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

ambas partes.(…) [However] no es lo mismo combatir desde el poder que desde las
zonas empobrecidas de Guerrero, pobladas por campesinos que sobreviven’. 147
The government’s targets were mainly the guerrilla groups. Soldiers and federal
police tortured, disappeared and killed people. 148 The DFS, their affiliated groups, and
the army attacked not only the rebels but also civilians, including their relatives and
communities, as in the case of the rural guerrillas. Members of the community were
abducted and interrogated. Some never returned, instead becoming part of the list of
desaparecidos, those whose destiny is unknown and were never seen again, alive or
dead. 149
The desaparición forzada (forced disappearance) began in 1969 in the state of
Guerrero, but during the presidential term of Echeverría it spread. 150 The government
always denied involvement in the abduction and disappearance of persons, but Aguayo
discovered in the archives of the DFS that a large number of the people who are named
as ‘disappeared’ were detained by the DFS, a coincidence which suggests responsibility
on the part of the authorities. 151 In May 1975, when Luis Echeverría visited Guerrero, a
number of the inhabitants of the small town of Atoyac asked him the whereabouts of
eight hundred relatives who had been arrested by public forces. The president promised
to investigate case by case, but there was no such investigation. 152 Even today,
investigations of those who disappeared during the Guerra Sucia are still taking
place. 153
147
Scherer, ‘Los patriotas’, p. 105.
148
Monsiváis, ‘1968: la herencia en busca de…’, p. 20.
149
According to Adler, at the time, people disappeared ‘in a variety of mysterious ways, one being the
practice of dropping people out of airplanes into the Gulf of Mexico’. Adler, ‘Social control and…’, p.
255. More information about these Vuelos de la muerte can be found in Castellanos, MéxicoArmado… p.
253-254.
150
Aguayo, La Charola… p. 189.
151
Ibid.
152
Castellanos, México armado… p. 165.
153
One of the most famous cases is the disappearance of Lucio Cabaña’s follower, Rosendo Radilla. He
was taken by the army in 1974 and never seen again. His family has fought since in order to find his
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