Editing Tlatelolco massacre (section)

==Assault and massacre==
[[File:14_primera_conferència_de_premsa_després_de_la_masacre_del_2_d'octubre,_5_d'octubre_de_1968.jpg|thumb|left|250px|Marcelino Perelló, a leader of student groups at a press conference. Mexico, October 6, 1968.]]

On October 2, 1968, around 10,000 university and high school students gathered in the Plaza de las Tres Culturas to protest the government's actions and listen peacefully to speeches.<ref name="Werner, Michael S. 1997">Werner, Michael S., ed. ''Encyclopedia of Mexico: History, Society & Culture''. Vol. 2 Chicago: Fitzroy Dearborn Publishers, 1997.</ref> Many men and women not associated with the CNH gathered in the plaza to watch and listen; they included neighbors from the Residential complex, bystanders and children. The students had congregated outside the Chihuahua Building, a three-moduled thirteen-story apartment complex in the Plaza de las Tres Culturas. Among their chants were ''¡No queremos olimpiadas, queremos revolución!'' ("We don't want Olympics, we want revolution!"). Rally organizers did not try to call off the protest when they noticed an increased military presence in the area.

[[File:Manifestació_27_d'agost.jpg|thumb|right|250px|Students' demonstration, Mexico City, August 27, 1968.]]
Two helicopters, one from the police and another from the army, flew over the plaza. Around 5:55 P.M. red flares were shot from the nearby [[Secretariat of Foreign Affairs (Mexico)|S.R.E.]] (Mexican Ministry of Foreign Relations) tower. Around 6:15 P.M. another two flares were shot, this time from a helicopter (one was green and another one was red) as 5,000 soldiers, 200 [[tankettes]]<ref name="Tlatelolco">Canal 6 de Julio, Tlatelolco: Las Claves de la Masacre</ref> and trucks surrounded the plaza.<ref name="Werner, Michael S. 1997"/> Much of what proceeded after the first shots were fired in the plaza remained ill-defined for decades after 1968. Records and information released by American and Mexican government sources since 2000 have enabled researchers to study the events and draw new conclusions.

The question of who fired first remained unresolved years after the massacre. The Mexican government said gunfire from the surrounding apartments prompted the army's attack. But the students said that the helicopters appeared to signal the army to fire into the crowd. Journalist [[Elena Poniatowska]] culled interviews from those present and described events in her book ''Massacre in Mexico'': "Flares suddenly appeared in the sky overhead and everyone automatically looked up. The first shots were heard then. The crowd panicked [and] started running in all directions."<ref name="Poniatowska 1991"/> Despite CNH efforts to restore order, the crowd on the plaza quickly fell into chaos.

Shortly thereafter, the Olympia Battalion, a secret government branch made for the security of the Olympic Games composed of soldiers, police officers, and federal security agents,<ref name="Tlatelolco" /> were ordered to arrest the leaders of the CNH and advanced into the plaza. The Olympia Battalion members wore white gloves or white handkerchiefs tied to their left hands to distinguish themselves from the civilians and prevent the soldiers from shooting them.<ref name="Poniatowska 1991"/> Captain Ernesto Morales Soto stated that "immediately upon sighting a flare in the sky, the prearranged signal, we were to seal off the aforementioned two entrances and prevent anyone from entering or leaving."<ref name="Poniatowska 1991"/>

The ensuing assault into the plaza left dozens dead and many more wounded in its aftermath.  The soldiers responded by firing into the nearby buildings and into the crowd, hitting not only the protesters, but also watchers and bystanders. Demonstrators and passersby alike, including students, journalists (one of which was Italian reporter [[Oriana Fallaci]]), and children, were hit by bullets, and mounds of bodies soon lay on the ground. Meanwhile, on the Chihuahua building, where the speakers stood, Olympia Battalion members pushed people and ordered them to lie on the ground near the elevator walls. People{{Who|date=April 2022}} claim these men were the people who shot first at the soldiers and the crowd.<ref name="Tlatelolco" />

[[Image:Estudiantes sobre cammión quemado (A68).JPG|thumb|left|upright=1.15|Students in a burned bus.]]

Video evidence{{citation needed|date=January 2024}} also points out that at least two companies of the Olympia Battalion hid themselves in the nearby apartment buildings and set up a machine gun in an apartment in the Molino del Rey Building, where a sister-in-law of then-Secretary of State [[Luis Echeverría]] lived. In addition, many snipers were positioned on the roof of the church of Santiago de Tlatelolco and many people involved, including the ones who fired the first two flares, were present at the nearby convent and the Foreign Relations Tower; there was a machine gun on the 19th floor and a video camera on the 17th floor. Video evidence{{citation needed|date=January 2024}} shows 10 white-gloved men leaving the church and bumping into soldiers, who point their weapons at them. One of the men shows what appears to be an ID and they are let go.<ref name="Tlatelolco" />

[[File:L'exèrcit_al_carrer_30_de_juliol.jpg|thumb|right|250px|Mexican soldiers at the streets. July 30, 1968]]

By the next morning, newspapers reported that 20 to 28 people had been killed, hundreds wounded, and hundreds more arrested.<ref name="Poniatowska 1991"/> ''El Día''{{'}}s morning headline on October 3, 1968, read: "Criminal Provocation at the Tlatelolco Meeting Causes Terrible Bloodshed." A 2001 investigation revealed documents showing that the snipers were members of the Presidential Guard, who were instructed to fire on the military forces [[Agent provocateur|in order to provoke them]].<ref name="npr1dec">[https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=97546687 Mexico's 1968 Massacre: What Really Happened?] ''All Things Considered'', National Public Radio. December 1, 2008.  Includes photos, video, and declassified documents.</ref>