KEEP UP HOPE OR FACE REALITY?

By DD for Borderland Beat

One month after the horrible tragedy of the murder and kidnapping of the students from  the Raúl Isidro Burgos school in Ayotzinapa, Father Alejandro Solalinde arrived at the school to conduct a mass for the missing students. 

He had been invited to conduct the mass by a group of parents of the missing students that he had met with in Mexico City earlier in the week.   However the religious ceremony did not happen. 

When he arrived at the school he was met by another group of parents who heckled, chided and questioned him about statements he had made regarding their children being dead.

The frustration, anger and rage of the parents was palpable.  And understandable.  Their government was telling them one thing and Solalinde was telling them and the world something else.

Father Solalinde, who is one of the most prominent and respected human rights activist in Mexico had met earlier in the week with the Attorney General of the Republic, Murillo and given him a statement.  He had said that according to eye witness students he had talked with and one other witness who had come One month after the horrible tragedy in Iguala when the local police attacked the students from the Rural Normal "Raúl Isidro to him that all of the missing students were killed and their bodies burned.  Some of them burned while still alive. 

And he further told the AG that their bodies are buried around Iguala. and “there is no hope” they are still alive”.

 Father Solalinde was recently interviewed by the television journalist Carmen Aristegui. In the interview, Solalinde argued that it was cruel to encourage the families of the students to hope that they might still be alive.

He said that he knew they were dead, because people—including one man who, he insisted, had witnessed what had happened to the students—had come to him to tell him what they knew. He said the students, some of them wounded, had been marched up into the jungle-covered hills, and forced to dig their own graves. Then they were executed. But some of them were still alive when, along with the bodies of their dead companions, they were soaked with diesel, laid over wood, and set on fire.

Under a barrage of questioning from Aristegui, the priest, his voice tight with anguish, insisted on the credibility of his sources. Solalinde believes that the authorities lied and that the grave holding twenty-eight badly burned bodies did indeed contain the students.

After a 2 hour meeting with the parents who believed the students were still alive and wanted him to withdraw his statements that the students were dead, the Vicar agreed to not comment further on the facts, cancelled the mass and left the campus.

The press was waiting for him as he left and peppered him with questions.   Solalinde told the media,

“"I'm respectful, I will be on hold until they ask me for help," said the priest, who explained that it is they who have to process the information. "I will not lead anything, I am not a leader or anything, I am not their spokesperson, nor will usurp their leadership. Just want to tell them  that if in anyway I can serve, you will tell me,”

In the interview with the television journalist Carmen Aristegui , Solalinde had argued that it was cruel to encourage the families of the students to hope that they might still be alive. He said that he knew they were dead, because people—including one man who, he insisted, had witnessed what had happened to the students—had come to him to tell him what they knew. He said the students, some of them wounded, had been marched up into the jungle-covered hills, and forced to dig their own graves. Then they were executed. But some of them were still alive when, along with the bodies of their dead companions, they were soaked with diesel, laid over wood, and set on fire.

"We do not know if they  are in the pits, the Argentine Forensic Anthropology Team has the technology to know, they can work in normal, but not impossible ways with charred remains"

 (DD.  The Argentine forensic experts have been collecting DNA from family members, but the AG of the state of Guerrero has impeded and obstructed their investigation by not allowing them access to the  remains or the fosas).

Under a barrage of questioning from Aristegui, the priest, his voice tight with anguish, insisted on the credibility of his sources. Solalinde believes that the authorities lied and that the grave holding twenty-eight badly burned bodies did indeed contain the students.

“What causes less damage to the system?” Solalinde asked. “To say they [the students] were burned, with everything that implies? Or say they’re disappeared and that they don’t know what happened. The second has less impact, and is less incriminating, but it’s more painful for the families to keep them hoping. “

The priest said "the Mexican government is giving a political rather than judicial case management and to assess what truth say the least political cost. "What is less painful for the system ?, say they are burned with all that implied that ?, or say who are missing and do not know what happened, because it is less shocking to say the latter, and also less compromising but it is more painful for the family to have them with hope. 

The government knows many things, if you are retaining the truth it is your responsibility, I must say, this management is already polluted and management of the investigation is not about justice, it's political, "he said

Sources;

Sin Embargo

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