For the first time in his presidential term Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto is finding that spin alone cannot relieve sustained political pressure.
There was little he could say to diminish the outrage felt by nearly all Mexicans at the shocking announcement last Friday by the federal Attorney General’s Office that three suspects had confirmed the ghastly truth: that 43 missing freshmen teacher training students had been slaughtered at a landfill near the town of Iguala, Guerrero.
Growing public anger at the government’s handling of the disappearance of the students had focussed attention on Peña Nieto’s inability to improve Mexico’s security situation and raised doubts whether he has the skills to restore the country’s international standing without designing a completely fresh agenda to tackle the endemic curse of corruption and mockery of the rule of law.
The pressure on the president increased even further last week when a report surfaced that his actress wife owned a seven-million dollar mansion that had been provided by a firm that had benefitted from contracts obtained while Peña Nieto was governor of the State of Mexico, as well as during his presidency. The scandal was played down by his staff, who pointed out that the president’s assets were separate from those of his spouse. That Peña Nieto then decided to honor his commitment to travel to China for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (Apec) summit at such a tense time appeared to some observers as politically inept. Peña Nieto, however, said to do otherwise would have been “irresponsible.” (Included on the itinerary is a state visit to China, now Mexico’s second biggest trading partner, which may have swayed the call.)
In revelations that reverberated across the globe, Attorney General Jesús Murillo Karam said the bodies of the 43 students from the Teacher Training College in Ayotzinapa were burned for hours before being shovelled into plastic bags and dumped in a river. During a press conference, he showed videos of the three suspects making their confessions.
The suspects, all members of a local drug gang, said the bodies of the murdered students were placed on a pyre, set on fire along with a mix of diesel fuel, tires, tree branches and plastic and burned beyond recognition for more than half a day.
Murillo said confirmation of the students’ identities might take some time, as forensic tests would need to be done outside of Mexico.
He said investigators were now certain that on September 26 Iguala Mayor Jose Luis Abarca ordered municipal police to detain the students – involved earlier in the day in a violent protest in which six people died – because he was concerned they would disrupt an event organized by his wife.
Police officers now in custody have confirmed they handed over the students to members of the local Guerreros Unidos gang, who took them to the garbage dump in the back of two cargo trucks, Murillo said.
After his press conference, Murillo met with family members of the students, some of whom later told reporters they would not acknowledge that their sons were dead until there was full scientific certainty.
Rather than allay public discontent at the government’s handling of the case, the revelations sparked further protests, mostly directed toward Peña Nieto and his administration.
In Acapulco Monday, protestors clashed with police as they blocked the resort’s airport for three hours, while in Mexico City on Saturday masked demonstrators set fire to the wooden door of the presidential palace. Meanwhile, Mexicans in New York City held a solidarity rally in Union Square.
Reflecting the mood of the protest, demonstrators in Acapulco carried signs that said, “Peña Nieto, murderer. Stay in China,” referring to his current trip to the Far East.
During the first two years of his presidency, Peña Nieto has tried to downplay the security issues that so dominated his predecessor’s six-year term.
Crime figures have been cleverly manipulated, say his critics, and the belief that violence has somehow declined is not borne out by reality. Helped by some friendly broadcasters and media outlets, Peña Nieto has deftly maneuvered his reform agenda to the top of the news pile. Opening the oil sector to private capital and enacting key labor, educational and telecommunications reforms has made him the darling of the business class and an inspirational leader to many abroad. But in the working-class streets of Mexico’s urban sprawl and in the fields of its vast countryside, his name is held in much less high regard.
While Peña Nieto may scratch his head and wonder how the blame for the deaths of 43 students at the hands of corrupt local officials, police officers and narcos can be laid squarely at his doorstep, he is finding out a hard truth about Mexico – when people feel helpless they look to those above them for answers and, rightly to wrongly, hold them accountable.