Encinas submitted a report to the families of the missing youths
Photo: EPA / Ansa Brazil
The Mexican military is responsible for the disappearance of 43 students from Ayotzinapa in 2014, the government’s Truth and Access to Justice Commission said Thursday, April 18.
According to the document, the disappearance and execution of the juveniles was a “crime against the state,” whether by omission, complicity or actions at the time by the military and local and federal politicians. In addition to the disappearances, the report also pointed to the military’s culpability for six other killings.
According to the Excelsior newspaper, after a meeting between the victims’ relatives and the current Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, “Undersecretary of State for Human Rights and President of the Truth Commission, Alejandro Encinas, stated that there had been important progress in the investigation and confirmed the existence of sufficient evidence for the attorney general’s office to prosecute 51 individuals, including 10 federal agents.”
The servers, including the military, were part of thenPresident Enrique Peña Neto’s administration, but the president is not among those being investigated for the crime.
The commission also pointed out that “the state crime was committed by members of the criminal group Guerreros Unidos and agents of various Mexican state institutions.” In addition, they allege that “Federal and state authorities at various levels have worked to alter existing evidence and facts in order to bring the case to a conclusion that differs from the truth of the facts”.
After meeting family members, Encinas said the meeting was “difficult and painful” because, among other things, “it was officially confirmed that there is no indication that the youths are still alive.”
The 43 students from the Isidro Burgos school disappeared between September 26 and 27, 2014 while traveling by bus to the city of Iguala. They wanted to go to the capital, Mexico City, to take part in protests.
To date, the remains of only three young people have been officially confirmed, and according to the commission, the marines tampered with a surveyed area in a garbage dump exactly where the boys’ remains were found. .