Complicity is what stains the armed forces, highlights AMLO

Alonso Urrutia and Nestor Jimenez

Newspaper La Jornada
Tuesday, August 23, 2022, p. 5

The report on the disappearance of normalistas from Ayotzinapa not only shows the horrors committed against them, but also the misrepresentation of justice to fabricate the historical truthPresident Andrés Manuel López Obrador affirmed. He maintained that former prosecutor Jesús Murillo Karam incriminated himself as the head of the investigation and specified that the document does not reveal requests for an arrest warrant against former President Enrique Peña Nieto, nor former Secretary of National Defense Salvador Cienfuegos.

These injustices cannot go unpunished. How do I see the parents of the boys? I have been meeting with them for three years, informing them, in meetings, some harsh, because imagine the pain of not seeing their children. I have nothing personal against Mr. Murillo Karam, or against anyone, but this has to do with my responsibility and with my convictions, with my principlessaid the president at yesterday’s conference.

He pointed out that the government maintains the efforts for the extradition of Tomás Zerón, who as head of the Criminal Investigation Agency was directly responsible for the investigations. The President did not offer further details of this case.

However, he stressed that in front of the press Murillo assumed himself, along with Zerón, as responsible for leading the process, which implies blaming himself for the course of the investigations.

They agreed to hide the facts, in making the so-called historical truth, because the report reveals how they presented things, how they lied. The report talks about how they forged, how they plotted all this, López Obrador pointed out.

Given the insistence on questions about Peña Nieto’s possible responsibility, given that he should have known the meaning of the investigations, he said that, in his case, it would be up to the judge to determine if the former president would be involved. If the prosecution or the judges determine that there are others involved, they will decide in absolute freedom, he stressed.

military role

The president added that the document reveals the responsibility of some soldiers in the disappearance of the normalistas. He emphasized that the times when these crimes were justified because the victims were unruly, as a lesson or because of their alleged involvement in criminal acts, arguments that he described as offensive, are over. It is a sittuation unpublished where no one will be covered up, he said.

“Nothing about acting like this to protect the prestige of the armed forces. No, prestige is obtained by acting righteously, not hiding things. The armed forces as an institution are one thing and the attitude of certain members is another, not the same thing. ‘It’s going to be damaged, it’s going to stain the Army or the armed forces.’ No. They do stain if there is complicity, if the truth is not acted upon; if not, they don’t have to get dirty, those responsible are punished and it’s cleaned up, “argued the president.

I don’t know what they thought. We are talking about two moments, right? They had already committed this atrocity. Why hide the facts? Who did they protect? Who can be more important than justice and truth?

He asserted that in order to measure what happened, both in the atrocities committed and in the alteration of the investigations, he ordered that the report and its annexes be made transparent.

He stated that in the documents there are declarations very very strong of the way they got rid of the normalistas and how they planned to move them. Although the investigation has not been closed, the dissemination of the report was determined, López Obrador stressed. National and international experts worked on its integration without interference from anyone, not even the president, he said.

He recognized the parents of the normalistas because they never gave up on the direction of the investigations or the decision to close it with the historical truth. He assumed that this is the most painful part, that the parents have had to live through this, that is why he considered them exceptional in his struggle to find the truth.

He recalled that the governments that he called neoliberal determined to close the rural normal schools with the pretext that they trained people with subversive ideasbut among poor peasant families, Chapingo and these schools represented the only opportunity to study in Oaxaca, Chiapas, and Guerrero.