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PrintMarch 23, 2024
Who shot Luis?
Time flies, but in Mexico, some questions remain unanswered.
On this day in 1994, I left a Toastmasters meeting and got the news from the radio.
The Mexican PRI party's presidential candidate, a 40-something man known by his supporters as Luis Donaldo who was certain to win the election in two months, was killed in a rally in northern Tijuana, not too far from the U.S. border.
It was quite a shock, to say the least. Nobody remembered the last time that a major Mexican political figure was assassinated.
It shook up the country to such an extent that Mexicans were imagining tanks in the streets and hearing talk of President Carlos Salinas declaring martial law and a coup de etat.
Colosio’s victory in the upcoming election was a done deal. Back in 1994, the PRI had a monopoly on nominating and electing presidents. They controlled every inch of the electoral process, so he was going to be the next president. The PRI had run the country since the 1920s.
Nevertheless, Colosio inspired a lot of people with his talk about reform and ending corruption.
At times, it sounded like he was being critical of the incumbent President Carlos Salinas, something that the incoming guy never does. He didn’t sound like “uno del PRI,” someone from the PRI, as Mexicans would say.
Within years, there were books and theories about the assassination. How did a guy with a gun get that close to him? Did President Salinas have him shot over the criticism?
No one really knows, but the official word is that the guy got through security and shot him.
Every time the topic comes up, and it comes up a lot more often than you may realize, Mexicans compare this one to President Kennedy’s
They’ll say: Don’t you think that the explanation of both assassinations are a bit strange?
I always say respectfully, no. I believe that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone but I have my doubts about the guy who ended Colosio’s life one late afternoon in 1994.
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Image: Corin Royal Drummond, via Wikimedia Commons // CC BY-SA 2.0 DEED
