After Nearly 2 Years, Families Still Struggle for Ayotzinapa 43

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After Nearly 2 Years, Families Still Struggle for Ayotzinapa 43

IN PICTURES: Family members and supporters once again took to the streets of Mexico City demanding justice, truth and the location of the students.

It's been 22 months since police in Iguala, Guerrero, Mexico attacked and disappeared 43 students from the Raul Isidro Burgos Ayotzinapa Teachers’ Training College. The families of the youth and their supporters once again took the main avenues of the Mexican capital, Mexico City, to demand justice, truth and ultimately, the location of the students.

Although mass participation in the marches led by the Ayotzinapa families has dropped, many civil society organizations, communities and activists sympathize with the families and their demands. For many the case continues to be an “open wound.

Ayotzinapa has now become a symbolic case of Mexican government human rights abuses, extrajudicial murders and forced disappearances – and activists are also now pointing to the most recent case in which federal police are accused of extrajudicial murder of 12 protesters in Nochixtlan, Oaxaca on July 19th, 2016. The linkage between these incidents of state violence, along with the universality of state-supported injustice across the country's regions, have galvanized other social movement to express their solidarity and to continue issuing demands on behalf of their own communities' struggles.

teleSUR takes a look at the continued fight being waged by the parents of the 43, who continue to demand: "Alive they were taken, alive we want them back!"

It's been 22 months since police in Iguala, Guerrero, Mexico attacked and disappeared 43 students from the Raul Isidro Burgos Ayotzinapa Teachers’ Training College. The families of the youth and their supporters once again took the main avenues in the Mexican capital to demand justice, truth and ultimately, the location of the students.

Over the course of these nearly 2 years, some of the families have tattooed the names of their children to their bodies, almost all have a blown-up photo, pin or t-shirt of their disappeared son nearby everyday and they all declare that they will keep on marching, protesting and demanding justice until it is served.

Many major streets of many of Mexico’s major cities are marked by tags and graffiti demanding justice in the Ayotzinapa case. Although a team of independent experts of the Inter American Commission on Human Rights made headway in their own investigation into what happened and where the 43 students may be, the Mexican authorities denied renewing that team’s mandate and thus little advances in the investigation have occurred.

Ayotzinapa has now become a symbolic case of Mexican government human rights abuses, extrajudicial murders and forced disappearances. Activists point to the most recent case in which federal police are accused of extrajudicial murder of 12 protesters in Nochixtlan, Oaxaca on July 19th, 2016. That case too has seen little advances.

In recent weeks the families of the disappeared 43 and their legal representatives have had a series of meetings with officials from the Attorney General’s Office and Interior Ministry. Over the course of 22 months they have had meetings with Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto as well as other cabinet officials and lower level-individuals. They fear the authorities are seeking to “pass the buck” amongst each other, without truly dedicating the resources in finding truth and justice in the case.

The families have demanded since April of this year that the Mexican government accepts the formation of an independent commission from the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, or IACHR, that will continue to frequently monitor the government’s advances in the case, as well as ensure that recommendations made by the previous team of experts are implemented.

Late in the day on July 26th, 2016 as the parents continued their march through Mexico City, the Mexican government announced that ranking officials will participate in a meeting this week in Washington DC at the offices of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights to help define the parameters of the independent commission tasked to monitor the Ayotzinapa case.

The need for truth, justice and locating the 43 disappeared Ayotzinapa students continues to galvanize other social movement to express their solidarity as well as continue to issue demands on behalf of their own struggles. Members of the farmworker organization, People’s Front in Defense of the Land, have participated because they, too, have faced government repression and state violence in their protests.

Finally, the families say a delegation will attend the Friday, July 29th meeting in Washington DC at the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights. They expressed optimism that a new mechanism will be installed so that an independent investigation will be carried forward, but also express a degree of skepticism that the authorities will actually go beyond words alone and actually allow for the mechanism to function.

Published 27 July 2016