By: Ana Luz Manzano Ortiz, PILPG-NL Junior Research Associate
Abel, Aberlardo, Adán, Alexander, Antonio, Benjamín, Bernardo, Carlos Iván, Carlos Lorenzo, César, Christian Alfonso, Christian Tomás, Cutberto, Dorian, Emiliano, Everardo, Felipe, Giovanni, Israel Caballero, Israel Jacinto, Jesús, Jhosivani, Jonás, Jorge Álvarez, Jorge Aníbal, Jorge Antonio, Jorge Luis, José Ángel Campos, José Ángel Navarrete, José Eduardo, José Luis, Julio César, Leonel, Luis Ángel Abarca, Luis Ángel Francisco, Madgaleno, Marcial, Marco, Martín, Mauricio, Miguel Ángel Hernández, Miguel Ángel Mendoza and Saúl were the names of the 43 students of the Escuela Normal de Ayotzinapa (“Rural Teacher School of Ayotzinapa”) who disappeared on the night of the October 26, 2014 in Iguala, Guerrero, Mexico.
More than eight years later, the investigation keeps developing due to the efforts of the students’ families who have brought numerous national and international actors into the scene. As a result of their efforts, Mexican President López Obrador created a truth commission in December 2018 to support the investigation of the Ayotzinapa case, the first of its kind in Mexico. The present blog will analyze the role of this newly created truth commission, based on the newest report of the Interdisciplinary Group of Independent Experts (GIEI) appointed by the Inter-American Commission of Human Rights.
Truth Commissions in Transitional Justice
Truth is one of the key elements of transitional justice, which establishes that individuals and societies have the right to know what has happened during a conflict. Truth-seeking initiatives investigate past human rights abuses to determine what happened, why it happened, and to what effect in order to prevent future abuses. For this reason, all around the world, truth commissions have become an essential part of transitional justice. Truth-seeking initiatives can take many forms, including freedom of information legislation, investigations into the missing, and non-judicial truth commissions.
Truth commissions have a long history in Latin America, with important examples from Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Guatemala, El Salvador, and Peru. National governments have created truth commissions within processes of peace agreements and transitional procedures with the task of investigating violations of human rights and international humanitarian law by military dictatorships or authoritarian regimes, or during internal armed conflicts.
Mexico’s long history of forced disappearances by security forces began with the Guerra Sucia (the “Dirty War”) of the 1980’s, and continues with the ongoing “War against drugs” that began in 2006. However the current President of Mexico has established the first truth commission to investigate one specific event: the case of the 43 students of Ayotzinapa. This could potentially be the beginning of a journey for seeking the truth in Mexico.
The investigation and the order to create a truth commission
Between the night of October 26 and the morning of October 27, 2014, a series of violent events took place in Iguala, Guerrero, resulting in the disappearance of 43 students. The students from a rural teacher school, commonly called normalistas, were preparing to bring education to the rural areas of Mexico. The normalistas of Ayotzinapa were traveling in buses to Mexico City, where they would take part in the commemoration of the massacre of the students of Tlatelolco in 1968.
The Federal Police stopped the normalistas on a highway in Iguala, Guerrero, and shortly after, the police opened fire against them. The reason why the encounter turned violent is still unclear, but a strong hypothesis by the GIEI is that a drug cartel called Guerreros Unidos had used some of the buses to transport narcotics. Police executed six people, among them three normalistas and three other people present at the scene, and injured more than 40 during the attack. In addition, the whereabouts of the 43 missing normalistas is still unknown.
The disappearance of the normalistas sparked public outrage, and the investigation gained attention from media all over the world. The General Prosecutor of Mexico released the infamous “historical truth,” which were the results of his investigation of the event. According to this version, Guerreros Unidos executed the normalistas and burned their bodies in a municipal dump. However, this version was quickly proven to be a fabrication by the investigation of the GIEI.
The GIEI arrived in Mexico after the relatives of the normalistas presented a request of interim measures to the Inter-American Commission of Human Rights. The relatives of the normalistas have used several other legal mechanisms, including a constitutional claim against the “historical truth,” the investigation of the Federal Prosecutor. In a historical verdict, the Tribunal Federal Colegiado (Federal Collegiate Tribunal) in charge of this claim ordered that the Mexican President, as one of the authorities responsible for the flawed investigation of the General Prosecutor, create a Truth Commission to establish the true account of the events.
The role of the truth commission in the new report of the GIEI
A Presidential Decree of December 4, 2018 created the Comisión para la Verdad del Caso Ayotzinapa (Truth Commission for the Truth of the Ayotzinapa Case). This Commission has the role of facilitating dialogue between the authorities involved in the investigation, creating a mechanism of economic incentives for the collaboration of individuals who may have information on the events, strengthening international technical cooperation with organizations like the GIEI, and strengthening the reparation assistance to the victims of the case.
Representatives of the victims have challenged the creation of the Truth Commission, as they claim that it has no powers to take direct part in the investigations, but only to help the parties involved, namely the GIEI, the victims, and the prosecutors. Despite this, in the latest report by the GIEI, the group recognized that the Commision played an important role in advancing the investigation, as it helped the GIEI access information it did not have in previous years. One of its major findings, according to the report of GIEI, were around 60 videos that confirm that the initial detainees who were part of the “historical truth” investigation, had been tortured. For this, the GIEI has asked the Mexican state to strengthen the Commission, as a fundamental part of the fight for truth and justice for the normalistas.
In conclusion, the role of the Commission has proven to be key in the development of the investigation. With the finding of the evidence of torture during the investigation, as well as the funding and identification of human remains of two of the normalistas, the GIEI has now established that most of the “historical truth” never took place. The search for truth by the Commission is not only fundamental for the victims of Ayotzinapa, but for all of the Mexican society who were led by false information in the past. In a country where impunity has hurt its population for so long, to find the truth is only necessary.