New hypothesis: Ayotzinapa normalistas went to Iguala via bus that had "special cargo", according to the CNDH

Translated by El Profe for Borderland Beat from Animal Politico

According to the CNDH, the "trigger" of the aggressions against the normalistas on the night of September 26, 2014 could have been the capture of the Costa Line bus 2513.

by Paris Martínez

After four years of investigations into the forced disappearance of 43 normalistas in Iguala, Guerrero, the National Commission of Human Rights (CNDH) presented its conclusions on the case in November, among which a new theory on the origin of the attacks against the students: the taking of a bus that contained a "special load" and that, finally, the Ayotzinapa students did not manage to take with them.
 
This hypothesis is not based on any particular proof, that is to say, in no part of the file does any specific element speak of the "special cargo" of the bus, but, as explained by José Trinidad Larrieta, in charge of the investigation carried out by CNDH, this theory was constructed from conjecture, based on what he called "evidence management."
 
Below, we present a summary of the pieces that the CNDH uses to formulate this new hypothesis, based on the "special cargo," and on the interest that the normalistas supposedly had in it.

The "other activities"
 

According to the CNDH, the "trigger" of the aggressions against the normalistas who came to Iguala on the night of September 26, 2014 "could have been the capture (by the students) of the Costa Line bus 2513," which started from Acapulco in the direction of Chilpancingo and then to Iguala.
 

This bus, added the CNDH, was able to carry "some special cargo that had to reach its destination," Iguala, and in which the normalista student leaders had some kind of interest.
 
According to the CNDH's conjectures, the Costa Line 2513 bus could have been monitored by at least one of Ayotzinapa's student leaders, the normalista David Flores Maldonado, on its way through Chilpancingo. Of this, however, there is no evidence.
 
"That bus," Dr. Larrieta said, "leaves Acapulco (September 26, 2014). I do not know if at 2:00 p.m., I do not know if at 4:00 p.m., or in between, 3:00 p.m., in that lapse is the movement of that bus to Chilpancingo. And, what do we have in front of that? That at 3:00 p.m., David himself (Flores Maldonado, the main leader of the student teachers at that time) says that he leaves Ayotzinapa for Chilpanginco," where he claims to have stayed around six hours.
 
Interviewed by Animal Político, the official of the CNDH assured that this represents a suspicious activity, since "the reason he gives (to go to Chilpancingo) was that he went to get toiletries, but in that time frame, it would not seem logical."
 
The CNDH fails to clarify, however, that Chilpancingo is 15 minutes away from the Normalista School of Ayotzinapa, and that it is usual for students to travel to this city to carry out daily activities, such as acquiring basic toiletries that, by the way, the educational authorities of Guerrero do not provide, even though the Normalista School is a boarding school of the public sector.
 
Nor does it specify in its recommendation how much time is sufficient, according to its criteria, to acquire personal hygiene items, nor when exactly that becomes a "strange" activity.
 
Even so, the head of the investigation insisted that "curiously, this guy leaves at 3:00 p.m. in a Normalista vehicle, at the time a nearby bus is coming from, or is leaving, Acapulco towards Chlpancingo."
 
The agency does not explain exactly what, according to its hypothesis, is the student leader's interest  in the alleged Costa Line 2513 Bus "special cargo."
 
Instead, it throws another conjecture: that the objective of the student leader was to satisfy his "own interests," for which he decided to "manipulate the will of the newcomers" and take them to Iguala (final destination of bus 2513) and use them "as a shield, barricade, or to conceal or justify other activities."
 
The CNDH speculates that the presence of the normalistas in Iguala was not linked to the "social struggle" but to "other activities" that their leaders had to "cover up," although the organization does not detail what those "other activities" were, nor provides evidence to support any of these claims.
 
To support the hypothesis of conflict between normalistas and an organized crime group caused by the Costa Line bus 2513, the CNDH uses the content of communications intercepted in 2014 by the United States government among alleged members of the Guerreros Unidos cartel (which operates in Iguala). According to these communications, a woman close to the cartel detected that "armed people" boarded a bus in Chilpancingo whose trip was noted to end in Iguala.
 
According to the hypothesis of the CNDH, that bus was the Costa Line 2513, which came from Acapulco to Iguala, with a stopover in Chilpancingo.
 
According to this hypothesis, it was this woman's warning that, hours later, provoked the reaction of the Guerreros Unidos cartel against the normalistas who arrived in Iguala.
 
There is, however, a detail that invalidates this part of the hypothesis: that the intercepted communications to members of Guerreros Unidos clearly indicate that the bus the woman warned about did not go to Iguala, but to Acapulco, for which reason, it could not be the Costa Line 2513.
 
Even so, Dr. José Trinidad Larrieta, in charge of the investigation of the CNDH, insisted on the hypothesis that the warning of that lady to Guerreros Unidos "unleashes a paranoia in Iguala", and that this paranoia explains the violent reaction of this group of organized crime against the normalistas.
 
The villains of the story
 

According to the narrative of the events carried out by the CNDH, on September 26, 2014, at 5:30 p.m., Ayotzinapa school teachers, "the majority of new entrants," were instructed to board two buses that they were holding, for departure to Iguala, informing them that the intention was to take more buses, which they intended to go to Mexico City in days later, to participate in the commemoration of the student massacre of October 2.
 
The untimely order, says the CNDH, came from the "normalista Bernardo Flores Alcaraz."

 
That student, along with David Flores Maldonado, are the two normalista leaders whom the CNDH "describes" in its recommendation as drug traffickers, although without presenting evidence.
 
The CNDH assures, also without evidence, that "the only person who could have requested and ordered the Secretery of the Comité de Lucha, Bernardo Flores Alcaraz, the mobilization of approximately 120 normalistas (to leave for Iguala), was the secretary general of the Committee Student, David Flores Maldonado."
 
By that point, CNDH emphasizes, at 5:30 p.m., the student leader David Flores Maldonado was in Chilpancingo making "purchases" of "personal hygiene" products, which appear suspicious to the organization.
 
Thus, in this new hypothesis, the exit of the normalistas from the campus was timed (between David Flores Maldonado and Bernardo Flores Alcaraz) in function of the bus 2513 that came from Acapulco passing by Chilpancingo with its hypothetical "special load," with the supposed objective of reaching Iguala before the other bus.
 
None of this, however, is supported by evidence in the CNDH recommendation.
 
The fate of the special cargo
 

On September 26, 2014, the two buses that left Ayotzinapa arrived in the vicinity of Iguala, at the road known as Rancho del Cura, around 7:00 p.m., and approximately one hour and 15 minutes later, Costa Line bus 2513 arrived there, the one with the hypothetical "special cargo" coming from Chilpancingo.
 
At Rancho del Cura, the bus was stopped by normalistas and taken. The driver was demanded to make the passengers get off, in order to take the vehicle to Ayotzinapa.
 
Initially, the Costa Line 2513 bus driver refused, claiming that it did not carry "anticongelante", something that the CNDH considers an "inexplicable opposition", since, by testimony of other drivers, it is known that their drivers are to accept the capture of their buses.
 
Along with the driver's opposition, the narrative of the CNDH continues, the "decisive" intervention of one of the 28 passengers of the bus took place who, "unilaterally assuming the representation of all the passengers, took the initiative and held a dialogue with the students, to whom he showed his decisive and frank opposition to the taking of the bus, but without giving reason for it, denoting an interest that went beyond that of one more passenger."
 
According to the testimony of the driver, this passenger finally agreed with the normalistas that eight of them would accompany the bus on their way to Iguala, so that the passengers would get off outside the Costa Line terminal, and then the driver would take the bus to Ayotzinapa, with the eight normalistas.
 
That agreement, however, was unfulfilled: the bus driver did not stop outside the Costa Line terminal, but the bus entered the operations yard, where the passengers finally got off.
 

Then, the driver also left the bus, leaving the normalistas inside.
 
Thanks to this driver's action, the CNDH stresses, the Costa Line bus 2513, with its supposed "special cargo," managed to reach its destination and remain there, even though moments later the rest of the normalistas arrived at the terminal. They waited in the vicinity of Iguala, and took another three  buses (in addition to the two they already brought) none of the vehicles they took with them was the Costa Line 2513, which, according to the Human Rights hypothesis, was loaded.
 
That bus remained in the terminal, after the departure of the students.
 
Although the hypothesis of the CNDH is that the attack against the normalistas was linked to their interest in the Costa Line 2513, their interest in this cargo is not specified, nor is it explained why the students were attacked when leaving the terminal, being that, finally, the vehicle with the supposed "special cargo" was not among the buses that were taken.