The Mexican military and paramilitary groups have been waging a low and sometimes not so low intensity war against the Zapatistas since 1994. 46 Tzotzil Indians were massacred by paramilitaries in Acteal, Chiapas in 1997.

Since the 1968 massacre of possibly as many as one thousand student demonstrators in Mexico City, the Mexican military has been implicated in numerous assassinations and disappearances.

Human rights groups list some 500 people as missing from the violence of Mexico s dirty war of the 1970 s. During this time the governing PRI, the Institutional Revolutionary Party, brutally dispensed with political opponents including guerillas, student activists, union organizers and peasant leaders.

Most are presumed dead though there s no evidence of their fate. Not a single mass grave has been located.

Like those that prove the systematic brutality of the military regimes of Chile, Guatemala and Argentina. Mexico’s military remains silent.

That is except for Mexican Brigadier General Jose Francisco Gallardo, who was sentenced to prison eight years ago after blowing the whistle on the military’s human rights abuses.

He was freed in February and continues to denounce the crimes of the Mexican military. He joined us recently in our studio.

Guest:

• Mexican Brigadier General Jose Francisco Gallardo