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Monday, October 27, 2014

KEEP UP HOPE OR FACE REALITY?

By DD for Borderland Beat


One month after the horrible tragedy of the murder and kidnapping of the students from  the Raúl Isidro Burgos school in Ayotzinapa, Father Alejandro Solalinde arrived at the school to conduct a mass for the missing students. 

He had been invited to conduct the mass by a group of parents of the missing students that he had met with in Mexico City earlier in the week.   However the religious ceremony did not happen. 

When he arrived at the school he was met by another group of parents who heckled, chided and questioned him about statements he had made regarding their children being dead.
The frustration, anger and rage of the parents was palpable.  And understandable.  Their government was telling them one thing and Solalinde was telling them and the world something else.

Father Solalinde, who is one of the most prominent and respected human rights activist in Mexico had met earlier in the week with the Attorney General of the Republic, Murillo and given him a statement.  He had said that according to eye witness students he had talked with and one other witness who had come One month after the horrible tragedy in Iguala when the local police attacked the students from the Rural Normal "Raúl Isidro to him that all of the missing students were killed and their bodies burned.  Some of them burned while still alive. 
And he further told the AG that their bodies are buried around Iguala. and “there is no hope” they are still alive”.

 Father Solalinde was recently interviewed by the television journalist Carmen Aristegui. In the interview, Solalinde argued that it was cruel to encourage the families of the students to hope that they might still be alive.

He said that he knew they were dead, because people—including one man who, he insisted, had witnessed what had happened to the students—had come to him to tell him what they knew. He said the students, some of them wounded, had been marched up into the jungle-covered hills, and forced to dig their own graves. Then they were executed. But some of them were still alive when, along with the bodies of their dead companions, they were soaked with diesel, laid over wood, and set on fire.

Under a barrage of questioning from Aristegui, the priest, his voice tight with anguish, insisted on the credibility of his sources. Solalinde believes that the authorities lied and that the grave holding twenty-eight badly burned bodies did indeed contain the students.

After a 2 hour meeting with the parents who believed the students were still alive and wanted him to withdraw his statements that the students were dead, the Vicar agreed to not comment further on the facts, cancelled the mass and left the campus.


The press was waiting for him as he left and peppered him with questions.   Solalinde told the media,
"I'm respectful, I will be on hold until they ask me for help," said the priest, who explained that it is they who have to process the information. "I will not lead anything, I am not a leader or anything, I am not their spokesperson, nor will usurp their leadership. Just want to tell them  that if in anyway I can serve, you will tell me,”

In the interview with the television journalist Carmen Aristegui , Solalinde had argued that it was cruel to encourage the families of the students to hope that they might still be alive. He said that he knew they were dead, because people—including one man who, he insisted, had witnessed what had happened to the students—had come to him to tell him what they knew. He said the students, some of them wounded, had been marched up into the jungle-covered hills, and forced to dig their own graves. Then they were executed. But some of them were still alive when, along with the bodies of their dead companions, they were soaked with diesel, laid over wood, and set on fire.

"We do not know if they  are in the pits, the Argentine Forensic Anthropology Team has the technology to know, they can work in normal, but not impossible ways with charred remains"

 (DD.  The Argentine forensic experts have been collecting DNA from family members, but the AG of the state of Guerrero has impeded and obstructed their investigation by not allowing them access to the  remains or the fosas).

Under a barrage of questioning from Aristegui, the priest, his voice tight with anguish, insisted on the credibility of his sources. Solalinde believes that the authorities lied and that the grave holding twenty-eight badly burned bodies did indeed contain the students.

“What causes less damage to the system?” Solalinde asked. “To say they [the students] were burned, with everything that implies? Or say they’re disappeared and that they don’t know what happened. The second has less impact, and is less incriminating, but it’s more painful for the families to keep them hoping. “

The priest said "the Mexican government is giving a political rather than judicial case management and to assess what truth say the least political cost. "What is less painful for the system ?, say they are burned with all that implied that ?, or say who are missing and do not know what happened, because it is less shocking to say the latter, and also less compromising but it is more painful for the family to have them with hope. 

The government knows many things, if you are retaining the truth it is your responsibility, I must say, this management is already polluted and management of the investigation is not about justice, it's political, "he said

Sources;

10 comments:

  1. --Emilio chuayffet the butcher of ACTEAL now says it did not even happen, because there is no proof, the photos must be staged, nobody prosecuted him or zedillo...
    --the butcher of ATENCO is also not guilty of his polizetas crimes murders and rapes...
    --pena nieto's image was cleaned and sanitized by televisa, with prieto actors jorge salinas, fernando colunga and francisco gatorno at the vanguard of pretty prieto actors as telenovela galans...
    --solalinde seems to be footing the idea of resignation, period; they are gone, period; give it up, period; move on, period... just another "tactic"...
    --senator layda sansores told emilio chuayffet ACTEAL NO SE OLVIDA, in the senate chambers, in front of everybody/youtube
    --ACTEAL: la masacre que ernesto zedillo and emilio chuayffet organizaron, youtube...
    --Zedillo now hides under his profesorship the real murderer he is...
    --Chuayffet proves once more his hate and contempt for the lowly mexicans...
    --father solalinde is just toeing the sell-out teachings of his alma mater, the catholic church, involved on the killing of mexicans since tlatelolco, and on the cover-ups of all the mexican government chingaderas, to cash in on all of it, certainly, if solalinde has found his victims corpses, good for him, we have not found ours, because the butchers of atenco and acteal have learned to do a more effective job of disappearing the "evidences" of their misdeeds, the more they clean it up, the more shit they smear on their butchering faces...

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  2. My snap assumption was exactly as stated in this reporting. Even a monkey could tell which mass grave is which without the benefit of DNA analysis. The Gob. Mexicana tries to dillute the impact of their misdeeds.

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  3. DD
    Thank you for posting Pepe's post, I included Fr. Solalinde's story in another post but did not have the detail as in this post.

    UPDATE: Fr Solalinde said at the DF protest march of last week that he was presenting himself to PGR the following day to give a statement on the information given to him by witnesses.

    I feared his arrest, but I think even EPN knows the timing would be horrible for that. Father S did not give the names as PGR wanted but he did give details that only someone there would be aware of.

    PGR issued a statement about the meeting, curiously stating that while they were in agreement with "80%" of the padre's statement, they could not confirm 100% because they needed to speak to the witnesses.

    so strange...

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Sorry if I stepped on anybodies toes. I think I used 2 paragraphs from Pepe's comment (and gave credit to him for it) on the story he posted about the governor resigning and the governments role in the massacre. I think the entire story from the New Yorker that he posted in that comment should go on the main page. It was good.

      Delete
    2. what cha talkin bout willis?
      nah, my bad, I saw you had pepe's name so I assumed it was a repost of his. Not a big deal, it is a great post with lots of details. I am working on a video of the 43 of those illustrations that are so cool.

      Delete
  4. --We don't see the bodies or the places where the students were massacred, only the most clever and experienced assassins take care of cleaning so thorougly their crime scenes.
    --i see solalinde being used to preach resignation, in atenco and acteal terrorism and threats were used to silence the vctims and their families, and the butchers of atenco and acteal are now in charge of ayotzinapa butchershop, not the narcos or the mayor or his wife, there is nothing in the normal rural school that they could use, there was a silence and quiet pena nieto and chuayffet wanted, to chokeout opposition to their "educational programs", PRIVATIZATION...

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  5. We know that time heals wounds and mites a vocal protest. It is in the interest of not fanning the flames of revolt to immediately declare the kidnapped as dead. The families hold out hope and wait peacefully, while the government buys time, space, and the ability to spin the truth. I'm waiting to hear from "officials" that the kidnapped students were actually gang members, and they took off to go further the gang business and are not really dead.

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  6. It would be nice if there was some doubt about the students,but we all know they are sadly gone.It is absolutely outstanding and not a little scary to think mayors and authority have this much belief and arrogance that they can do acts such as this and not worry about it?How can you fire on students and kidnap and burn them,imagine the many people who could have died from stray bullets?Mexico is indeed in dire shape,,and the little ugly bastard?What becomes of him and his disgusting troll of a wife?
    The petty fiefdoms of a medieval society are still to be seen in Mexico..

    ReplyDelete
  7. PGR wants "names" before they believe, father solalinde can't produce names or witnesses, obviously, in the endit all looks like solalinde just went for instructions about what to say and how to say it, just too much ado about nothing...it works, it takes some air off the overinflated baloon of our hope, until some day it won't matter anything at all...

    ReplyDelete
  8. the gov is just so out of touch with the Mexican people.Its going to blow up in their faces and they will have never seen it coming when they have never listened.

    ReplyDelete

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