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It’s been seven years since that Friday, July 31, 2015. The accumulation of tragedies and crimes that plague the country, as well as the impunity pacts, have tried to bury that day in oblivion. But love, memory and the need for truth and justice have led family members, friends, human rights defenders, journalists and solidarity people to help remember the names of Mile Martín, Yesenia Quiroz, Alejandra Negrete, Nadia Vera and Rubén Thorny.
The documentary In full light: the Narvarte casedirected by Alberto Arnaut and produced by Diego Enrique Osorno, points in this direction: it helps to remember, to go through the heart again
as Eduardo Galeano would say. Hopefully it also provokes indignation, and solidarity with those who fight for justice for this and other State crimes.
As will be recalled, on July 31, the multiple femicide of the four mentioned women and the homicide of Rubén were perpetrated. The crime was committed in an apartment located in the Narvarte neighborhood, Benito Juárez mayor’s office, Mexico City. It was 2015 and the country was hectic
. Since 2012, different social sectors have been protesting in the streets against Enrique Peña Nieto and his government. The student and youth movement had achieved a rich articulation and national and international communication regarding #YoSoy132. The groups and organizations of victims throughout the country denounced the consequences of the war policy that Felipe Calderón had initiated and continued with Peña Nieto. Added to these movements was the discontent of journalists who were forging networks to denounce the murder and disappearance of their colleagues, or to build security strategies. The teachers’ movement waged a fierce battle against educational reform and the indigenous movement resisted, as always, throughout the country. The disappearance of the 43 students from Ayotzinapa, in 2014, led to the social reactivation of these and other networks woven in previous struggles. Thousands and thousands of outraged people flooded hundreds of streets and squares in Mexico and other countries to unite the multiple cries into one: we are missing 43 and thousands more. Nadia Vera and Rubén Espinosa were and are part of all this common history: both contributed from different spaces to make violence visible, to denounce, to organize. They were not silent in the face of a criminal, corrupt and repressive state. And that State turned against them.
In the state of Veracruz, Nadia and Rubén faced the local version of that reign of terror. The governor of that state between 2010 and 2016, Javier Duarte, and his Secretary of Public Security, Arturo Bermúdez Zurita – Captain Storm– turned that state into a true hell. At the same time, the criminal group The Zetas it expanded throughout the state and imposed its power with lead and silver. At least 17 journalists were killed in this period, while hundreds of people were disappeared. Faced with such a situation, dozens of people decided to leave Veracruz. This was the case of Nadia and Rubén.
Both left for Mexico City, governed by Miguel Ángel Mancera, who since 2012 showed his authoritarian and repressive attitude. There they were murdered along with Mile, Yesenia and Alejandra. But not only were they killed, but they were also stigmatized and criminalized by the authorities of the Government of Mexico City, especially Mile and Yesenia. In the account of the authorities, the victims were responsible for their own tragedy, due to the fact that they were women and because one of them was born in a country other than Mexico. Added to the stigmatization and criminalization is not having investigated all lines of crime and other faults that, more than errors, point to complicity.
In the Narvarte multi-homicide, different crimes are combined, Alberto Arnaut suggests in his documentary. Trafficking in women, corruption, political crime, would be some of them. And all of them would be, until today, covered by the cloak of impunity. There are some directly responsible, who are prosecuted, but to this day the masterminds continue to be protected by the state structure. A state crime that continues to be covered up.
As in many other cases, it is the families, lawyers and friends who have carried out their own investigations to find the truth and tear down the official version.
Not only that, it is also these solidarity networks that have promoted memory policies, such as the Narvarte Memorial and its Festival Arte para no Olvidarte, which year after year takes place where the crime was committed.
Many more stories remain to be told to get to the truth. Many more walls will have to be demolished to achieve justice. For now, memory has resonated again: #Ju5ticiaNarvarte.
* Sociologist
