MEXICO CITY (CN) — An international group of independent investigators looking into the 2014 disappearance of 43 teachers’ college students in the southern Mexican state of Guerrero presented its final report Tuesday, but not because they uncovered the truth.
Citing intentional obstruction by actors in Mexico’s government and military institutions, the group announced it would no longer be able to conduct its work and that its members would return to their home countries.
“The concealment of information … has become a responsibility of the state in the disappearance of the young men,” said Spanish investigator Carlos Martín Beristain.
The Interdisciplinary Group of Independent Experts (GIEI) was appointed in November 2014 by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights to investigate the disappearances of 43 students from the Ayotzinapa teachers’ college in the nearby town of Iguala, Guerrero, the night of Sept. 26, 2014.
The GIEI held its first meeting in early 2015 and issued two reports before concluding its investigations in 2016. It reconvened in May 2020 at the request of the families of the missing students.
But the group has found it “impossible” to get at the truth, Beristain said, thanks to a government determined to “deny things that are obvious.”
Its sixth and final report again attributed the disappearances to soldiers in Mexico’s army, which “not only allowed the attacks to take place, but later covered them up and did not provide truthful information about what happened,” Berinstain said.
“Mexico’s Secretary of Defense continues to lie about the lack of information on what happened and about documents it had concerning the possible location of the students,” he said.
Originally composed of five members, Beristain presented the final report alongside the only other remaining investigator, Angela Buitrago from Colombia. Alejandro Valencia, also from Colombia, Francisco Cox from Chile, and Claudia Paz y Paz from Guatemala had already stepped away from the group.
Getting to the bottom of the Ayotzinapa case was one of several promises President Andrés Manuel López Obrador made on the campaign trail, but — as with his pledge to free Mexico’s political prisoners — that promise remains unkept.
López Obrador vowed Tuesday to continue seeking the truth of what happened that fateful night in September 2014.
“I am committed to uncovering the whole truth, so that the whole truth about the disappearance of the young men is known,” he said during his morning press conference. “And it is a commitment that I am going to fulfill, I am fulfilling it. Progress is being made.”
Mexico has made several arrests related to the case in recent weeks, but López Obrador has implied that they were likely people acting rebelliously. He continues to defend the integrity of Mexico’s armed forces under his administration.
In August 2022, Human Rights Undersecretary Alejandro Encinas presented the partially redacted findings of a Truth Commission created by López Obrador, which determined that the “historical truth” presented by the administration of former President Enrique Peña Nieto was a fabrication concocted at the highest levels of the federal government.
A leaked version of the report the following month appeared to uncover the gruesome details of the commission’s findings, but its veracity came into question after Encinas later told The New York Times that “a very important percentage” of the report had been invalidated.
That newspaper also reported having heard a recording in which Encinas offered former security official Tomás Zerón, who is in Israel evading charges of torture and forced disappearance, among others, that he would have the “president’s support” in exchange for information on the case.
“The president doesn’t care about putting anyone in jail,” Encinas reportedly said.
Former Attorney General Jesús Murillo Karam, who is accused of helping fabricate the “historical truth,” was arrested last August and indicted on charges of torture, forced disappearance and crimes against the administration of justice.
He was put into mandatory pretrial detention and remains in jail, despite a federal judge granting a suspension of his trial last September. His lawyers have tried several times to get a judge to allow Murillo Karam to await trial outside of prison, alleging his failing health, but beyond a few trips to the hospital, their efforts have failed.
A federal judge indicted Murillo Karam on new charges of torture and forced disappearance in April.
Parents of the disappeared students took the GIEI’s announcement hard. One told The Washington Post that she was “devastated” and questioned her chances of discovering the truth without the work of the international investigators.
Martín Ocampo, a supporter of the victims’ families who for years has helped maintain a sit-in installed outside the former attorney general’s office in December 2014, told Courthouse News that the withdrawal of the GIEI is further proof that the state is responsible for the disappearances of the 43 students.
“We knew the government was hiding information,” Ocampo said. “Now it’s coming to light.”
He, the victims’ families and a country racked by extreme violence can now only turn to the very government the GIEI accuses of covering up the truth to help them find it.
“We have no other choice but to trust in the government,” Ocampo said. “But we’ve got presidential campaigns coming up, and that is going to get in the way. We’ve lost what we hoped to gain during this presidential term.”
Follow @copycopeland
Subscribe to Closing Arguments
Sign up for new weekly newsletter Closing Arguments to get the latest about ongoing trials, major litigation and hot cases and rulings in courthouses around the U.S. and the world.
