The independent investigators of the Iguala case denounce the "concealment" of information at the end of their mission

“Cry at home and fight outside”. This is how Estela de Carlotto, president and founder of the Grandmothers of Plaza de Mayo in Argentina, encouraged the Mexican mothers who are still looking for their disappeared people last week. In an act in Mexico City, the activist alluded to the Ayotzinapa case, also known as the Iguala case or the case of the 43 students. Nothing is known about these young people since September 26, 2014. Years of cumbersome investigation of which this Tuesday the Interdisciplinary Group of Independent Experts (GIEI) presented its latest report.

“Concealment and the insistence on denying things that are obvious” are the impediments that the organization found to carry out its work, mentioned the expert Carlos Beristain, in the presentation of the sixth report of the group, whose mandate ends this month and which has worked for more than eight years in this event that shocked the country.

“For the GIEI it is impossible to continue its mandate and since things do not change, we consider our work finished,” he continued.. “The risk is that lying is institutionalized as a response,” warned the Spaniard. “The muscle of the State was present, they acted and did not protect. They knew what happened, that has become a responsibility of the State in itself,” he concluded after an extensive presentation in which the contradictory versions were explained, that the Secretary of National Defense (Sedena) had constant communications with the different authorities the day of the disappearance of the young people -the experts exposed maps of the movements of the security forces with the information obtained from C4, a surveillance center that has records of calls-, that the military were “adapting the statements”, that there was manipulation of information and that the Navy was at the scene “on the 27th, not the 29th.”

Details were also given about the confusion about the whereabouts of the young people, who had been divided into several groups and who were not taken “neither to the same place, nor to the same scene, nor to the Cocula garbage dump,” said Ángela Buitrago, the other member of the GIEI who appeared at the presentation on Tuesday.

Beristain insisted on the “intentionality” behind the “denials” and “lies”. In addition to ensuring that “the case is not closed until there is a resolution of the fate and whereabouts of the young people”. Buitrago, responding to the journalists' questions, assured that this type of case can transcend the orbit of international justice, but that this already depends on the relatives, on whom he recognized the courage of those who have made a banner over these years and for those who asked the State for “attention”. “Comprehensive reparation must be carried out and avoid stigmatization,” the expert Buitrago requested in her recommendations, since “the survivors are victims of the events.”

For his part, President Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) promised to continue with the investigation after the GIEI march, although next year there will be elections in Mexico and, therefore, a change of government.

The GIEI was created by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) so that, in collaboration with the Mexican State and the representatives of the victims, assistance could be offered in the case.. The group is made up of specialists from various sectors (from doctors to lawyers) and nationalities.

The “historical truth”

The version given by the government of Enrique Peña Nieto at the time was that the students of the Ayotzinapa Rural Normal School had stolen some buses to go to a demonstration, which were intercepted by the Iguala police, who in turn handed over the youth to the criminals of Guerreros Unidos. Said group would have murdered them and cremated their bodies in the Cocula garbage dump. This narration of the events became known as “historical truth”, however it was not supported by the GIEI. When López Obrador came to power, he decided to create a Truth Commission for the case.

It was in August of last year that the greatest advance was apparently made, when Deputy Attorney General Alejandro Encinas recognized that what happened to those young people was “a State crime”, in which the Army and government officials would have played a relevant role.. However, the GIEI did not validate the screenshots of conversations between authorities and criminals presented by Encinas.. To date only three of the young men have been identified.

As the Mexican newspaper La Jornada recalls, the GIEI experts suffered obstacles to carry out the investigation. They had the opposition of the Ministry of National Defense (Sedena), the Peña Nieto Executive expelled them from Mexico after presenting their second report and they returned with López Obrador, but the coronavirus pandemic came to a standstill.. Its greatest achievements have been to banish the aforementioned “historical truth”, point the finger at the Army and facilitate the imprisonment of some culprits.

In spite of everything, the Sedena keeps secret fundamental clues, maintains the Mexican newspaper. In their five previous reports they gave evidence of torture, spying on students, cover-ups and, in the last one, in March, they denounced obstruction of the investigation and concealment of information.

disappearance problem

According to the latest Amnesty International report, 2022 closed in Mexico with more than 109,000 cases of missing and missing persons.. A pending issue for the country, according to the NGO, since the UN Committee against Enforced Disappearances exposed in a document the existing forensic crisis, stressing that the State had in custody more than 52,000 unidentified corpses. Last year was also the deadliest for the country's press.

Meanwhile, López Obrador predicted this Tuesday a 20% reduction in homicides at the end of his government. The country will hold presidential elections in 2024.

Mexico is not the only nation in the region where young people are the target of attacks. In Nicaragua, in the framework of the 2018 protests against the Sandinista government, students were injured and even died. The darkest chapter was the one lived in the Church of the Divine Mercy in Managua. Two young men who took refuge in the building along with other students, priests and journalists from the repression carried out by the police and paramilitaries died there.

The ball is now in the court of the Mexican institutions. “The fight continues,” shouted the relatives attending the presentation.