Omar García, a student from Ayotzinapa, after having beaten by soldiers in Iguala. Foto @Regeneración
Abel Barrera, director of the Tlachinollan Mountain Center for Human Rights, has confirmed that the team of experts from the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) will analyze the investigation of the massacre and forcible disappearance of the students from the Raúl Isidro Burgos Rural Normal School which took place on 26 September in Iguala. The IACHR continues to seek out persons to come to Mexico to review the evidence provided by the Federal Attorney General’s Office (PGR), the search-work carried out by the National Gendarmerie, and to decide whether the authorities are in fact exhausting all lines of investigation. Barrera Hernández has confirmed that an agreement had been signed with the federal government to ensure that the experts also be protected by the precautionary measures that the IACHR will award to the parents of the disappeared students.
Meanwhile, the search for the disappeared students continues. The relatives of the 43 normalist students from Ayotzinapa began their citizens’ searches on Saturday 10 January in the northern sierra of Guerrero, in the community known as Filo del Caballo. During a meeting between the parents of the disappeared and representatives from the Citizens’ Forensic Science organization, which has documented more than 300 cases of disappearances in this city, Felipe de la Cruz, a father of the disappeared, indicated that their counterparts have information that suggests that the students could be in this region. De la Cruz recalled that all social organizations are invited to participate in the search for the students. He repeated that the parents would not request the assistance of the federal government, given that it has produced no results, more than 3 months after the students were taken. “They have no leads. They have arrested more than 90 [people], but no one has said where they are. For that reason, we believe the word of the people,” he declared.
Beyond this, on 12 January, parents of the disappeared students had a confrontation with military riot police and state forces when they attempted to enter the barracks of the 27th Infantry Batallion in Iguala, to continue their search for their disappeared sons. Students who were present near the infantry base were attacked by the police with tear-gas and water-cannons. The protestors used two trucks to tear down the entrance of the base and rescue the students they believe are being held there. Mobilizations against military installations spread to the Acapulco and Cruz Grande municipalities. In these, protestors demanded the opening of the barracks to facilitate the search for the disappeared youth, as they hold that there is “evidence” that the Army participated in the crime. Regardless, the federal authorities deny that that is the case, and they claim the case to be the responsibility of the municipal police of Iguala and Cocula, tied to drug-trafficking interests.
For more information (in Spanish):
Cabildea ya la CIDH entre los expertos que revisarán el expediente de Ayotzinapa, adelanta Tlachinollan (Sur Acapulco, 12 de enero de 2015)
Comenzará mañana en la sierra norte búsqueda de normalistas (El Universal, 9 de enero de 2015)
Se enfrentan padres de Ayotzinapa con militares, cuatro heridos(Regeneración, 12 de enero de 2015)
Padres de normalistas se enfrentan con militares en Iguala (CNN México, 12 de enero de 2015)
For more information from SIPAZ (in English):
Guerrero: further update in the Ayotzinapa case (29 December 2014)
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