Killings of 4 Mexican Youths Said Political Assassinations

A Mexican legislator charged in Los Angeles Wednesday that the weekend slayings of four youths in Mexico City were political assassinations aimed at intimidating those contesting the results of the recent presidential election

Gerardo Unzeuta, a member of the National Democratic Front, a leftist party that supported opposition presidential candidate Cuauhtemoc Cardenas, linked the killings to “extreme right-wing terrorist” forces “attempting to provoke a violent response from the Mexican people.”

However, Unzeuta of Mexico’s Chamber of Deputies conceded there is no direct evidence linking the deaths to any specific groups or individuals.

Mexican government officials said the bodies of Jose Luis Garcia Juarez, Jorge Flores Vargas, Jesus Ramos Rivas and Ernesto Del Arco Parra, son of a prominent member of the Revolutionary Workers Party, were found Sunday morning in a car belonging to one of them in downtown Mexico City. All had been shot in the head. Some accounts in the Mexican press also said the four showed signs of having been tortured. They were reportedly carrying political literature supporting Cardenas. No arrests have been made in the killings.

Speaking at a news conference in front of the Mexican Consulate with representatives of several Latino civil rights organizations, Unzeuta said the deaths had “mobilized thousands of people to demand that the government confront and solve the crimes and have an open investigation.”

Eduardo De-Ibarrola, deputy consul general of Mexico, met with the group and said the deaths had cast a “shadow” over the recent presidential election. But De-Ibarrola said Mexican authorities will conduct an “appropriate” investigation and denounced suggestions that the killings were carried out by supporters of the governing Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), which has ruled Mexico for more than 60 years.

“We cannot assume before an investigation that these crimes are political,” De-Ibarrola said. “They certainly don’t benefit the government, which has been promoting freedom of speech and democracy. These crimes don’t help anyone.”

Opposition parties involved in the July 6 national election, in which the PRI’s candidate, Carlos Salinas de Gortari, won a narrow majority, accuse the government of fraud and have vowed to hold national protests.

PRI officials, however, have defended the vote as the cleanest and most closely watched in Mexico’s history.

The Federal Election Commission declared Salinas the winner, but the Chamber of Deputies, meeting as the Electoral College, has until Tuesday to certify the results.