Mexico City takes down plaques of Gustavo Díaz Ordaz

The government of Mexico City has decided to take down the commemorative plaques from the inauguration of the Collective Transport System (STC) subway , in which the name of former president Gustavo Díaz Ordaz appears.

The decision was made by government chief José Ramón Amieva, 50 years after the Student Movement of 1968 . “I take full responsibility of this decision,” he clarified.

“We have considered that it is time to close certain cycles that we have been carrying for 50 years. We must take into account the general opinion of our citizens and, in a respectful way, we have started removing these plaques from public spaces all over the city,” he claimed.

Throughout the day yesterday, the subway staff removed plaques from the subway stations of Pino Suárez, Balderas, Insurgentes, Zócalo, and Hidalgo , as well as the Subway Workers Square, and the Hall of Arms of the Magdalena Mixhuca .

At the Zócalo station, right at the moment when the plaques were being removed, a group of people shouted “ We will never forget October 2 ”, and “ It was the State, it was the Army .”

In an interview, the chief of government indicated that there was a protocol and a committee through which this type of action was decided upon, as well as the destination of the plaques. He told that they would be replaced with information signs that would in no way refer to any kind of authority.

Later on, during the Declaration of Intangible Cultural Heritage where Tlatelolco was named an Emblematic Site for the Memory of Mexico City , Amieva responded to certain people who criticized the government’s measure to remove the plaques: “To those who claim that we are attempting to erase our historic memory, and that we are removing our historical heritage, I say that these plaques did not represent our heritage; although it took us 50 years to do this, in said period of time we have learned a lot from our history.”

Before representatives of the Student Movement of 1968, the statesman explained that said plaques only represented a cult or personality and made no reference to social memory. He reaffirmed his position by saying that he would not allow for another student to go missing or to fall victim to such aggression: “We will continue to honor our historic memory as well as the example that the Student Movement of 1968 has left us.”

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