Ayotzinapa - Ten Years

Sept. 26, 2024

Today is the ten year anniversary of the disappearance of the 43 students from Ayotzinapa. Their families continue to struggle for answers and to fight for justice, reports Animal Político.

The Ayotzinapa case illustrates the phenomenon of macro-criminality, where security forces, organized crime and economic elites “collaborate and generate criminal networks together that rely on extortion, trafficking, illicit weapons trade, and other forms of corruption in order to profit and thrive,” according to National Security Archive senior analyst Kate Doyle. Related to this is a system of macro-impunity, where these same actors “cooperate to ensure that a justice system cannot function.”

Lucía Cholakian Herrera spoke with anthropologist Claudio Lomnitz: “Ayotzinapa has brought the issue of disappearances in Mexico to the international forefront. Yet, it does not seem to have changed the course of things regarding the search for the disappeared. It has been very interesting—and sad—that the social movement that emerged from this did not manage to create transitional justice. It could have happened, but it did not. The obsession with the 43 has tended to become a propaganda tool that the government uses to show that it is doing something.” (Nacla)

“Moving the case forward requires sharing information and listening to the proposals of the families and their representatives in a respectful and fact-based dialogue,” according to WOLA, which calls on the incoming “Sheinbaum administration to renew this dialogue, overcoming the government’s current, strained relationship with the families.”

The 43 are just the tip of the disappearance iceberg in Mexico: “More than 100,000 people have disappeared in Mexico, a staggering human rights catastrophe. A combination of soaring cartel violence and government impunity has left tens of thousands of people unaccounted for, many of them dead and buried in unmarked graves, others kidnapped and forced to work for organized crime,” reports the Guardian.

Indeed, the town of Iguala was sunk in a crisis of insecurity and kidnapping long before the day the 43 students disappeared, reports Animal Político.

Ecuador

• A new InSight Crime investigation breaks down the dynamics of organized crime in Durán, an Ecuadorean city just across a river from Guayaquil, that provides important context for understanding the country’s security downturn.

• “Durán, a municipality of over 300,000 inhabitants in Ecuador’s coastal Guayas province, has undergone a dramatic transformation from a thriving commercial center to a violent hub of criminal activity,” writes Anastasia Austin. “This shift reflects broader challenges facing Ecuador and offers critical insights into the complex interplay of social, economic, and criminal factors shaping security in the country.” (InSight Crime)

• As part of the investigation, Stephen Dudley details how Latin Kings' pacification process in Ecuador initially succeeded in reducing violence and reintegrating members into society, political shifts and internal divisions, coupled with rising pressures from criminal organizations, led to the breakdown of the initiative. (InSight Crime)

• Ecuadorean President Daniel Noboa abruptly canceled his United Nations engagements, yesterday, and returned home after a suspect was arrested in connecting with arson maneuvers in Quito. (Mercopress)

Chile

• “Chilean lawmakers gave their final approval to legislation that clamps down on tax evasion and boosts government revenues, handing President Gabriel Boric a win days before he unveils the 2025 budget,” reports Bloomberg.

Venezuela

• Venezuelan opposition leader Enrique Márquez backed by more than a dozen former Chavista officials asked the country's top court to annul its validation of President Nicolás Maduro’s widely-questioned reelection, reports AFP.

• Brazil and Colombia have agreed that they will not recognize Maduro’s purported reelection until authorities present detailed results of the July 28 vote, Colombian President Gustavo Petro said in a media interview. (El País)

• Venezuelan foreign minister Yvan Gil spoke at the UN General Assembly yesterday — to a nearly empty auditorium as most delegations left. He maintained that Venezuelan voters overwhelmingly reelected Maduro, despite evidence to the contrary. (El País)

Haiti

• Haitian Prime Minister Garry Conille said his country is a long way from winning its war against armed gangs that control most of the capital — he spoke at an UNGA side event a week ahead of a UN deadline for long-delayed international support, reports Reuters.

• Guatemalan President Bernardo Arévalo said that his country would send 150 military police officers to help Haiti fight violent gangs. (Associated Press)

• Dominican Republic President Luis Abinader warned yesterday at the UNGA that his administration would take “drastic measures” to protect the country if a U.N.-backed mission in Haiti targeting gang violence fails. (Associated Press)

• The U.S. Biden administration sanctioned Prophane Victor, a former Haitian lawmaker and political party leader whose tight grip on the Artibonite region has helped fueled a climate of gang terror, along with the head of a powerful gang he reportedly helped form in the region, reports the Miami Herald.

Migration

• Former US President Donald Trump said that he would kick out hundreds of thousands of immigrants who have entered the country under two key Biden administration programs if he wins the November presidential election. (Associated Press)

El Salvador

• A ruling is expected soon Inter-American Court of Human Rights landmark abortion case Beatriz v. El Salvador. “The sides and their respective allies have taken drastically different public approaches as they await the ruling,” reports El Faro. Allies of the victim “ask for justice, legalization of abortion access, and the recognition of the state crime of torture,” while “organizations, academics, and spokespeople who have sided with the Salvadoran state’s representatives are attacking the Court and the magistrates’ independence and credibility.”

Regional

• A new Amnesty International podcast on abortion access features human rights defenders such as Venezuelan teacher Vannesa Rosales, whohelped her 13-year-old student who had been raped to get access to a safe abortion, and activist Verónica Cruz Sánchez, founder of Las Libres – a feminist Mexican organization that coordinates a network of daring activists sending free abortion pills to women in the U.S.

Argentina

• Drought and mismanagement have turned Argentina’s Lake Colhué Huapí into a virtual dustbowl. Now the race is on to save its sister lake from the same fate, reports the Guardian.

Peru

• Pope Francis took the unusual decision to expel 10 people – a bishop, priests and laypeople -- from a troubled Catholic movement in Peru after a Vatican investigation uncovered “sadistic” abuses of power, authority and spirituality. (Associated Press)

• Poderosa, one of Peru's largest gold miners, said a criminal attack related to illegal mining on one of its facilities left a security agent dead. (Reuters)

• Botanists are partnering with flying paramotorists to survey rare vegetation in Peru’s coastal fog oasis deserts, one of the most fragile and inaccessible landscapes in the world, reports the Guardian.

Critter Corner

• Scientists say a Mexican dinosaur fossil bolsters their case for a distinct southern population of Tyrannosaur: “Unlike its heavily built cousin, this animal was long-legged and lightly built, with big eyes that may have helped it hunt in low light and a heavy snout for dispatching helpless prey.” (New York Times)

• Scientists are studying a previously unknown pod of orcas feeding off the coast of northern Chile: “In 2018, a group of anchovy fishermen in the Chilean bay of Mejillones saw a pod of orcas up close for the first time. Hundreds of sea lions were entering and exiting their nets, attracted by the fish typical of the area. It was then that the fishermen witnessed these great ocean predators arrive — led by a female, later named Dakota by scientists — who took advantage to approach the boats and corner the sea lions to feed on them.” (El País)