Some 2,500 citizens marched in the Guadalajara city center Wednesday evening in solidarity with the 43 students who disappeared after clashing with police in Iguala, Guerrero on September 26.
It is widely believed that some of the students, who were training to be teachers, are among the 34 bodies discovered last weekend in a clandestine hillside grave. They were all burned beyond recognition.
Guerrero Attorney General Inaky Blanco said he believes local police colluded with the Guerreros Unidos gang to “make the students disappear.”
Forensic scientists say it could take between two weeks and two months to identify the bodies. Relatives of the students have provided authorities with DNA samples to speed up the identification process.
The case of the missing students has galvanized public opinion across Mexico and further afield, with simultaneous marches held Wednesday in Mexico City, 21 other Mexican states and 15 foreign countries, including New York, London and Paris.
President Enrique Peña Nieto has vowed to find those responsible and punish them “to the full extent of the law.”
The students all came from the Aytozinapa Rural Teacher Training College, a school renowned for its militancy and use of protest.
According to some local reports, the September 26 confrontation with Iguala police started after students from the college tried to commandeer buses to take them to the commemoration in Mexico City marking the anniversary of the 1968 Tlatelolco massacre.
The situation quickly got out of hand and police officers reportedly opened fire and shot dead two students. By the time the confrontation had been brought under control, six people were dead.
Local reports suggest the students disappeared in the aftermath of the riot as police – perhaps augmented by members of drug gangs – went from house to house to identify the students.
More than 30 Iguala municipal police officers have been detained and placed under investigation since the students went missing and the bodies were found.
If the bodies turn out to be the missing students, it would be a massive blow to Peña Nieto, who has promised to clean up the nation’s security forces and reduce the violence that characterized the six-year term of his predecessor, Felipe Calderon.
The state of Guerrero, however, may prove to be a bridge too far.
One of the nation’s poorest states, Guerrero has been bedeviled for decades by drug gang activity, political corruption and historic left-wing militancy. (It was the focal point of leftist guerrilla movements in the 1960s, and smaller offshoot groups reportedly still hold sway in the area.)
In June 1995, Guerrero was the scene of the Aguas Blancas massacre in which police killed 17 farmers and injured 21. The incident occurred as members of a farmer’s union were en route to attend a protest march demanding the release of a fellow activist arrested a month earlier. According to a subsequent investigation, police were found to have placed weapons in the dead farmers’ hands and claimed they acted in self-defense.