Shortly after the Mexican army killed 22 people in what it described as a fierce gun battle with an armed gang, the governor of the state where the incident occurred praised the military for its actions.

The army has courageously and tirelessly protected citizens from ruthless criminals, Gov. Eruviel Avila of the state of Mexico said in a public ceremony, thanking the military for the operation.

But in the weeks since the June 30 killings, mounting evidence has raised numerous questions about the army’s version of events.

Reporters who arrived at the scene in the town of Tlatlaya described blood spatter marks on walls that seemed to indicate summary executions, not a gun battle. They found few spent bullet casings that would have been typical of a battle.


The first reports of doubts over the official version of events came from a team of Associated Press reporters. Other media followed with additional revelations. Last week, the AP quoted a witness to the events as saying that her 15-year-old daughter was wounded by the army in the shootout, then finished off by soldiers who fired into her chest as she lay languishing.

No one seems to doubt the dead were part of an armed gang. Most of the 22 killed were cornered in a warehouse and had surrendered, the witness told the AP, and they were then killed by the military.

One soldier was reported injured in the incident.

If substantiated, it would be the first major military massacre in the government of President Enrique Pena Nieto, who took office two years ago.


For several years, the nearly 200,000-strong Mexican army has maintained high approval ratings among the public but has come under increasing scrutiny for its actions in the field. It has been repeatedly accused of illegal detentions, torture and the extra-judicial killing of suspects.

To make matters worse, most military abuses have been tried in military courts even when civilians are the victims. The Mexican Supreme Court, following orders from international human rights tribunals, recently ordered such cases to be turned over to civilian courts, but the implementation of that order has been slow.

In the wake of the Tlatlaya killings, Amnesty International called for an “exhaustive, impartial” investigation. The New York-based Human Rights Watch also demanded protection for the unidentified witness cited in media reports.

In the time since “soldiers killed 22 civilians in Tlatlaya …there are more questions than answers about what really took place that day,” Jose Miguel Vivanco, Americas director at Human Rights Watch, said in a statement. “A thorough, objective, and independent investigation that examines whether the soldiers acted lawfully, and assesses evidence of state misconduct, is needed and required by law.”


Mexico’s own national, semiofficial Human Rights Commission said it was launching its own investigation into what happened in Tlatlaya.

For weeks, as outside calls for clarification reverberated, the government remained silent. The army stood by its original statement.

Finally, the criticism overwhelming, the government late last week said the federal attorney general’s office was investigating the Tlatlaya killings to determine whether armed forces “acted in accordance with the law and in absolute respect for human rights.”

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