On the night of September 26th, 2014, students from the Raúl Isidro Burgos Rural Teachers’ College commandeered buses in Iguala to travel to Mexico City for the October 2nd march. They set out to commemorate a massacre of students, only to become victims of another one themselves. Years later, that coincidence is no mere anecdote; it is key to understanding why the case remains open.
Days before the anniversary, the government announced that this Thursday, the 24th, the specialized prosecutor’s office would present a new public report detailing lines of investigation, those detained, and the supporting evidence. The parents reacted with skepticism. While they acknowledge some progress—such as the detention of former governor Ángel Aguirre and new data regarding the perpetrators’ phone usage—they insist that none of this tells them where their children are. They continue to demand the release of 853 military intelligence files that the Defense Ministry claims do not exist. They are calling for the return of the IGIE (Interdisciplinary Group of Independent Experts) and the extradition of Tomás Zerón, and have openly accused the government of shielding the armed forces. To date, the remains of only three of the 43 students have been identified.
The core issue of Ayotzinapa is the continued absence of the missing students, not a lack of narratives. There has been a “historical truth” fabricated through torture, a truth commission that adopted the characterization of the event as a state crime, and now, a new report. Each version is presented as a development promising closure. Each time, the families respond with the same question—one that no document has yet answered. As long as the military files that officially “do not exist” remain hidden, no report will be able to reveal the truth of what happened.
To understand the resistance to clarifying the facts, it is worth looking back at October 2nd. In 1968, the State framed the student movement as a conspiracy against the nation and treated it as a military enemy. The repression did not end at Tlatelolco. The following year, the government shut down nearly half of the country’s rural teacher-training colleges, accusing them of being hotbeds of agitation. In Guerrero, the “dirty war” of the 1970s targeted peasant communities, student teachers, and educators trained at those schools; Lucio Cabañas was an Ayotzinapa alumnus. The Army that forcibly disappeared hundreds of people in Atoyac is the same institution whose battalion was monitoring—in real time—what was happening in Iguala on that night in 2014.
A single thread connects these episodes: the characterization of the student as an internal enemy. First comes the stigma. For decades, rural teacher-training colleges have been described as breeding grounds for guerrillas, and their students labeled as vandals, thugs, or bus hijackers. Then comes punishment, and finally impunity—which the stigma itself aims to make tolerable. The young men of Ayotzinapa were poor, rural, politicized, and organized. They embodied all the characteristics the Mexican State has persecuted since before 1968.
This continuity places the current government in a contradiction that no report can resolve. Acknowledging that Ayotzinapa was a state crime compels us to scrutinize the Army, because the Army ‘’is’’ the State. Yet, in recent years, the armed forces have amassed unprecedented institutional power—in public security, infrastructure projects, and civilian functions. It is impossible to confront them and rely on them at the same time. Asking the families for trust without opening the archives does not resolve this contradiction; it exacerbates it.
If there is a genuine will to uncover the truth, there are concrete steps that do not depend on a new report. The first is the full opening of military archives and facilities, accompanied by an independent audit—rather than relying on the word of the institution under investigation—to verify the existence of the 853 documents and, where applicable, their contents. The second point is the return of the GIEI with full powers. The third is the extradition of Zerón and the prosecution of the military and civilian commanders who knew what was happening but failed to act. The fourth is changing the State’s relationship with rural teacher-training colleges: ensuring sufficient funding, ending stigmatization, and recognizing the role these institutions play in training teachers for the country’s poorest communities.
Public universities, too, have a role that goes beyond mere commemoration. Ayotzinapa cannot be reduced to just another date on the calendar of observances. It represents the extreme consequence of what happens when the State decides that organized young people pose a threat. Student communities, academic staff, governing bodies, and the institutions themselves must maintain an unwavering demand for the truth.
“October 2nd is not forgotten”—a refrain repeated for 58 years. Nor is September 26th. But memory is not enough. What is at stake is for the Mexican State to finally stop treating the youth as an enemy.
To Adolfo Gilly, who named the State crime.
Original article by Imanol Odorika, September 24th, 2026.
Translated by Schools for Chiapas.