Protestors have taken to the streets, organizing a 50,000-person march on Mexico City’s Paseo de la Reforma Boulevard
The elected mayor is under arrest, the police chief is on the run and city hall is a fire-ravaged shell of a building. This is the southern Mexican city of Iguala, a symbol of how drug-related violence has undermined the state’s grip on law and order.
Former Mayor Jose Luis Abarca and his wife were captured in Mexico City Tuesday after authorities alleged that they orchestrated the mass kidnapping of 43 students in Iguala on Sept. 26. The city hall was torched a month later during protests over government inaction.
The investigation into the missing students in this city of 100,000, less than three hours’ drive from the nation’s capital has turned up at least nine mass graves and evidence of collusion between local officials and drug cartels. The case has captured global headlines and fueled concern that the federal government has lost control over areas of a country racked by an eight-year drug war.
“Mexico is suffering from a complete absence of the rule of law,” said Sergio Moreno de Leon, 69, a teacher from an Iguala high school who said he knows of three former students from his school who have been kidnapped and later released. “Guerrero is a forgotten state. We’re living in crisis.”
It’s not just Guerrero. The Iguala disappearance coincides with a probe by Mexico’s Human Rights Commission of another massacre in the State of Mexico, where President Enrique Pena Nieto once served as governor, and the discovery of the corpses of three Americans near the northern city of Matamoros.
“I wish Iguala were an exception but it’s not,” Alfonso Zarate, a political consultant in Mexico City, said in a telephone interview. “This country has reached a really worrisome level of social decomposition.”
Iguala has brought the drug war, which Milenio newspaper estimates has left about 70,000 dead, back into the spotlight and prompted Pena Nieto or subordinates to address the search for the students on national TV on an almost daily basis. Their comments have failed to placate the public.
Protestors have taken to the streets, organizing a 50,000-person march on Mexico City’s Paseo de la Reforma Boulevard on Oct. 22, the same day Iguala’s city hall went up in flames. They also occupied local government offices in the beachside city of Acapulco.
Representatives of the students and their families said they would stage protests in various cities nationwide again yesterday.
Former Mayor Abarca orchestrated the Sept. 26 disappearance because he was concerned the students from a rural teaching school would interrupt an annual speech and celebratory dance in the central square in honor of his wife, Mexican Attorney General Jesus Murillo said Oct. 22.
Abarca’s police captured the students and handed them over to allies in the Guerreros Unidos gang, according to authorities, who say that’s the last that they know about the students’ fate.
Former Iguala police chief Felipe Flores remains a fugitive, according to Mexico City newspaper Excelsior.
Abarca and Pineda were still providing statements to federal authorities as of late Tuesday, Murillo told reporters.
More than 50 people have been detained in the case, among them local police from Iguala and the nearby town of Cocula and members of Guerreros Unidos. Before their capture yesterday, Interpol had a global bulletin to look for Abarca and Pineda, according to the Attorney General’s office.
Angel Aguirre, the Guerrero governor when the attacks took place, has taken an indefinite leave of absence. Eric Martin and Brendan Case , Bloomberg
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