AMLO passes unresolved Ayotzinapa case onto president-elect Claudia Sheinbaum
Hours after the election that confirmed Claudia Sheinbaum as his successor, the head of state committed to be the parents’ contact person with the incoming administration to continue following upon the case.
MEXICO CITY. — It took nine months, three protest camps and one demolished door of the National Palace for the parents of the 43 disappeared students from the Ayotzinapa teacher’s college to meet with president Andres Manuel López Obrador on June 3.
Hours after the election that confirmed Claudia Sheinbaum as his successor, the head of state committed to be the parents’ contact person with the incoming administration to continue following upon the case that, in addition to representing an unfulfilled campaign promise of AMLO’s, is an outstanding debt in the presidential transition to the so-called “second floor of the fourth transformation.”
The Committee of Fathers and Mothers reiterated that their movement is separate from any party and political interests. They restated their most urgent demands: the presentation of documents in the hands of the army and the extradition of officials involved in the case who remain on the lam.
The meeting, which lasted around three hours, was attended by defense secretary Luis Crescencio Sandoval and secretary of state Luisa María Alcalde. Foreign secretary Alicia Bárcena also took part, as well as Yuriria Rodríguez, head of the Executive Commission for Attention to Victims (CEAV), and Teresa Reyes, head of the National Search Commission (CEAV).
Rosendo Gómez Piedra, president of the Ayotzinapa Case Commission for Truth and Access to Justice (COVAJ), and Arturo Medina, undersecretary for human rights, population and migration, were also present.
Another group of parents, led by the parents’ former spokesperson Felipe de la Cruz, also attended. The group is not part of the Committee and has been accused of using the young men’s disappearance for political and economic benefit. On other occasions, the simultaneous meetings with both groups have caused disagreement between the parents and authorities.
After the meeting, during a protest of teachers in solidarity with Ayotzinapa, Vidulfo Rosales, the Committee’s lawyer, spoke to the press.
“To our judgment, no advances have been shown,” he said, regarding the information they received about the searches carried out to date. He added that none of the students have been identified.
Also without advances are the two extradition processes that the parents request. One is that of Tomás Zerón de Lucio, who during the government of Enrique Peña Nieto served as director of the Criminal Investigation Agency. He is considered one of the main operators behind the so-called “historic truth,” the Peña Nieto administration’s now-debunked version of the events in Iguala on September 26, 2014. Zerón is currently in Israel, where he walks free despite facing legal processes for torture, forced disappearance and coercion of public servants, as Mexico does not have an extradition treaty with the Zionist state.
The other pending extradition is that of José Ulises Bernabé García, the judge at the municipal jail in Iguala the night the students were disappeared. That night, Bernabé ordered for 17 of the men to be transferred from the jail. In February 2020, an Arizona court gave him political asylum in the United States. The president, according to Vidulfo, affirmed that the asylum decision was made based solely on a testimony from the journalist Anabel Hernandez, despite an INTERPOL red notice for the accused.
The president’s hostility towards the human rights organizations that form the Committee’s legal defense also came up in the meeting. López Obrador directly accused Vidulfo Rosales, the lawyer noted: “I was blamed for knocking down the door of the presidential palace and agitating for a boycott of Claudia Sheinbaum’s campaign, without the president giving us the opportunity to respond to the accusations during the discussion.”
Having committed to monthly meetings with the parents until the end of his term, the last of which the new president will attend, Andrés Manuel stood up from the table and left the meeting.
Editing by Eliana Gilet. Translation by Madeleine Wattenbarger.
Originally published by Ojos de Perro vs la Impunidad A.C.
