Thousands of demonstrators incriminated the army, Monday September 26 in Mexico City, during the eighth anniversary of the disappearance of the 43 students of Ayotzinapa, emblematic case of the “human tragedy” of the more than 100,000 missing persons counted in the country. The families of “43” marched under a banner displaying the words “the army knows it”a month and a half after an official report implicated the armed forces for the first time in eight years.
“We demand that the military be investigated, that they be punished, that we not only investigate organized crime”, said the mother of one of the youngsters, Blanca Nava. The students disappeared on the night of September 26 to 27, 2014 in Iguala, in the state of Guerrero (south), where they had gone to “to requisition” buses to demonstrate in Mexico City.
According to the first official investigation carried out under former President Enrique Pena Nieto (2012-2018), the 43 young people were arrested by local police in collusion with the Guerreros Unidos gang. They were later shot and burned in a landfill for reasons that remain unclear. Only the remains of three of them could be identified.
Former attorney general arrested
The report of the “Ayotzinapa Truth Commission” concluded in August that the Mexican military also had some responsibility in this crime. President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador congratulated himself on Monday on having broken “the pact of silence and impunity”.
Ex-Attorney General Jesus Murillo Karam was arrested after the report was published. He will be tried in criminal court for “enforced disappearances, torture and obstruction of justice”.
“This is a significant step forward”, declared the family lawyer Vidulfo Rosales, who however denounces setbacks in the investigation, such as the cancellation of 20 arrest warrants for those allegedly responsible for the Ayotzinapa tragedy. A Mexican court had issued, at the end of August, 83 arrest warrants in the case of the 43 missing.
Mexico has asked Israel for the extradition of Tomas Zeron, ex-head of the Criminal Investigation Agency under former President Enrique Peña Nieto (2012-2018). He is accused of manipulating evidence. Mexico has more than 100,000 missing persons, “a human tragedy”had denounced in May the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights.
The counting of the missing began in 1964, when the Mexican regime was carrying out a “dirty war” against groups of political opponents. Enforced disappearances increased from the 2000s in a context of violence linked to drug trafficking.