Senate Democrat calls on Mexico to step up search for missing students

A top Senate Democrat appealed Thursday to the Mexican government to step up its investigation in the case of 43 missing students, a sign of growing concern over the broader issue of disappeared persons in Mexico’s war on drugs.

Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Md.), the ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, released a statement marking the second anniversary of the disappearance of the Mexican students in the southern state of Guerrero at the hands of local police and a criminal gang.

“Continued progress on this case is critical.  My staff has met directly with the families of the 43 students, and we cannot let their call for justice end in impunity,” said Cardin.

The Mexican federal government’s reaction to the disappearances has come under harsh international criticism, especially given the obstacles it set for the Interdisciplinary Group of Independent Experts (GIEI), a group of international researchers brought in to investigate the crime.

Cardin said the GIEI had faced “repeated obstacles such as restricted access to key documents and individuals, and found significant inconsistencies in the Mexican government’s investigation, including incidents of mishandled evidence.”

Cardin said members of the Mexican military “were discovered to have been at the scene of the crime and closely involved in the fatal events of that night.”

Investigators have been prevented from conducting follow-up interviews with soldiers who allegedly witnessed the events and did nothing to stop them, according to the GIEI report.

The Mexican government has documented over 28,000 cases of missing people since 2007, and most cases remain unsolved.

The 43 missing students have become an iconic case in the domestic and international push to improve the human rights record in Mexico, and a political sore spot for President Enrique Peña Nieto’s administration.

On Sept. 26, 2014, students from the Isidro Burgos rural college in Guerrero went to the city of Iguala to commandeer buses to attend a protest in Mexico City — a common practice — and were met by resistance from local police.

After a series of events including a gunfight allegedly initiated by police, 43 of the students were declared missing.

“By the end of that night, six people were killed, 25 were injured, and 43 students were forcibly ‘disappeared’ in a tragic story that has echoed around the globe,” said Cardin.

The Mexican federal government blamed a local politician and his wife — both under arrest since November 2014 — for ordering the city’s police to act, in collusion with the Guerreros Unidos drug cartel, against the students.