Carlos Francisco Castañeda de la Fuente died on two occasions, and on neither occasion did he obtain justice: On the first, instead of being criminally prosecuted for having attempted to assassinate the then president in 1970 Gustavo Díaz Ordaz, the Mexican State imposed a civil death on him by confining him for 23 years in a psychiatric hospital; and the second, his physical death, after being hit by a car, was forgotten without any consequences.
What happened between those two deaths, from the morning of Thursday, February 5, 1970 and the early morning of January 4, 2011, when Castañeda perished on a street in Mexico City, has been reconstructed by the Supreme Court minister in retirement José Ramón Cossío Díaz, in a book that reveals one of the most serious and least known historical episodes of the years of the so-called dirty war that was suffered in our country.
The text “Let it never be known” (Ed. Debate) shows how the attack against Díaz Ordaz was hidden, and the way in which the government security apparatus of that time subdued the failed assassination, erasing him as a person through an interdiction trial in which declared him incapable, weak and mentally ill.
There was “a distortion of the entire system, because that system was controlled by a single person, then Gustavo Díaz Ordaz,” says Minister José Ramón Cossío Díaz, in an interview with HIGH LEVEL.
Although it was the twilight of his presidency, the repressive machinery of the time remained intact. That is why Carlos Castañeda, 28 years old, could be detained and hidden for months in the dungeons of the feared Federal Directorate of Security (DFS) and in the cells of Military Camp number 1.
Then, instead of being tried criminally, it was decided to transfer him to the Dr. Samuel Ramírez Moreno psychiatric hospital, forcing his family to request, through a civil procedure, that he be declared incapable of acting like any other adult, thus that his stay in the hospital for 8,723 long days was legitimized, most of them in complete solitude.
Concealment and illegality
“For me the evil of the case is that they privatized, let me put it this way, They made a public matter private, because shooting a president – I insist – is a very, very serious matter, and they could have taken him to a public trial, accused him” and sentenced him, details José Ramón Cossío.
Instead, the federal government decided to hide the attack, which occurred on February 5, 1970 in the vicinity of the monument to the Revolution in the Mexican capital, where an official event was taking place to commemorate the Constitution.
There, carrying a Luger pistol, Carlos Castañeda could not even get close to Gustavo Díaz Ordaz, and only managed to shoot at the body of the car where he was traveling. Marcelino García Barragán, then head of the Secretariat of National Defense.
However, detained and subjected to torture, Castañeda acknowledged that he wanted to deprive the president of his life, considering him responsible for the events that occurred on October 2, 1968 in the Plaza de las Tres Culturas, in Tlatelolco.
Attempted homicide was one of the crimes for which he should have been accused before a jurisdictional authority, which did not occur. In contrast, a brother and sister of Castañeda de la Fuente were also arrested, and thus forced – months later – to agree to declare him incapable.
“Yes, the brothers were tortured, they were detained, they were also held incommunicado in the Federal Security Directorate, which was then directed by Captain (Fernando) Gutiérrez Barrios,” reveals the retired Supreme Court minister.
After the civil interdiction trial requested by the brothers of Carlos Castañeda, in which the attack on Díaz Ordaz was never mentioned, the conflict was privatized. The government made “something that had a public and political dimension seem like an ordinary family matter,” laments Cossío.
In this case, the minister adds, the human rights of Carlos Castañeda de la Fuente, and those of his relatives, were of course violated. But – above all – the political use of the law was recorded, of the media, which did not publish anything about what happened, and even more serious “the political use of psychiatry.”
Permanent damage
If Castañeda had been punished in accordance with the 1970 criminal legislation, “he would have spent many years in prison,” comments Cossío. The problem was that it was decided not to take him to trial and, in a completely illegal action, the Mexican State nullified him as a person by leaving him in a psychiatric hospital from 1970 to December 1993.
It was “the complete occupation of a human being, the complete disappearance of a human being for the act he committed,” says José Ramón Cossío.
Since there was no criminal case against him, state force was exercised irregularly, which “also shows an enormous weakness of the Mexican State,” considers Cossío, for whom – in this case – there is a lesson that stands out: “We must not allow the concentration of power in a single person, “If not, we must keep the institutional mechanisms, the counterweights, alive.”
During his confinement in the facilities of the Dr. Samuel Ramírez Moreno hospital, which is located in the municipality of Chalco, in the State of Mexico, Carlos Castañeda lived in isolation for at least four years in a pavilion that was built especially for him.
There, the author tells us, he had no contact with anyone, he was watched 24 hours a day by agents from the Ministry of the Interior, while He was receiving antipsychotic pharmacological treatment, which caused him permanent physical and mental damage.
Carlos Castañeda was born again when he was released at the age of 51 in December 1993, although he was unable to adapt to his brother’s home. Since 1994 he lived destitute on the streets of Mexico City, begging for alms to cover his expenses, until his second death found him wandering on Tuesday, January 4, 2011, when at dawn he was hit by a vehicle that was never identified. .
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Surya Palacios Journalist and lawyer, specialist in legal and human rights analysis. She has been a reporter, radio host and editor.