The parents of the 43 disappeared students from the Ayotzinapa Rural Teachers College met with deputies to demand that they put pressure on the Attorney General’s Office (PGR) to find the truth behind the case, punish those responsible and locate the students who disappeared more than two years ago.
The relatives of the disappeared entered through the strict security measures to the Chamber of Deputies, counting together from one to 43 and chanting “alive they were taken, alive we want them back.”
The relatives of the disappeared excoriated the deputies for not doing their jobs, that after two years and two months, they have not been able to raise their voices to demand the truth and a serious investigation, and that they have not been able to defend the presence of foreign experts.
“We want your total support,” said Emilio Navarrete, father of José Alberto Navarrete González, to the deputies. “We want the PGR to do take the experts’ recommendations seriously. The deputies should demand that the PGR continue investigating all lines of investigation.”
Nicanadora García broke out in tears and asked the deputies to put themselves in the places of the parents.
“If you had already told us the truth about my son, if you had given us our sons back, we wouldn’t be here, as you say, causing trouble,” she said. “You think we don’t want to work? No. We are farmers, but we also have dignity and we can eat with what God puts on our tables, but we want to be happy with our sons.”
Relatives of Aldo Gutiérrez, who was wounded when the 43 students were disappeared and is now in a vegetative state, joined the call for justice.
After the meeting, which lasted two and a half hours, deputies from all eight political parties that are represented in the Chamber of Deputies promised to support the families of the disappeared and to work towards thorough investigations.
None of the parties’ legislative leaders attended the meeting except for Francisco Martínez Neri of the Democratic Revolution Party (PRD). After the meeting, Martínez Neri demanded the that the PGR’s head of criminal investigation Tomás Zerón be removed from his position for manipulating the investigation into the Ayotzinapa case. He also said that he will continue insisting that the parents of the disappeared students be received by a plenary session in the Chamber of Deputies.