Collectives of searchers should not exist. They exist because their loved ones were ripped away from them and they got no response from a complicit and absent State. They exist because there are 120,000 families devastated by the disappearance of one or more of their members. Because the federal, state and municipal governments in office only turn to look at them when a tragedy strikes. Today it was Teuchitlán, yesterday San Fernando and tomorrow who knows.
With shovels and fingernails they dig in the earth that they arrive at because of a whistle, a rumor, a something that crosses their collective ears. What would have happened if they had not crossed the threshold of the Izaguirre ranch, in Teuchitlán, Jalisco? Who would have dared to handle with care and dignity every piece of bone, every shoe, backpack, notebook and T-shirt that was found in that very same hell?? Who would have offered the photographic testimony that clandestine crematoriums do exist, for the moment when the authorities would deny it?
The National Guard was there just six months ago, and there are testimonies that the training and extermination camp for decietfully or forcefully recruited young people had been operating since 2012, just 55 kilometers from Guadalajara. The shadowy discovery of the collective Guerreros Buscadores de Jalisco, identified the clandestine ovens and handed over all the information to the authorities.
Every year more and more families lose a loved one and start the journey through vacant lots and indifferent institutions from zero. Today, horror is spreading in our society because the possibility of it hitting home is getting closer and closer. This is also the reason for the need to mobilize instead of taking shelter. And that is why today, in more than 30 cities in twenty states of the Republic, there will be vigils and collective mourning in central squares with 400 candles and 400 shoes representing those who are no longer here because there was no State to protect them.
There is no shortage of shameless politicians who want to get involved in an action that rightly calls them into question. Nor is there any lack of the repeated denial by the government. But today the horror is greater, there is no room for indifference and the community is looking for a way to muffle the fear and search for the hope that has been snatched away.
Original text published in Los de Abajo, in La Jornada on March 15, 2025.
Translation by Schools for Chiapas.