With only one body identified, nearly 100 suspects arrested and hope for a safe return all but gone, the chances of serving justice for the students missing from Iguala, Mexico, is looking bleaker every day.
In late September 2014, police and other gunmen shot protesting students from Ayotzinapa teacher training college, resulting in six dead and 17 injured. Fifty-eight students managed to escape, but those 43 who have not returned in the past 3 ½ months are suspected to be dead.
Sadly, the lack of bodies isn’t the most shocking part of the tale. Officials said Iguala police, in cooperation with the city’s Mayor José Luis Abarca, rounded up the students and handed them off to a Guerreros Unidos gang member who killed them, burned their bodies at a nearby dump and disposed of the charred remains in a river.
Last Tuesday, the head of the criminal-investigations unit of the attorney general’s office said all lines of investigation are exhausted. Despite this, family members of the missing students and other activists continue to call for more investigations, recently demanding access to a nearby army base to see whether it houses a crematorium.
Protests, both violent and peaceful, have erupted across Mexico as a response. Teachers and masked individuals stormed and set fire to the Guerrero statehouse on more than one occasion. Later, tens of thousands marched in Mexico City.
When I first heard the official narrative involves the government contracting hitmen to murder students, it made me wonder if it was possible for Mexican government officials to harm their reputation any further. And if the government isn’t covering up something this corrupt, then what are they covering up?
It turns out there may be answers to these questions. Two scientists, a physicist and a materials scientist, called the government’s story on the burnt bodies into question in a paper published about a month ago. They said the alleged funeral pyre would have been too large for the location and needed thousands of gallons of diesel, which suggests a much grander cover up.
Unfortunately, the systemic government corruption that lead to this atrocity is widespread throughout Mexico.
Transparency International’s Corruption Perception Index ranks public perception of corruption in every country. Their 2014 report ranks Mexico in the bottom half of the world and the bottom third of the Americas for governmental corruption.
The situation in Mexico is so surreal it might be hard for University students to find a common thread. Imagine if GeauxTeach hijacked a few city buses to protest Louisiana native-favored biases in teacher hiring. Then, imagine if Baton Rouge Police Department and the FBI intercepted them on I-10, shot up the buses and burnt their bodies in a dump near Donaldsonville.
If there’s one thing University students can take away from the story, it’s that we need to protest more often. I’m not advocating a hostile takeover of Tiger Trails or setting fire to the Louisiana State Capitol, but protest shows government administrators and politicians we still care about how they rule us.
It shows we won’t sit around and be trampled. These students died because they chose to stand up to inequality and discrimination. They shouldn’t die in vain.
If and when the Jindal administration guts higher education spending in the coming months, students must do more than complain about it over Twitter and Yik Yak before going back to rewatching the “Susie Underpants” episode of “Friends” for the fifth time. The only time Bobby Jindal will care about college students is when they’re blocking his path into the State Capitol with their picket line.
James Richards is a 20-year-old mass communication sophomore from New Orleans. You can reach him on Twitter @JayEllRichy.