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| Militant/Osborne Hart |
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WASHINGTON — More than 200 Mexican workers, students and their supporters demonstrated here near the White House Jan. 6 to protest a state visit by Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto and his government’s responsibility in the disappearance and presumed murder of 43 students from a rural teachers college.
Inside, Peña Nieto was discussing immigration, border control and Cuba with President Barack Obama. Similar protests were held at Mexican consulates in Houston, Los Angeles, Seattle, St. Louis and other cities. Holding banners and 43 photo placards with the names of each student, protesters chanted, “Justicia por Ayotzinapa 43, ahora” (Justice for the Ayotzinapa 43, now) and “Fuera Peña!” (Peña get out!) Local cops and masked gunmen carried out three attacks in Iguala, Mexico, Sept. 26, killing six people and forcing dozens into police vehicles. The Mexican government says the cops turned the 43 over to a drug gang. The students, who had traveled from their Ayotzinapa campus to prepare for an Oct. 2 commemoration of the 1968 massacre in Mexico City of student protesters, have not been seen since. The attack struck a nerve in Mexico, where more than 22,000 people have been “disappeared” in the last eight years amid political repression and general lawlessness and corruption by the police, military and private armies of the narcotics industry. “His wife was disappeared in June, driving a truck with a relative across the border,” Carmen Guerrero told the Militant, pointing to Jaime López, who came to the march with Guerrero from Norristown, Pennsylvania. “The truck has since been found registered under another name. But authorities are not giving out further information.” |
| — OSBORNE HART AND GEORGE CHALMERS |