Since the demise of its “perfect dictatorship,” Mexico has struggled to come to grips with the dark underside of the “Mexican miracle,” especially the brutal government suppression of dissident movements during the 1960s and 1970s. While much has been written about the Tlatelolco massacre, less is known of the government’s dirty war against leftist guerrilla movements. One has only to browse the endless list of desaparecidos attached to the draft report of the Fiscalía Especial para Movimientos Sociales y Políticos del Pasado leaked to the press in 2006 to realize the scope and intensity of repression during the Cold War. Thus, the translation of Alberto Ulloa Bornemann’s highly personal testimony, originally published in Mexico as Sendero de tinieblas (2004), is quite timely.
Reminiscent of Jacobo Timerman’s searing account of his detention by the Argentine military (Preso sin nombre, celda sin número, 1981), Ulloa’s narrative chronicles in labyrinthine fashion...
