NDP calls on government to respond to requests for action on missing Mexican students
May 13, 2015
A major accomplishment from the Mexican caravan. A letter from the official opposition to the minister of Foreign affairs, Rob Nicholson asking the gov. of Canada to heed our requests during the caravan
Dear Minister Nicholson
We write to you today on behalf of the Official Opposition concerning the situation of the 43 students forcibly disappeared in Guerrero State, Mexico, in September of last year.
On September 26, Mexican police and gunmen attacked a group of students from a teachers’ college in Ayotzinapa, Guerrero state, killing 6 people and forcibly disappearing 43 others. This crime has become emblematic of the acute human rights crisis in Mexico. The disappearances and the ensuing investigation have made headlines throughout the world, and drawn the attention of many Canadians.
Thus far, the various investigations into the disappearances have uncovered more than 15 mass graves in Guerrero – one of which contained the bodies of 28 people – yet so far the body of only one missing student has been conclusively identified through DNA analysis.
Unhappy with the slow and partial progress of the Mexican government’s investigation, representatives of the parents of the missing have enlisted the help of a team of Argentinean forensics experts to study the available evidence. This team recently issued a statement pointing out a number of discrepancies in the government’s investigation, and claiming that the government had presented biased analyses of the scientific evidence to support its (most recent) conclusion that the youths were killed, their bodies burned to ashes and their remains thrown into a river to hide the evidence.
Unfortunately, the Ayotzinapa disappearances are not an isolated case. According to Human Rights Watch, roughly 26,000 people have been reported missing or forcibly disappeared in Mexico during the period of 2007-2014. Prosecutions have been few and the the overwhelming majority of the victims have not been located.
