43 students disappeared,
fear, dissatisfaction and anger spread throughout the campus,
and gradually spread to Mexico nationwide.
Author: Yu Bing
On Friday evening, several buses carrying college students were galloping on the highway in Mexico. Ernesto, 23, was excited to discuss the upcoming trip to Iguara with his classmates while looking at the sunset.
When the car drove to the outskirts of Iguara, Ernesto took advantage of the dim light and caught a glimpse of several police cars chasing them. Soon, the bus was forced to stop at an intersection.
Someone shouted, "The car door is locked!" Everyone became nervous and told the police loudly that they were unarmed and someone stretched out a white cloth from the car window. Then, gunfire echoed on a rainy night for several minutes.
Ernesto escaped by luck, and the others were not so lucky. Several people were killed and injured, and 43 students were taken away. They have not seen anyone or body.
Not long ago, the Mexican government arrested retired general Jose Rodriguez, accusing him of being involved in the above matters. Back then, he was the commander of , an military base in Iguala, with the rank of colonel, and was later promoted to general. He is the highest rank among the three officers arrested recently. Just last month, former Attorney General Kalam was also arrested.
·Jose Rodriguez
This case involving many cases has been reopened after 8 years. Can the truth be revealed?
Tragedy
Ernesto is a student of Ayozinapa Rural Normal College. This is a men's normal college with a history of nearly a hundred years. It is located in the state of Guerrero in southern Mexico. There are many well-known left-wing people among the graduates.
In Mexico, the status of teachers is not high, and politicians often withhold education grants, which often makes this teacher college less than possible. The vigorous students want to protest on the street and pressure the authorities to increase the treatment of teachers and eliminate discrimination against rural teachers .
On September 26, 2014, nearly 100 students took multiple buses to Iguala. Their trip has two purposes, one is to hold a protest, and the other is to raise funds for the Tlatlolco incident a few days later.
Tratlolco incident occurred on October 2, 1968, when more than 300 students and poor people were killed by military and police for protesting the government's inaction. On the anniversary, students will raise funds everywhere and then go to the capital Mexico City to participate in the commemorative activities.
But this time, the students were in big trouble. Ernesto recalled that the bullets shot at the police at the bus exploded like firecrackers, and a student in the same car was shot in the head and blood flowed all over the ground. He saw that some of the seats were stained with blood.
·The blood in the car.
Later, Ernesto learned that other vehicles traveling with him were also intercepted.
According to the files later released by Guerrero State, at least 5 buses were attacked during the same period. 195 shell were found at the scene of the incident, nearly half of which were large-caliber bullets. 25 people were taken to the hospital and 6 died.
Surviving students provided the authorities with a list of missing students full of 3 pages, with a total of 64 people. A few days later, some students were found, but 43 names remained on the list.
At first, parents hoped that their children were just lost and felt that they would come back. As time goes by, parents gradually become disappointed and even collapse.
A week after the incident, the police received anonymous clues and dug 28 burnt bodies on a wild hillside according to the clues. Police said the bodies were most likely part of the 43 missing students.
Police also claimed that nearly 30 suspects have been arrested, most of them local police in Iguala, but parents refused to believe these statements. Due to the serious damage to the corpse, it is impossible to extract DNA to confirm the identity of the deceased, and the entire investigation of the case has made no progress.
·Police said that the body of a suspected missing student was found in the landfill.
"The Truth"
43 students disappeared like this, fear, dissatisfaction and anger spread throughout the campus and gradually spread across Mexico.
people generally suspect that the police acted as a protective umbrella for drug trafficking groups and attacked these students. Some media said: "Iguala is one of the birthplaces of the Mexican independence movement and the birthplace of the Mexican flag. However, students disappeared there, which made the national flag shame and gloomy."
On October 8 of that year, large-scale protests broke out in many cities in Mexico. People firmly believe that the real murderer has not been arrested, and the missing students may still be in the world. As long as the government continues to put pressure on them, they may win a chance to survive...
·On October 8, 2014, protests occurred in many places in Mexico.
Secretary-General of the Latin American Research Center of Renmin University of China Jin Xiaowen told the reporter of " Global People " that this incident caused a strong response back then, mainly for two reasons: First, the security situation in Mexico is worrying, and many people are missing every year, and the people are dissatisfied with the government; second, these students are going to participate in the commemoration of the Tlaterolco incident as planned, and some students were also harmed in the incident, which aroused empathy from the society.
Jin Xiaowen said that there were many different opinions about the incident back then.
One of the saying is that the local police colluded with the drug trafficking group and mistakenly regarded these students as members of the hostile drug trafficking group and handed them over to "his own people", so the students were killed. Another theory is that the bus that the student took was a drug cartel's tool for transporting drugs, and the cartel contained drugs. The police intercepted them and handed them over to the drug cartel. Although the details of the incident were not cleared, it is certain that both the police and government departments were involved, so it is called a "state crime." Under pressure, the then President of Mexico, Nieto , finally stated that the case was a "massacre", initiated the "largest investigation" after his administration, and arrested several members of the largest gang "United Warriors" in Guerrero. In November of that year, the police announced the arrest of the then mayor of Iguara City, Avalka and his wife. Some gang members confessed that the mayor and his wife asked the police to arrest the students and then handed them over to the gangster.
·Iguala former mayor Avalka couple.
Avarka is indeed not clean. He made a fortune by selling sandals and spent a lot of money to enter politics. He was accused of illegally making money in 2010, but was not convicted. Two years later, he was elected mayor, but was considered to have won disgrace. Several candidates withdrew from the election due to death threats. Less than a year after taking office, he was revealed to have shot and killed a left-wing peasant leader.
His wife Maria is not a good person either. She is a well-known jeweler in front of others, but behind her, she is a big financial supporter of the "United Warriors".
Guerrero is the largest poppy producer in Mexico, with production accounting for 60% of the country. The prevalence of drugs has made it one of Mexico's most violent states, with politicians colluding with gangsters. The Avalka couple pay hundreds of thousands of dollars in protection fees to the "United Warriors" every month, and one-third of them are used by the gang to bribe the police.
In order to ensure that the power in Iguala is not affected, Maria intends to participate in the next mayoral election. The couple planned a dinner to pave the way for Maria to enter the political arena.
But on the same day as the students' reunion, Maria angrily told her subordinates to "teach students a lesson." So, her subordinates and police intercepted the students.
Police Department communication records show that at 5:59 pm that day, the police called to report that two buses carrying students were heading towards Iguala. Soon, the police received the message: "Stop them!" After the Avalka couple was arrested, the Mexican prosecutor held a press conference. Attorney General Kalam said that the entire incident was jointly planned by the mayor and his wife, drug dealers and police. Drug dealers burned the bodies of students in the landfill and scattered the ashes into the river. This is the "truth".
But the international investigative agency at that time raised questions about the investigation report.
Some firefighting experts have suggested that cremating more than 40 bodies requires more than ten tons of wood and diesel, and it takes nearly 60 hours to burn. There is no evidence that the landfill has undergone large-scale incineration.So what Kalam calls the "truth" is not true. In the subsequent investigation, the authorities also experienced torture, improper arrests and improper evidence handling, and "accredited" most of the people involved.
The family of the victim was unwilling to accept the results of the investigation, and the call for understanding the truth has always existed, which to a certain extent affected the election of the ruling revolutionary system party at that time. Jin Xiaowen said that according to the recent investigation, the truth may not be revealed that year, and officials of the Mexican federal government were also involved in this incident, which is why Kalam is under investigation now.
·Missed student.
thoroughly check?
On September 26th every year, Mexicans will spontaneously take to the streets to ask for a thorough investigation of the truth about the disappearance of students. Although dozens of secret graves were later discovered, the bodies of them were proved not to be missing students.
On December 1, 2018, Lopez took office as president and became Mexico's first left-wing president in more than 70 years. During the campaign, he made it a core campaign commitment to identify the case. In his inaugural speech, he vowed to fight corruption, eradicate poverty and violence, and let Mexico "reborn".
4 days after taking office, Lopez signed an order announcing the establishment of a truth-client committee to investigate the disappearance of students and told the students that the investigation must cover "all government personnel involved in the case", including "all military personnel who may be involved."
·Mexican President Lopez.
The Truth Committee said that Rodriguez, who holds military power, is "old friends" with the gang organization, and his name appears on the bribery list of "United Warriors". But there are other statements about Rodriguez's arrest.
A senior investigative reporter said that a bus used by a drug dealer at the time was used by drugs, and there were millions of dollars in it. The drug dealer was afraid that the drug transport was exposed and asked Rodriguez to retrieve the drugs. So Rodriguez sent soldiers to hijack some of the students and locked six of them in the barracks warehouse. A few days later, he ordered his men to "clean up" the students. As for how other students died and where the bodies were, there is still no clue.
Parents do not intend to give up. A parent said: "We will not give up this struggle until we understand the truth."
Jin Xiaowen analyzed that judging from the current investigation results, Mexican soldiers are likely to be involved in the case. This is not surprising.
Drug cartels have a great influence in Mexico, and many political forces are related to drug cartels. In some places, there is indeed a situation where the army acts as a "protective umbrella" for drug dealers. During the election, Lopez proposed that the truth of the case would be revealed as a major commitment to voters. After he came to power, he also tried to restore the truth of the incident.
As an anti-establishment leader, his coming to power is largely due to the people's dissatisfaction with traditional political parties. Promoting the restoration of the incident is really beneficial to the latter's image, which can enable Lopez to gain more support. But on the other hand, because it is generally believed that Mexico's procuratorial system has a certain connection with drug trafficking groups, and it may involve more shady stories, this has also made the specific investigation unable to be promoted for a long time.
Although the recent report of the Truth Commission acknowledged that the case was a "state crime", there were no new information disclosures in the specific situation, and it is still challenging to obtain the final truth.
Director-General Producer: Lu Hong
Supervisor Producer: Zhang Jiankui
Editor: Xu Chenjing
Editor Review: Ling Yun
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