^{Posted by Simon Schatzberg , MA Student at CLACS and Global Journalism}

^{Recipient of the Tinker Grant 2021}

^04/07/2022

I went to Mexico with a CLACS Tinker grant to do research about different official historical memory projects about the Dirty War, the period of intense state repression of political dissidents between the 1960s and ‘80s. My research is focused on the Special Prosecutor’s Office for the Social and Political Movements of the Past (FEMOSPP), an office that existed in the early 2000s. 

I was able to interview Ignacio Carrillo Prieto, who was the titular special prosecutor of the FEMOSPP, at his home in San Angel, Mexico City. Carrillo Prieto was able to tell me about the importance of his work as special prosecutor and the obstacles he faced. He told me about how he was able to bring charges of genocide against former President Luis Echeverría, who was held under house arrest for a few years before the charges were eventually dropped in 2009. Echeverría is still alive, and while I was in Mexico with the CLACS Tinker grant he celebrated his 100th birthday. The event of Echeverría’s birthday reignited controversy and conversations about his responsibility in massacres of student activists in the 1970s.

I was also able to interview people who had been involved with dissident groups in the ‘70s and were victims of state repression, including Gustavo Hirales and Mario Ramírez. 

I went to the Hemeroteca Nacional to look at newspapers from the 1970s. From the newspapers, I was able to verify stories told to me by people I have interviewed, including one student who was arrested and accused of belonging to a guerrilla organization, and was only released after the intervention of his university’s rector. Looking at newspapers also allowed me to feel immersed in the time period that I am studying. 

Although the events of the FEMOSPP took place in the early 2000s, it was an interesting time for me to be doing this research because the current Mexican government recently inaugurated a new truth commission tasked with investigating the same events as the FEMOSPP. Being in Mexico through the CLACS Tinker grant at this moment allowed me to understand better the relevance of historical memory projects, and see why the same debates about historical memory remain important even as the years pass.