During the protest in front of military camp 35-C, formerly the 27th Infantry Battalion of Iguala, the mothers and fathers of the 43 pointed out that it has been 11 years since the forced disappearance of the students, “seeking truth and justice from the government, but what we found were the direct perpetrators of the disappearance of our children: the army, responsible for many disappearances in the country.”
Family members and the Federation of Socialist Peasant Students of Mexico (FECSM) arrived at noon at the gates of what used to be the 27th Infantry Battalion, where the 43 students from the Ayotzinapa teacher training college disappeared. Barbed wire fences had been erected to contain the students’ actions. The mothers and fathers formed a fan shape with the faces of their children, turning their backs on the military installations.
Melitón Ortega, uncle of the disappeared student Mauricio Ortega Valerio, began by addressing the lack of clarification in the Ayotzinapa case and the evidence that has been hidden. The federal authorities are not investigating and have allowed many of the intellectual and material perpetrators to remain free. The most heartbreaking thing is “the anguish, sadness, and pain of the mothers and fathers these days because they are missing a son, a nephew, a father, and an uncle. It is unfortunate that the authorities have invented one way after another to deceive the families. The mothers gathered at the 27th Battalion in Iguala are there because the army has not provided any information.”
Mauricio’s uncle explained that despite the institutional efforts of Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s government, which issued orders to the army to open the files that could shed light on the whereabouts of the 43 students, it always maintained a negative stance. A decree was issued requiring all security institutions to provide any information they had about the events of September 26 and 27, 2014, but none presented any evidence, and the military remained tight-lipped.
Furthermore, the families are angry that the investigation by the Interdisciplinary Group of Independent Experts (GIEI) found evidence that the army intercepted a phone call reporting that a group of 17 students had been taken to the municipal police station in Iguala.
What is unusual is that the military institution has refused to hand over 800 pages of documents that could contain information about the whereabouts of the young people. Even Claudia Sheinbaum’s government has been unable to break through the military wall. “It is not possible for this military institution to enjoy privileges. How can we believe in a rotten institution when every day we see that the military and the Navy are colluding with organized crime? The military commanders who were arrested were released, but they should be in jail,” claimed Don Melitón.
The mothers’ and fathers’ lawyer, Isidoro Vicario, elaborated on the line of investigation of a group of students who, according to the testimony of a detainee, were admitted to the 27th Infantry Battalion. The military monitored the attack on the students in real time without taking action to protect them. From the very beginning, the parents demanded that the army be investigated because it allowed their children to disappear and never supported them. “Today we know that the army is not only responsible for acts of omission, but rather, the group of experts has proven its direct involvement on the night of September 26.”
After years, it is known that the army had infiltrated with at least one of its members into the Ayotzinapa teacher training college, even as early as 2010. They monitored the students’ movements step by step from the moment they left and during the crime. After the attack, they took it upon themselves to hide the information. This is a practice that the military has employed since the countless disappearances that occurred between the 1960s and 1990s. Ayotzinapa is evidence of the army’s continued serious human rights violations.
The harsh color lashed against the asphalt. The graffiti of “43” or “September 26” is not forgotten on the walls of military power, captured at the moment when Don Emiliano Navarrete, father of José Ángel Navarrete González, spoke of how they have been seeking truth and justice from the government for 11 years. It was a state crime because the police forces coordinated their actions, but the mastermind behind this “crime against humanity” was the army.
The father reported that the former secretary of security, Salvador Cienfuegos, denied knowledge of the events. “How is it possible that on that night, when there was an attack with heavy weapons, the army remained silent? It was complicit in the disappearance and attack on our young people because it had a young man as an infiltrator, an intelligence soldier. There was a purpose behind Sedena’s actions; everything was ordered from there.”
The mothers and fathers are demanding that the military hand over the 800 pages. Helplessness gnaws at the soul because each new government proposes new lines of investigation. “Today they propose scientific lines of investigation, but that has only left us stuck. In this country, the highest institution for the defense of human rights does not function. If it did, it would be demanding progress and punishment for those responsible for conducting this investigation, which after 11 years has not brought us truth and justice,” denounces Don Emiliano.
The rally ended with a speech by a teacher training student. The mothers and fathers gradually began to leave. The slogans echoed from the gate to the walls of the military camp: “They took them alive, we want them back alive!” With their faces covered, a group of teacher training students began throwing firecrackers at the army facilities. They set a car on fire near the green gate. The military can no longer deny information in a democratic country, but throughout history they have been the main perpetrators of serious human rights violations.
The mothers and fathers said they will continue to fight until they find out the whereabouts of their children. Don Emiliano affirmed the “lack of humanity of the government, which prefers to protect those responsible and not provide truth and justice. They see us as poor, that we will get tired and go home, but it doesn’t matter if we die in the struggle as long as we can return to embrace our children.”
Original text published at Tlachinollan Center for Human Rights on September 23rd, 2025.
Translated by Schools for Chiapas.