Massacre in Mexico
Massacre in Mexico
Laura Carlsen and Foreign Policy In Focus on October 24, 2014 - 6:02 PM ET
Following a week of accolades abroad, President Enrique Peña Nieto returned home to face the worst political crisis of his administration. Protests rage after local police forcibly disappeared forty-three students of Ayotzinapa, a rural teaching college in the southern Mexico state of Guerrero. As the investigations continue, the crisis has laid bare the violence and corruption that control large parts of the nation.
Led by youth, protesters across the country blame the government for the attack and others like it. As the father of one of the missing students said, “The government knows where they are.” His tone expressed deep fatigue and even deeper pain.
On the night of September 26, police patrol cars from the city of Iguala blocked the buses his son and other students were traveling in, and opened fire on the students. In a bizarre series of events, an armed commando attacked the students in the same spot hours later. During the night, more students from Ayotzinapa arrived to rescue their companions, and members of the state teachers’ union came to help. The shooting went on.
Nearby, a third attack—on a local soccer team possibly made up of Ayotzinapa students as well—left another youth dead. Videotapes in the hands of the Guerrero state prosecutor’s office reportedly show that local police also participated in this attack, which appears to be a case of mistaken identity. Federal police arrived at the scene at least two hours later and refused to tend to the wounded.
More:
http://www.thenation.com/blog/185433/massacre-mexico