President Enrique Peña Nieto’s international image is in tatters after an independent investigative panel released its final report on the massacre of 43 students in the southern state of Guerrero.
The damning findings by the Interdisciplinary Group of Independent Experts showed the Mexican government refused to cooperate with their investigation and may have attempted to cover up its findings.
The report sparked widespread coverage abroad, with a note on the front page of the New York Times and a feature in the New Yorker.
Peña Nieto came to office promoting a plan of foreign investment and transparency. His decision to take on the telecommunications monopoly and open up the energy sector earned him praise abroad, culminating in a 2014 Time Magazine cover showing him under the headline, “Saving Mexico.”
Yet the panel, which has secured prosecutions against the Colombian army and a Guatemalan dictator, suggest the government was never interested in helping them find out the truth. The report describes a night of “confusion and terror,” for the students. A bus driver recalled police officers pointing a gun at them, saying, “We’re going to kill all of you.”
One of the theories put forth by the report was that the students unknowingly manned a bus loaded with heroin. Local authorities had attempted to help the drug gang recover the drugs and had seized the students.
Yet members of the panel accused Mexican authorities of refusing to allow them to investigate the hypothesis. The panel also criticized the government for not speaking up during an extensive media campaign to discredit their work.
“If this is how Mexico investigates high-profile cases, imagine what happens when no one is looking,” wrote Eric Witte, a former adviser to the president of the International Criminal Court.