Anger at the federal government’s handling of the disappearance of 43 students boiled over into violence Thursday as riot police were called in to control protests in the vicinity of the Mexico City airport and in the capital’s main plaza, the Zocalo.
More peaceful demonstrations, largely made up of students, took place in Guadalajara and other Mexican cities, as well as in several foreign capitals.
As bus caravans carrying the relatives and family members of the missing students from the state of Guerrero converged on Mexico City, the federal government decided to cancel the annual November 20 Revolution Day parade. (Guadalajara’s parade had taken place on Monday.)
A delegation made up of ten parents and 90 colleagues of the missing students had arrived in Guadalajara Tuesday en route to Mexico City. During a press conference organized by students from the University of Guadalajara (UdG), members of the caravan demanded the creation of a national movement to pressure the federal government into stepping up the search for more 22,000 people unaccounted for in Mexico over the past decade.
“This is not just about Guerrero but throughout the entire country there are mass graves, disappearances and crimes that aren’t investigated,” said Felipe de la Cruz, the father of 19-year-old Ángel de la Cruz, one of the missing students from the rural teachers training school in Ayotzinapa.
Parents of the missing students have refused to accept that their sons were massacred by a drug gang at a dump near Iguala at the end of September, as authorities have suggested. It is unclear how they will react if the results of DNA tests on the remains of recently discovered charred bodies are confirmed in the next few weeks as belonging to the students.
On Tuesday evening, around 2,000 people, comprised mostly of UdG students, marched from La Normal Glorieta to the city center, where they lit 43 torches. Yet another march took place on Thursday, this time attracting 5,000 participants, many of whom were fiercely critical of President Enrique Peña Nieto, who is increasingly being portrayed by young activists as a symbol of Mexico’s institutionalized corruption.
Jalisco has the second highest number of missing persons of any state in Mexico, 2,230 — according to the National Missing Persons Register (Registro Nacional de Personas Extraviadas o Desaparecidas).