guard, who opened fire from the buildings that surrounded the square, and that that was the thing that provoked the massacre.

The Mexican newspaper The News reported that "a tribunal of three circuit court judges ruled that there was not enough proof to link Echeverria to the violent suppression of hundreds of protesting students on Oct. 2, 1968.

"[20] Despite the ruling, prosecutor Carrillo Prieto said he would continue his investigation and seek charges against Echeverria before the United Nations International Court of Justice and the Inter-American Human Rights Commission.

In early July of that year (after the presidential elections), he was cleared of genocide charges, as the judge found that Echeverría could not be put on trial because the statute of limitations had expired.

[22] Alejandro Encinas, undersecretary of Human Rights, Population, and Migration, said on October 2, 2020 that the federal government would remove the names of "repressors" involved in the 1968 student movement and El Halconazo of 1971 from public places.

The 'Cinéma vérité documentary film El Grito, México 1968 directed by Leobardo López Aretche captures the events surrounding the protest and massacre.

It focuses on the day of a middle-class family living in one of the apartment buildings surrounding the Plaza de Tlatelolco and is based on testimonials from witnesses and victims.

Alejandro Jodorowsky dramatized the massacre in The Holy Mountain (1973), with birds, fruits, vegetables, liquids and other things falling and being ripped out of the wounds of the dying students.

Roberto Bolaño released Amulet, a Spanish-language novel, in 1999, recounting the massacre from the point of view of a woman named Auxilio, based on the true story of Alcira Soust Scaffo.

[28] Borrar de la Memoria, a movie about a journalist who investigates a girl who was killed in July 1968, lightly touches the massacre, which is filmed by Roberto Rentería, a C.U.E.C.

"Jarhdin", a song by Mexican artist Maya Ghazal, features a two-minute audio sample recorded during the shooting at the Plaza de las Tres Culturas.

For example, in literary works such as "La Noche de Tlatelolco" (1971) by Elena Poniatowska which collected interviews, chants, slogans, and banners from student movement survivors.

[29] Tlatelolco movement veterans like Carlos Monsiváis, José Emilio Pacheco, Octavio Paz, and Jaime Sabines have written poems on the massacre and films like Jorge Fons's Rojo Amanecer (1990) have kept the memory alive.