13) DOCUMENTARY EXPOSES POLITICAL MASS MURDER IN MEXICO

 

Ayotzinapa: Chronicle of a State Crime, documentary by director Xavier Robles, El Principio Producciones, 140 minutes, Spanish with English subtitles. Review by Tim Pelzer.

 

            The disappearance of 43 students in Iguala last year remains an open, festering wound in Mexico. While many Mexicans suspect that security forces killed the students, President Enrique Pena Nieto blames drug gang members. Xavier Roble’s “Ayotzinapa: Chronicle of a State Crime” clears up any doubt about what really happened to the students.

 

            On September 26, 2014, students from the Ayotzinapa Normalista school went to Iguala  to raise money to finance a trip to Mexico City.  Every year, Mexicans march in the capital to honour student protestors who were massacred by the army in Mexico City in 1968, and the young students, mostly in their early 20s, wanted to be there. According to survivors Jose and Omar, heavily armed police, waiting for the young defenceless students when they arrived in Iguala, opened fire on the buses carrying them. Video evidence taken by cell phones confirms this. While police gathered up surviving students who were never seen again, a few were able to slip away. 

 

            The ambush took place within blocks of the base of the 27th infantry battalion which never tried to rescue the students, despite crackling gunfire ripping through the night air.  Soldiers only appeared 2-3 hours later to search for wounded students in the local hospital, according to Omar. Soldiers verbally abused the wounded survivors, calling them common criminals. As they were leaving, the green clad infantrymen threatened to let the police take care of the students. “They were going to let the police do their dirty work”, remarked Omar.

 

            This raises the question: why would police want to disappear 43 young students? Robles suggests that the students were killed for political reasons. Established in 1926, after the Mexican revolution, for students from indigenous, campesino and poor backgrounds, the Normalista schools had always been hotbeds of resistance against social injustice. Required readings in these schools include Pablo Neruda, Eduardo Galeano, Maxim Gorky, Karl Marx and Vladimir Lenin.  These schools have produced a steady stream of left-wing political activists and figures, including famed 1970s guerrilla Lucio Cabanas. Guerrero, the state where the students were disappeared, has been in a continuous rebellion against central and state governments aligned with drug cartels, which have pursued neo-liberal policies.  

 

            For many years now, police, soldiers and drug cartels have carried out a campaign of terror against environmentalists, peasant and union activists and leaders in Guerrero.  Many have turned up dead. 

 

            Robles places the disappearance of the students in Iguala within a broader context, where Mexican governments at the state, national and municipal levels have melded with drug cartels, turning the country into a narco state. 

 

            “Ayotzinapa: Chronicle of a State Crime” is an eye-opening, elegantly crafted documentary that sheds light on what happened on that tragic night in Iguala. While not currently available on DVD or Blue Ray, it is making the rounds of the world film festival circuit, recently being screened in Vancouver, Kamloops, Victoria and Kelowna in British Columbia. It will be shown in 150 cities in 26 countries, including the upcoming Havana festival of New Latin American film in December. While it is a long documentary to sit through at 140 minutes, it is a worthwhile view. Watch for a screening near you.

 

            For more information, visit the Vancouver Solidarity with Ayotzinapa Facebook group.

 

(The above article is from the November 16-30, 2015, issue of People's Voice, Canada's leading socialist newspaper. Articles can be reprinted free if the source is credited. Subscription rates in Canada: $30/year, or $15 low income rate; for U.S. readers - $45 US per year; other overseas readers - $45 US or $50 CDN per year. Send to People's Voice, c/o PV Business Manager, 706 Clark Drive, Vancouver, BC, V5L 3J1.)