A Brief History of El PRI and Mexico's Dirty War

0:10 Hey everyone, this is Carmen. And Christina. And this is Historias Unknown, a podcast where we talk about Latin American history, sometimes it's horrible, and just with heavy topics like racism, corruption, and genocide. But more than that, it's also about resistance, power, and community. And we're back. We took a slight break only to get on the track and schedule that we prefer. Yeah. Which is now going to be Fridays, not Thursdays. That's right, Fridays. Yeah, I figured we should mention it. Every other Friday... Yeah. And if you miss us so much and want to hear more of us, it's almost going to be like a weekly podcast, but it's two podcasts because... That's right. Because one Friday is going to be a Spooky Tales or Paranormal Haunted Places, Myths, Legends, True Crime podcast. Then the other week is here, us, Stories Unknown. Yes. So alternating Fridays, we will be here. But every Friday you can hear... You can. From us. So, yeah. Yeah. Okay, well, today's topic, it was a journey for me to arrive at this specific topic. At this juncture. Yes, yeah. It began as my desire to do an episode on the Tlatelolco Massacre, which took place on October 2nd, 1968. But then I was like, you know what? I can't do that.

1:27 It would be a because Tlatelolco is considered to be like a pivotal moment in Mexico's dirty war. But then researching both of these things led me to another massacre, the 1971 Corpus Christi massacre, which I didn't know about. Yeah, I mean, they're also part of the dirty war, which will be its own episode as well. And so I was like, well, if I'm going to talk about the dirty war, I have to talk about El Pri, because El Pri... were the enactors of the dirty war they were the people doing the dirty war yeah on the people of mexico and so i was like well now i have to do like a full it's like a context of the context of the context it's like remember when you're learning how to write essays and it's like the tunnel oh my god it's like you start at the bottom of the tunnel and i'm like wait this is bigger than i thought and then it's like just kept getting wider and wider yeah not a tunnel a funnel i have to say funnel okay yeah That's right.

2:33 Because the tunnel is the same. Right. The tunnel. I totally meant. Oh, what? They rhyme. Tunnel again. Funnel. Funnel. Yeah. I never think of funnels, you know, so that's why I like the word wasn't in my tongue. No, of course. Who even thinks of those? Yeah. Except like a funnel cake. Right. Okay. So when I hear dirty war, my mind goes to Argentina. Yes. Yeah. When I hear death squads, it goes to El Salvador. Yeah. That's the first place I think of. Me too. Me too. When I hear death flights, I think Chile and Argentina, because those are the places that we like talk about the most, focus on the most in the like, you know, well, Cold War era, Latin America. But all of these things happened in Mexico, too. Yeah. And it's not at least it's not talked about that much. Right. I feel like I hear a lot more about other Latin American countries when it comes to dirty wars when it comes to U.S.

3:34 CIA interference. Like it wasn't only, it was only until recently when I learned about PRI and the CIA involvement. Yes, exactly. Same. And in Mexico, these things were happening, of course, with U.S. support as all of these things that were, you know, in all of Latin America, it was no exception. But yeah, like you said, it's like the least talked about. It's been very, very suppressed. Yeah. But yeah, all of these things happened. It's been very suppressed. The families seeking justice for the victims during Mexico's dirty war, heavily, heavily suppressed as well, even like in recent times. I don't know if you heard about like Pegasus being used in Mexico. Yeah. Yeah.

4:24 A lot of it was used on people. The families seeking justice for Mexico's dirty war. Actually, I think I do. Well, I knew it was being used on journalists there. And I think I heard about that first. And like, then it being used in San Raul. Yeah. But I did not know it was being used on these families. Yeah. Yeah. And I just didn't connect these things when I read about Pegasus like a while ago. It's Israeli spyware. Don't you feel like Charlie, right? Like... Yeah, that meme from It's Always Sunny. Exactly. I should put that back here, actually. Actually, I should put it back here, too. But it should be us. Oh, my God. Well, we're not doing any costumes in recording, but that should be. That would be perfect.

5:09 I mean, that's kind of easy to recreate. So, yeah. Well, we'll see. Yeah, let's put a pin in that. I'm like, we could do a newsletter. No, I'm talking more. We could do a newsletter. That will be our cover. No, I'm not. I don't want to do more work. But yeah, all of these things happened in Mexico in what is known today as the Mexican Dirty War. And some consider the end of the Dirty War to have been around 1990 and 2000. 2000 was the end of El Pri's rule. Pan came to power? Yes. But many scholars, historians, have come to the consensus that the Dirty War... never really stopped there's no hard stop like when you think about these things in other Latin American countries they were during civil wars they were during dictatorships which had a physical end yeah but that's not the case in Mexico and some uh scholars and historians don't think there's an end point that the dirty war is kind of still ongoing it's still happening now yes yes I I'm Would agree with that. We keep seeing stories of the U.S. undermining Morena and trying to get their way with... Working with governors. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah.

6:34 The CIA members that were recently found in the crash. Well, not too recently now, but yeah. Yeah. This year it was, right? Some months ago. This year, but months ago. Maybe like four or five months ago. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, yeah, I can see that. And that makes a lot of sense to me. They believe it was just absorbed into the war on cartels or drugs. The more you're saying, the more I'm picking up what you're putting down, because it's like a reiteration, like evolution. I should say evolution. Like 2.0. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Still very much with U.S. involvement. Oh, 100%.

7:14 In both ways, in the drug trafficking and... Without the United States D.A., there is no cartels. Yeah. But officially, the Mexican Dirty War took place from the 1960s to the 1980s. Some say specifically 1964 to 1982. Between the U.S.-backed PRI party against the people. But specifically the Mexican Communist Party, left wing guerrilla groups, indigenous activists, land rights activists, student groups, the left, the left. It's like all that encompasses the left.

7:54 And what is a dirty war? It's a period of state violence, state terrorism directed against a group, in this case, a variety of different groups or all subsections of the same group, really the left. And so, yeah, the enactor of that state terrorism, state violence in this case was El Pri. And so this is where I was writing my notes on the dirty war because this was going to be about the dirty war. And then I was like, oh, my God, we need context on El Pri. OK. And so I wrote here for those that don't know. Here's some mini context on El Pri. OK, so this is this episode is about El Pri. But it's all going to be, you know, our series on Elpri. Like the big umbrella is a dirty war. And this is going to be only about El PRI. Next, we're going to talk about maybe student movements. Actually, we'll figure it out.

8:46 I'll figure it out. Okay. Okay. So El PRI. PRI stands for Partido Revolucionario Institucional or the Institutional Revolutionary Party. It is considered center-right on the political spectrum. Not far-right because there's a new far-right party in Mexico, Movimiento Ciudadano. Yes. Yeah. I'll talk about Biden a little bit later, but Biden is also right, or center-right. They're two sides of the same coin. Yeah, yeah. So, it didn't start out center-right. It started on the left. Funny how that happens. Right? One PD member was quoted as saying, It's a party that began as leftists and little by little moved toward the center. We will continue to occupy the same space.

9:37 That doesn't make sense. It started on the left and then it moved right and they're going to stay in the right is what the quote is saying. Oh, okay. So I see what you're saying. Yeah, yeah. They said this after the party's defeat in 2000. Dumb it down for me. Okay. Got it. I thought that was pretty straightforward. Well, I was like, what do you mean stay in the same space? You're not left anymore. That's how i was like oh no once it's moved but now i get it yeah very uh sorry i'm just gonna stop talking oh i was gonna say go ahead i was gonna say very uh democrat establishment democrat like over here how they were never really they were never really progressive if you think about it Just a little. And then they've moved more center. Mm-hmm. And now we have an extreme right, regular right, and then a right. Yeah. And a right light.

10:32 Right light. Yeah. The party was founded in 1929 after the assassination of President Álvaro Obregón, which I feel like is a name you would recognize. Yeah. Mm-hmm. And so... Let's not forget the Mexican Revolution was over in 1920. It lasted 10 years, but there was years of turmoil that followed the Mexican Revolution. A lot of like attempts at coups, attempts at like deposing someone and putting someone else as president. So this all played a part in Álvaro Obregón' s assassination. And so when it began, it was the PNR, Partido Nacional Revolucionario. And it had developed a written set of principles and a platform that drew from agraristas, agrarians, which are land reformers, land reform activists. Which, that was a big thing in the Mexican Revolution, if we recall. Actually, I don't think we've really covered it that deeply, just like vaguely. I read about the land reform. Movement, I guess.

11:47 I don't know what you call it. What'd you say? Land? The agraristas. Yeah. I read a little bit about them in the current book. It focused a lot on that. And then their involvement in the bracero program and all of that. But yeah, like the revolution was, you know, a call for like, especially Zapata's army. Yeah. It was big on land reform. It was like people standing up. to take what was theirs back right um so yeah the originally what the PRI was it drew support from agraristas agrarians and workers in the laborist party so like very um left workers land reformists you know I have a little quote here the PNR is the instrument of political action by means of which Mexico's great campesino and worker masses fight to keep control of the public power in their hands. A control wrested from the landowning and privileged minorities through the great armed movement that began in 1910.

12:53 That's a quote from Plutarco Elias Calles, the 47th president of Mexico and the founder of the PRN, which would become El PRI. And so here, within that quote alone, we can see it was very, it was pretty left in its foundation, which it would later betray, in my opinion. No, but like really, not just my opinion, like also factually. Yeah. The years that followed after that were known as the Maximato, named after the title that Plutarco Elias Calles gave himself, the Maximum Chief of the Revolution. Okay. And so, although he was president from only 1924 to 1928, he continued to exercise power and influence until the presidency of... Lázaro Cárdenas. Yes.

13:49 Which I think is a name most of us also know. I think he was the best president of Mexico. But up till then, Calles had... So he started... I read his quote, right? That's what he believes when he first founded the PRN, which would become El PRI. But... Until the presidency of Lázaro Cárdenas, he had become increasingly authoritarian. When did he start getting himself the title of Maxi, what was it? Maxi Mato. Because as soon as you said that, I'm like, oh, he's power hungry. Oh, well, almost immediately. Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I would think that this time period where of him amassing power and becoming authoritarian could be considered the predecessor to the dirty war.

14:38 The Mexican Communist Party was banned. Mexico ended its support for the rebels of Cesar Sandino, the Sandinistas in Nicaragua. They were supporting them. Strikes were no longer even tolerated anymore. and were heavily repressed, the government stopped redistributing land among poor peasants, which they were doing. So all that screams a third turn. Calles had once been the candidate of the workers. And at one point, he used communist unions in his campaign against competing labor organizers. But later, once he acquired power, wealth, It's that bait and switch. He suppressed communism. He also had really close ties to fascist organizations.

15:35 Not shocked. Like the gold shirts, Las Camisas Doradas, or Los Dorados is what they call themselves. Officially, they were the Acción Revolucionaria Mexicanista. revolutionary mexicanist action and this group was anti-semitic anti-communist ultra-nationalist and paramilitaristic they sought to expel chinese people i almost and this is i didn't look into it but i almost feel like this group was the one that they were killing chinese uh migrants the most because remember we did an episode about that legend and over at Spooky Tales and we learned that that anti-Asian sentiment yeah and so many Chinese people were killed during the Mexican Revolution and I didn't know that but yeah they sought to expel Chinese people Jewish people and communists from Mexico they used violent tactics against labor movements against the Mexican Communist Party and Like I said, they were known as Los Dorados or Camisas Doradas because of the uniform they wore during the Mexican Revolution. Guess whose army they were a part of. Wait, what? So the reason they were called Los Dorados or Camisas Doradas is because of the uniform they wore during the Mexican Revolution. Oh, the Maximato guy? No, that's after. No, no, he was a general during the Mexican Revolution too. Who? Pancho Villa's army. Oh, really? Yes.

17:11 Most of these Camisas Doradas armed members were former members of Pancho Villa's army. Oh, yeah. Interesting. Well, I've heard how racist, misogynistic, anti-Jewish, anti-Chinese. I didn't know that was Pancho Villa was. I just knew about the misogyny. Yeah. And so I'm like, well, of course, after I learned that, I'm like, of course they were part of Pancho Villadorbi. Connecting the dots. Exactly. And they operated under the motto Mexico for Mexicans. Okay. And that is resurging. Oh, yeah.

17:56 But usually, usually aimed at Salvadorans. No. Central Americans. No. No. I can't think of them. Gentrifiers. Gentrifiers. Well, okay. That's different. United States and gentrifiers. Yeah, that's different. Yeah. I'm sure they use it, though, for migrants. Central American migrants, too. But I've seen it more against gentrifiers. I see. And then when I've seen people use it, like, towards migrants and a bunch of the comments would be like, no, we only use that against gentrifiers. I love that. Okay. Yeah. I didn't know that. So... What changed with Lázaro Cárdenas. Oh, sorry.

18:38 So let me go back a little bit. Calles had been choosing the next PNR candidate. So that's how he stayed in power. He was president from 1924 to 1928. But then the next two presidents, he was like, you're president next. You're president next. Oh, OK. Instead of an election? There was like a fake election. Oh, OK. Gotcha. Gotcha. Like it wasn't real election. And this is the only candidate. Yeah, we've seen this move before. And he chose them and they listened to him. And he had also chosen Lázaro Cárdenas. Just like, you know, his predecessor, Cárdenas' predecessor, Calles, chose him too. And Cárdenas, Lázaro Cárdenas, was a PNR member too.

19:23 But Calles, when he chose Cárdenas or Lázaro Cárdenas to be the next president, he didn't think... He had no idea that Lázaro would just do his own thing, that he would not listen to Calles, to his bidding. Unlike Calles, he did not suppress unions when they went on strike. Many times he sided with them, becoming their ally. Good. He became an ally of these labor unions, of the campesinos. of the catholic church he nationalized oil and gas which became pemex well to hear it which is like a big thing this is like a big no-no yeah no country national this is what gets latin american presidents killed or ousted Yes. By the United States. Mm hmm. Or United States interests. Yes, exactly. And Cardenas was also like he was doing all these things, very leftist things. And then he was also at the same time isolating CAES supporters.

20:24 He was removing them from political positions of power. He was arresting them, not because it was like these are bad people, because they were doing illegal things. They were actually doing. OK. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. um not just a power trip but like no not a power trip like a legit reasons yeah these people need to be gone for legit reasons until callas himself was arrested and exiled good side note when he was arrested callas was reportedly reading mein kampf in spanish no fucking way what the fuck he's just sitting there reading it out in the open yeah Mein Kampf. Wow. And I mean, this all makes sense with his ties to the golden shirts, which are very akin to the... What were they called in Germany?

21:14 The brown shirts? Brown shirts? Brown, right? I think it's brown. Yeah. The... What are they called again? Golden shirts of Mexico were very much compared to the brown shirts of Germany. And Gaius loved them. So yeah, he was just out there reading Mein Kampf. En español. And so under Lázaro Cárdenas, the PRN became the PRM, the Party of the Mexican Revolution. And as the PRM, their new aim was to establish a democracy of workers and socialism. Okay. The PRM had four sectors. This was very intentional on purpose. It was the Confederation of Mexican Workers, the National Confederation of Campesinos.

22:04 I'm missing one. Didn't you just say two right now? No, and I'm going to say one more, but I don't have a fourth one written down. Oh. My bad. There was four sectors. The Federation of Unions of Workers in Service to the State. The FSTSE. And there's one more. Maybe like something with education? I don't know. Who knows? I don't know. Yeah, who knows? I didn't write it down. My bad. Or church? No. No. The church was specifically missing here. Oh, okay. Interesting. Well, the FTSTSE, the Federation of Unions of Workers in Service to the State, this was like the middle class sector. And all of them worked together, but there was a group, two groups, who felt like they were missing because they were. They weren't represented in this PRM, New Party, right? Right. This was those who had private business interests and those loyal to the Catholic Church. Like business owners? Like rich business owners.

23:10 People who stuck. Okay, gotcha. Yeah, so these two. Fascists. Entrepreneurs, if you will. Capitalists, actually. Yeah, that's the word I was thinking of. That's a better word. That's the word, yeah. So these two went on to form their own party in 1939. Wow. The National Action Party. Okay. And then once they merge, it's PRI. PAN. Oh, PAN. This is PAN. Oh, okay. This is what I'm saying. PAN is also center-right. This is who PAN was made up of. Made up of the capitalists and the Catholic Church. Yeah. And they really... They really... What is the word I'm looking for? They really... Like, when you look at Pan, it's like, yeah, they uphold their religious values in their work. It's part of the party.

24:01 But yeah, that's when Pan was created in 1939. They weren't part of the PRM. I see. They weren't even considered. You can't sit with us. Yeah, you can't sit with us. And so they made their own table, Pan. And this is the party that would eventually end the rule of El Pri, so... Back to Lázaro Cárdenas. He was very opposed to fascism. The Coresa said he was emphatically opposed to fascism. So, like, really, really didn't like it. Strongly. Yeah, strongly. So, unlike Callas, he didn't seek the same power or to become the maximum chief of whatever. The maximato was it? Yeah, yeah. So, you know, when his term was coming to an end, he...

24:49 gave his support to Manuel Ávila Camacho for the upcoming elections, and this is who ended up serving as president after him. And it was during this presidency and then those that followed that the party would become more centrist and abandon Lázaro Cárdenas' land reform policies and everything that he did. The PRI went on to win every election after that, with well over 70% of the vote, but this is because it was done through fraud. Mm-hmm. It reminds me of the beginning of The House of the Spirits. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

25:31 Where it shows the progression of how the landowners would force the peasants to vote for whoever they said, and they would try to vote for someone else. They'd be there with a gun, like, no, you can't. Very much this, yeah, yeah. When the end of the term came, was nearing for one pre-president, the current pre-presidents were then select the next pre-candidate, which would become president. This was known as el dedazo. Like, they would just point with their finger. That's what it translates to, the tap of the finger. And that's what it was called. Like, oh, have you done el dedazo yet? Mm-hmm. And they also had names, and I forgot to write them down. Well, because I was going to add this onto this later, but... They had a name for the person who rigged elections, basically. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. It has a specific name, which I will get back to and inform everyone after. And they used to do this here, too, because I feel like people forget that. Like, I remember learning all about that in AP government. Yeah. Or only AP class. Our version is Jerry, who does the gerrymandering now. Yeah.

26:37 The Jerry, exactly. And El Pri wasn't just winning presidential elections anymore. It was every single governor and the majority of the Senate that were also PRI members. Mayors, like everyone, every single person in power. It actually wasn't until 1963 that el PRI allowed multiple parties to be elected into Congress. And this was the first time that a member of PAN was elected into Congress in 1963. Damn. And this, of course, was not just because el PRI felt like letting this happen. There was a series of protests that were met with violent repression. This violent repression continued well into the 1960s, where Mexico saw violent massacre after violent massacre, like Chilpancingo of 1960, which I didn't know about. I feel like it sounds familiar. Really? Well, Chilpancingo is in Guerrero, for those that don't know, in the state of Guerrero.

27:40 Which the state of Guerrero saw some of the heaviest repression and violence during Mexico's dirty war. Really? And technically, this massacre takes place before the official, what they think of as the official start of the dirty war, which is 1964. So this is like leading up to it. But Chilpancingo, in the fall of 1960, there had already been growing resentment from students at the autonomous University of Guerrero. That's its name now. I don't remember what it was called back then. It had a different name. They were protesting different things like at the university, at the university level, they were demanding the removal of Alfonso Ramirez Altamirano as rector.

28:23 So the person in charge of the university, because he lacked a degree and he was mishandling things like finances, punishment of students and more. They also wanted a reform to la ley organica. And I was trying to find out what this was, la ley organica. But I kept coming across things in Spain and I would type Mexico and then I would just come across like a set of like rules for different universities. So I think it's like a set of laws that for the education department of a state or of a university. I can't tell which of the two. Someone please tell us if you know. No, please. If you know more about, because I was trying to look it up, but I couldn't tell because I kept coming across different versions of this. But it seemed to me like, This laid out education fundamentals, like who gets access to education, funding for universities, who gets like scholarships, access to education really is what it seemed like to me.

29:26 So they were protesting a change to that. Okay. They were also protesting against the governor of the state of Guerrero, General Raul Caballero Aburto. who also happened to be a member of what? PRI? Yes, el PRI. There was corruption, crimes that had been ongoing, no justice, and so the students were calling that out. The students organized, forming La Frente Reivindicador. Reivindicador. The Juventudes de Guerrero, or the Guerrero Youth Vindication Front, in inglés, in English. They held rallies, eventually forming El Comité de Huelga de la Federación de Estudiantes del Colegio del Estado, or the Strike Committee of the Federation of Students of the State College. The state responded with the military, which of course only ever worsens things, you know, like this never. Yeah, that's never a good thing.

30:34 And so on October 31st, 1960, a large demonstration took place. And in that demonstration, the Coalition of Popular Organizations, or COP, C-O-P, was formed. It composed of like very diverse groups and social classes, not just students from the university or people from the city of Chilpancingo, but from various regions of the state of Guerrero all formed this group, COP. And they had one goal, the removal of state powers and the restoration of order in education in Guerrero. So I'm thinking La Ley de... Had to do with education. Yeah.

31:14 As a whole in the state. Yeah. Yeah. On November 20th, they held another demonstration. This time, there was 20,000 people there. Wow. They were then removed violently by the infantry. But this was a bad look, like the military just removing a bunch of, you know, peaceful demonstrators. So then General Raul Caballero Aburto fled the state. Tensions were rising, especially because the military was essentially occupying the city. Then, on the afternoon of Friday, December 30th, 1960, an electrician was hanging a banner on a utility pole just one block from the university when a member of the Mexican army just shot him. Radically. Oh, wow. Killing him instantly. This sparked an outrage among all these organized groups, students, citizens. They gathered together. at the Francisco Granados Maldonado Alamira Plaza. Then, three sections of the 24th Infantry Battalion, led by General Julio Morales Guerrero, showed up, which caused a lot of confusion already, because, like, oh, look, the military's advancing upon us.

32:33 And then... But nothing had happened yet. But then when they got to Galliana, Calle Galliana, the general... was telling the people to move, like make way for the soldiers, which the people, of course, refused. When the people and the students, the group, refused, the general then ordered his troops to fire into the crowd, killing 19 people, wounding dozens. There was also snipers hired by the state government on buildings next to the plaza who were firing at both people and soldiers alike. Then the army collected the bodies, put them on military trucks, buried them somewhere. Oh no.

33:29 And there was like still students on campus protesting this act of violence. That night, they were brutally beaten by soldiers before being taken into the, I mean, like really dungeons of the government palace, like the underground of the palace, where some of them were never like seen again. So this kind of repression supported, enacted by El Pri, this was leading up to the Dirty War, but these kind of things were happening before. the Dirty War, all by El Pri. And back to El Pri before I end the episode and then we get into the Dirty War next episode. El Pri, anytime, so there was two different times that different people sought to reform El Pri. Both times, these presidents or president-elects or presidents of El Pri were They died in suspicious ways. Plane crashes. The last one...

34:41 I didn't finish writing this down. Any time that said president wanted to make positive changes in Brie, they died mysterious deaths? Yeah. Oh. Yeah. Yeah. Very telling. One was a plane crash and then the other one was an assassination. But when the guy who killed him was arrested, he was... Before they showed who it was, they shaved his head and showered him, like, to clean him of evidence, like, in jail. Then they presented him to, like, the public. And it looked like a completely different person than the person that they had been searching for. And he's always maintained that he's acted alone in this. But it's, like, people...

35:25 There's a conspiracy theory that it was El Prid themselves. Because this fellow that I forgot to write down, because I was going to write more. And then I was like, I'm just going to make it into a part two. But he was seeking to change El Pri completely because he was saying how corrupt it was. Okay. Yeah. And then suddenly dies. So, yeah, of course, people are going to be suspicious. Yeah. That leads to conspiratorial thinking. Yeah. And I don't blame it. It's very, very plausible. Yeah. And I didn't get to it in this episode here because I'm going to talk about it more later. next episode but el pri wasn't acting alone in this they very much had the support of the us because el pri after lazaro cardenas like i said they became very centrist and without you can only get neoliberalism neoliberalism neoliberalist policies um which destroyed Mexico's economy. Like, they experience... And, like, I think it was in 1940s and 50s, they experienced this time period where the economy was amazing in Mexico.

36:40 And this... this added to the legitimacy of el PRI but it was just because that's what happened it wasn't because of anything special el PRI was doing yeah and I think it's called like el momento magico or some shit like that I can't remember the specific name but that time period happened but then the neoliberal policies and the greedy capitalistic shit they were doing sunk the economy which was terrible especially in the 1970s and A lot of what the student movements and protests that were happening, one, they were always happening because of the repression, the rigged elections, right?

37:22 But the other reason is because the 1968 Olympics were held in Mexico. Right. And they were spending money that could have gone to the people. Right. People were hungry. People were starving. Or making it look nice for the Olympics, which is something we hear over and over again as well. Exactly. And so that's one of the many things that the students were protesting during the Tlatelolco massacre, which we will get into in a different episode. But it's all part of the Mexican Dirty War and the rule of El Pri. And I also didn't get to it because it's going to be part of the next episode. But El Pri's time in power has been called the perfect dictatorship. OK, so I'm so glad you said that because I was just about like I was just thinking and about to like say that. People say their time in rule was essentially a dictatorship, right? Yes, yes. And it's actually a Peruvian author and who also ran for presidency, I think, against Fujimori. This is going to be the next episode because now this is at the top of my noggin here without notes. But I think this is the person who said the quote about the perfect dictatorship being el PRI.

38:37 And it's like, it sounds way better. I'm going to have the actual quote in the next episode. You're going to have the actual quote. Yeah. And who wrote it. I have it all saved. Looking forward to it. Yeah. But it essentially was. And again, it was a U.S. backed. In that sense, it was a U.S. backed dictatorship. Right. Right. And I mean, I'll get into the ways that the U.S. was supporting the dirty war. But I think that thinking about past episodes, listeners can already guess because it was in the interest of the United States to stop the spread of communism. Right. And so much of the dirty war was to stop the Mexican Communist Party to destroy it to, you know, all these things are it's always the same thing. Right. And so, yeah, we'll get into the way the U.S. was backing El Pri, the dictatorship of El Pri. The end of El Pri, too, I think will be. next episode and more of like the dirty war and then Tlatelolco and maybe the other massacre after that. Purpose, Christine? Yes, yes, yes. And a little, I think I also want to get into a little bit about how Even under AMLO, less under Claudia Scheinbaum, but more so under AMLO, the families seeking justice for their lost ones during the Mexican Dirty War saw a lot of oppression. Like we said at the top, software

40:09 like Pegasus was being used to spy on them. They were silenced. And it's like there was this long... It's still ongoing, but a long, long fight to even have the Mexican state acknowledge that this took place. Yeah. It wasn't until I think it was Vicente Fox. It was, yeah, fairly recent. I think it was him who released some information about it, acknowledged that it happened and said that there would be like an investigation. Then there was like two reports that followed who kind of disagree on what actually happened. which again, I'll get into as well. But I just wanted to mention that because there was still a lot of oppression, a lot of families still seeking justice.

40:57 But one of these instances of like, yeah, let's release information on what happened during the dirty war This info was released and that's when the U.S. involvement came to light. There was a lot of papers, like declassified. That's the word I was looking for. There was a lot of declassified papers that were released to the public. And that's how people were like, oh my God, of course the U.S. That's when it was confirmed, basically, you know. And those were released. And there's a... It'll be linked in the show notes as well under sources. But there's a... you could read all these like documents and referendums and memos that very much like, oh, the U.S. sent this. Oh, we were spying on the Tlatelolco students like four days before the shooting happened. There was CIA on the ground as Tlatelolco was happening. So, yeah. All that's to say, I haven't felt this excited about a topic in a while.

41:55 I was going to say, I love when we start off with, A specific topic we want to look into and then we find out it's so much bigger than that. It leads to a four or five partner. It's my favorite thing. That's my favorite thing. Yeah. Yeah. So that's what's to come. I'm looking forward to that because I've been wanting to learn more about the PRI and their dictatorship for a long time ever since I first heard about it. I think it was the last year from Omei on TikTok. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I think that's about when I became aware of it as well. It was like around the same time for both of us. We probably were saying each other all the videos. Yeah, we were probably. And I think that a lot of people are now becoming aware, like people of our age and Mexican-Americans, like this is why people had to flee because you think about other places and it's... You're like in my mind because I was just going to say that. How am I fucking twins? Twins. Wow, wow. But... It's evident why our dad fled El Salvador. It's like, we don't have to wonder. But, and like our mom has said it so many times, there was no jobs. But it's like, why? Why? Why?

43:11 Why were the conditions like this in Mexico that led to so many people leaving? And why have they been like that for such a long time? The answer, as is the answer to all that is wrong with the world, it's the United States. Yeah. Yeah. The British dictatorship was of benefit to the U.S. And so they were supporting everything that they were doing, which was neoliberal policies, which it's not it's never good. Like, no, there was a point where the agriculture industry was in shambles in Mexico. Like, I mean, I think we've talked a little bit about it. We talked a little bit about it when we talked to the author of Caught in the Current, who's oh, my. Oh, you. Ivan.

44:00 And it talks about in the book. He talks about it in his book as well. And so there was mass migration from the rural parts of Mexico into the cities. But the cities didn't have jobs either because of the same policies. And so then people were fleeing from the rural areas and the cities into the U.S. And then you think about it. NAFTA, of course, is involved. Big proponents of NAFTA were El Pri. Right. The EZLN very much was calling out El Pri and their policies. So it's like, yeah, everything's connected. And it all leads back to the U.S. So, yeah, yeah. There is an episode of a podcast I do want to recommend, which kind of talks about everything. It's not split up the way we're splitting it up into different episodes. But one of my sources is actually this. You'll see it in the show notes as well. It's called The War to Death.

45:02 It was written by Benjamin T. Smith and Alexander Avina. This episode is from Guerrilla History or Guerrilla History. I guess it's in English. The Mexican Dirty War, A War to the Death with Alexandra Avina and Benjamin T. Smith. And it's about, yeah, the Mexican Dirty War. And they are big proponents of how they think it's still going on today, that it never really ended. The episode talks about Mexican history, state-sponsored dirty wars, Cold War Latin America. And yeah, it's a really good episode. Fascinating. It sounds fascinating. I need to listen to it once I... get caught up on my libby borrows never then no i'm just kidding i just got a new hole come through oh god okay well um yeah listen to that in the meantime until we're back with again with another episode but yeah it's it's uh i i was a jaw dropping like during that episode oh i'm sure Anything else to add before we go? No, just that I'm super excited to learn more about this. And once we get into our future episodes, as am I. All right. Well, we hope that this was one less historia unknown for you. Bye. Bye.

46:25 Historias Unknown is produced by Carmen and Christina, researched by Carmen and Christina, edited by Christina. You can find sources for every episode at historiasunknown.com and in our show notes. Creating the podcast is a lot of work, so if you want to help us out financially, you can do so by supporting us on Patreon at patreon.com slash historiasunknownpodcast.