Photo / Cuartoscuro

By Guillermo Alvarado

Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, AMLO by his initials, ordered the Secretary of the Navy to open its archives as part of the investigations into the so-called "dirty war", a dark period in the recent history of that country.

It is a time between 1965 and 1990 when the governments in power carried out open repression against political opponents, student, labor and peasant movements and some guerrilla groups that were generally short-lived.

The most serious violations of the human rights of thousands of people throughout Mexico were common, including kidnappings, forced disappearances, murders, torture and other abuses, as well as the burial of many victims in clandestine graves.

With the consent of the country's leadership, the Armed Forces, the Presidential General Staff and the feared and now defunct Federal Security Directorate participated in these repudiatory acts, and foreign citizens residing in the country were also among their targets.

In recent June, AMLO announced that the Mexican Army would also hand over documents on the matter, and now the Navy is joining them.

The investigations are in charge of a special commission, created by the executive with the purpose of revealing the whole truth, clarifying the facts and bringing those responsible to justice, something that thousands of families are still waiting for.

President López Obrador affirmed that this team will have unrestricted access to all the necessary files, as well as to the testimonies of survivors or their relatives.

Despite the years that have passed, the exact number of people who were disappeared or kidnapped is still unknown, as well as those who lost their lives during this period, and the perpetrators of these atrocities remain in impunity and anonymity.

This is, said the governor, an issue that "we are all interested in and care about", because it is the only way to guarantee that events of this nature will never happen again.

Although it does not belong to this specific stage, many also expect that everything concerning the capture and disappearance of the 43 students from a normal school in the town of Ayotzinapa, in the state of Guerrero, will be revealed.

Only the truth, the application of justice and due compensation for the victims can heal the wounds in a society fractured by corruption, authoritarianism and the short-sightedness of not-so-remote governments.