Live
Audio Only
The parents of the 43 missing Ayotzinapa students expressed profound anger and frustration at President Enrique Peña Nieto who rejected the eight demands the families of the victims handed over to him in their second meeting Thursday.
"Those people are cold blooded and their eyes say it all,” said Carmen Mendoza, the mother of missing Ayotzinapa student Jorge Anibal Cruz referring to the president.
RELATED: Media Analysis: Ayotzinapa - A Mexican Government Cover-Up?
“We've come out of the meeting immensely angry, truly speaking. We have obtained nothing from the meeting with the president,” she added.
“Of the eight proposals we made, the president did not accept one, instead he unilaterally offered other measures with which we do not agree with,” said Vidulfo Rosales, lawyer for the families.
RELATED: Mexico Captures Alleged Culprit in Ayotzinapa Disappearances
Perhaps oblivious to the fact the families of victims were not happy with him, Peña Nieto thanked them for meeting with him.
“I appreciate the opportunity of meeting with the parents of the young teacher trainees. I truly value the meeting in which I was able to listen and have a dialogue with them,” the president said in a tweet.
To the families, the statements by the government are just empty words and one year of no justice in their case proves it, as does the rejection to their petitions.
The parents returned to their camp in front of the presidential palace in Mexico City's main square Zocalo to continue their hunger strike demanding justice as the one year anniversary of the Sept. 26, 2014 attack on the students in Iguala, in the southern violent state of Guerrero, approaches.
Since then, the remains of one student, Alex Mora, were fully identified by an Austrian team of forensic scientists. The remains of a second student, Jhosivani Guerrero, have been dubiously identified, as the match, attained by the same forensic experts, has a 1 in 72 chance of being ultimately confirmed.
However, Peña Nieto did commit to creating a special commission to search for the disappeared students, as well as a team of forensic experts to investigate the credibility of the government's version that the students were burnt to ashes at the Cocula, Guerrero trash dump.
“We didn't ask for any of this and we do not agree that this will resolve anything,” Rosales said.
The Inter-American Commission for Human Rights (IACHR) assigned an investigative team to the Ayotzinapa case and they concluded that the “incineration at Cocula never took place.”
Other experts agree with the IACHR's conclusion saying it would have taken considerably more wood, tires and fuel to create a fire big enough to burn 43 bodies and that the flames and smoke would have been seen for miles.
“We are on the same side,” said Peña Nieto, while rejecting all the demands made by the parents. “We are looking for the same thing. We want to know what happened to your children. The investigation is still underway and it will not be closed.”
To date, 111 people have been arrested in connection with the enforced disappearance of the students, including about 50 Iguala municipal police and 19 from Cocula. Also, 40 members of the drug gang United Warriors were also detained.
The Drug Connection and the Fifth Bus
The Ayotzinapa case goes beyond the disappearance of innocent rural teacher trainees, which is why, according to the IACHR and other experts, the government has neglected the investigation in hopes that the close ties between drug traffickers and government officials is not exposed.
The IACHR has brought up the issue of a fifth bus that was attacked that tragic night almost a year ago. The fifth bus apparently had a shipment of either drugs or drug money that belonged to the United Warriors, which according to the IACHR, would explain the violent nature of the attack.
WATCH: teleSUR’s Imaginary Lines: Ayotzinapa – Mexican Government Coverup?
Newsletter
