In September 2018, as president-elect, López Obrador promised to clarify the case with the parents of the normalistas who disappeared in 2014 – during the six-year term of Enrique Peña Nieto.
“We are going to find out what really happened, to find out where the young people are and to punish those responsible,” he said at the time.
However, the relationship between the president and the families of the Ayotzinapa students has become strained.
The latest report presented by López Obrador on the Ayotzinapa case denies the responsibility of the Mexican Army in the disappearance of the young people and limits the responsibility of the State to the creation of the ‘historical truth’.
“There is no doubt about the State’s responsibility, whether due to omission, concealment or fabrication of the so-called ‘historical truth’ by the federal, state and municipal officials involved, but the accusation against the Army, without proof, makes me very suspicious and I maintain that it could be due to a desire for revenge by persons or agencies abroad to weaken a fundamental institution of the Mexican State,” said the president.
In response, the families rejected the report, calling it “full of inconsistencies and insults directed at lawyers, human rights defenders, journalists, and United Nations and U.S. officials.”
After the meeting with López Obrador at the National Palace, the virtual president-elect Claudia Sheinbaum is also expected to hold a meeting with the Ayotzinapa families this Monday.
