Translated by: Amanda Coe
According to the Tlachinollan Center for Human Rights of the Mountain Region [of Guerrero], “an impenetrable wall” of power prevented Pope Francis from meeting with parents of the disappeared Ayotzinapa normal school students and from visiting Guerrero, a state that “embodies the country’s tragedy and where they have committed serious human rights violations since the dirty war.”
The Center said that federal authorities were determined to block any opportunity for the families of disappeared normal school students and other disappeared persons to greet the pope and express their grief and profound hope in finding their children.
The Tlachinollan Center noted that after the pope's visit, the Mexican government
According to the Tlachinollan Center for Human Rights of the Mountain Region [of Guerrero], “an impenetrable wall” of power prevented Pope Francis from meeting with parents of the disappeared Ayotzinapa normal school students and from visiting Guerrero, a state that “embodies the country’s tragedy and where they have committed serious human rights violations since the dirty war.”
The Center said that federal authorities were determined to block any opportunity for the families of disappeared normal school students and other disappeared persons to greet the pope and express their grief and profound hope in finding their children.
The Tlachinollan Center noted that after the pope's visit, the Mexican government
“evidently has maintained its disparaging attitude toward the people who suffer, and for this reason does not weigh victims of violence, who represent the largest clamor in a distressed Mexico, equally with the political and economic elite, who had prime seats to public events and the opportunity to meet privately with Francis."The case of the 43 disappeared in Ayotzinapa marks one of the most critical moments in our country.
“It is unavoidable and cannot be ignored; the victims who seek justice cannot be silenced. Understandably, the parents of the 43 students waited patiently for an opportunity to meet with Pope Francisco. They knew it wouldn’t be easy to find an opening in his agenda; but they never imagined that federal authorities would make every attempt to prevent them from meeting.”Tlachinollan revealed that one of the mothers of the 43 normal school students flew to Chiapas with the hope of approaching the Pope.
“Sister organizations did everything in their power that she might be able to greet him,” but the circle of guards surrounding the pope was impossible to penetrate.The Center also said:
“A letter signed with heart in hand was the last consolation they had that Francisco might hear their words. But it was not enough,”However, they said, parents of normal school students found that their struggle for truth and justice is not confined solely to the victims of violence, but everyone in Mexico.
“It is a cause that has been taken up by vast areas of society and the Catholic population itself considers it a legitimate demand.”The Tlachinollan Center said the parents’ strength remains resolute for
“battle at these crucial moments when the government insists on re-editing their historical truth about what happened in Iguala and on protecting civilian and military authorities, who were somehow involved in the disappearance of their children.”
MV Note: The Attorney General's Office is still planning a third review of the garbage dump in Cocula, near Iguala, where it has maintained, as "the historical truth", the students were killed and burned. Both the Interdisciplinary Group of Independent Experts (IGIE) from the Inter-American Human Rights Commission and the Argentine Forensic Team have determined that, based on scientific studies of site, this was not possible. The government has also refused to allow the IGIE to interview soldiers who witnessed the attacks on the students.