Mexico’s new president apologizes for the 1968 student killings

Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum officially apologized Wednesday for the military’s 1968 killings of students, in one of her first acts after taking office.

“We will not forget October 2!” Sheinbaum, a former student activist who calls herself the “daughter of ’68,” made the statement on the anniversary of the massacre.

Thirty people died when security forces opened fire on students holding a peaceful rally in Mexico City’s Tlatelolco neighborhood, days before the country hosted the Olympic Games, according to official figures.

Relatives and activists say about 400 people have been killed.

At her first news conference after being sworn in as Mexico’s first female president on Tuesday, Sheinbaum said a decree would be issued describing the killings as a crime against humanity.

Never again would security forces be used “to attack or oppress the people of Mexico,” she vowed hours before a planned protest in Mexico City to demand justice for the massacre victims.

Sheinbaum was born to Bulgarian and Lithuanian Jewish migrants in Mexico City during the unrest of the early 1960s, when students and other activists sought to end the Institutional Revolutionary Party’s long hold on power.

Her mother lost her job as a university professor for exposing the massacre.

Sheinbaum, a scientist by training, won a landslide victory in June elections with a promise to continue the left-wing reform agenda of her predecessor Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, a close ally.

Lopez Obrador left office this week after six years in office for the country’s one-term term, despite an approval rating of around 70 percent, largely thanks to his policies aimed at helping poorer Mexicans.

Sheinbaum takes charge of a country where criminal violence, much of it linked to drug trafficking and gangs, has claimed more than 450,000 lives since 2006 – an issue she will discuss when she presents her security plan next week.

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