I looked in my '95/'96 manual; page 20-67 & 68 contain details on the latch and cables.
Possible test: Make a small "U" out of a piece of coat-hangar wire, push that into the latch and see if the latch clicks into the locked position. If not, the problem could be either the latch assembly, or the release cable is binding and has the latch stuck open. Try rotating the release lever up and down to see if it has tension pulling it back into the closed position.
Good luck.