FBI Is Now Involved in Investigation of Iguala; 17 New Mass Graves Found

Too Many Graves

Borderland Beat by DD.

Part of the strategy of the federal government in diffusing the tensions and protests that have emerged as a result of the “missing 43” students has been “to wait”.   When the events of Sept. 26 and 27 in Iguala began to receive attention from the international press, the personal secretary of President Pena Nieto told reporters that the government was not going to take any “dramatic action” to diffuse the situation because they understood how the “72 hour news cycle” worked.

After the passage of nearly 3 months since the murders and “disappearances” in Igual time has shown that the “72 hour news cyle” plan did not work.   We have not moved on the next “trending” story and forgotten Iguala.

Families Protesting in Front of Army Base Iguala

This week after demonstrations at the entrance to the Army’s base in Iguala demanding the truth about the events of Sept. 26^th and demanding the Army withdraw from the area, the parents of the missing students held a press conference where as reported by TeleSur;

The family members of the 43 Atyotzinapa students are accusing Mexico's Attorney General Jesus Murillo Karam of covering up federal involvement in the deaths and forced disappearances. 

During a press conference Wednesday, the relatives reiterated their demand for a direct investigation into the participation of the Mexican army and federal police in the deaths and enforced disappearances of the students, as well as into organized crime groups.

Members of the Union of People and Organizations of Guerrero (UPOEG) reported Saturday the discovery of at least another 17 mass graves in Iguala.

A spokesperson for the group who is in charge of searches, Miguel Jimenez Blanco, said UPOEG is searching for more remains at the remaining sites in the Mexican state.

Blanco added that on December 18, UPOEG, together with the family members of the 43 missing Ayotzinapa teachers college students and the Federal Prosecutor’s Search Unit found the graves in the Barranca del Tigre area of Iguala district.

At about the same time as the parents and supporters  were alleging direct participation by the Army and Federal Police in the murders and abductions in Iguala, Attorney General Murillo announced that the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigations was now involved in investigating the the disappearance of the Ayotzinapa students as part of the Merida Initiative. 

Murillo acknowledged that “some FBI agents were dispatched. They came and helped, above all, in organizing the forensic procedures and personnel involved.”  

Sergio Alcocer, the subsecretary of Foreign Relations for North America, noted that the U.S. Ambassador to Mexico, Anthony Wayne, offered help to the Guerrero’s interim state governor, Rogelio Ortega Martinez in the framework of the Merida Initiative. 

The involvement of the FBI was in all likelihood pressured into action by criticism in the press of the US silence about the incident.   Obama and Sec. of State Kerry have said very little about the missing students scandal. 

The security cooperation agreement (Merida) has been criticized for allegations of training law enforcement in torture, crowd suppression techniques, and interrogation tactics at what was formerly called the School of the Americas.  Merida has also been connected to the ATF gunwalking scandal where the U.S. government shipped guns to Mexico, the majority of which fell into cartel hands.

Members of the Union of People and Organizations of Guerrero (UPOEG) reported Saturday the discovery of at least another 17 mass graves in Iguala.

A spokesperson for the group who is in charge of searches, Miguel Jimenez Blanco, said UPOEG is searching for more remains at the remaining sites in the Mexican state.

Blanco added that on December 18, UPOEG, together with the family members of the 43 missing Ayotzinapa teachers college students and the Federal Prosecutor’s Search Unit found the graves in the Barranca del Tigre area of Iguala district.

The federal prosecutor’s forensic team extracted the remains of at least two unidentified persons which were then transported to Mexico City for analysis.   

Earlier, on December 14, UPOEG members also claimed to have found human remains in the ashes of a village bonfire in Cocula which may also belong to the disappeared 43 Ayotzinapa teacher college students, according to local media reports. 

In the press conference with the families this week, the spokesman for the families, Felipe de la Cruz, said that the authorities want people to forget about the state crimes committed in Iguala, Guerrero state on Sept. 26.

He said that while cover-ups happen all too often in Mexico, “in this case, the army, federal police, Iguala local police, ex Governor Angel Aguirre, and the President of Mexico himself have to own up to what really happened in Iguala.”

De la Cruz and other parents accused Enrique Peña Nieto's government of using an '”iron fist” strategy to repress protest through physical attacks on demonstrators

Family members refuted press reports that Ayotzinapa students and dissident teachers attacked the police in the early morning hours last Sunday in Chilpancingo.

They insisted that, in fact, it was the federal police who attacked the activists preparing a huge concert scheduled for that day, resulting in a number of injuries including those sustained by a reporter from Regeneracion Radio, and a student from the National Autonomous University of Mexico, who was hit in the face with a tear gas cannister.

As I said earlier the original strategy of the federal government to wait out the “72 hour newscycle” obviously hasn’t worked.  Over time the international press has just given more attention to the Iguala tragedy.   The story has morphed from a story of 6 murders and the disappearance of 43 students from a teachers college into a story about massive protests worldwide demanding justice and investigations into the other 20,000+ disappeared in Mexico in the last 6 years, into a story of massive corruption at all levels of government and ultimately into a story on a possible political insurrection.

During his first year and half in office President Pena Nieto was praised and extolled by the International press for creating the “Aztec Tiger” and “Mexico’s Moment”, referring to the reforms he pushed through to reform the country in a major player on the world stage.   Time magazine featured his photo on the cover of the International edition with the caption “Saving Mexico".

Six months later, at the end of his second year in office that photo on the cover of Time was merely a snapshot in time.  His approval ratings within Mexico have fallen to 33% to 39% (depending on which poll you believe) and there are reports that internal polls from Los Pinos (the Mexican Whitehouse) are even lower.  

At the end of his first year in office, EPN declared that homicides had decreased by 18%  (although many questioned methodology of that calculation).   By the governments own figures, the death count during the first 21 months of the EPN admin. was  30,789.  According to the respected weekly magazine, Zeta, published in Tijuana,the death count is 36,718, or 1,835 people executed every day in Mexico.  If that rate continues for EPN’s last four years in office, the number killed  would be approximately the same as in the six years of the Calderon administration.

Kidnapping, extortion and other crimes, as well as human rights abuses  against the average citizenhave increased dramatically during EPN’s first 2 years.   All of the above has contributed to the disenchantment of of the people with the “Savior of Mexico” and his dramatic drop in the polls.

German Parliament; Mx. Human Rights Situation Disastrous

If the government thought the 72 hour news cycle would take care of the problem or the people in Mexico and the international community would just forget the latest scandal that Iguala reprsents, this screen capture of a video (which I was unable to embed for this story but can be seen here) showing the motions being introduced in the German Parliament that would suspend the security agreement that it has with Mexico and for the government to take a more critical stand against Mexico mishandling the Igualy investigations.  It said that iguala is “not an isolated incicent, but only the tip of the iceberg”.

 
If the government thought the upcoming Christmas/New Years holidays would cause the protest movement to falter as students would be going home for the holidays and their interest in protest would fade as they focused on the holiday vacation, this screen capture of a video shows a spokesperson putting the administration on notice that the demonstrations for  or Ayotzinapa will continue over year end holidays

click here to go to video site