Luis Echeverría Álvarez

The title of this article is ambiguous. Further meanings are listed under Luis Echeverría Álvarez (disambiguation) .

Luis Echeverría Álvarez (born January 17, 1922 in Mexico City ) was President of Mexico from 1970 to 1976.

Luis Echeverría studied law at the National Autonomous University of Mexico and joined the Partido Revolucionario Institucional (PRI) in 1944 . After graduating in 1945, he began a political career. He first worked as general secretary for Rodolfo Sánchez Taboada and subsequently held a number of other posts in the state and party. In 1964 he became Minister of the Interior under President Gustavo Díaz Ordaz . As Minister of the Interior, he played a crucial role in suppressing the student revolts in 1968 ( Tlatelolco massacre ).

In 1970 Echeverría Alvarez was elected President himself. On the one hand, he pursued a policy of liberalization and gave amnesty to all those arrested after the student unrest. On the other hand, he strove for social reforms. To do this, he increased government spending, expanded the bureaucracy and expanded state control of the economy. As a result, the productivity of the Mexican economy increased. At the same time, the country suffered from inflation , especially since Echeverría Alvarez financed its expenses through increased public debt. In terms of foreign policy, he oriented himself towards socialist states like Cuba . After the coup in Chile in 1973 , he broke off diplomatic relations.

After the end of his presidency, Echeverría Alvarez tried unsuccessfully for the office of Secretary General of the United Nations . He went into the diplomatic service and served as Mexican ambassador to New Zealand and Australia from 1977 to 1980 .

On June 30, 2006 he was arrested on suspicion of genocide as the person responsible for the Tlatelolco massacre ( Matanza de Tlatelolco ) on October 2, 1968 of several hundred students at UNAM , the University of Mexico City . However, the proceedings were stopped at the beginning of July 2006 because the statute of limitations had expired.

Web links

Commons : Luis Echeverría Álvarez  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

literature

• Héctor Manuel Lucero: Echeverriá, Luis. In: Lee Stacy (ed.): Mexico and the United States . New York 2003, p. 269.