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News > Latin America

Mexico: AMLO Vows to Create Truth Commission to Investigate 'Ayotzinapa 43' Case

  • Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador met with some of the families, relatives, and friends of the 43 students during the rally in the city Iguala in southwestern Mexico.

    Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador met with some of the families, relatives, and friends of the 43 students during the rally in the city Iguala in southwestern Mexico. | Photo: Twitter: @LopezObrador_

Published 26 May 2018
Opinion

During a political rally he promised to launch a truth comission and invite the U.N. to participate. 

Mexican presidential candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador promised Friday to create a truth commission to investigate the case of the 'Ayotzinapa 43,' the group of students disappeared in 2014. 

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Lopez Obrador commonly referred to as AMLO, also pledged to allow the United Nations to participate in the commission and investigation in an attempt to guarantee full transparency. 

Speaking during a political rally in the city Iguala, where the 43 students were last seen, AMLO told the crowd “when our movement triumphs, there will be justice for the students of Ayotzinapa… We will form a truth commission and allow United Nations to participate to clarify everything.”   

The students were from the Raul Isidro Burgos Rural Teachers' College in Ayotzinapa, part of a system that educates future teachers all over the country. The school's students have a long history of participating in social struggles for agrarian reform and leftist inclinations.

In March the U.N. published the report Double Injustice: Human Rights Violations in the Investigation of the Ayotzinapa case, which revealed "a pattern of committing, tolerating and covering up torture in the investigation of the Ayotzinapa case."

According to the official hypothesis, Iguala police officers kidnapped the 43 students and handed them over to the drug cartel Guerreros Unidos, who allegedly killed them and incinerated them to get rid of their bodies.  

But relatives of the missing students say this hypothesis is a fabrication and accused them of planting evidence and torturing detainees in order to cover for high-profile politicians and members of the military.

"Ayotzinapa is a test case of the Mexican authorities' willingness and ability to tackle serious human rights violations," Zeid said. "I urge the Mexican authorities to ensure that the search for truth and justice regarding Ayotzinapa continues, and also that those responsible for torture and other human rights violations committed during the investigation are held accountable."

“We will aim for everything to be known, I don’t want, desire, nor is it convenient for you who live here in Iguala that when they speak of Iguala they think of the disappeared,” AMLO said.

In April the families, relatives, and friends of the 43 students held protests to mark 43 months since their disappearance and demand answers and investigations from the government.

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