AYOTZINAPA, 3 STUDENTS ASSASSINATED, 43 OTHERS KIDNAPPED!
Stop the Policies that Lead to Barbarism, The Regime Is in Crisis!
On 25 September three students from the Ayotzinapa Higher Education School, in the state of Guerrero, were assassinated and 43 others kidnapped and locked up in the city of Iguala, in the same state, by municipal police, with the passive complicity of area military officers and the participation of drug-dealers.
The students, due to their poverty (they are sons and daughters of poor peasants) have a tradition of asking for money on the streets so that they can travel to other places to participate in political gatherings. This time they wanted to take part in a demonstration on 2 October in Mexico City. The mayor of Iguala, who is a member of the Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD), ordered the students to be repressed. The Municipal Police and the narcotics traffic-dealers wanted to terrorise the students of the rural Higher Education School and to put a stop to all student demonstrations, all the more so given that poor peasants were involved.
The repression has gone far beyond anything that had been witnessed before in the country and has opened up an unprecedented political crisis. While looking for the students who had been kidnapped, no less than 11 secret collective graves containing corpses were uncovered. The bodies had been tortured, burned alive, and dismembered so as not to be recognised. The legal authorities and the Federal government say that these are not the bodies of the students. But people in the street say: “They are lying, the government knows that it’s the Ayotzinapa students”. A priest by the name of Solalinde has given an account of statements of people living in the neighbourhood who witnessed the events and who state that the students were, in fact, executed.
At the same time, statements by political figures show how far the decomposition of the State has gone, and how far relations between the authorities and the criminal drug-dealing gangs have extended. The links between the PRD mayor of Iguala with the drug-dealing gangs have been brought to light. The governor of the state of Guerrero, also from the PRD, knew about the mayor's links with these gangs and covered them up.
The governor was informed and did nothing to stop the “operation” that was organised in three stages, in one afternoon and a night. The PRD in its National Council meeting of Saturday 18 October refused, through a vote of the leadership's majority current, to reject the resignation of the governor, who is a party member. The most cynical councillors said: If the governor must resign, then other governors should do the same.
The parents of the students are asking that the governor resign and that the children be returned alive. Nearly a month after the barbaric events, the government of President Peña Nieto has not replied to the students and to the Mexican people; it does not want to bring forth those who have disappeared -- either dead or alive. In the meantime, the mayor of Iguala and his accomplices have fled.
Yes, the country has entered into a situation of barbarism. The policies implemented by the governments of the PRI-PAN regime over the past three decades – privatisations; “free trade” treaties, first of all with the United States and Canada (TLCAN or NAFTA); and now the package of counter-reforms, mainly of energy (handing over oil, gas, and land minerals to imperialist capital) -- all have led to a profound decomposition of the institutions of the old regime.
The corruption and the collusion between the politicians and the narcotics dealers have risen to new levels. These are the result of the policies of handing over Mexico’s natural resources to imperialist capital and dismantling the social gains of the Mexican nation; they are the result of the cover-up by the regime of the drug trafficking and the arms violence. They are the result of the growing poverty of the majority of the population.
The barbarism of Ayotzinapa has aroused a profound feeling of indignation among young students and the population; indignation that is bound to increase so long as the Peña Nieto government gives no answer to the demands for the re-appearance of the students and for justice to be carried out.
There are daily strikes and demonstrations in the universities. On 21 and 22 October there will be a National Strike in nearly all the universities in the country. The leaders of political, social and trade union organisations who call for rejecting the counter-reforms and/or who claim to struggle for democracy have the responsibility to call for an organised and united mobilisation to put a stop to the implementation of the counter-reforms, beginning with the counter-reforms of the energy sector, and to demand the re-appearance of the 43 students, the punishment of those responsible for these crimes, and the solution to the students' just demands.
No, we cannot allow terrorism to be waged against the youth. No, we cannot permit barbarism to develop. No, we cannot accept that our oil and natural resources be handed over to foreign capital.
The MORENA Party has demanded the resignation of Peña Nieto as the person responsible for implementing these policies, all of which lead to chaos. For our part, we add the following: We must work toward convening a Sovereign Constituent Sovereign Assembly, to set up a real political and economic reform that annuls Peña Nieto's counter-reforms; that renders justice to the students of Ayotzinapa; that answers the just demands of students; that uses the resources of the nation for the development of industry and agriculture; and that cancels the public debt, which is unfair, because it is not the people's debt.
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