On September 26, 2014, news broke that
43 students from Ayotzinapa, Mexico
had disappeared. In the following days,
the Mexican government claimed that
the disappearance of the students was
the result of a local dispute and that the
fault was with the Mayor of Iguala, the
city where the students disappeared. The
Mexican people have not
accepted this version of
events and have shown that
they know where the blame
lies. #fueelestado or “It was
the state” has been broadcast
through social media and on
signs in massive protests
across Mexico and around
the world.
On September 26
th
the
students had stopped in
Iguala on their way to
Mexico City to join a rally,
which was to commemorate
the massacre of protesters
prior to the 1968 Olympics.
As reported by John Gibler,
an independent journalist
and author on Mexican
issues, “Scores of uniformed
municipal police and a handful of masked
men dressed in black shot and killed six
people, wounded more than twenty, and
rounded up and detained forty-three
students in a series of attacks carried out
at multiple points and lasting more than
three hours. At no point did state police,
federal police, or the army intercede. The
forty-three students taken into police
custody are now ‘disappeared.’”
Ayotzinapa: Not only Ayotzinapa
The direction being driven by the
government of Mexico is in increasing
conflict with the people of Mexico. For
decades Mexico has faced the plunder
of its resources, aided by the North
American Free Trade Agreement
(NAFTA) which opened Mexico up
to US and Canadian corporations as
a source of cheap labour and markets.
Foreign mining and oil corporations
have been especially welcomed with
open arms by the government of Mexico.
Concessions to foreign investment have
been increasingly promoted by the ruling
class of Mexico under the leadership of
the current Mexican President Enrique
Peña Nieto. In December of 2012
constitutional reforms were passed to
grant private companies the rights to
oil and gas exploration and exploitation.
This “energy reform” is on the road to the
privatization of Mexico’s state-owned oil
company PEMEX.
What has all this this meant for the people
of Mexico? The economic conditions for
the majority of the Mexican people is
rapidly deteriorating. Poverty not only
exists in Mexico – it is on the rise with
53.5 million Mexicans (almost half the
population) living under
the poverty line as of
2012, half a million more
than 2010 according to
the Mexican Council
for the Evaluation of
Social Development
Policy. The Mexican
people are also facing
increased militarization
of their country, with
the army and police
receiving funding from
the “Merida Initiative”, a
2008 agreement between
Mexico and the US that
has seen over $2.4 billion
from the US funneled into
weaponry and training for
the Mexican army and
police. This has included
training Mexican soldiers
at the U.S. Army’s Western Hemisphere
Institute for Security Cooperation -
formerly the School of the Americas
which has a long history of training the
military forces of some of Latin America’s
most notorious dictators, and even some
of these brutal dictators themselves.
The increased militarization of Mexico
isn’t because Mexico is at war with
another country. While the justification
is that the military is fighting the “War
on Drugs” when the surface is scratched
it is apparent that all levels of government
in Mexico are involved in behind the
scenes dealings with the drug cartels.
The war that is being fought is against
the Mexican people. This
war is being fought when
the Mexican military or
“private security” is brought
in to protect the interests
of foreign companies like
Canada’s Excellon Resources,
which in 2011 had about 300
Mexican army troops, federal
and state police surrounding
their underground silver-
lead-zinc mine in Durango
State. This is a war against
the Mexican people when
anyone who protests against
foreign resource extraction is subject to
threats, assault and even assassination as
was the case for Mariano Abarca, who
was assassinated in 2009 when he was
leading a campaign against Canada’s
Blackfire barite mine in Chiapas.
The 43 students from Ayotzinapa is
not the first number of disappeared or
murdered in Mexico, and not the first
time the state has been implicated. 49
children were burnt to death and 76
were injured in Sonora on June 5, 2009.
22 people were murdered in Tlatlaya on
June 30, 2014. 45 Indigenous people were
murdered in Acteal on December 22,
1997. 17 people were murdered in Aguas
Blancas on June 28, 1995. The horrifying
list goes on, amounting to 100,000
murdered and 25,000 disappeared since
2006 under the justification of the so-
called “War on Drugs”. Numerous mass
graves have been found in Guerrero,
Tamaulipas, Chihuahua and many other
states – each with dozens, even hundreds
of unidentified bodies. Mexico is also
one of the most dangerous places in the
world to be a journalist, according to
the International Press Institute, or to
be a woman. Over 100 journalists have
been murdered in last 10 years. Seven
women are brutally murdered every day
in Mexico. In many
of these cases, the
Mexican state has been
implicated. However,
nationally 80% of
murders in Mexico
remain unsolved.
The Mexican people
have had enough of
the so-called “War
on Drugs” and the
policies of the Mexican
government which are
driving Mexico further
into poverty and selling
off their resources to
foreign plunder at the
expense of the Mexican
people and the environment. Grassroots
movements across Mexico are organizing
against the exploitative policies of the
Mexican government. Where a foreign
mining corporation sets up shop, it is
sure to face the organization of people
against it. Especially in the state of
Guerrero, home of the 43 Ayotzinapa
students, for decades communities have
been organizing their own social services,
means of communication and security.
The Normal Rural Raúl Isidro Burgos
teachers college where the 43 students
were from is part of this community
organization outside of the jurisdiction
of the Mexican state. The college is
part of a network of schools with the
purpose of serving the poor and illiterate
peasant population of the country, along
progressive and anti-capitalist ideas.
“Ayotzinapa Estamos Contigo!
Ayotzinapa We Are With You!”
The case of the 43 disappeared students
has ignited protests and organizing,
mainly led by youth and students,
throughout Mexico and around
the world. #yamecanse or
“Enough, I’m tired” has sprung
up to express the sentiments
of Mexican people who do not
want to see the violence against
their people continued under the
corrupt hands of the Mexican
state. In Ayotzinapa itself the
parents of the disappeared
students and the surviving
students have continued
organizing, searching themselves
for the disappeared students and
demanding “they took them alive, we
want them alive.” This is to mean, they
will not accept that the 43 students will
be yet another unsolved crime. Exactly
what has happened to the students
must be exposed, and the government of
Mexico must be held accountable.
In Vancouver and around the world,
committees are working to spread
awareness about the 43 Ayotzinapa
students. While organizers in Mexico
face the dangers of further repression, the
Mexican government has less freedom
to move against protesters while the
support of people internationally is on
this case. The parents of the 43 students
and the student movement in Ayotzinapa
are asking supporters around the world
to join protests wherever they are to
keep the pressure up on the Mexican
government to not let this case become
another “unsolved case”. They have also
asked that international supporters help
the organizing efforts within Ayotzinapa,
with the campaign to fundraise for
radio transmitters to increase
the reach of the radio station
in Ayotzinapa and to setup
a community
radio
station in San Luis Acatlan. In Vancouver
this campaign has been organized by
Vancouver Solidarity with Ayotzinapa,
who have been organizing events and
working to promote the case of the 43
disappeared students to the broader
public in Vancouver and beyond. This has
been in conjunction with the movement
“Global Action for Ayotzinapa” which
has been coordinating actions around the
world. www.ustired2.com
Throughout Mexico and around the world
the case of the 43 disappeared students
has become about much more than the
43. The movement that has grown around
this case has voiced the demands of the
Mexican people against the exploitative
and repressive policies
of the Mexican government that have amounted to
cases like the 43 disappeared students
becoming a commonplace occurrence.
The people of Mexico and supporters
around the world will keep organizing
and mobilizing for their demands of
justice for the 43 students, for an end to
US government support of the Mexican
government, military and police, and for
an end to the government of Mexico’s
war on the people of Mexico.
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