Putting a spotlight on the massacre of 1968 in Mexico City

Even today there is no definitive count of how many pro-democracy demonstrators were slaughtered by Mexican army troops in the Tlatelolco zone of this capital on Oct. 2, 1968. Was the death toll a few dozen, as the government claimed? Or closer to 300, as some intrepid journalists reported? Did President Gustavo Díaz Ordaz approve the attack? No one knows for sure.

But finally, after decades of government stonewalling, Mexicans searching for answers to these questions have some place to turn: the new Centro Cultural Universitario Tlatelolco, a cultural center dedicated to exploring the massacre, its violent antecedents and its brutal aftermath.

Located in a striking mid-century Modernist office tower that formerly housed Mexico's Secretariat of Foreign Affairs, the center sits smack on the edge of the so-called Plaza of the Three Cultures, where the massacre occurred nearly 40 years ago. The centerpiece is a permanent multimedia exhibition that uses photos, archival film footage, music snippets, yellowed newspaper clippings, taped interviews, poster displays and art installations to tell the murky, tragic story. Many Mexicans say it's about time the country had a living memorial to this watershed event.

"It takes you by the throat. I think it's very true to reality, it's very true to what happened," says Elena Poniatowska, 75, who as a journalist helped expose the truth of the massacre with her 1971 bestselling book of survivors' testimonies, "La Noche de Tlatelolco" (The Night of Tlatelolco), published in English as "Massacre in Mexico." "I think it's a good memorial and it's a good way of honoring all these students that were killed and remembering that their life was cut in two."

The massacre occurred on the eve of the 1968 Olympic Games, which the Mexican government hoped to use as a showcase for the country's booming economic growth and seeming stability. But this picturesque facade masked growing discontent with decades of autocratic, one-party rule and a persistent gap between haves and have-nots.

After gaining size and strength all that summer, the student-led protests culminated on the evening of Oct. 2, when thousands massed in the Plaza of the Three Cultures, so named because it contains Aztec ruins, a colonial-era church and modern apartment and office towers. The bloodshed began when troops creeping in among the ruins converged on the protesters, and snipers began shooting down on the plaza from the surrounding buildings. Despite international protests, the Olympics went forward a few days later.