Unarmed police clear embassies

Press, 25 February 1980, Page 8

Unarmed police clear embassies

NZPA Mexico City Unarmed women police officers entered the Belgian and Danish Embassies in Mexico City at the week-end and ousted the peasant dissidents who had occupied the buildings for a week, a Government spokesman has said.

Alberto Peniche, spokesman for ’the Mexican Interior Ministry, said there was no violence and that the occupants were put on buses for their homes, mostly in Mexico’s rural provinces. He said the Government had acted at the request of the Belgian and Danish governments. The peasants had occupied the buildings last Monday to press demands for better rural living conditions, freedom for alleged political prisoners, and an end to what they say is police repression in the countryside. The peasants, apparently unarmed, had permitted embassy employees to come

and go at will during the oc- I

cupanon. The invaders belonged to the National Democratic Popular Front, a tiny pro* Marxist group. Initially 19 occupied the Danish Embassy and about 10 were in the Belgian Embassy, Two were reported to have left each embassy earlier on Saturday for undisclosed reasons. Last week, President Jose Lopez Portillo called the dissidents “notoriety seekers,”and the Interior Minister (Mr Enrique Olivares Santana) said the 26 or so prisoners the Leftists wan-t'ed freed were being held for common crimes and would not be turned loose. The Government has enacted two amnesty laws in recent years that have freed some 300 political prisoners and says it holds no more.

A police spokesman said women were used in the eviction -to ensure that there would be no violence.