Mexico: 'Missing Students' Disappearance in 2014 Was a State-Sponsored Crime,' Gov't Truth Commission Concludes

The Truth Commission, tasked by President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, has released its findings about the disappearance of 43 Mexican students in 2014. The final report stated that the students were ambushed by police officers, and it was a "state-sponsored crime involving federal and state authorities at the highest levels of government."

The commission's report confirmed that several elements of the Mexican federal government, including the Mexican military and federal police, were aware of the students' movements. They knew where the students were from the time they left their rural school campus in Guerrero State to when they arrived in the city of Iguala. There, they were abducted in the middle of the night on September 24, 2014.

Local Law Enforcement Worked With Cartel Members to Abduct Students, but National Government Also Involved

According to The Guardian, gunmen from a cartel were also involved in the abduction. They worked in conjunction with local law enforcement and lookouts and forcibly made the students disappear. AMLO vowed to get to the truth of the matter and said that every government agency involved will have to answer.

This new Truth Commission launched by AMLO seems to have gained more ground than previous inquiries into the students' disappearance. Documents were handed over by various branches of the military, including the marines and the recently-created national guard. They also provided videos and wiretaps to the commission as well.

According to the Daily Beast, the commission also unearthed transcripts of text messages between the town's Deputy Municipal Police Chief Francisco Salgado Valladares and Guerreros Unidos Cartel leader Gildardo López Astudillo. The messages indicated that they worked together to capture, torture, and then murder 38 of the 43 students.

What May Have Happened on the Night the 43 Students Disappeared?

The students were on their way to a protest in Mexico City. They commandeered several buses to get there. Unfortunately, some of these buses belonged to the Guerreros Unidos cartel, which used buses as part of their drug-running operation into the United States, and the students accidentally stole a load of these drugs.

This was when the deputy police chief and the drug cartel boss conspired to kill the students. The Mexican national government, which was monitoring the students' activities, knew they were attacked and did nothing. They even covered it up and obstructed international inquiries.

Several inquiries were made into the students' disappearance, as their incident shocked the entire nation. However, the government repeated their claims that they were killed and then had their bodies burned at a rubbish dump.

However, according to a 2016 report by The Guardian, the Inter-American Human Rights Commission (IACHR) and the Argentine Forensic Anthropology Team debunked those claims. Weather records also showed that it rained on the night the students disappeared. Satellite images also showed that there were no fires anywhere near the site of the abduction.

The new commission report also stated that the students were not taken to the landfill and then burned there.

This article is owned by Latin Post.

Written by: Rick Martin

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