Ayotzinapa: A seis años, México ya no es el mismo • Six Years Later, Mexico is No Longer the Same
by Hortensia Azucena Picos Lee
Spanish Resource Editor, BPFNA-Bautistas por la Paz
September 26, 2020 marked six years since that tragic night in Iguala, Guerrero, Mexico, which shaped the country and shocked the world: the disappearance of the 43 students from the “Raúl Isidro Burgos” Rural Normal School of Ayotzinapa. Six years later, it continues to do the same. It is worth remembering and reflecting on what happened on that tragic night.
According to the investigations of Procuraduría Federal de la República (PGR), the defunct Mexican State agency in charge of investigating and prosecuting federal crimes, which was led that year (2014) by Jesús Murillo Karam, the caravan of students who were heading to Iguala to participate in their traditional march on October 2, was intercepted by municipal police, who handed them over to the criminal group called Guerreros Unidos.
The cartel allegedly mistook the students for members of Los Rojos, a rival criminal group, and is provided as the reason why Guerreros Unidos murdered and burned the students in a garbage dump in Cocula, disposing of their remains into the San Juan River.
This official version of events was called "The Historical Truth" by the government of the former president Enrique Peña Nieto (2012-2018). However, to date this "historical truth" has been highly criticized by the mothers and fathers of the 43, as well as by international organizations, due to inconsistencies in the narrative and the means used to obtain testimonies, such as torture and other violations of human rights.
But after the arrival of Andrés Manuel López Obrador to the presidency of Mexico, the federal government promised to restart the investigations practically from scratch to find the whereabouts of the students, and in addition, to investigating the former officials who failed in their responsibilities in the case. The investigation is ongoing, international experts have been invited to collaborate in the clarification of the case and arrest warrants have been issued against former officials allegedly involved in the events. But there is still much to do.
In recent months information has emerged that gives it a new twist. The previous government denied it, but the current one has appropriated the phrase repeated almost from day one by the fathers and mothers of the youth of Ayotzinapa, which echoed in the streets and public squares throughout Mexico: “it was the State".
In Mexico in the 1960s, anti-system guerrilla movements were gestated in Mexico, led by people from the Mexican state of Guerrero such as Lucio Cabañas. Cabañas achieved notoriety for his activism and combativeness and was a former professor at the Normal School of Ayotzinapa. He was killed in 1974 in an ambush set up by the Army during the "Dirty War" in Mexico, which put in place political and militaristic repression measures that began in the 1960s and culminated in the late 1970s. Its goal was to dissolve the political and armed opposition movements against the Mexican State. As a consequence, since then the Mexican State tagged the Ayotzinapa Rural Normal School as a true "hotbed" of potential guerrillas. This vision has changed in the last two years, even when Ayotzinapa students continue to maintain their political activism.
The individualistic makeup of our society kept us indolent and silent for many years when faced with the repression enforced by the police and army against those who dared challenge the system. But the horror of what happened on the tragic night in Iguala shook consciences. We left behind our indolence and fear of public demonstration. The country emerged with empathy for the families of the disappeared, fathers and mothers revealing their pain and their struggle to know the truth and find justice for their children.
Memory is the only effective antidote to forgetting. We need memory about what happened in Mexico: memory of forced disappearances, torture, murders. Remembering is essential to avoid repeating the mistakes of the past. But memory also requires justice, the justice that makes visible what remains hidden, that points out those who are responsibles, that explains the reasons, that exposes complicity. Justice that dignifies and humanizes those who have been victims, justice that must give us back the disappeared.
Mexico is going through a crucial stage in its history. Mexico is not the same after what happened in Iguala. As a society we have the possibility to act critically and with knowledge in the face of reality to turn it into something much better. This is our moment. We can and must change.
With information from infobae.com and animalpolitico.com.
