Mexico’s recent student tragedy deserves more attention on campus
As a USC student and a Mexican-American citizen, I feel compelled to share with the Daily Trojan the recent events that have been occurring in the last couple of months in our neighboring country of Mexico.
On Sept. 26, a group of more than 100 students working on their degrees to become teachers went to the city of Iguala, Guerrero to fundraise money for the Ayotzinapa Normal School. That same night, 43 of those students were kidnapped and never seen again after a confrontation with the police. Julio Cesar Mondragon was the only student found the following morning lying on the streets with his face entirely mutilated, a gruesome crime common among the drug cartels.
Thanks to the various protests where the main slogan has been, “You took them alive; we want them back alive,” the government of Mexico saw itself pressured to give its citizens answers. In the search for the students’ bodies, the state of Guerrero has arrested its mayor for his alleged contribution in commanding the attack, as well as police officers who were present during the incident. The forensic police on their part has searched the forests of Guerrero and found 12 clandestine burial sites in total with multiple dead bodies as of Oct. 28, but none of them matching the DNA of the students.
This past Friday, Nov. 7, the Mexican Attorney General Murillo Karam gave a press conference where he confirmed, without any physical evidence, the torture and murder of the missing students by the local police and the drug cartel, Guerreros Unidos (United Warriors). According to the statements of three of the arrested suspects, the students were burned alive in a remote town the same night of their disappearance. The remains will now be sent to the laboratories of the University of Innsbruck to determine their identities. The parents of the students fear that this might be a way to stop any further investigation and demand a credible response. To them and every Mexican citizen, their children are still alive.
The indignation of the Mexican population comes as no surprise. This is a reminiscent crime to the Tlatelolco Massacre on Oct. 2, 1968, where the government in Mexico City commanded the police to persecute and incarcerate high school and university students who where protesting against the policies of the then president Gustavo Díaz Ordaz, leading to more than 100 injuries and deaths.
Once again, the government has chosen to sacrifice its youth.
After the controversial disappearance of the 43 students, the truth has emerged bit by bit. Every day new questions arise that leave the Mexican government exposed. Who ordered the police to arrest the students? What is the relationship between the state and the drug cartels? And, why did it take the government more than 40 days to give its citizens a formal response? Perhaps we will never know what truly happened to the students. What is certain is that they were young students like my classmates and myself who hoped to achieve a better life. They were future educators like my professors who understood the power of knowledge. They were, after all, human beings exercising their freedom of speech.
Since the night of the abduction, students from all over the world in countries including the United States, England, France, Australia and India have not ceased to show their support and solidarity through public forums, marches, YouTube videos and blog posts. Whether it is a passerby or someone on the other side of the screen, what is important is that everyone is becoming aware of the gravity of the events occurring in Mexico.
I invite the Daily Trojan not to be left behind and share this misfortune with the rest of the USC community. It might be easy to think that one does not hold the power to intervene in social and political crises of this magnitude, but I believe this is not true. We must claim our right to be respected and to be heard. Silence would only perpetuate a world of crime and corruption — a world in which the Mexican youth live.
Nahui Garcia
Junior, art history major
Nahui Ollin.
Hoy saludo tu escrito que publicaste en Daily Trojan y desde los sentimientos mas dolorosos y las heridas aun no cicatrizadas de aquel 2 de octubre de 1968 donde jóvenes estudiantes fueron masacrados. Te digo lo siguiente:
Que jóvenes que tienen pensamientos de libertad y justicia social como los tuyos se hacen necesarios en estos momentos de infinito dolor para los jóvenes mexicanos, para el pueblo de México y para el corazón destrozado de los padres de familia por no saber el paradero de sus hijos.
Ayotzinapa es la cara de la barbarie de un gobierno que no respeta la vida humana, un gobierno que comete crimen de estado y el cual su común denominador es la simulación ante el mundo entero y apoyados por algunos medios de comunicación y por los poderosos que tienen en sus manos el control del gobierno y el poder económico.
Nahui recuerda que la historia tiende a repetirse y cuando un pueblo se cansa de un gobierno injusto no hay balas que lo detengan ni cárcel ni torturas que no soporte por obtener la libertad que se le ha quitado.
¡Salud Nahui! Aquí estamos no nos rendimos estamos de pie esperando la llegada de los 43 que vivos se llevaron y vivos los queremos.
Recuerda que como mexicanos decimos ¡Que solo el pueblo unido puede salvar al pueblo!.
Profa. Ma. A. Estrella Del Valle Carrión
Oppressive governments throughout history have suppressed protests in this manner and even today, we see this same behavior repeat itself in various regimes around the world. The perpetrators of this crime in Mexico made examples of those students to show their fellow citizens what would happen if more protests take place in the region. Disgusting!
This should be a wake-up call for the USA. We often take our liberty and rights for granted when we should not. We have a second amendment to the Constitution (right to bear arms) that, by no coincidence, follows the first amendment (freedom of speech and the right of the people to peaceably assemble, etc). The second guarantees the first. Our forefathers knew how oppressive governments could be and we, as good citizens, must exercise these rights or risk losing them altogether.