The truth commission set up by the Mexican government has submitted its report: The disappearance of 43 students in 2014 was a state crime. The then Attorney General was arrested, and dozens more arrest warrants were issued.
Relatives of the 43 missing students speak at a press conference announcing the report of the Truth Commission.
The case of the 43 missing students from the Ayotzinapa teacher training college, who have disappeared since 2014, is extraordinary even by Mexican standards. On average, around a hundred people are murdered every day in the Latin American country, and more than 100,000 are believed to have disappeared. But the case of the teacher seminarians who disappeared without a trace triggered a wave of national and international dismay.
Now the investigating truth commission brings new light to the case. Those who disappeared eight years ago were officially declared dead by the government on Friday. Attorney General Jesús Murillo Karam, who was responsible for the investigation at the time, was arrested.
Hijacking of public buses
On the night of September 27, 2014, the students were on their way to a protest event in the capital. The students who were victims of a massacre in 1968 were to be commemorated there. In order to get to the capital, they are said to have seized buses and forced the drivers to drive to Mexico City – a not uncommon occurrence in the region. This led to clashes with the local police in the city of Iguala in the state of Guerrero.
Dozens of students were arrested and later released. However, 43 of the students arrested that night disappeared without a trace. So far, only bone fragments of three of the missing have been found. The state of Guerrero, where the students disappeared, is dominated by drug cartels and is considered one of the most dangerous regions in the country.
Cover-up of the authorities
The arrested Jesús Murillo Karam held the office of Attorney General under then-President Enrique Peña Nieto from 2012 to 2015 and led the investigation. He is accused of torturing witnesses and falsifying investigation results. In 2015 he declared as “historical truth” that the students had been handed over to the Guerreros Unidos drug cartel on the instructions of a corrupt mayor, who had confused them with criminals from a rival gang.
After the gang murdered the students, the bodies were buried in the city of Cocula’s garbage dump, according to Murillo Karam’s version. But no evidence of this was ever found. Human rights organizations had always questioned this version; instead, they suspected a broader conspiracy that authorities at all levels of the Mexican state had been involved in covering up.
Campaign promises made by López Obrador
For the left-wing populist President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, solving the crime was a key campaign promise. After his election victory in 2018, he set up a state truth commission. In July 2020, the Attorney General’s Office invalidated Karam’s “historical truth” and issued arrest warrants for 46 people, including Tomás Zerón, who led the investigation into the case under Karam. He is on the run and is said to be in Tel Aviv. So far, no one has been convicted in the Ayotzinapa case.
On Thursday, around eight years after the fact, the truth commission set up by Lopéz Obrador now presents its report. The case was a state crime involving not only the Guerreros Unidos criminals but also state officials at all levels. They falsified evidence to cover up the truth. According to the commission, 26 people related to the case died in the course of the investigation.
83 arrest warrants were issued over the weekend, including for 44 police officers, 14 members of the Guerreros Unidos drug cartel and 5 administrative and judicial officials from the state of Guerrero. The Attorney General’s Office accuses them of organized crime, enforced disappearances, torture, murder and offenses against the administration of justice.
Close ties between the President and the security apparatus
For President López Obrador, the case is a double-edged sword. On the one hand, it fits in with his repeated allegations that the previous governments were corrupt and not interested in solving violent crimes. On the other hand, the case does not reflect well on the state security apparatus.
The military is one of López Obrador’s closest allies. The President had praised it as an incorruptible institution and entrusted it with important tasks such as the construction of infrastructure projects, including the billion-dollar projects for a railway line for tourism in southern Mexico and the new airport in Mexico City. He had been sharply criticized for this by representatives of Mexican civil society.
