Mexico looks for "dirty war" graves on army base

By Gerardo Torres

ATOYAC DE ALVAREZ, Mexico (Reuters) - Forensics experts began digging for secret graves on an army base in southwestern Mexico this week to find proof of government atrocities during the country's 1970s 'dirty war.'

Using high-tech scanners, picks and shovels, they searched for bodies of community leaders who were abducted by soldiers, taken to the isolated base at the Pacific town of Atoyac de Alvarez in Guerrero state and never heard from again.

Human rights advocates said it was the first time dirty war excavations have taken place at a Mexican military base.

The team is headed by Argentine experts with experience digging up evidence from that nation's dirty war.

Atoyac de Alvarez was the base of an armed guerrilla movement in the 1970s, and some 470 people "disappeared" from the town when security forces and senior government officials crushed leftists and students.

Survivors hope that finding the remains of their loved ones will lead to some sort of justice.

"They say the bones talk. The bones will tell us what happened to them; they will tell us if they were tortured," said Tita Radilla, whose father Rosendo was a community leader in Atoyac before he was arrested.

"I know my father was at the military base. Witnesses who were there saw him, but they never saw him leave," she said.