Running head: RESEARCH PAPER 1

Annie Toledo and Maria Gomez

HD 361

Dr. Rogers

Pacific Oaks College

November 2017

Research Paper

Violence and corruption has covered the national territory in Mexico, the actions of
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organized crime and the State itself abound through the police forces, the army, and the navy.

Impunity appears as another form of cruelty, not only to prevent clarification and justice, but

to silence, hide or make invisible the terror and horror that is sown daily among citizens.

Persecution and the forced disappearance, in other words the “justified” killings or deaths in

disguise, have become normal for citizens. The criminalization of those who raise their

voices against discrimination, poverty, and exclusion is also common. I realized all of this

with one particular event called the Forced Disappearance of Iguala of 2014.

September 26, 2014 has been a date that went down in the history of Mexico and the

world, after the death of 6 people and the disappearance of 43 students from the Normal

Rural School in a town of Ayotzinapa, Guerrero, South of Mexico. Critical specialist

Guillermo Castillo Ramirez pointed out that the negligence of the government express clear

complicity.

This was a group of 43 students of education that they only desire was to become

teachers. They travel to the city of Iguala, Guerrero to participate in a monetary collect and

then travel to Mexico City to participate in a University protest, march that would be held on

October 2nd in memory and 50 anniversary of the slaughter of Tlatelolco. Another protest by

university students in 1968 in Mexico City.

“Escuelas Normalistas” in english normal schools or teacher training schools,

particularly rural ones, were born with the idea of giving an educational opportunity to young

people from the poorest communities in Mexico; Young indigenous people, above all, had a

secure place that educated them with the pedagogy of “learning by doing”. The goal was that

they would return to their communities and create schools. Normal rural schools have also

been spaces where libertarian ideas are cultivated,where future teachers have accomplished

victory from past struggles for a better life and ultimately a better world, at least this is what

my grandfather used to say, he is from the south of Mexico.

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The abandonment of this educational model and goal in the government caused many

schools to disappear and struggle to sustain themselves. For several years, to prevent their

disappearance, students from rural normal schools had gone to the streets to demand the

government to open the call for new revenue that supported the schools in order for them to

continue operating. This had caused them persecution, jail, exile to the north of the continent

and in 2014 the death and forced disappearance of nearly fifty students of the Rural Normal

School called Raúl Isidro Burgos de Ayotzinapa, Guerrero, México.

In this confrontation, even journalists and civilians were wounded. The events left a

balance of at least 9 people dead, 43 students disappeared from that rural normal school and

27 were injured. This tragic instance has profoundly affected the citizens of Mexico and it has

filled them with anger and outrage. The president of Mexico promised the people justice;

unfortunately, it has been over three years and families and relatives of the teaching students

have never gotten the justice they were promised. The case of the murdered and disappeared

students of the Normal of Ayotzinapa is not an isolated event but is part of a series of actions

that, due to their harshness and arbitrariness, aggravate in the deepest part the citizens, the

rural communities and the entire society. "They were taken alive, we want them alive" this is

what families and Mexican citizens protested in the news and in the streets.

43 missing students which since that night nothing is known about them and since

then the Mexican government remained silence, has not given any answer about it!

According to the article of Guillermo Castillo Ramirez he states “Ayotzinapa: Evidence and

result of structural political violence. The state was coauthor and party to the assassinations

and disappearances, but also through all of its institutions of investigation and distribution of

justice and led to impunity, negligence and indifference regarding the case”. ¨ The former

mayor Jose Luis Abarca and his wife Maria de los Angeles Pineda were the alleged
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intellectual authors of these crimes, the police were the perpetrators of this attack, including

murders and kidnapping of 43 still missing students.¨

As a matter of fact, 2 days latter of this incident the authority received information

about this case, but they ignored and they delayed arriving to begin the investigations

immediately. The authority just showed lack of coordination and willingness to cooperate in

this saddening and heartbreaking case. Three years after these events in Iguala, Guerrero,

Mexico. the authority continues without its responsibility and the guilty of the 43 students.

Chronic of the facts:

● September 26, 2014: 3 students are killed when they were attacked by the local

police, 3 more who did not belong to the school, and 57 disappeared.

● September 29: 21 police officers are transferred to jail. They were indicated as

being likely responsible for 6 homicides.

● September 30: Mayor Jose Luis Abarca requested permission for 30 day to leave

his position as Mayor.

● September: 1800+ people looking for the disappeared, among state police, the

Army and Navy of Mexico.

● October 3rd: The Organization of The United Nations (UN) condemned the

disappearance of the 43 students and the violence of which they were victims, in

addition, considering this fact as one of the ¨most terrible of recent times¨.

● October 4: Federal police find 6 clandestine graves, they contain an undetermined

number of corpses, which could correspond to the disappeared. A group of

forensic experts send it to the area.

● October 8: There is a massive march in Mexico City in protest of this case. Also

the Organization of American States (OAS) as well as the government of the

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Unites States demand thorough investigation from the Mexican government to

find them.

● October 14: None of the bodies found in the graves correspond to the identity of

the disappeared students.

● October 22: The police incriminated former Mayor Jose Luis Abarca and his wife

Maria de los Angeles Pineda for the student’s disappearance.

● November 06: The Human Right Watch (HRW) criticize the depth crisis in the

country after the disappearance of the 43 students by the police.

● November 06: In a meeting between the relatives of the disappeared students and

President Peña-Nieto, one of the parents pointed out that he would consider his

resignation due to the lack of results.

● November 20, 2017: Nothing is known yet of the 43 disappeared students.

Numbers:

130 Police arrested and none sentenced.

850 Search actions by the authorities.

70 Common graves have been discovered.

104 Human remains have been found in common graves (which are not from the missing

students).

0 (zero) Scientific evidence that confirm the death of the students.

1651 Actions in which President Peña-Nieto committed himself with the relatives, and 0

(zero) fulfilled.

There are still hidden answers about the disappearance of the 43 students of

Ayotzinapa from three years ago. It is heartbreaking to me that the government does not care,

they are not just students, each one has his own story, they each had their own family. Some

of the names of the students are :Abel García Hernández, Abelardo Vázquez Peniten, Adán
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Abrajan de la Cruz, Antonio Santana Maestro, Alexander Mora Venancio, Benjamín

Ascencio Bautista, Bernardo Flores Alcaraz, Carlos Iván Ramírez Villarreal, Carlos Lorenzo

Hernández Muñoz, César Manuel González Hernández, Christian Alfonso Rodríguez

Telumbre, Christian Tomas Colón Garnica, Cutberto Ortiz Ramos, Dorian González Parral,

Emiliano Alen Gaspar de la Cruz, Everardo Rodríguez Bello, and Felipe Arnulfo Rosas. This

is one of the most critical events in the history of the country, which opened up deep scars in

the image of the Mexican Government and it put the nation in the international spotlight.

It has been years without a single condemnatory sentence for what happened and

people and families are with the same doubts: What happened? Where are they?

In the present times, the investigation has become so enmeshed that the information

about it has become overwhelming. There are so many versions, sometimes contradictory,

that it is labyrinthine to resolve. To date, more than 120 suspects have been arrested, but no

conviction has been issued. And only four are accused of homicide, attempted murder and

none for the forced disappearance. Only the remains of a student could be identified. On the

other 42, it has not been possible to determine where they are or what happened to them

(Arce, 2016,). The Normalist Julio César Fuentes Mondragón was found with visible signs of

torture, without eyes and face flayed (Cano, 2014). “They took off his entire face, alive,

torturing him in the most cruel way, because he did not even have a bullet impact, he only

had a lot of blows, on the part of the chest, the waist, the hands" This is a testimony of

Marissa Mendoza, wife of Julio César Mondragón (Arteaga, 2014). His body was not hidden

but exhibited with a single purpose: to show who 'has the power' and thereby instills terror.

Torture is the practice used by Mexican authorities and mafias to demonstrate total power

(Herrera, 2014). The torture and execution of Julio César is a crime against humanity, a crime

of State, which hurts and deeply wounds the hearts of Mexicans.

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And the representatives of the government of Iguala and Guerrero? What do they say

about it? The mayor, José Luis Abarca, also promised justice. Four days after that, the mayor

publicly acknowledged the lack of specific information about what happened, because until

then he did not have contact with any officials related to the investigations. Until then, the

media had been his main source of information, and he declared himself ignorant of what

happened: "Until now I have nothing, because I have not had any contact with the prosecutor

or with any official," he said. (Ocampo, 2014). After giving these statements, José Luis

Abarca disappeared and became a fugitive from the law. There were marches, protests, and

an extensive clamor from the parents of the students and all of Mexico.

The State officials also intervened to try to control the demands of the movement with

different actions. There was an attempt at bribery by the Guerrero government, who offered

100 thousand pesos to the mothers and fathers of the 43 students (Muñoz and Camacho,

2014). The arrest of the mayor of Iguala and his wife, the arrest of a total of 59 involved, the

resignation of the governor of Guerrero and the declarations of apparent solidarity on behalf

of the president of the republic were actions that together unmasked the government’s

organized crime and corruption. During the first investigations, the federal government

announced a link between the state’s government and the municipal police with the criminal

mafia called Guerreros Unidos, an organization of drug traffickers that emerged after the

dismantling of the Beltrán Leyva Cartel. According to versions, the normalists had been

kidnapped by municipal police and transported in vans to a point where they were handed

over to the cartel (Integrantes de Guerreros Unidos Confiesan Ejecución de Normalistas,

2014).

One of the obstacles for a fair and reliable government is corruption. Being a practice

in which some people obtain benefits at the expense of others, inequality arises between

them. The main method to fight corruption in Mexico is demanding an impartial individual to
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rule society, to bring millions of Mexicans to demand that the law and institutions should be

legitimate and reliable to everyday problems and that should promote justice and redistribute

wealth. According to Johnson and his book Privilege, Power and Differences, he illustrates in

chapter eight how it is easier for us to try to suppress the thought of being oppressed and

make ourselves think we are part of the solution. In the reading he states, “But the more

aware we are of all the ways there are to fool ourselves, the easier it is to wake up and make

ourselves part of the solution”(Johnson, 2016). This happens in mexico very often. People

just believe that they are doing their part of the solution by voting, for example, but they

don’t even research the party they are voting for. I have also heard many mexicans, in the

streets or in family reunions, that they complain that a government is some way when they

are actually as corrupt in their own jobs. It is easy to blame others to disguise guilt.

According to Johnson (2006), P.125 Privilege, Power and Differences ¨The challenge

we face is to change patterns of exclusion, rejection, privilege, harassment, discrimination,

and violence that are everywhere in this society and have existed for hundreds (or, in the case

of gender, thousands) of years. In the case of the 43 disappeared Mexican students it is a

deeply sad and heartrending. This group of disappeared students just were angry of all the

injustices and no support of their local city nor the Mexican government. This group of

students wanted to be the voice and speak up for their own town. A group of students that

were furious and annoyed of the impunity and violence against their own community. The

whole town was tired of the intolerance and the abuse of power. Many people killed by the

local cops. As a result, the authority was restless and annoyed because they knew that if the

community manifested would be a chaos, so that is why this slaughter happened. “For several

centuries, capitalism has provided the economic context for privilege and oppression. As

such, it has been and continues to be a powerful force, especially in relation to class, gender,
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and race. Its effects are both direct and indirect. Historically, it was the engine that drove the

development of modern racism” (Johnson, 2006).

As a final point, according to Johnson in his book Privilege, Power and Differences, “A third

choice is to think about the trouble as everyone’s responsibility – everybody’s “hook” – and

nobody’s fault. This is especially useful for members of privileged groups who have a hard

time seeing themselves in relation to privilege without feeling guilty”. Having said this, it is

difficult to believe it, but not impossible to understand it. Which means that even the

privileged people in this case the authority, they know they are wrong and knowing that they

are doing awful activities again their own community over and over. Murders, crimes,

violations, impunity, discrimination, ambition of power among others are the same story in

countries such as Mexico and Latin America. In the case the disappearance of 43 Mexican

students it is obvious and clear that the lack of tolerance and understanding provoked and

trigger this tragedy.

The solution for cases like this and for many others where the impunity and the power

of those supposed to be “privileged” people, is the tolerance, benevolence, affection,

courtesy, insight, perception, kindness, decency, kindliness, understanding, empathy, love,

among others. Even if we do not understand others, acceptance is the key for all situations

where our thoughts, beliefs or values are different from our opposite partner. We are all

unique and specials, that is why we must respect each other.

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References:

Arce, A. (2016, February 09). Retrieved November 21, 2017, from

https://www.nytimes.com/es/2016/02/09/la-verdad-historica-sobre-los-estudiantes-

desaparecidos-en-mexico-sufre-otro-reves/

Cano, Arturo (2014, October 02).Retrieved November 21 2017, from http://www.jornada.

unam.mx/2014/10/02/politica/011n1pol

Herrera Román, Sayuri (2014, November 05). Retrieved from http://www.animalpolitico.com/

blogueros-la-dignidad-en-nuestras-manos/2014/11/05/memoria-verdad-y-justicia-parael-

normalista-julio-cesar-mondragon-fontes/
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Integrantes de Guerreros Unidos confiesan ejecución de normalistas. (2014, November 04).

Retrieved November 21, 2017, from

http://aristeguinoticias.com/0411/mexico/integrantes-de-guerreros-unidos-confiesan-

ejecucion-de-normalistas/

Johnson, A. G. (2016). Privilege, power, and difference. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill Education.

Muñoz, Alma, y Fernando Camacho (2014, November 01). Retrieved from: http://www.

jornada.unam.mx/2014/11/01/politica/003n1pol, 28 de noviembre de 2014

Leal, P., & Pino, L. (2016, September 26). Caso Ayotzinapa. Retrieved November 21, 2017, from

https://www.telesurtv.net/analisis/A-dos-anos-del-caso-Ayotzinapa-Mexico-un-Estado-

complice-20160923-0019.html

Univision (2015, December 01). Cronología del caso Ayotzinapa. Retrieved November 21, 2017,

from http://www.univision.com/noticias/noticias-de-mexico/cronologia-de-la-

desaparicion-de-los-43-estudiantes-de-ayotzinapa