Leticia Neria PhD thesis - Research@StAndrews:FullText ...

information on antagonistic groups, and fighting them with violent methods if
necessary. 141 The DFS and its groups killed, tortured and disappeared people as their
methods of repression. Luis Echeverría’s presidential term was the bloodiest period in
contemporary Mexican history, with three hundred people disappeared by security
forces according to a report published at the time by Amnesty International. 142 Now we
know that the number was, in fact, much higher. 143 Nevertheless, official discourse
remained focussed on social peace, and refused to accept the existence of guerrillas or
its responsibility for repression. This dark chapter is known as the Guerra Sucia. The
DFS played a key role.
According to Aguayo, one of the characteristics of the Guerra Sucia was the
methods used in order to eliminate those considered to be enemies of the State. 144 The
Guerra Sucia was a ‘contrainsurgencia de fuerzas policiales y fuerzas militares basadas
en la abolición absoluta de todo proceso legal. (…) [It is] una guerra que no llega a un
enfrentamiento de contingentes regulares’. 145 In war there must be a code –written or
implied- which is respected by all sides to the conflict. When one side breaks those
codes, then there is a Guerra Sucia. Governments may refuse to recognise belligerence
as war in order to avoid following international legal agreements. 146 According to Julio
Scherer, both sides refused to respect a code of war: ‘la guerra sucia fue sucia por
141 The rise to power of this service began during Díaz Ordaz presidential term, continued during
Echeverría’s sexenio, and continued until 1985. Aguayo, La Charola… p. 91.
142 José Agustín, Tragicomedia mexicana 2… p. 84.
143 According to the Asociación de Familiares de Detenidos, Desaparecidos y Víctimas de Violaciones a
los Derechos Humanos en México (AFADEM), 1,200 individuals disappeared during the Guerra Sucia.
Ximena Antillón Najlis, La desaparición forzada de Rosendo Radilla en Atoyac de Álvarez. Informe de
Afectación Psicosocial, (Mexico: Comisión Mexicana de Defensa y Promoción de los Derechos
Humanos, 2008), p. 15. [accessed 21 October
2011]
144 Personal communication with Sergio Aguayo, 26 November 2008.
145 Personal communication with Carlos Montemayor, 15 December 2008.
146 Montemayor, La violencia de estado… p. 178.
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