A funeral without riots for the former president

Fabiola Martinez

Newspaper La Jornada
Sunday, July 10, 2022, p. 4

Without tumult or noise, the funeral of former Mexican President Luis Echeverría Álvarez, who died Friday night at his home in Cuernavaca, at 100 years of age, was held.

Some relatives and friends arrived at the funeral dribbles. The funeral was in the 7 premier chapel of the Gayosso Lomas Memorial agency, in front of the skyscrapers of the residential area of ​​Santa Fe.

Few people came from political life, such as Jorge de la Vega Domínguez, who headed the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) from 1986 to 1988, as well as Sergio García Ramírez, jurist, former attorney general and former secretary general of the PRI.

Everardo Moreno, deputy attorney general at the end of Zedillo’s six-year term, also gave his condolences personally, precisely when the criminal complaints against the former president began.

The family did not allow the press to enter the chapel, but criminal lawyer Juan Velázquez was seen, who defended him in court. He gave his opinion to the press: “While the popular voice, the people of the street, hold him particularly responsible for the events of October 2, 1968 in Tlatelolco, the Judicial Power of the Federation, the Supreme Court, after three and a half years and a file of more than 100 thousand pages, exonerated him. That is a judicial reality against a legend, to say, urban.

Around the mahogany coffin, covered with a red cloth, floral arrangements were placed, some ordered by phone from the agency itself and other wreaths from abroad.

García Ramírez regretted losing a friend and former boss rigorous and benevolentwhom he described as one of the great institution builders of modern Mexico. And he added: Populist? No, I can’t attribute that expression.

It was a symbol of the PRI of those yearshe was told in a brief interview. Luis Echeverría was a believer in the virtues of the revolutionary movement. Now (in the PRI) we are in a complicated and sometimes critical situation, but I am confident that we will get aheadGarcia Ramirez responded.

Outside of those mentioned, the rest of the condolences were basically by Twitter messages.

Not even in the chats of PRI leaders did the death deserve great expressions: a former governor launched the concise phrase rest in peace and attached an image of the former president at the time when, energetically, he shouted his motto: Up and forward!

One of his friends, Augusto Gómez Villanueva, now dean of the Chamber of Deputies, commented that some contemporaries of Echeverría’s six-year term are preparing a memoir, the draft of which the former president was no longer able to see.

Everardo Moreno expressed that until his last days, Echeverría read the newspapers: He had an exceptional vision of what Mexico was, with a lucidity that many current politicians already wanted. He passed away fully lucid.

After 10 pm, the door to room 7 was closed. Most of the attendees left; there will be movement until this morning, very early, when Gayosso employees take the body to the crematorium of the Spanish Pantheon. The ashes – said one of the former president’s friends – will rest in his house in San Jerónimo.

With information from Rubicela Morelos, correspondent