On Tour of US Survivor of Iguala Tells Story of Missing 43 To San Antonio Audience

Borderland Beat Posted by DD Republished From KSAT

Written by Jessie Degollado 

 UPDATE 3/19/15 at 11:AM

Screen Capture from KSAT video of Omar Garcia

UPDATE FOLLOWING STORY

SAN ANTONIO - The mass disappearance of 43 students that rocked Mexico last fall has triggered a call for action in the U.S. with a national tour including San Antonio.

Omar Garcia Velasquez survived the abduction and said he came to America for the first time in hopes of generating support for their continued demands for justice.

“We are seeking solidarity with the public,” Garcia said.

Garcia, who spoke Monday at the Guadalupe Theater and Trinity University, is among 16 students, parents and advocates divided into three groups traveling to 30 cities, converging in Washington and New York City next month, according to organizers.

They said the mother of one of the students will be joining Garcia in his leg of the tour.

Garcia described how he and 90 students from the Ayotzinapa Rural Teachers College in the state of Guerrero were in two buses bound for a national day of protest dating back to a 1968 massacre allegedly by police and the military.

He said police in the town of Iguala opened fire as they chased them down.

“We yelled at them, ‘We’re students. Why are you shooting at us?’ But they didn’t stop,” Garcia said. “They said we were criminals.”

He said some of his companions were killed, others were beaten.

“No one helped us,” Garcia said. “Not even the military when they arrived.”

He said the soldiers even kept medical personnel from attending to the wounded.

Garcia said as 43 students were taken away, he and about 40 others escaped.

“We ran until we couldn’t run any further,” Garcia said.

He said now he and the others must live with their survivor’s guilt.

Looking at the photos of the 43 missing students, Garcia said he would give anything to switch places with them.

He said that is why “we are trying not to remain silent in honor of our companions who suffered.”

It is believed after the students were abducted, they were tortured and killed then buried in mass graves.

Three men were arrested, but Garcia said he and much of the nation remain skeptical of the investigation’s findings.

A protest Monday afternoon in front of the Mexican Consulate in downtown San Antonio accused the Mexican government of not seeking the truth.

“We are Ayotzinapa!” the protesters chanted.

Garcia said he urges Americans to join in their non-violent movement by staging peaceful protests of their own, launching letter-writing campaigns and using social media.

Given Garcia’s distrust of Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto, he said he would ask President Barack Obama to reconsider America’s policies with Mexico," to avoid becoming an accomplice in the crime we have in our country.”

UPDATE;

Several comments on the original story questioned why the families and students were in the US and said it was a Mexico problem and what did they want the US govt. to do.

Teacher Filipe de la Cruz may help clarify that in statements he made in NYC yesterday.  

As reported in la Jornada, in an article by David Brooks and translated by Jane Brundage at  Mexico Voices;

 De la Cruz and attorney Vidulfo Rosales Sierra, from the Tlachinollan Mountain Centre for Human Rights, were invited to New York by Amnesty International USA to attend its annual national conference to be held in this city over the weekend. During their stay they will participate in various forums and acts of solidarity with the families of the Ayotzinapa students.

De la Cruz affirmed that the purpose of this trip and of the caravans to the United States, is that

    "the world might know that the Ayotzinapa case is not closed, that it will not be forgotten like many previous cases, and that the parents are not going to rest until truth and justice are found, and that the masterminds and actual murderers are punished."

He underscored that the protests will continue because

    "we are no longer willing to allow such impunity, or that they continue killing our young people in Mexico."

De la Cruz said that he will travel to Washington to meet with the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR).

At a press conference in front of the Mexican Consulate in New York City, which apparently feared the protest because they asked for municipal police protection, De la Cruz told a media crowd that after "six months of agony and suffering" in the wake of the disappearance of the 43 students, "time does not exist for us," and if

    "the government is betting on exhaustion, it is very mistaken, since it [parent protest] continues with the same intensity as on the first day in order to demand justice."


De la Cruz said that his 18-year-old son, a student in Ayotzinapa, survived the night of September 26, 2014, in Iguala. He witnessed how his fellow students fell and disappeared. Since that night he says:

    "Dad, I'm dead until my companions reappear."

De la Cruz added that these trips, in addition to informing citizens of other countries about "the injustices we are living through in Mexico" and linking it with what he calls the "globalization of repression", also aim to encourage international agencies such as the United Nations and the Organization of American States [OAS], to which Mexico belongs, to make recommendations.

In response to a reporter's question, De la Cruz commented:

    "We don't expect much from the U.S. government, but we hope for the necessary support from the Latino community."

He proposed that Mexicans living in the United States declare that they will refuse to participate in Mexican elections [scheduled for June 2015] until "the 43 reappear" and that "the necessary housecleaning" be carried out in the political parties,

    "because most of those who are running [for office] are part of organized crime in Mexico."

De la Cruz considered that President Barack Obama should be

    "reviewing some of the agreements that do not help democracy in Mexico."

The Mexican President projects a positive image abroad, and

    "that's why we've come here to tell you that in Mexico we are living in an anti-democracy, a State crime that goes back many years, but that now, as parents, we are not going to permit any more impunity."

At the same press conference and rally held in front of Mexico's Consulate in New York, community leader Juan Carlos Ruiz stated that "the caravans will make visible what is invisible", and that the governments of the U.S. and Mexico are responsible for policies that have caused not just 43, but "thousands and thousands of disappeared persons".

Gerardo Saldaña, from the Drug Policy Alliance, charged that the so-called war on drugs is the same "failed policy" that continues to destroy communities on both sides of the border.

During a rally, dozens of activists and community leaders expressed their support for the struggle of the Ayotzinapa students by chanting the slogans:

    "They took them alive — We want them back alive!"

    "Why? Why do they kill us if we are the hope for Latin America?"

The chants were followed by counting from one to 43 in the very heart of New York City.

Thanks fro the photo Chivis