Bolivian President Evo Morales asked the Mexican government on November 10 to clarify the case of the 43 students of the Ayotzinapa teachers college. The students were forcibly disappeared in September after an attack by local police, in which six people were also killed.
“I wish to express our solidarity with the families of the 43 students,” Morales said during a press conference. “We regret what has happened in Mexico.”
The recently re-elected Bolivian leader deplored the violence that has hit student-teacher schools, sending his support to Ayotzinapa's rural educational institution.
The forced disappearance of the 43 students has plunged Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto’s administration into its most serious crisis. Pena Nieto is under fire for not canceling a tour of Asia, in order to deal with the situation.
Civil unrest has worsened since the attorney general's revelation last week that the students had been murdered by drug traffickers after being turned over to them by police.
Classmates and family members of the missing students emphasise that the only evidence for reaching such a drastic conclusion is the word of two gang members, and are demanding the search for the students continues.
A special commission, led by Mexico’s House of Representatives, confirmed that the enforced disappearance occurred last September 26. the students were allegedly arrested by members of the local police before being turned over to the organised crime group known as the United Warriors, or Guerreros Unidos.
The committee’s preliminary report also confirms that in the September 26 police attack, the students suffered human rights violations including torture; cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment; and extrajudicial executions.
During the search for the disappeared youth, at least nine mass graves have been discovered containing bodies of people presumably killed by organised crime groups in operationin Mexico.
[Reprinte from TeleSUR English. You can add your name to a petition is calling for Australian foreign minsiter Julie Biship to refuse to meet with Pena Nieto as a result of the crisis.]
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