15,000 people marched in downtown Mexico City against the disappearance of 43 students from Ayotzinapa. Photo taken on 8 October 2014 by Enrique Perez Huerta. Copyright: Demotix
What lies ahead for Mexico, where the discovery of mass graves in Iguala and dozens of missing school students in Ayotzinapa has led to protests and a tense national debate about law and order? The future is uncertain. Some Internet users say this tragedy will be forgotten with time, others believe Ayotzinapa's 43 missing students will serve as a catalyst for social change.
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Missing Students
On September 26, a convoy of buses carrying students from Ayotzinapa, a teacher training institute in Mexico's southern state Guerrero, was shot at by local police agents. The student teachers were returning from protests for rural teachers in the city of Iguala. Many of the students were loaded into police vehicles and driven away.
An hour later the convoy came under another attack, this time by members of organized crime. Attacks that day left six dead and 17 wounded in Iguala. Three were students, and three were just present at the scene – a football player and a bus driver in an unrelated bus and a woman in a taxi.
Attention soon turned to the 43 missing students from Ayotzinapa, many of whom were seen being driven away in police vehicles after the first attack.
Protests
Protests have been launched across the country demanding their safe return.
Read more: Mexicans Demand Safe Return of Students “Taken Alive”
And messages of support having been pouring in around the world under the hashtags #Ayotzinapa #TodosSomosAyotzinapa (We are all Ayotzinapa).
Join the Twitter storm under the hashtag #EPNBringThemBack on October 22 at 8pm Mexico City time (UTC/GMT -5 hour)
This is just one of many violent acts from corrupt government authorities – sometimes in close alliance with crime cartels – against its citizens.
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- Is History Repeating Itself in Mexico with the Ayotzinapa Tragedy?
Corrupt officials and crime cartels
Demasiada sangre han derramado el crimen organizado y el régimen corrupto. Basta deste dolor pic.twitter.com/WB47Ascwbi#JusticiaParaAyotzinapa
— epigmenio ibarra (@epigmenioibarra) October 6, 2014
Too much blood has been shed by organized crime and a corrupt regime. Enough with this pain.
Iñaky Blanco, Guerrero's public prosecutor, claimed that “several of the police agents had links to organized crime, and in some cases were active drug trafficking hit men.”
Later on during a press conference in Acapulco, he added that it was the Director of Public Security of Iguala Francisco Salgado Valladares who gave the order to detain the student teachers from Ayotzinapa; and an individual known as ‘El Chuky' from the criminal group Guerreros Unidos would have ordered the kidnap and murder of the young students.” The name United Warriors plays off the name of the state, Guerrero, which means warrior in Spanish.
The Iguala city mayor, José Luis Abarca, left office right before the attack with the permission of the governor. No one seems to know the whereabouts of Abarca nor Salgado Valladares, who allegedly gave the order for the attack.
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- Mexicans Demand President Peña Nieto Resign With Trending Twitter Hashtag
Mass graves?
On October 6, at least 28 bodies were unearthed from a mass grave near Iguala. The bodies, which show clear signs of torture, were laid over branches and logs that were sprayed with fuel and set fire.
The victims appear to have been burned alive, a guard at the site told Spanish newspaper El Mundo. A total of 28 scorched bodies were exhumed so far, though some unconfirmed reports pointed to a higher number of 34.
The authorities are conducting a variety of forensic tests to conclude if the human remains belong to the 43 students from Ayotzinapa. According to the authorities, the identification of the victims will take between 15 days and two months. Argentinian specialists are taking part in the process at the request of Ayotzinapa students.
Even though the bodies haven't been identified yet, there are many venturing to guess that they belong to the missing students. If true, it would come as a great blow to the government, as it would mean that it is directly involved in the killing of unarmed civilians through its municipal police force.
#Ayotzinapa encuentran 28 cuerpos en fosa clandestina. Sean o no de los estudiantes. México está jodido. pic.twitter.com/e3rYbxFH0a
— backpack (@backpack_tv) October 6, 2014
In Ayotzinapa, 28 bodies were found in a mass grave. Whether or not they are the students, Mexico is screwed.
The government is facing international scrutiny over this crime and they feel very uncomfortable about it. The President has been trying to build an image of security and progress so this incident doesn't help.
Mexico's Political Firestorm
So far, the government has publicly condemned the actions of the police and the mayor, and pledged to find those who are guilty.
Family members cherish the hope that their loved ones will return. In the meantime, however, they're left waiting for official confirmation about whether any of the tortured remains now being identified match the students kidnapped by narcotics police. If the mass grave turns out to contain the missing students, Mexico will find out if the tension now in the air is enough to cause a large-scale political firestorm.
This video by US based independent news outlet Democracy Now gives an excellent overview of the case:
Video message of support from students around the world in over a dozen languages:
