Development: The government’s account of the abduction and presumed murder of 43 students in Iguala, Guerrero, in September 2014 is inconsistent and misleading, a group of international experts said on 6 September.
Significance: The findings of the group of experts – a team put together by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) – could not be more damning of the official investigation into one of the worst massacres in Mexico in recent years. The report is a deep political embarrassment for the government led by President Enrique Peña Nieto, which says it is re-opening the investigation.
- Up to now, the official version has been that the 43 student teachers from Ayotzinapa were seized by corrupt municipal police and handed over to the Guerreros Unidos drug cartel; they were then murdered and the bodies incinerated at a rubbish dump in Cocula. The motive was said to be that they had been mistaken for members of a rival cartel, known as Los Rojos. This, the-then attorney general Jesús Murillo Karam had pronounced, was the “historic truth” of the matter. But the experts say it was “scientifically impossible” for the bodies to have been burnt at Cocula leaving no forensic trace; that would have required a fire of such great proportions that it would have been noticed; it would also have been too hot for the criminals to get close – to throw more tyres and petrol onto the pyre – as some of the suspects have claimed they did.
- The experts suggest some alternative lines of investigation. As part of their protest at the time, the students had commandeered buses. The experts note that four out of five buses are accounted for but the fifth seems to have disappeared; the students may have inadvertently seized a vehicle that was being used for drug smuggling. Whatever the final conclusion, the experts make clear that the investigation to date has been deeply flawed. Human rights group Americas Watch said the report was “an utterly damning indictment” of the Mexican investigation. Amnesty International said the experts had uncovered “the authorities’ utter incompetence and lack of will to find the students and bring those responsible to justice”.
Looking Ahead: The government has had to accept the experts’ report. Attorney General Arely Gómez (who took over from Murillo Karam) has said that a new forensic team will return to the area and re-open the investigation. This turn of events is a vindication for the families of the victims, who have consistently refused to accept the official version. “We’re poor, but we’re not stupid” said Mario González, the father of one of the 43. Politically, the findings will increase the pressure on the government, which is likely to face new demonstrations at the end of this month – the first anniversary of the abductions.
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