Parents, Mexico agree on probe of 43 missing students

By Nancy Caouette

MEXICO CITY

The parents of 43 missing students on Thursday held a two-hour meeting with Foreign Affairs Secretary Claudia Ruiz Massieu in which they agreed to a path forward with an investigation.

Vidulfo Rosales, a lawyer for the relatives of the students who disappeared in Iguala, Guerrero, told reporters that the meeting was “good and productive.”

The parents and the government agreed on the importance of establishing a special monitoring mechanism to pursue the investigation, he said.

“We agreed on defining a mechanism whose priorities will be the victims and the clarification of the facts,” Ruiz Massieu said via Twitter.

That mechanism will be defined later this month in Washington at a meeting between representatives of the parents and experts of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IAHCR) that investigated the case.

“We found several concordances between the federal government’s positions and the positions we want to present in front of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights,” Vudulfo Rosales said.

In addition, independent experts of the IACHR, who left Mexico last month after presenting their final report on the case, will make periodic visits to Mexico to ensure a special follow-up on the official investigation.

Meanwhile, a spokesman for the parents, Felipe de la Cruz, said he hopes the agreements will be fulfilled. “Government is always good for official speeches, but in fact, nothing is done,” he said.

The male students from Ayotzinapa College in the state of Guerrero, disappeared Sept. 26, 2014, in Iguala after being attacked and kidnapped by local police.

According to the official investigation, police handed over the students to the Guerreros Unidos, or United Warriors, cartel.

Organized crime members killed the youth and burned their bodies in Cocula, located 21 kilometers (13 miles) away.

Observers and two separate teams of international experts who have investigated the case have rejected the official version of events and encouraged the government to pursue other leads.