Ayotzinapa: a Historic Lie

[Judi Lynn]

September 8, 2015
Ayotzinapa: a Historic Lie

by Matthew Lorenzen



During the night of September 26-27, 2014, a large group of students from the Ayotzinapa rural teacher’s college in the State of Guerrero, Mexico, were attacked by security forces in the city of Iguala as they were trying to commandeer several buses to attend the annual October 2nd protest march in Mexico City, which commemorates the 1968 massacre of hundreds of protesting students by the military. In the recent attacks in Iguala, six people were killed (including three students), around 20 people were injured, and 43 students were forcefully disappeared.

Massive protests soon followed, especially in Guerrero and Mexico City, and smaller protests were held in many Mexican cities and even in other countries, urging the government to do justice, uncover the truth and find the disappeared students. Some of these protests were in turn repressed by security forces, after allegedly being infiltrated by government provocateurs. With this mounting pressure, the Guerrero State governor was forced to resign, although that didn’t quell public anger. In November 2014, internal and international pressure forced the Federal Government to allow an independent investigation organized by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, which would begin in March 2015. The group conducting this investigation was named the Grupo Interdisciplinario de Expertos Independientes (GIEI), and was led by five experts on human rights of various nationalities: Carlos Beristáin (Spain), Ángela Buitrago (Colombia), Francisco Cox Vial (Chile), Claudia Paz y Paz (Guatemala), and Alejandro Valencia Villa (Colombia).

For its part, the Federal Government’s investigation was led by then attorney general Jesús Murillo Karam – a veteran of the ruling right-wing PRI party. This investigation pointed to the responsibility of the municipal police and government, in cahoots with the local Guerreros Unidos drug cartel. The Iguala mayor – of the center-left PRD party – and his wife were soon arrested and await prosecution for ordering the attacks. However, the government investigation presented contradictory motives for the attacks. First, it stated that they were ordered by the Iguala mayor and his wife because they feared that the Ayotzinapa students were going to boycott a political event. This motive had to be altered after it was revealed that the political event was already finished when the students had arrived in Iguala. The other motive was that the Guerreros Unidos cartel had confused the students with members of a rival cartel.

As for the whereabouts of the disappeared students, the government investigation explained that they had been abducted by the municipal police, handed over to members of the Guerreros Unidos cartel, killed, and incinerated in a garbage dump. Their remains were then allegedly put into plastic bags and dumped in a river. However, these remains were too badly burnt to be identified by DNA analysis, except for a jawbone fragment of one of the students. On January 27, 2015, the attorney general insisted in a press conference that this was the “historic truth”.

More:
http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/09/08/ayotzinapa-a-historic-lie/

[Judi Lynn]

1. Chilean Expert Shares Experiences of the Ayotzinapa Case

Chilean Expert Shares Experiences of the Ayotzinapa Case

Mexico, Sep 8 (Prensa Latina) Francisco Cox, one of the five members of the Interdisciplinary Independent Expert Group which investigates the disappearance of the 43 Ayotzinapa teachers shared his experiences on the case, Mexican journal Publimetro reports today.

In an interview with Publimetro, the Chilean lawyer explained that he first heard about the case in November 2014 and since it is "one of the most important and significant cases in years, I voiced my interest in participating".

As soon as we arrived on March 2nd, the first thing we did was to meet with the members of the Mexican state that had invited us and then we headed to the Ayotzinapa school, he said. One of the things that really shocked us during that meeting with relatives and students was when the families told we were their last hope. This is one of the cases that have changed my life, he finally said.

The Interdisciplinary Group of Experts from the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights recently presented a report ruling out the official version stating that the bodies of the 43 teachers were incinerated at a garbage dump in the municipality of Cocula, Guerrero.

http://www.plenglish.com//index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=4140111&Itemid=1

(Short article, no more at link.)