43 Mexico students missing: Thousands march in protest

[bhaktajan]

2014 Iguala, Mexico mass student kidnapping [From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia]

On September 26, 2014, 43 male students from the Raúl Isidro Burgos Rural Teachers' College of Ayotzinapa went missing in Iguala, Guerrero, Mexico. According to official reports, they commandeered several buses and traveled to Iguala that day to hold a protest against what they considered to be discriminatory hiring and funding practices by the Mexican government. During the journey local police intercepted them and a confrontation ensued. Details of what happened during and after the clash remain unclear, but the official investigation concluded that once the students were in custody, they were handed over to the local Guerreros Unidos ("United Warriors") crime syndicate and presumably killed.

Mexican authorities believe Iguala's mayor, José Luis Abarca Velázquez, and his wife María de los Ángeles Pineda Villa to be the probable masterminds of the abduction. Both of them fled after the incident, along with the town's police chief, Felipe Flores Velásquez. The couple were arrested about a month later in Mexico City. The events also led to attacks on government buildings, and the resignation of the Governor of Guerrero, Ángel Aguirre Rivero, in the face of statewide protests. The mass kidnapping of the students arguably became the biggest political and public security scandal Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto had faced during his administration. It led to nationwide protests, particularly in the state of Guerrero and Mexico City, and international condemnation.

On November 7, 2014, the Mexican Attorney General Jesús Murillo Karam gave a press conference in which he announced that several plastic bags containing human remains, possibly those of the missing students, had been found by a river in Cocula, Guerrero. He said that over 70 suspects had been arrested, including members of Guerreros Unidos who had confessed to killing the students and disposing of their remains. Investigations are underway to identify the remains.

On September 26, 2014, at approximately 9:30 p.m. (CST),[1] more than 100 students from the Raúl Isidro Burgos Rural Teachers College of Ayotzinapa (es) in Tixtla, Guerrero, travelled to Iguala, Guerrero, to hold a protest for what they considered discriminatory hiring and funding practices from the government.[2] The students claimed that the government's funding programs favored urban student-colleges above the rural ones and preferentially hired teachers from inner city areas.[3][4] The students had previously attempted to make their way to Chilpancingo, but state and federal authorities blocked the routes that led to the capital.[5] In Iguala, their plan was to interrupt the annual DIF conference of María de los Ángeles Pineda Villa, local President of the organization and the wife of Iguala mayor José Luis Abarca Velázquez.[6] The purpose of the conference and after-party was to celebrate her public works,[7] and to promote her campaign as the next mayor of Iguala.[8] The student-teachers also had plans to solicit transportation costs to Mexico City for the anniversary march of the 1968 student massacre in Tlatelolco.[9] However, on their way there, the students were intercepted by the Iguala municipal police force, reportedly on orders of the mayor.[10]

The details of what followed during the students' clash with the police vary. According to police reports, the police chased the students because they had hijacked three buses and attempted to drive them off to carry out the protests and then return to their college. Members of the student union, however, stated that they had been protesting and were hitchhiking when they clashed with the police.[11] As the buses sped away and the chase ensued, the police opened fire on the vehicles. Two students were killed in one of the buses, while some fled into the surrounding hills. Roughly three hours later, escaped students returned to the scene to speak with reporters. In a related incident, unidentified gunmen fired at a bus carrying players from a local football team, which they had presumably mistaken for one of the buses hijacked by the student protestors.[11][12] Bullets struck the bus and hit two taxis. The bus driver, a football player, and a woman inside one of the taxis were killed.[13][14] The next morning, the authorities discovered the corpse of a student who had attempted to run away during the gunfire. His eyes had been gouged out and the skin of his face flayed to a bare skull.[15] In total, 6 people were killed and 25 wounded.[16]

After the shootout, eyewitnesses said that students were rounded up and forced into police vehicles.[17] Once in custody, the students were taken to the police station in Iguala and then handed over to the police in Cocula.[18] Cocula deputy police chief César Nava González then ordered his subordinates to transport the students to a rural community known as Pueblo Viejo.[19] At some point, while still alive, the students were handed over by the police to members of the Guerreros Unidos ("United Warriors"), a criminal organization in Guerrero.[20] One of the trucks used to transport the students was owned by Gildardo López Astudillo (alias "El Gil" and/or "El Cabo Gil"), a high-ranking leader of the gang.[19][21] "El Gil" then called Sidronio Casarrubias Salgado, the top leader of Guerreros Unidos, and told him that the people he had in custody posed a threat to the gang's control of the area.[22] Presumably, Guerreros Unidos believed that some students, at least seventeen of them, were infiltrated members of a rival gang known as Los Rojos.[23][24] With that information, Casarrubias allowed his subordinates to kill the students.[25] Investigators believe that a gang member known by his alias "El Chucky" and/or "El Choky" took part in the killings.[26] He was suspected of collaborating with Francisco Salgado Valladares, one of Iguala's security chiefs, in kidnapping the students.[27]

According to investigators, the students were taken to a dump in the outskirts of Cocula.[17] About 15 students died of suffocation by the time they reached the site. The rest of the students were then killed by Patricio Reyes Landa, Jonathan Osorio Gómez and Agustín García Reyes.[28][29] These three suspects then dumped the bodies in a pit, and some other suspects known only by their aliases burned the corpses with diesel, gasoline, tires, wood and plastic.[30] They also destroyed the students' clothing in order to erase all possible evidence. The fire lasted from midnight until 2:00 or 3:00 p.m.; the gang assigned guards throughout the day to make sure that the fire was kept alive. When the fire had gone down, the suspects threw dirt in to cool the pit.

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_Iguala_mass_kidnapping


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Mexico missing students: Thousands march in protest

2 December 2014

Protesters in Mexico clashed with police following a largely peaceful rally in support of 43 students who went missing in September.

The demonstrators expressed their anger over the handling of the case by President Enrique Pena Nieto.

The president's popularity rating has dropped to its lowest point since he took office two years ago.

The students disappeared after clashing with police in the town of Iguala on 26 September.

The case has shocked Mexicans as allegations of police collusion with drug gangs surfaced during the investigation into their disappearance.

In October, Mexico's attorney general ordered the arrest of Iguala Mayor Jose Luis Abarca.

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http://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-30288706

[SGOS]

Horrible.

[doorknob]

wow that's insane.