Ayotzinapa:
Crónica de un crimen de Estado
By The Editors
TRIGGER WARNING: The following article contains information that
some may find disturbing, as it refers explicitly to acts of violence.
on September 26, 2014, over 100 students from the Ayotzinapa Rural Teachers’ College — a nearly century-old school widely known for its long-held socialist ideals and student activism — traveled from Tixtla to Iguala in the Mexican state of Guerrero. The students planned to interrupt a conference led by the mayor’s wife, during which they intended to protest the government’s discriminatory hiring and funding practices, which favored students from urban colleges over those from rural colleges.
Around 9:30 p.m., the students’ busses were intercepted by the Iguala police, reportedly on the mayor’s orders. The details of what followed are unclear, but a chase ensued and police opened fire, sending students fleeing into the surrounding hills. During the melee, three civilians were killed by gunfire, as were two students in one of the busses. A third student, Julio César Mondragón, was found dead the next morning near the scene. His eyes had been gouged out and the skin had been removed from his face.
After the shootout, students were rounded up, forced into police vehicles, and taken into custody by the Iguala police. The students were then handed over to the police in nearby Cocula, after which they were transported to a rural community called Pueblo Viejo, where they were handed over to a criminal organization called Guerreros Unidos.
Currently, 43 students remain missing. Though their whereabouts are unknown, they are thought to have been brutally tortured, murdered, and disposed of by Guerreros Unidos, and the Mexican army is thought to have been directly involved. During the following months, the Governor of Guerrero resigned from office, the mayor of Iguala and his wife were arrested, as were 44 police officers, and Iguala’s police chief remains a fugitive.
This mass kidnapping has exposed the level of collusion between local governments and organized crime in Guerrero, and has brought worldwide attention to the constant distrust and outrage many Mexican citizens feel toward state and federal governments. It has also given us pause to consider that corruption is a global problem, and that citizens who witness and experience injustice at the hands of the state must be recognized, and their voices must be heard.
In his documentary, Ayotzinapa: crónica de un crimen de estado, director Xavier Robles gathers testimony and commentary from a number of witnesses, and two student survivors of the massacre reconstruct the climate of impunity, corruption, and criminality in Guerrero and in the country at large. Our Editor-in-chief, Kayla E., attended a screening of the film earlier this month at Monkeywrench Books, a volunteer-run bookstore and social space in Austin, Texas.
The screening was organized by Ana Maria Fores Tamayo and Andrés Pacheco, who run a non-profit called Adjunct Justice that is dedicated to advocating for adjunct professors, DREAMers, undocumented children and their parents, refugees, migrants, and other low-wage workers. To coordinate your own screening of this film, you can contact Ana Tamayo and Andrés Pacheco, and to make a donation in support of the families of the missing 43, visit Ayotzinapa’s GoFundMe page or click below.
