Intl experts reject Mexico’s version of 43 missing students

By Nancy Caouette

GUATEMALA CITY

The official version of what happened to 43 students from a teachers college in southern Mexico is a lie, a team of international experts said Sunday.

In a report written by investigators from Chile, Colombia, Guatemala and Spain for the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR), experts said the ‘’historical truth’’ presented in January by the Mexico’s former Attorney General Jesus Murillo Karam never happened.

In that version of events, the students were traveling on a bus but were later killed and burned in a giant fire in a garbage dump in Cocula, close to Iguala, where the young men disappeared.

The experts pointed to holes in the government’s story, including the fact that the army was not investigated and a doctor who said there was no evidence that remains of a student was found in Cocula. They provided new avenues to pursue the investigation.

In an alternative explanation of what occurred the night of Sept. 26, 2014, international investigators said a bus disappeared in Iguala that night, proposing the vehicle could have been loaded with a shipment of cash or drugs.

They strongly suggested authorities investigate that lead as it could be the cause for the attack on the bus in which the students were traveling.

The team also recommended authorities continue to look for the students in public or private ovens that may have been used to cremate their bodies.

Experts interviewed dozens of witnesses and detainees but were denied conduct interviews with soldiers who interacted with the students that night.

Parents of the missing students, who have never believed the official version of events, demanded to meet with President Enrique Pena Nieto before Sept. 10.

"We will not accept another lie from the government," said Blanca Nava Velez, mother of Jorge Alvarez Nava, one of the missing students.

"We might be poor, but we are not stupid," added Mario Cesar Gonzalez, the father of another student.

Relatives of the victims also asked for the group of international experts to remain in Mexico until the students would be found.

Mexico's current Attorney General Arely Gómez, who took office after the investigation was closed, said a second investigation with international experts would be requested to study the first official version and to pursue new leads.

‘’Authorities are sympathetic and are taking decisive action in light of these unfortunate events. The investigation will continue until the last consequences," Gómez said during in a press conference, stressing that Mexico’s government requested the IACHR report.

In the year since the disappearances, the remains of only one of the 43 missing students have been formally identified. Forensics did not certify the location where the remains were found.

According to the official version, local police kidnapped the students and turned them over to members of a local drug cartel known as Guerreros Unidos, or United Warriors.

The students were killed and their bodies burned.

Authorities said 131 individuals have been questioned in that case and 110 of them are under arrest.

Among them, the former mayor of Iguala, Jose Luis Abarca and his wife, Maria de los Angeles Pineda, who are believed to be the masterminds of the abductions.