According to the Mexican government official overseeing a Truth Commission, six of the 43 college students who “disappeared” in 2014 were allegedly kept alive in a warehouse for days before being handed over to the local army commander, who gave the order to kill them.
Alejandro Encinas, the interior undersecretary, made the startling admission during a lengthy defense of the commission’s report that had been released a week earlier. It was done without any fanfare and explicitly linked the military to one of Mexico’s biggest human rights catastrophes.
Encinas made no mention of the six students being handed over to Col. José Rodrguez Pérez last Friday while calling the kidnappings and disappearances a “state crime” and asserting that the army stood by and did nothing.
Encinas claimed on Friday that from the moment the students from the radical teachers’ college in Ayotzinapa left campus until they were taken hostage by local police in the town of Iguala that evening, officials had been keeping a careful eye on them. One of the kidnapped pupils was a soldier who had infiltrated the school, and Encinas claimed the army did not follow its own procedures and attempt to save him.
There is additional information, which is supported by emergency 089 calls, that six of the 43 students who vanished were supposedly held for several days alive in what is known as the “old warehouse” before being handed over to the colonel, according to Encinas. The six students were purportedly alive for up to four days following the events until they were slain and vanished on instructions from the colonel, who was allegedly Col. José Rodrguez Pérez at the time.
When contacted for comment regarding the allegations on Friday, the defense department did not answer right away.
The tension between the families and the government has long been a result of the army’s involvement in the students’ disappearance. There have always been concerns regarding the military’s involvement and knowledge of what transpired. The parents of the students had been requesting access to the Iguala army base for years. They weren’t granted entry until 2019, along with Encinas and the Truth Commission.
According to the commission’s findings, on September 30, 2014, four days after the students were kidnapped; the army received an anonymous phone call. According to the caller, the pupils were detained in a sizable concrete warehouse in a place called “Pueblo Viejo.” The caller continued by outlining the area.
The report’s conclusion read: “As can be seen, obvious collusion existed between agents of the Mexican state and the criminal group Guerreros Unidos that tolerated, allowed, and participated in events of violence and the disappearance of the students, as well as the government’s attempt to conceal the truth about the events.” This entry was followed by several pages of redacted information.
A colonel is mentioned later in a breakdown of how the commission’s report deviates from the findings of the initial investigation.
The report stated that on September 30 “the colonel” mentioned that they would take care of cleaning up everything and that they had already taken the responsibility for the six pupils who had survived.
Capt. José Martnez Crespo, who was stationed at the base at Iguala, stated in a witness testimony given to federal investigators in December 2014 that Col. José Rodriguez Pérez was the base commander for the 27th Infantry Battalion at the time.
The relatives of the 43 missing students marched in Mexico City later on Friday in torrential rain with a few hundred other people, as they have done on every 26th of the month for years.
Rows of current teachers’ college students marched, yelled cries for justice, and counted off to 43 while parents carried posters of their children’s pictures. Their signs stated: “It was the State,” and they urged people to continue the battle for justice.
Clemente Rodriguez marched in support of his son Christian Alfonso Rodrguez Telumbre, a second student who could be recognized by a small piece of charred bone.
According to Rodriguez, the families were informed last week about the colonel and the six kids before the report was made public.
“It is no longer done by omission, the fact that they took part.” Of the military, he remarked. The three levels of government were involved, and it was the state.
Local police removed the students from buses they had seized in Iguala on September 26, 2014. Even after eight years, the police action’s motivation is still unknown. Although pieces of charred bone have been linked to three of the students, their bodies have never been located.
Jesus Murillo Karam, the former attorney general who oversaw the initial inquiry, was taken into custody by federal authorities last week. He will be tried for forced disappearance, failing to disclose torture, and official misconduct, a judge ruled on Wednesday. Murillo Karam allegedly made up a story about what occurred to the kids in order to make the matter seem to be resolved swiftly, according to the prosecution.
Authorities also reported last week that 20 troops and officers, five municipal authorities, 33 local police officers, 11 state police officers, as well as 14 gang members, had had arrest warrants issued. How many of those accused are currently in detention has not been disclosed by the army or the prosecutors.
Also unclear at the time was if Rodrguez Pérez was one of those being sought.
The student’s father, Rodriguez, described Murillo Karam’s arrest as a great development.
Rodrguez claimed that Murillo Karam “was the one who instructed us the soldiers couldn’t be touched.” “And now it’s coming to light that the state was involved,”
The relatives said it was crucial that the Truth Commission confirmed it was a “state crime” after evidence over the years had pointed in that direction.
However, they claimed that the study still did not adequately address their most pressing query.
The statement read, “Mothers and fathers require irrefutable scientific evidence as to the fate of our children.” We cannot return home with only circumstantial evidence of their whereabouts and circumstances of death.
Major responsibilities have been delegated to Mexico’s military by President Andrés Manuel López Obrador. In addition to being at the core of his security plan, the military is also in charge of the seaports and is developing a new airport for the capital and a tourist train on the Yucatan Peninsula.
The army and navy are the least corrupt institutions, and the president frequently expresses his faith in them.
