[ed. The casual horror described here reminds me of Roberto Bolano's novel 2666. See also: Crisis in Mexico.]
The news and shock came a few months later, when the Associated Press published an interview with a witness. There were women and children among those who had died.Before that, the official explanation prevailed: a skirmish between the Army and criminals, in which a few soldiers were injured while the “bad guys” got what they deserved. Sometimes it feels that the only time Mexicans react anymore is when the day-to-day atrocities that go on in our country make it to the news elsewhere around the world. If someone outside Mexico hadn’t noticed, perhaps we wouldn’t be angry. Perhaps just wary.
A couple of weeks after the news about Tlatlaya came out, something unusual, even by our current standards, occurred. Around 50 students at a Teacher’s College in Guerrero, one of Mexico’s poorest states, were traveling by bus overnight through the city of Iguala. The account is muddled at best: They were leaving the city to take part in a protest for the remembrance of a student massacre that took place in 1968, but they were also collecting funds for their studies. Some vehicles were abandoned in front of their buses, essentially creating a barricade. Gunfire ensued. Six people died. Witnesses—and now, the federal investigation into the shooting—say it was the police that opened fire. The officers then escorted the students out of the buses, but instead of handing them over to the local state’s attorney office—supposing there was something to charge them with in the first place—they were handed over to other people. A local cartel, according to media reports. Days after, four mass graves were found near the city. It seemed as though the bodies of the 43–yes, 43–kidnapped students were there.
When the graves were found, the governor of the state–who would step down weeks after–, in a bizarrely joyous tone, declared that some of the bodies–tortured, then charred–did not belong to the students. Who were they then? It didn’t matter. Not right now. If there was time in the future, maybe then he’d try to figure it out.
The story first broke out in El País, a daily from Spain. We had to learn about what went on in our country, again, from the outside press.
In order to understand how 43 people could disappear in one single swoop, it’s necessary to tell the tale of the town of Iguala, and how, in essence, it could be any other town in Mexico.
José Luis Abarca was elected as mayor of Iguala in 2012. He ran under a leftist coalition of parties, even though he hadn’t formally registered in one until a month before the campaign started. He was known as a local businessman; he owned the city’s main mall and 18 buildings in the area. His wife, María de los Ángeles Pineda, had a lonstanding relationship to the Mexican criminal underworld. Two of her brothers had died in 2009 and were part of Mexico’s most-wanted criminal list at the time. Her father was arrested that same year and her other brother was also thought to be part of the business: the Attorney General’s office suspected (and later confirmed) that were part of the local cartel called Guerreros Unidos (“United Warriors”).
How this went unnoticed, or at least ignored during Abarca’s and Pineda’s affiliation to the party, during the campaign, and most importantly, during his tenure as mayor, is egregious at best. Once elected, the government was essentially handed over to the cartel. They also ran the police, and most importantly, the federal budget assigned to the county (around 18 million USD per year).
During Abarca’s first year in office, his main rival for the party candidacy the year before, Justino Carvajal, was gunned down outside his mother’s house. As of today, there’s no motive and no suspects.
Four protestors who called the mayor out in public at a town hall meeting, accusing him of taking money from the budget, disappeared a couple of days afterward. A witness emerged later on, and he stated that the mayor himself had shot one of them in the face and killed him. He also said that he saw at least seven other people bound and gagged, kneeled before open graves, when this happened. The message was clear: If you complained, you died.
A party leader then claimed to have brought the information to federal officials, only to be ignored. The testimony that blamed Abarca for the killings sat in a dusty file in the local State Attorney’s office. It was as if everybody knew but no one wanted to do anything about it except let it lie.
In short, there was information that he was involved with the cartels, that he was giving them public money, that he was killing people who opposed him, and nothing happened. Until he crossed a threshold that previously had seemed hypothetical: he went too far when he ordered the police to kidnap and hand the students over to the cartel.
by Esteban Illades, TNI | Read more:
Image: uncredited
