10 years later, protesters are still demanding the truth

The country, undermined by a real crisis of chronic and mysterious disappearances, commemorates on Thursday the tragedy that occurred 10 years ago in Iguala: the disappearance of 43 students in 2014. This week, a march and several actions are planned to once again demand the truth.

On the night of September 26-27, 2014, 43 students from the Ayotzinapa Rural Normal School disappeared in Iguala, Guerrero state, Mexico. Ten years later, the country is still shocked by this affairbecause we still don’t know where the 43 students are and what really happened to them.

For a decade, parents and associations have been demanding truth and justice, with a feeling of anger that continues to increase. Every year they organize impressive demonstrations in Mexico City, which are highly publicized. This is a case with multiple twists and turns causing a political scandal. At the time, the government of Enrique Peña Nieto carried out the investigation and delivered completely falsified conclusions. A version called “historical truth” evoked a settling of scores between rival criminal gangs, but this completely invented story is today officially denied.

It has since been recognized as a state crime. The Ayotzinapa affair reveals interconnections between cartels, authorities and the state. Thanks to the reports of the group of independent international experts who carried out their own investigation, we know that the municipal police of Iguala, the state police and the military were on site at the time of the disappearance of the students. This group of students had gone to the nearby town of Iguala to “requisition” buses in order to demonstrate in Mexico City, but he was arrested. The participation of the authorities and their links with members of the Guerrero Unidos cartel were highlighted by military documents. Moreover, so that the As the case progresses, a certain number of these archives are missing which the army refuses to transmit.

The current government of Andrés Manuel López Obrador had promised to resolve this Ayotzinapa enigma… But this is still not the case. The families and their lawyers have denounced lies and maneuvers to try to cover up the affair in recent months. “Our worst fear is that there will be new irregularities in the filesaid Vidulfo Rosalez, lawyers for the families of the missing students. In the home stretch, this government acted in the same way as the previous one of Peña Nieto.” Finally, with each revelation, the affair becomes even more obscure and after a decade there remain many unknowns.

This case is emblematic in Mexico because Aytozinapa is a terrible example of the violence plaguing the country. That night, 43 young people disappeared at once, but in Mexico, there are more than 100,000 missing people. The State appears incapable of remedying this crisis. In addition, the case reveals to what extent the rights of victims and their loved ones can be violated and neglected by institutions. But the families of Ayotzinapa do not want to give up and this story has become a symbol. The challenge is to make Ayotzinapa a turning point to put an end to the indifference of public authorities in the face of this crisis of the missing in Mexico.