Mexico Runs Away From the Truth

New York Times: In December 2014, President Enrique Peña Nieto of Mexico traveled to the state of Guerrero, where months earlier 43 college students who were headed to a protest in Mexico City had vanished under murky circumstances and were presumed to have been massacred.

“Let’s overcome this phase and take a step forward,” Mr. Peña Nieto said then. He must have been deluded in thinking that he could turn the page on a human rights atrocity that outraged the nation when the government had no answers about who committed the crime and why. Read more.

Activists Rally for Dad of One of Mexico's '43' in NYC Half Marathon

NBC News: Times Square is often referred to as the "crossroads of the world," attracting over 300,000 pedestrians each day. On Sunday, March 20, activists from Mexico and the United States will come together in the heart of Manhattan to support a father running the NYC Half Marathon to demand answers and the return of his son and 42 other missing students.

"I wish I didn't have to call attention to myself in the half marathon," said Antonio Tizapa, father of Jorge Antonio Tizapa Legideño—one of 43 students whose forced disappearance 18 months ago sparked international outrage and protests. "I am not an activist, I wish I were completely anonymous. But for my son I will do everything that has to be done." Read more. 

After student disappearances, Mexico city tries to turn page

AP: The previous elected mayor is in jail, and the new one wants to "turn the page" on the ugliest chapter in the history of this southern Mexican city.

Fifteen months ago, when 43 rural college students disappeared at the hands of local police and cartel thugs, Iguala became the symbol of Mexico's narco-brutality. Now, federal police are in charge of security, the ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party controls city hall — and Mayor Esteban Albarran Mendoza wants to move forward. Read more.

Parents of missing students end Mexico City protest camp

Washington Post: Parents of 43 students who disappeared in southern Mexico at the hands of police and a drug gang have lifted a protest camp in the capital.

They call it a show of faith in a new investigation after victims’ relatives, international experts and human rights advocates cast doubt on a previous probe. Read more.

Doctors from Cuba and Costa Rica Examine Comatose Mexican Student

Latin American Herald Tribune: Two foreign neurologists have examined Aldo Gutierrez, an education student who has been in a coma since he and several classmates were shot in Iguala, a city in the southern Mexican state of Guerrero, in September 2014, the Executive Commission for Assisting Victims, or CEAV, said Tuesday.

Calixto Machado, of the Cuban Neurology and Neurosurgery Institute, and Costa Rican neurologist Mauricio Chinchilla examined the comatose student last Friday, the CEAV said. Read more.

Parents of 43 Missing Mexican Students Question 2nd Positive ID of Remains

Latin American Herald Tribune: The spokesman for the parents of 43 trainee teachers who went missing nearly a year ago in southern Mexico on Thursday called into question the latest positive identification of human remains by a laboratory in Austria, saying there is insufficient “certainty” that they are those of one of the students.

The extent of the genetic match between one of the burned samples that Mexican authorities say was found in a trash dump and the DNA of teacher trainee Jhosivani Guerrero de la Cruz’s mother is “very low,” said the spokesman, Felipe de la Cruz. Read more.

Ayotzinapa Evidence Goes Missing

Frontera NorteSur: Editor’s Note: Frontera NorteSur still has a few more stories to go before ceasing publication. In today’s story, we report news that crucial evidence in the mass disappearance of the Ayotzinapa college students in Mexico last year was lost, hidden or destroyed.

Reminiscent of the Ciudad Juarez women’s murders and disappearances, evidence related to a bloody police attack on Mexican college students has been lost, destroyed or withheld from relatives.

The revelations were made by the Interdisciplinary Group of Independent Experts (GIEI) reviewing the killings of six people and the mass kidnappings of 43 students of the Ayotzinapa rural teachers’ college in Iguala, Guerrero, at the hands of local police and alleged drug cartel gunmen last September 26 and 27.

Activist in search for missing students killed in Mexico

AP: Miguel Angel Jimenez, a political activist who played a prominent early role in the search for 43 students and other missing people in southern Mexico, was slain over the weekend, an associate said Monday.

The bullet-ridden body of Jimenez, a member of the Union of Towns and Organizations, or UPOEG for its initials in Spanish, was found in a car near a town where he had helped found a community police program. Read more. 

The Mexican morass

Note: This editorial by The Economist has caused waves in Mexico. It's a very strong condemnation of the Peña Nieto administration, combining the deteriorating security situation, especially the case of Ayotzinapa, and the corruption scandals  of conflict of interest. Here in Mexico, Peña nieto gained few points with his commitment to be investigated by a hand-picked investigator.

The Economist: In a new year message Mexico’s president, Enrique Peña Nieto, promised to work to “liberate” his country from crime, corruption and impunity. His cabinet has duly set these as its priorities. The message is the right one. But unfortunately for Mr Peña, Mexicans are increasingly cynical about the messenger.

Mexico is still seething over the government’s leaden response to the kidnap in September of 43 students by municipal police in the south-western state of Guerrero and their apparent murder by drug traffickers. The investigation of the case seems to have stalled. Mr Peña’s main policy response to the massacre is a proposed constitutional amendment to abolish municipal police forces. But Congress may not approve it, not least because some are less rotten than the state forces, which would take their place. Read more. 

Commission: Mexico has 'serious problem' with disappearances

AP:  Mexico has a "serious problem" with disappearances and lacks a comprehensive national list of the missing to effectively deal with the problem, according to a report the country's National Human Rights Commission will present Monday to the U.N.

Commission chairman Luis Raul Gonzalez Perez will ask the United Nations Committee On Enforced Disappearances in Geneva to make several recommendations to Mexico's government on the issue, said the document, which The Associated Press was allowed to see. Read more.

Mexico Tortured Police For Confessions In 43 Students Case: Report

Huffington Post: An investigative report published Sunday by the Mexican magazine Proceso accuses Mexican authorities of beating and torturing municipal police officers in an effort to force confessions in the case of the missing 43 students whose disappearances have led to mass protests across the country.

Based on documents obtained from Mexico’s office of the attorney general and interviews with the police officers’ families, the article, by journalists Anabel Hernández and Steve Fisher, casts doubts on the state's official explanation for what happened to the missing students, and suggests that the use of torture may have compromised the prosecution. Read more. 

Mexico’s Pena Nieto Bought Home From Government Contractor: WSJ

NOTE: The Wall Street Journal digs up another Peña Nieto conflict of interest case, concerning another residence linked to a favored contractor. This makes four now that are in some way under investigation, including Videgaray's. In Mexico we know that these cases are almost certainly a very small part of the corruption (remember that his mentor, Carlos Salinas de Gotari managed a $1,350 million- pesos discretionary fund and his brother Raúl bought 41 properties as a government employee in his brother's adminisitration. Here is a good summary of the accusations).

I find it interesting that the Wall Street Journal is doing this kind of investigative reporting in Mexico. Several weeks ago I spoke with Rubén Luengas of the excellent Univisión radio show "Hablando Claro" about this. It seems that there is a powerful part of the U.S. international business class that would like to see Peña Nieto out of the way during the implementation of the reforms that he got passed in the country. The WSJ, Bloomberg (below), Forbes and others have been openly picking up the Ayotzinapa movement's calls for Peñá's resignation. That's some strange bedfellows that can't help but make one wonder what is afoot. It's possible that transnational companies are afraid that the traditional and ever more evident corruption of the PRI is bad for business. 

They seem to take the implicit position that corruption is fine when applied to the Mexican people through vote-buying and election-rigging. And it's fine when major companies like Walmart use bribes as a business lubricant. But the possibility that the government will syphon off some of the potential earnings of the long-awaited exploitation of Mexico's natural resource is more than they can handle. 

Bloomberg: Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto in 2005 bought a property from a developer whose construction firm went on to win almost $150 million in public works contracts during his time in public office, the Wall Street Journal reported.


Pena Nieto, 48, bought the weekend home in an exclusive golf club in Ixtapan de la Sal, a resort town in the State of Mexico, from Roberto San Roman weeks after taking office, the newspaper reported, citing documents. A company San Roman started then won $107 million in business from the state when Pena Nieto was governor from 2005 to 2011, the Journal said. Read more. 

More mass graves found in Mexico’s state of Guerrero

NOTE: This explanatory video actually describes more the night of the Ayotzinapa attacks than the recent discovery of more bodies. It incorporates the information provided by the Hernández/Fisher report. Remember that there is still no physical evidence of the delivery of the bodies to Guerreros Unidos. Not that it didn't happen, just to be sure to continue to separate what is known from what is speculated. There are confessions from members of the cartel but several of these were obtained under torture according to complaints filed and the word of the arrested cartel members should be considered as suspect until confirmed by outside sources. LC

Watch Reuters video

21 injured in clashes with police in Mexican state

AP:  Clashes between federal police and protesters organizing a concert in solidarity with 43 missing college students left at least 21 people injured and several cars in flames Sunday in the southern state of Guerrero.

A police official told The Associated Press that eight officers were injured, including five who were run over by a vehicle. Three others were beaten by protesting teachers, leaving one officer with "severe brain damage." The official was not authorized to talk to the press and spoke on condition of anonymity. Read more.

Damning Report Claims Mexican Federal Police Participated In Disappearance Of 43 Students

Huff Post Latino Voices: Mexico's federal police collaborated with local forces in the September attack on 43 students whose disappearance and presumed killings have led to mass protests in the country, according to an investigative report published Sunday in the Mexican magazine Proceso.

Federal authorities also likely tortured key witnesses who offered critical testimony for an investigation by the Mexican attorney general's office into the disappearances, the lead reporter for the Proceso story told The Huffington Post. Read more.

In 2014, missing students buried 'Mexico's Moment'

AFP: Mexico finally seemed poised to write the drug war's final chapter this year -- the world's most wanted cartel kingpin was captured, homicides fell and the world hailed economic reforms.

"Everything was working like clockwork. Everything was in place. It will no longer be like this," Lorenzo Meyer, one of Mexico's most prominent historians, told AFP. But the apparent massacre of dozens of students buried "Mexico's Moment," sparking nationwide protests and triggering the biggest crisis of President Enrique Pena Nieto's two-year-old administration. Read more.

Families of Missing Students Claim Harassment by Mexican Authorities

Latin American Herald Tribune: Families of the 43 students who went missing more than two months ago in southern Mexico have claimed the government is harassing organizations supporting them in their quest for justice.

At a press conference Thursday, the families blamed the authorities for this week’s attempted kidnapping and beating of a student who was also threatened for taking part in protests demanding that the missing students be returned alive. Read more. 

A Growing Political Insurgency due to Deaths and Disappearances in Mexico

Frontera NorteSur: In a little more than two months, the movement for justice for the murdered and disappeared students of the Ayotzinapa rural teaching college in Mexico has transformed from protest into a growing political insurgency.

In some regions of Guerrero state, where the students were attacked by police last September 26, the residents are forming citizen assemblies with an eye toward replacing local administrations they accuse of corruption and collusion with organized crime. while, in turn, laying the groundwork for new forms of governance without the country’s political parties. Read more. 

Mexico's Civic Insurgency

Frontera NorteSur: Editor’s Note: Our continuing coverage of the crisis in Mexico sparked by the government killings and disappearances of students and civilians in Iguala, Guerrero, last September.

In a little more than two months, the movement for justice for the murdered and disappeared students of the Ayotizinapa rural teaching college in Mexico has transformed from protest into a growing political insurgency.

In some regions of Guerrero state, where the students were attacked by police last September 26, the residents are forming citizen assemblies with an eye toward replacing local administrations they accuse of corruption and collusion with organized crime while, in turn, laying the groundwork for new forms of governance without the country’s political parties.

Mexico says evidence proves missing students were burned up

Reuters: "This scientific proof confirms that the remains found at the scene coincide with the evidence of the investigation," Murillo said. "We will continue with the probe until all the guilty have been arrested."Attorney General Jesus Murillo told reporters that one of the students had been identified by experts in Austria from a bone fragment in a bag of ash and bits of burned tire found in a river where drug gang members said they tossed the students remains.

President Enrique Pena Nieto is facing his deepest crisis over his government's handling of the probe. The case laid bare Mexico's deep problem of impunity and corruption and it has overshadowed Pena Nieto's efforts to focus on economic reforms.  Read more.