In a statement released Wednesday, the attorney general's office said it had begun
                 the probe into those responsible for opening fire on a largely peaceful student
                 demonstration in the downtown Tlatelolco Plaza.

                 Late last month, the Supreme Court ruled that prosecutors must investigate the
                 massacre even if the statute of limitations has expired.

                 The five-justice panel unanimously rejected arguments by the Justice Department
                 that prosecutors could not look into the case because no charges could be brought.

                 The court upheld a lower court ruling that said an investigation must precede any
                 closing of the case.

                 President Vicente Fox has resisted pressure to open the case, saying Mexico should
                 look to the future, not to the past. However, he has come under pressure after
                 promising to investigate past government abuses and opening files on the
                 disappearance of hundreds of suspected guerrillas and other leftists in the so-called
                 "dirty war" of the 1970s and 1980s.

                 The massacre scarred a generation of Mexicans and convinced thousands that
                 peaceful protest was impossible, driving them into small rebel groups.

                 The government claimed 24 people died on October 2, 1968, shortly before the
                 Olympics began in Mexico City. But witnesses described a blood bath and most
                 historians say about 300 students were killed, caught in a cross fire while police
                 and troops blocked the exits.

                 The government of then-President Gustavo Diaz Ordaz accused students of
                 instigating the violence. Successive governments backed the claim and denied
                 reports by witnesses that paramilitary forces hired to provide security for the
                 games had been involved.

                  Copyright 2002 The Associated Press.