Reported missing the previous weekend, the bodies of three teenage students were discovered on Wednesday, December 14, on the grounds of the Federation of Guadalajara Students (FEG) headquarters. The following day police recovered the corpses of a fourth student and his father at the same property.
The five had disappeared after they allegedly complained to the FEG that the organization was demanding too much protection money from the father, who sold churros outside the Normal high school and the campus for Humanities and Social Sciences (CUCSH) run by the University of Guadalajara (UdeG).
Although no longer officially tied to the UdeG, the FEG still operates at schools affiliated with the university, specializing in charging food and soft drink vendors to operate in the vicinity.
The vendor in question was Armando Gomez Gallardo, 56. According to Spanish-language daily Milenio, other local traders said Gomez had been assaulted on several occasions by alleged members of the FEG for refusing to pay “fees” for his four churro stands.
Gomez and his 21-year-old son Ismael Gomez Saucedo had both been shot in the head.
The other victims were Fransisco Carillo Garcia and Gabriel Moran Cervantes, both 16; and Juan Pablo Valentin Guerrero, 17. They had been stabbed to death.
The State Prosecutor’s Office has not ruled out that members of the FEG might have been involved in the murders. FEG President Israel Mariscal Quezada has been subpoenaed to testify, along with David Castorena, the leading candidate to succeed him, as well as the caretaker of the FEG property known as Jorge N., “George” or “el Tatuado” (“the tattooed man”). As of press time, neither of the three had presented themselves to testify.Mariscal has denied any responsibility for the killings on behalf of his organization. He lamented the controversy but insisted the allegations that the FEG was engaged in extortion were “absolutely untrue.”
Local traders, however, told Milenio that members of the FEG go every Monday to collect 80 to 100 pesos from vendors for allowing them to work in the area. They also accused the staff of the Municipal Inspections Department of being in cahoots with the FEG, for when one of them refused to pay the fee they were immediately fined 2,500 pesos and had their goods confiscated by the city authorities.
Following the murder of their classmates, around 5,000 UdeG students marched in silence through the city center on Friday afternoon in a protest against violence and impunity. Many were dressed in white, carrying placards with slogans saying “Justice!” and “Don’t let them kill us!”
Accompanied by faculty staff and led by university rector Marco Antonio Cortes Guardado and Marco Antonio Nuñez, president of official union the Federation of University Students (FEU), the students marched from the rectory building down Avenida Juarez to the Plaza de Armas.
Addressing the crowd in the Plaza, Guardado said: “the disappearance of the FEG is an imperative for student life in Jalisco to recover the peace and freedom that education requires. The headquarters building of that organization must be returned to the University of Guadalajara to be beneficial for young people in Jalisco.”
Guadalajara Mayor Jorge Aristoteles Sandoval Diaz said his government will not allow the FEG’s informal trading arrangements to continue, while Secretary General Victor Manuel Gonzalez Romero said on Saturday that the FEG would be evicted from its headquarters.
Jalisco Governor Emilio Gonzalez said the FEG has been characterized by violence and vowed to “work to prevent the criminal activities of student associations.” While the state government cannot close the FEG down without court authorization, he said they will regain control of the building where the bodies were found.
Founded in 1949, the FEG has a dark and controversial past. The union’s website describes it as “a student political organization ... teaching the promotion of democracy and tolerance,” but the FEG has long been linked to the disappearances of opponents and grew notorious for dishing out violence with impunity.
Violent unions were common at Mexican universities in the 1950s and especially the 1960s, when student politics grew increasingly radical. In the early 1970s the FEG was involved in gun battles with the right-wing “Tecos” of the Autonomous University of Guadalajara (UAG), as well as its own internal rivals within the university, culminating in the assassination of FEG founder and leader Carlos Ramirez Ladewig in 1975.
Initially a leftist organization, the FEG switched decades ago to supporting the then-dominant Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI). Having formed closer links with Mexico’s political elite, such unions have gradually become less ideological over the years.
In 1990, UdeG rector Raul Padilla Lopez called a plebiscite to decide which of the FEG and the FEU should be the official student union. The FEU won with over 70 percent of the vote but the FEG was still not disbanded.
Ironically, Padilla served as FEG president from 1977-79 and has since amassed great power running the business ventures of the UdeG. As kingmaker of university politics, he is regarded as one of the most influential men in the city.
Padilla’s authority was recently challenged by rector Carlos Jorge Briseño Torres, who wanted to scale back the business side of his role and strip him of his power. Instead, Briseño lost a crucial vote and was removed from his position. His campaign for reinstatement was in vain and he died in an apparent suicide in 2009.
The recent murders could provide the impetus for the FEG to finally be closed down, but to date most talk has focused on simply evicting the organization from its headquarters. It would require a brave and determined adversary to completely dismantle this local political mafia.