Translated by Sally Seward
The ghost of Lady Macbeth has appeared before Enrique Peña Nieto. For the past four months the extrajudicial killing and the forced disappearance of 43 rural normal school students from Ayotzinapa are following him wherever he goes. And where he does not go, too. In Davos, Switzerland, in the middle of the closing ceremony of the annual party for the lords of the universe, where it was several degrees below zero outside, a crowd that took to the snowy streets held him responsible for the attack against the young people.
Just as it happened to Lady Macbeth with Duncan, in the eyes of many citizens the presidential institution has been stained with blood by the Iguala tragedy. The shadow of suspicion has fallen over his command. Formally favored by the benefits of sleep, since then Peña Nieto has been acting in a way that corresponds to a lack of sleep. The stench that all the perfumes of Arabia cannot hide surrounds his destiny. The stain does not come clean and the shadow does not disappear.
Elevated at the beginning of his six-year term through the work and grace of his team’s public relations and praised by the international media that today have abandoned him, the President followed to the letter the advice from the apparition to Macbeth:
“Be lion-mettled, proud, and take no care/ Who chafes, who frets, or where conspirers are. Macbeth shall never vanquished be until/ Great Birnam Wood to high Dunsinane Hill/ Shall come against him…”
Today, however, he anxiously observes how the Great Birnam Wood, with the parents from the families of the disappeared young people at the front, is walking toward the presidential residence. The tragedy of Macbeth has arrived at Los Pinos [presidential residence].
To try to stop the forest’s march, the federal government wants to close the case in whatever way they can. They are obsessed with closing the case no matter what. On December 4, during his first visit to Guerrero since the tragedy, the president called for “overcoming the pain” left by the Ayotzinapa case and “moving forward.” He has since then, time and again, tried to make people forget the matter. It has, however, all been in vain. The indignation over the tragedy still prevails.
The order of forgetting has not been obeyed for one very simple reason: even though four months have gone by, the 43 students have not appeared. The government has been incapable of finding them. Nor has it been able to come up with a plausible and coherent account of what took place on September 26 and 27 in Iguala.
The family members of the disappeared students do not believe the government version, that their children and relatives were killed by the United Warriors group and that their remains were burned at a landfill in Cocula. After listening to the official explanation of the events at the meeting they had on January 13, the parents told Jesús Murillo Karam, the Attorney General, Miguel Ángel Osorio Chong, the Secretary of Government Relations, and other government officials:
“It’s not true”, “you have them”, “stop trying to trick us.”
Distinguished scientists and human rights defenders have documented a great number of inconsistencies in the official narrative. On January 21, several academics criticized Murillo Karam’s attempt to pronounce the 43 dead, and make conclusions without providing scientific evidence.
According to Amnesty International, the investigations made by the Attorney General’s Office (PGR) have been “limited and insufficient.” The supposed delinquents whose declarations make up the official story reported that they had been tortured. For that reason, Amnesty International insisted that new lines of investigation be opened, including the Army’s probable participation in the violent events. It pointed out that there are many testimonies that say that soldiers were at the place of attack and harassed and detained several students. It warned that the case is also no longer being looked at as a matter of forced disappearance, but as kidnapping and homicide, which blurs the State’s responsibility in the crime.
But, instead of responding to indications like those from the parents, scientists and Amnesty International, the authorities have managed to confront the team of lawyers with the parents, isolate the family members and present them to public opinion as ignorant people manipulated by radical political forces. Playing dirty, they revealed the results about the analysis of the remains carried out at the University of Innsbruck without first informing the parents, violating the agreement signed by President Enrique Peña Nieto on October 29.
The result of this government decision has been disastrous. According to Abel Barrera, director of the Tlachinollan Human Rights Center,
“the possibility to have close, trustworthy dialogue has been lost.”
Since the national channels for dialogue have been closed, today the parents are working to internationalize the conflict. Along with the solidarity tours going to the United States, the next stops on this route are kick-starting the interdisciplinary group on technical cooperation from the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) and having a committee of family members visit the Committee on Enforced Disappearances of the United Nations in Geneva.
The responsibilities of the IACHR group include the creation of plans to find the disappeared people alive, the technical analysis of the lines of investigation to determine criminal liability, and the technical analysis of the plan for comprehensive attention to the victims, in order to guarantee that the necessary comprehensive attention and reparation will be provided.
In the words of Felipe de la Cruz, representing the family members:
“We are going to Geneva to look for justice, we’re going to look for it all over the world, so that this State crime does not go unpunished.”
“make a strong statement to condemn the forced disappearance of the 43 students.”
The ghost of Macbeth has moved to Los Pinos for good. It will stay there as long as there is no justice, truth and reparation for damages for the victims of the Iguala attack. Spanish Original
Luis Hernández Navarro, Mexican journalist, is coordinator of the Opinion section of La Jornada. In the mid-1970’s he was a union organizer. He was a founder of the dissident National Coordinating Committee of Education Workers(CNTE) and an adviser to peasant organizations. He participated in the San Andrés Dialogues between the Mexican government and the Zapatista Army of National Liberation and was Technical Secretary to the Commission for Follow-up and Verification for the Chiapas Peace Accords. Twitter: @lhan55