Ayotzinapa: Edging closer to justice?
The Ayotzinapa massacre marked its eighth anniversary on 26 September. This came amid signs of progress in the case, following the release of a report by the Ayotzinapa truth and justice commission (Covaj) on 18 August which shed more light on the incident and prompted some high-profile arrests. This suggests that relatives of the 43 students who disappeared that fateful day may be one step closer to the truth and justice that has long evaded them. However, convictions must be made, and more information obtained if truth and justice are truly to be reached.
Students from the Raúl Isidro Burgos teacher-training college in the rural town of Ayotzinapa were travelling in buses to a protest in Mexico City (CDMX) on 26 September 2014 when they were stopped by municipal police in Iguala city, Guerrero. The students had commandeered the buses, a common and typically tolerated practice of students from rural teaching colleges, which have a long history of social protest. However, on this occasion, officers pursued and opened fire on the buses. In the chaos that ensued, five people were killed and 43 students were simply never seen again. The incident, which took place under the administration of Enrique Peña Nieto (2012-2018) is viewed as one of Mexico’s most notorious cases of human rights abuses and emblematic of the wider enforced disappearance crisis facing the country. It has also revealed the links that exist between the authorities and organised criminal groups, with high-level officials implicated in the incident and its cover up.
This was one of the main focuses of Covaj’s report, which declared the incident a State-sponsored crime. The commission, which President Andrés Manuel López Obrador set up days after taking office in December 2018, found that municipal police officers and other government agents had colluded with local drug trafficking organisation (DTO) Guerreros Unidos, who are believed to have killed and disappeared the students. Covaj also accused those at the very top of federal and state authorities of being complicit in mishandling the investigation into the case and deliberately covering up crimes. The report roundly rejected the so-called ‘historical truth’ narrative, a version of events pushed by officials at the time which sought to limit responsibility for the crimes to criminal groups and local authorities, absolving higher level officials – and the armed forces - from blame.
The army’s involvement in the incident was another main takeaway from the report. The report indicates that the commander for the 27th Infantry Battalion in Iguala at the time of the incident, José Rodríguez Pérez, had directly ordered the killing of six of the 43 students, who had been kept alive for various days after the abduction. On 15 September, deputy public security minister Ricardo Mejía Berdeja announced that Rodríguez had been arrested, along with two other members of the armed forces. Mejía said a further arrest warrant had been issued against a military official, although this was yet to be executed.
This follows another high-profile arrest in the case. On 19 August - the day after the release of Covaj’s report - Mexican authorities arrested former attorney general Jesús Murillo Karam (2012-2015) for alleged crimes committed during the investigation into the Ayotzinapa massacre. On 24 August, a judge accepted charges against Murillo for torture, forced disappearance and obstruction of justice and ruled he remain in preventive detention until his trial. A further 83 arrest warrants have been issued against military personnel, members of Guerrero state’s administrative and judicial authorities, municipal and state police officers and Guerreros Unidos members.
These events are good news for President López Obrador, who took office pledging to get to the bottom of the case and tackle the phenomenon of enforced disappearances more widely. It also bolsters claims that his government is committed to rooting out the corruption and impunity that plagued the administrations of his predecessors. However, this is only the beginning. High-profile arrests have been made in the case before but, crucially, no convictions have been handed down, with cases falling apart in court due to a lack of evidence. More arrests must be made, and new testimony obtained from detainees to ensure progress continues and judicial rulings are reached.
It also remains unclear what exactly happened that night. Covaj’s report offers three different theories as to why the students fell victim to such a terrible crime. One theory is that the Guerreros Unidos identified someone among the group that they believed had a possible link with a rival group. Another is that the DTO mistook the students for a rival group trying to take their territory, and the final theory is that one of the commandeered buses contained illicit merchandise belonging to the Guerreros Unidos.
- GIEI
The theory that the students mistakenly commandeered a bus containing illicit merchandise is the explanation favoured by an inter-disciplinary group of independent experts (GIEI) which was established by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) in 2014 to investigate the case. The GIEI’s own report cited documents from a 2014 case before a US court which identified Iguala as a hub from which Guerreros Unidos – in collusion with local authorities - trafficked drugs to Chicago, often hiding the drugs in secret panels inside public buses. The GIEI concluded that the students had unwittingly commandeered one such drug-laden bus. The inter-disciplinary group has welcomed Covaj’s work, although requesting access to the evidence used in its report to undertake independent analysis and draw its own conclusions.
Furthermore, although members of the armed forces have now been accused of active participation in the students’ disappearance, and some of its members arrested, the army continues to take pride of place in López Obrador’s political project. Indeed, the army is set to have a more permanent place in domestic law enforcement following the approval of several legal reforms in September. International rights organisations continue to warn López Obrador of the risk that the militarisation of public security poses to human rights. Indeed, removing the military from public security operations was a major recommendation of the United Nations (UN) Committee on Enforced Disappearances (CED), which visited Mexico in November 2021 and highlighted the frequent involvement of the armed forces in cases of alleged human rights violations.
Finally, the Ayotzinapa students are among tens of thousands of other disappeared in Mexico. The issues plaguing this case such as the forensic failures – the remains of only three of the students have been identified – and the inability to provide justice for their killings, reflect those of many, many others [SSR-22-01]. As of 20 September, 105,701 people had been disappeared since records began in 1964 according to Mexico’s national register of disappeared persons. Although the recent progress in the Ayotzinapa case should be celebrated, it would be remiss to imagine that it will guarantee access to truth and justice that the relatives of the students, and of all of Mexico’s other disappeared, deserve.
Militarising public security
On 9 September, Mexico’s senate passed a reform initiative to bring the national guard (GN) – the main federal law enforcement agency charged with public security operations – under the operative and administrative control of the defence ministry (Sedena), which is run by military officers. The GN previously sat under the civilian-led public security ministry (SSPC).
President Andrés Manuel López Obrador was careful to ensure the reform initiative passed, proposing a series of legal reforms – which only require a simple majority to pass – rather than attempting to amend the constitution. The ruling Movimiento Regeneración Nacional (Morena) party and its allies have a simple majority in both chambers of congress but lack the two-thirds majority needed to pass constitutional reforms.
Human rights organisations and members of the political opposition argue that giving Sedena greater control over the GN constitutes a complete militarisation of Mexico’s public security operations, posing a threat to human rights and violating the constitution, which states the GN must be “civilian in character” and form part of the SSPC. Others point to the failure of past militarised security strategies to contain violence in Mexico, such as that initiated by former president Felipe Calderón in 2006, which caused violent crime rates to skyrocket.
The Office of the United Nations (UN) High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), Inter-American Court of Human Rights (Corte-IDH) and Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR), and rights groups Amnesty International (AI) and Human Rights Watch (HRW) were among those to condemn the senate’s decision.
López Obrador denies the move is about militarisation, stating it seeks to strengthen the GN, which he says outnumbers state police personnel in 19 of the country’s 32 states, and combat insecurity.
Tomás Zerón
The Mexican government has made renewed calls on Israel to extradite Tomás Zerón, who was head of the attorney general’s office criminal investigations’ unit (AIC) at the time of the Ayotzinapa students’ disappearance. Zerón, along with Murillo, is viewed as a main instigator of the historical truth narrative and has been accused of withholding information on the case and potentially tampering with evidence.