Excavations at the ex-military barracks at the Mexican village of Atoyac, Guerrero state, to discover the remains of an estimated 470 "dirty war" victims, are expected to conclude this week. Overseen by Argentine anthropologist Claudia Bisso, the excavations were undertaken by the Prosecutor General of the Republic (PGR) following a years of pressure from the local Association of the Families of the Detained, Disappeared and Victims of Human Rights Violations (AFADEM). AFADEM vice president Tita Radilla MartÃnez said other sites are being identified where excavations will be demanded. She also called for former military leaders to appear in court to reveal the whereabouts of mass graves. "If Gen. Mario Arturo Acosta Chaparro is called to testify, surely he could say where the bodies of our relatives are." (La Jornada Guerrero [2], July 20; La Jornada [3], BBC [4], July 19)
Even as the "dirty war" of the late '60s and '70s is investigated, deadly repression continues [5] in Guerrero and Atoyac.
See our last posts on Mexico [6], the human rights crisis [7] and Guerrero [8].
