Former Mexican President Luis Echeverria (1970-1976) reached an impressive landmark this week—his 100th birthday—but the date was barely noticed in Mexico.
Prior to becoming president, Echeverria was Secretary of the Interior at a time when the administration of President Díaz Ordaz was marked by a increase in political repression in the country: dissident journalists, politicians and activists were subjected to censorship, arbitrary arrests, torture and extrajudicial executions. This culminated with the Tlatelolco massacre of October 2, 1968, which put an end to months of social protests across the country. Díaz Ordaz, Echeverría and Secretary of Defense Marcelino Garcia Barragán have been considered as the intellectual authors of the massacre, in which hundreds of unarmed protestors were killed by members of the Army.
Echeveria’s period in office was marked by mounting external debt, which soared from US$6 billion in 1970 to US$20 billion in 1976. By 1976, for every dollar that Mexico received from exports, 31 cents had to be destined for the payment of the interest and amortization on the external debt. The inflation rate was at 459 percent at the end of his term.
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