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Wednesday, September 26, 2018

Ayotzinapa 43: Four Years After The Crime That Shocked Mexico

Posted by El Profe from Telesur
              
                     Relatives and friends of the missing students mark 43 months since their disappearance in Mexico City, April 26, 2018.  

The families of the 43 missing students still believe they will find their children alive.


Mexico marks Wednesday, Sept. 26, four years since the disappearance of 43 missing Ayotzinapa students, as relatives and friends continue searching for their loved ones with almost no help from Mexican authorities.

They have repeatedly refused to believe the official narrative that the students were kidnapped by Iguala police on the command of Mayor Jose Luis Abarca Velazquez and handed to the Guerreros Unidos (United Warriors) drug cartel, which the government insists then executed them.

Instead, the families maintain their claim that the military was involved and that the government constructed the narrative to protect an already-discredited institution that has murdered thousands over the years with almost total impunity. Students from the Raul Isidro Burgos Rural Teachers’ School who survived the attack say they were denied help by Federal Police and military personnel at the scene, who said they "deserved it."


On Sept. 20 this year, students from the Raul Isidro Burgos Rural Teachers’ School of Ayotzinapa attacked the 27th Infantry Battalion of Iguala with Molotov cocktails, rocks and firecrackers. The event was recorded and shared on social media, prompting both support and condemnation.

Relatives of the missing students have demanded the federal government let them enter the barracks, which is where they believe the students were taken after being kidnapped. In 2015, after multiple petitions were ignored, they forced entry into the barracks but were escorted out before they found any evidence.
                   
 Students from Ayotzinapa attack the 27th Infantry Battalion in Iguala. September 20, 2018. Photo | EFE

Among the few clues that have been recovered is a mobile phone belonging to Julio Cesar Mondragon Fontes, whose body was found a day after the attack. The student's face had been surgically removed.

The phone company revealed his line registered one call from the Center of Investigation and National Security (CISEN) and three from Military Camp 1A before it stopped working in April 2015.

Rafael Lopez Catarino, the father of one of the missing students, says a friend at the state prosecuting office helped him track the GPS of his son’s mobile and found it was used for the last time at Iguala's 27th Barracks. In addition, a colonel, a captain and 34 officers told prosecutors they witnessed the massacre but did not intervene.

Victim's relatives later invited the Inter American Commission of Human Rights (IACHR) and the Interdisciplinary Group of Independent Experts (GIEI) to study the case. They concluded that there were glaring irregularities in the process, including confessions based on torture, and said there was no evidence to support the government's claim that the students' bodies were incinerated at a landfill.

The GIEI findings were supported by the Argentine Team of Forensic Anthropology (EAAF) on Aug. 30, a day after Mexico's President Peña Nieto reaffirmed the official version of events.

“In 18 months of recollection and multidisciplinary tests of the physical evidence coming from the landfill in Cocula,, we couldn’t find objective scientific elements that prove the incineration of 43 bodies on the night of Sept. 26 to 27, 2014, in that place,” the EAAF said in a statement.

The forth anniversary of the disappearance of the Ayotzinapa students comes just a few months ahead of the inauguration of the government of Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, which has relatives and activists wondering whether the new center-left president, who has vowed to investigate the military's role in the disappearance, can change the outcome of the investigations.

AMLO: A New Hope?

Relatives and surviving students have long expressed their distrust of the authorities. The teacher training college has been politically active since its foundation, with a class perspective that has bred social leaders for decades. Lucio Cabañas, one of Mexico's most renowned guerrilla fighters, is among its alumni. He founded the 'Partido de los Pobres'' (Party of the Poor), a clandestine armed organization.

Lopez Obrador may have supported Mayor Abarca and State Governor Angel Aguirre during their campaigns with the center-left Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD), but today his team represents the hope for change in Mexico’s political sphere and may yet lead to justice.





Lopez Obrador and parents of the 43 missing students during a political event at Iguala, Guerrero. May 25, 2018. Photo | EFE
The future government has already met with relatives and friends of Mexico's forcibly disappeared, pledging to bring the investigations to a proper conclusion.

His team recently asked the IACHR to bring back the GIEI, which was forced to leave Mexico in 2016 after rejecting the government's so-called ‘historical truth.’

Mario Patron, a lawyer for the parents and head of the Miguel Agustin Pro Juarez Human Rights Center, said future Interior Secretary Olga Sanchez Cordero met Human Rights Deputy Secretary Alejandro Encinas and IACHR Commissioner Esmeralda Arosemena to formalize the petition.
Lopez Obrador held a meeting at Iguala on May 25, when relatives and friends of the missing 43 agreed to form a collective.

“When you become the president, what do you commit to with these 43 family heads (representatives)?” one of the parents asked Lopez Obrador. “We’re telling all these people we will visit every candidate to tell them what they will do, but it’s important you tell us, what’s the commitment to these parents? There’s a lot of suffering, Mr. Andres.”

AMLO vowed to create a truth commission to investigate the case in depth, but it wasn’t enough for many: “We know Sanchez Cordero and Alejandro Encinas have been designated to follow our case,” said Alfredo Galines, father of one of the students. “We see their participation with hope. We hope you soon meet with our lawyers to establish a roadmap.”





The 43 missing students were due to graduate in Tixtla, Guerrero, on Jul. 13, 2018. Photo | EFE
The parents also demanded a meeting with Lopez Obrador on the fourth anniversary of the disappearance to discuss future action, to which he agreed. And they are planning marches and organizing talks across the country.

Still Searching

2018 marks the year in which the students were due to graduate. Their absence was remembered by everyone present at the July ceremony.

On Sept. 21, they protested outside Guerrero’s main court demanding authorities release footage from Iguala's security cameras showing the night of the attack. Authorities, however, deny any such footage exists.

So far, the parents of the 43 and surviving Ayotzinapa students have met with thousands of people across the country in their search for justice. Despite everything, they still maintain their hope of finding their children alive.

30 comments:

  1. Never stop protesting, I wouldn’t.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. You protest where a Mayor has connections to criminals, you will be part of the new 63 that vanish. And Mexico is an expert at that.

      Delete
    2. "Mexico", no pinchis mames güey,
      --the mayor and his wife could not get 7 guys murdered and the 3 they killed were found soon after, meaning they can't even properly disappear 3 or 4 murder victims much less 43 without leaving traces.
      But CISEN HAS ALL THE EXPERIENCE AND RESOURCES NEEDED, and the bosses to tell them what to do like secretary of defense Salvador Cienpedos, minister secretary of the interior Miguel angel osorio chón, secretary of education and former teacher of pretty boy EPN Emilio Chuayfett Chemor "La Emilia", trying to save EPN the embarrassment of one more March in Mexico City to conmemorate the butchering of students on Tlatelolco in 68 by government, military, federal police and paramilitary elements hired for the occasion, the white brigades of the Military Olympic Battalion and DFS delegates. Chuayfett also wanted to close the Isidro Burgos Normal and get done with the big mouths students of the "guerrillas school", note that the disappeared's cell phones have been ringing from Campo Militar #1 and CISEN offices, NOT FROM IGUALA City Hall.
      Also, "86 Secret CISEN Offices Around Mexico" on you tube

      Delete
  2. 4 years! Seems like yesterday. But for BB and a few other media outlets, most would have never heard of this incident. Had this been in the USA, there would have been vast coverage, but in Mexico, the death of a some peones makes barely a ripple in the pond.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Chivis just read on an American news website the telegraph that the Mexican army has taken over Acapulco as of 9:30 am September 26, 2019 they even arrested and detained some of the local police there.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. yesterday.....http://www.borderlandbeat.com/2018/09/acapulco-police-forces-disarmed-linked.html

      Delete
    2. Oh snap, crackle, and pop! Just saw u had posted it a day ago. What do you think will be the result down there if any now that its received world wide coverage? Gracias Chivis

      Delete
    3. 707 where have you been Chivis was the first to let us know, check out yesterday's BB article.

      Delete
    4. about the disarming? nothing. History has taught us that.
      i believe the best defense against municipal narco corruption, is a permanent replacement with a federal force that is deployed on a rotation basis. Highly trained and decently paid with good benefits.

      Delete
    5. 9:46 before arriving and disarming local police officers, federal and military do a few too many crimes themselves and blame the local police and their corruption, to take over for the Mando Unico, the "new Mexican KGB/GESTAPO" styled poolice.
      Let's not delude ourselves into thinking that Mexican polesias will ever turn into some magical goody goody mademoiselle, because that's nat happenin' for a looong ass time.

      Delete
  4. So sad... why did they do this?

    ReplyDelete
  5. https://twitter.com/statedeptspox/status/1045077036908335104

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. very nice...but it has always been much more than about 43 students

      Delete
    2. This comment has been removed by the author.

      Delete
    3. 8:28 that is true, but the 43 exposed the Mexican government animal behavior like very few other examples, among them Javier "LA Marrana" Duarte de Ochoa and his "capitan tormenta" Arturo Bermudez Zurita who had their polesias hand their prisoners and kidnapped victims to their death squad "Los Fieles" to squeeze ransom and murder, the marinas and army in veracruz never had intelligence or information to act upon because their blinders were real high quality...they were all in on it.

      Delete
  6. Can't believe it's been four years. I been reading BB since early 2013

    ReplyDelete
  7. Soul crushing. - Sol Prendido

    ReplyDelete
  8. I wonder if the families of the disappeared (los desaparecidos) have made contact with las madres de la plaza de mayo? http://madres.org The mothers still march after 41 years.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. 3:08 the argentinian military still supports proudly the military junta that did their part to support Operation Condor created on the US to traffic drugs to the US under guise of "combat communism" in Latin America, and the Chilean army, "armada" and air force still do the same, without shame.
      It all started in earnest with the assassination of entrapped Che Guevara in Bolivia, helped by none other than drug trafficking associate Fidel Castro and his little brother Raul to reward their fighting in Angola

      Delete
  9. I just don't think AMLO will (can) do anything about! The coverup goes all the way to the top. I think EPN knows what actually happened but fears a countrywide revolt! This incident has spread worldwide with protests in many countries. More investigations will lead to more information the gov't will not want exposed. I believe AMLO will not want this to be part of his legacy as president.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. 3:35 Clearing this case would be a legacy anybody wants on his record, except for the dirty motherfakers that did it like EPN and Cienpedos...

      Delete
  10. Hi chivis one of the survivors actually got asylum here in the USA and actually lives not to far from me he worked same place with me

    ReplyDelete
  11. What has happened to the mayor - Jose Luis Abarca Velazquez - and his wife? I can't find much about that.

    I know they were caught and in jail for a while, but were they truly punished? Or did they get away?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Most likely they are traveling through europe, letting things cool down. Then they will return and be housed in los pinos, Mark my words.

      Delete
    2. The mayor and wife had nothing to do with this massacre. They are culpable in plenty of other crimes including murder but not this one.

      They are in jail charged with organized crime and money laundering

      Delete
    3. I have read, that the Mayor and wife we're upset, that those students were going to protest, at an event, where the mayor would be at, that advised thier criminal underworld to do something...and they did.... Made all 43 disappeared.

      Delete
    4. That was the original rumor, but was dispelled as evidence was revealed.

      Delete
    5. 7:15 I hope you get better, the communist propaganda is well and alive in your head, now go back to the end of the line.

      Delete

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