“We don’t trust the Federal Government, it shows a total ineptitude for us,” said said Felipe de la Cruz Sandoval, a representative for the parents of over 40 children who went missing last fall in I
“We don’t trust the Federal Government, it shows a total ineptitude for us,” said said Felipe de la Cruz Sandoval, a representative for the parents of over 40 children who went missing last fall in Iguala, Mexico, as he spoke to a crowd here in Richmond last week. “It reaffirms the complicity between the Government and organized crime, since, according to the detainee’s testimony, the police massacred the students and delivered them to the criminals.”
On September 26th and 27th of last year, 6 people were murdered, 29 were wounded, and 43 students went missing in small Mexican town.
Little is confirmed, but what is believed so far is 43 male students from the Raul Isidro Burgos Rural Teachers’ College were riding a bus to Iguala to join a protest at an event held by the mayor’s wife, María de los Ángeles Pineda Villa.
Along the way, the bus was stopped by the federal police. The police opened fire on the bus, and the 43 students were taken into police custody. Through official investigations and testimonies, we know that the police gave the 43 students over to a local cartel, Guerreros Unidos. The remains of Alexander Mora, one of the kidnapped students, have been found.
Since that day, the parents of the 43 missing have petitioned the Mexican government and have desperately looked for their children to no avail, despite a signed commitment from the President, Enrique Peña Nieto.
On Friday night, a workshop was held at Sanctuary, a local non-profit, where attendants learned about the events in Mexico ahead of an early April visit from the parents of the missing children.
From April 4-6, the parents will come to speak about their experiences as a part of their ten-city tour, culminating in DC where they will petition the government to stop supporting Mexico’s federal police through funding.
The event was sponsored by many activist organizations in the city, including the Wayside Center for Popular Education, Sanctuary VA, Virginia Southerners On New Ground, Black Action Now, Justice RVA, and Sol of RVA.
The representatives spoke about the disappearances, the current state of US intervention in Latin America, the history of people disappearing in Mexico, and the connection between the violence in Latin America and the situation of immigrants in the U.S..
Finally, they linked the government-ordained disappearances in Mexico to American government-ordained disappearances of people into jails, and how young people in the US are victims of violence by the state as well.
“We ask the people in the United States for their support in our quest to find our children alive, we do not want to spend a Christmas without them,” said Felipe de la Cruz Sandoval, a representative for the parents. “We ask you to write letters to their legislative bodies, and to tell Obama to stop supporting the sale of weapons to Mexico because they are used to kill our children.”
Details about the parents arrival are expected in the coming weeks, we’ll update this story when the info becomes available.
