Mexican Teachers set up tent city in support of missing normalistas

Borderland Beat republished from Fusion by Manuel Rueda-heads up from "Jeff" Big Thanks!

"43 Normalistas are dead,  many  were burned alive".....

said Father Alejandro Solalinde Guerra, the internationally known human rights champion.  He himself has been threaten, kidnapped and beaten  because of his refusal to stay away from the business of organized crime. He was in exile due to death threats.

In an interview this week he said;

"From Sunday to today,  I have had several meetings with witnesses, eyewitnesses, who suffered in the first and second attack, students, but there are other sources, who are not students that speak of a time before. They talk about that some were wounded, and they burned alive, ignited after pouring diesel on them. Others they were incinerated in a wood fire, some alive, some dead."

"The first meeting I was given information directly, that was on Sunday.   The second one I had yesterday in Mexico City. The first thing I learned is that there are witnesses, but are afraid to speak,  if they talk, they fear they will be killed. "said the priest.

Solalinde clarified that it is unknown whether young people could be in one of the pits that the Attorney General's Office (PGR) and the Union of Organized State of Guerrero (UPOEG) Towns found in Iguala.

"We do not know. If  they are in the  pits, the Argentine forensic anthropology team has the  technology,"but insisted:" But there is no hope that they are alive. "  However, as of Wednesday the state and federal governments were not allowing the Argentine to assist in the identifications.  The photo above, and below are  from a protest march in Acapulco this week.  

The following is the Fusion article

Hundreds of teachers have set up a tent city in the main square of this state capital in southern Mexico, and say they will not leave until the government finds 43 college students who disappeared three weeks ago, after they were reportedly abducted by local police linked to a drug gang.

The protest, which began on Monday, reflects the outrage many Mexicans feel toward  politicians and law enforcement officials, whom they hold responsible for one the darkest crimes in Mexico’s recent history. The crowd shows few signs of dissipating.

“I don’t  just think I will stay here, I am driven to stay here, as are all of my colleagues,” said Pastor Mojico, one of the teachers. “We all feel the necessity to stay here because of the outrage we feel. So it’s not something to think about it, it’s something that you feel and are compelled to do.”

The students, from the Ayotzinapa rural teacher’s college in the state of Guerrero, haven’t been seen since Sept. 26, when they were attacked by police in the city of Iguala after they hijacked three buses during a protest.

Three students were killed in the attack, and investigators suspect that the missing students were rounded up by police and handed over to a local drug cartel, who then executed them and buried them in clandestine graves. While  several possible grave sites have been identified, DNA tests showed that one site didn’t contain the students’ bodies, and authorities have to announce the  DNA results for the bodies found at two other grave sites nearby.

At the Zócalo, a historical square in the heart of Chilpancigo, teachers sleep under nylon tents and cook whatever food is available to them in portable gas stoves. Showers are hard to come by, but they have occupied the city hall, have been using bathrooms there.

 “These crimes don’t just affect the cities,” said an elementary school teacher from Santa Cruz Copanatoyac, a municipality deep in Guerrero’s eastern mountains. “Sometimes people disappear in our area or die because they are involved in organized crime, but [the missing students] were just kids who wanted to better themselves,” said the teacher, who asked that his name not be published for fear of reprisals.

Most of the maestros sleeping in the square are affiliated with  teachers unions that have promised to occupy all 41 city hall buildings in the state until the students are found.  They are known for leading militant protests against Mexico’s education reforms, and economic policies like the privatization of the country’s oil sector.Many hail from rural areas that are mostly inhabited by indigenous people.

For the full Fusion article follow the link above....