Ayotzinapa: six years after the massacre, relatives of the victims denounce judicial corruption
The Ayotzinapa massacre occurred in Mexico on September 26, 2014 and will be six years old next Saturday. Even the relatives and parents of the 43 students that were learning to become teachers (normalistas), killed that day, continue to demand justice and, above all, they want to know the truth.
The parents of the 43 students from the Ayotzinapa Rural ‘Normal’ (School for teachers) School denounce that the Judicial Power is still taken over by corruption. For this reason, they assume that this is the reason why the case of the disappearance of their sons, who are presumed to have been murdered and incinerated, is still open.
In view of the impunity and the lack of resolution, the parents issued a clear message this Sunday demanding truth and justice.
Spokesman Felipe de la Cruz said that the families recognize that the government of Andrés Manuel López Obrador has “the will to know the truth”. But, despite this, “we still find cells of corruption in the judiciary”.
This Sunday, the parents and students of the Ayotzinapa ‘Normal’ School occupied the toll booths of the Mexico-Acapulco freeways. They did it to demand that the Judiciary review the work of the judges and “that they cannot continue to be bribed”.
“We know in advance, and it was made public, of the bribe that the judge who freed Mochomo (alias of José Ángel Casarrubias Salgado, one of the accused) received, after being arrested. So, that gives us the certainty that we are still contaminated and it is time to do a cleanup”, said Felipe de la Cruz.
For the students of Ayotzinapa
The movement of the 43 announced demonstrations starting this Monday -September 21- in Iguala, where their sons disappeared. The objective is to demand that some of the videos indicated in the investigation be made public.
“In these videos, it is observed that several young people were taken by the police to Huitzuco, Guerrero state. Until today we continue to demand that they hand them over for the information they have”, the spokesperson denounced.
This Tuesday they protested in front of the Guerrero congress to demand that the deputies fulfill their promise and create a commission to support the investigation. “Until today it remained in the speech and in the promises made, as always”.
The parents will travel to Mexico City to protest this Wednesday in front of the headquarters of the Supreme Court of Justice, demanding respect and justice for the victims.
The next day, at the Attorney General’s Office, they will have a demonstration to request all the necessary support from the person in charge of the case, Omar Gómez Trejo.
On Saturday, hundreds of people will march to commemorate the sixth anniversary of the disappearance of the 43 students. The route will go from the Angel of Independence to the capital’s Zócalo.
To close the week, on Sunday 27, they will make an offering to the fallen in Iguala. There, too, justice will be demanded for the murdered students.
Army ties to drug cartels
The parents also asked the government to investigate the links between the Army at that time and members of the Guerreros Unidos cartel.
The relatives argue that there are elements to investigate regarding the participation of the Army, before, during and after the events. They assure that the complicity is due to indications of the collusion of people, not the institution, with the mafia group.
Santiago Aguirre, director of the Miguel Agustín Pro Human Rights Center, points out that after last August 12, the parents of the students delivered to President López Obrador a letter with the guidelines to follow in the investigation.
In the document they call for the arrest and prosecution of elements of the 27th Infantry Battalion, who lied in their first statements. Those named also committed crimes due to their omissions on the night of the events, due to their alleged links with organized crime.
In that sense, they name Captain José Martínez Crespo, Lieutenant Joel Gálvez and soldier Eduardo Mota. They maintain that there is serious evidence of guilt on them, according to the version of the attorney Jesús Murillo Karam.
Investigating the military has been one of the demands of the parents of the ‘normalistas’ (name given to students who are learning to be teachers) for six years. But until now they did not see the government’s willingness to make serious inquiries about it.
“We have ongoing criminal actions against the military and federal police”, said Vidulfo Rosales, the parents’ attorney.
The arrest of Mario Casarrubias, one of the leaders of the Guerreros Unidos cartel, led to the identification of an Army official that provided him with weapons and responded to the nickname “El Satánico”, added Rosales.
The Government seeks the extradition of former Secretary of Security, Tomás Zenón, who has taken refuge in Israel and author of the so-called “historical truth”. This is a kind of fiction created to hide the facts and protect those responsible in the Government of Enrique Peña Nieto.
They request the President to speed up the search for the disappeared
Meanwhile, the relatives, parents and friends of the victims of the massacre also request AMLO to help accelerate the investigations to search for the disappeared, which not only include the Ayotzinapa case but others perpetrated throughout the Mexican territory.
The request was made last Saturday, at the opening ceremony of the Ocotoxco Vehicle Underpass, in El Rosario Yauhquemehcan. There, dozens of people with banners in hand requested the intervention of the Executive to locate Daniela Muñoz Muñoz, originally from Apizaco, seen for the last time on September 13 in her place of origin.
Muñoz is a teacher who works in Puebla, who a few days ago went for a walk with a friend and did not return home. Therefore, they fear that she is in danger, since the person she was with, does not appear either.
“We are teachers from Puebla and Tlaxcala who are demanding help from the authorities, we are afraid that it may be a situation of violence against women”, said one of the protesters.
For their part, another group of people requested the help of López Obrador to locate Severo Mártir. They do not know anything about him either, although a complaint has already been filed with the competent authorities.
According to data revealed in January 2020 by the authorities, in Mexico there are more than 61,600 people missing, a figure that has grown by more than 20,000 cases, after the 40,000 reported until 2018.
Mexico is experiencing the onslaught of drug trafficking, paramilitarism and criminal networks that have spread throughout the country. Besides being a drug producer, it is one of the main distribution bridges between South, Central and North America. It even has links with the mafias of Colombia, Guatemala, the United States, Honduras, El Salvador, Ecuador, Peru, Brazil and Panama.
