From Tlatelolco to Ayotzinapa: The Continuity of Impunity in Mexico

Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/01/world/americas/mexico-tlatelolco-massacre.html

By: Fernanda Álvarez Pineiro

DISCLAIMER: The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the KCL Latin American Society or El Cortao.

Every 2nd of October, the streets of Mexico City reverberate with the echoing chants of indignation of students and alumni who march to commemorate those that were killed in 1968 in the Plaza of Tlatelolco at the hands of the state. The quintessential ‘No Se Olvida!’ is reproduced in a myriad of posters that aim to remind Mexican society of this chilling scar that has not yet scabbed as its perpetrators still have not been brought to justice. The 1968 Tlatelolco massacre was preceded by a summer of peaceful student protests, which saw demands for democratic rights that challenged a paternalistic quasi-dictatorship led by the Revolutionary Institutionalized Party (PRI). These protests worsened the anxiety of President Gustavo Díaz Ordaz, whose jitteriness stemmed from the impending inauguration of the 1968 Olympics in October. In the midst of the Cold War, Ordaz wanted to not only convince his Northern neighbor that a communist revolution was not festering in the heart and veins of his country, but that Mexico was a modernizing powerhouse that would become an economic role model in Latin America. Demands for democracy, in this context, wrongly became equated with dreams of replicating the Cuban Revolution at home– with disastrous consequences. With the whole world watching, students were silenced with bullets. The next morning, newswires reported on the weather and the tangible euphoria of the upcoming Olympics. Impunity, to this day, continues to permeate the memory of the 2nd of October. 

​It was with this indignation towards impunity that, in September of 2014, students from the Ayotzinapa Rural Teachers College in Iguala, Guerrero set out to raise funds to organize a trip to Mexico City in time for the 2nd of October marches. It had become a tradition; a means of not only preserving historic memory, but of reminding the incumbent government that impunity does not go unnoticed despite its prevalence in daily political life and discourse in Mexico. As students mounted the buses, they would subsequently be halted by the federal police, and 43 of them would be handed to the Guerreros Unidos drug cartel and forcefully disappeared. Despite the continuing investigations by the attorney general's office and the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR), there has been no conclusive official verdict. Perhaps the most convincing assessment is by investigative journalist Anabel Hernández who found that the 43 students chose a bus loaded with $2 million worth of heroin, thus becoming a target of the cartels. The chilling connection between Tlatelolco and Ayotzinapa –particularly the fact both instances featured students as victims– creates a sombre forecast of the continued entrenchment of impunity across all state structural levels. Despite both phenomena happening at different times and for different reasons, there is perhaps a deep and inescapable continuity between the two.

Disentangling Impunity in Mexico

​It certainly is disheartening and demoralizing to think about the continuity of impunity in Mexico– with resounding concern, the leading authorial figure of the 1968 Movement Elena Poniatowska asks “what is the future of a country that kills its students?”. However, this is not simply a question of an omnipotent, paternalistic, political force silencing the voices of students– this is directly disproven by the case of Ayotzinapa as the 43 had no affiliation with disruptive political activities. The continuity between the two is more nuanced than that– it is a two-fold phenomenon characterized by the stigmatization and disposability of the lives of lower socio-economic classes, and the loss of the state monopoly on violence.

​Youth killings are –as has been established by now– not isolated incidents in Mexico. Whether it is 1968, Ayotzinapa, or femicides in Ciudad Juárez it is clear that it is a systemic and frequent social phenomenon. According to Sylvia Meichsner of the Open University, this can be explained by enabling structures that are fundamentally grounded on the stigmatization of certain socio-economic groups, especially lower-class ones. Meichsner posits that simplistic and inaccurate stereotypes are constructed in mass media and cultural industries, essentially creating stigmas that are overtly and covertly reproduced across all levels of society. Due to their material vulnerability and stigmatization, these groups may be victims of a delay in paperwork or a reprehensible refusal to investigate and prosecute crimes of which they are victims. Consequently, when these groups engage in political activism or demand justice, they are automatically labelled as ‘troublemakers’. What this constructs is an idea that their lives are disposable and do not create a dent in the Mexican social fabric. 

 The perhaps co-dependent explanation is that in recent years the state has lost its monopoly over violence, with Tlatelolco becoming the watershed moment that created a snowball effect wherein the state gradually lost control over its force. Sergio Aguayo, professor and researcher at the Colegio de México, reminds us that the raison d’être of the state according to social contract theory is to guarantee the security of the population and hence why it has a legitimate use of force. In this regard, “Tlatelolco and Ayotzinaparepresent two expressions of the same phenomenon”. In 1968, the purposeful lack of coordination and confusion between the Battalion Olimpia and the police led to a massacre. In Ayotzinapa, the connections between the federal police, the state, and the cartels have created a parallel state of sorts where the central government has no means of halting violence. Aguayo concludes that there is a feeling of helplessness that is derived from this loss of monopoly over violence– “neither the State protects us against criminals, nor does it care for us as victims”. 

A Source of Hope

​Impunity between 1968 and 2014 has undoubtedly been a continuous trend. However, there have been substantial changes between Tlatelolco and Ayotzinapa. Changes that, perhaps, embody a spark of hope. In an increasingly interdependent, globalized, international system, legitimacy is no longer just a question determined by players housed within sovereign borders. Human rights violations no longer go unnoticed, as they largely did in 1968. The creation of the Interdisciplinary Group of Independent Experts (GIEI) by the IACHR and their investigation of Ayotzinapa in Mexico is something that certainly would not have happened back in 1968. Their refusal to accept the attorney general office’s verdict on the case of the 43 and to stand by their own assessment undermined the legitimacy of the government of President Enrique Peña Nieto. Unlike in 1968, the whole word is not just watching–it is judging. 

 Whilst Mexican channels of legal accountability are deficient and do not favor the needs of those that are most often victims of state and cartel violence (which could be considered interchangeable), another source of hope is the incredibly admirable resilience and endurance of activists who refuse to let memories of past, unpunished crimes fade into oblivion. Even though the generation that lived through 1968 is rapidly aging, the preservation of historical memory has ensured that the younger generations continue to chant ‘No Se Olvida!’ every 2nd of October and are empowered to take to the streets to demand justice for the 43. The constant protests and demands, alongside the access to international mechanisms of accountability, create a more hopeful forecast for justice.

 The final, and possibly most politically contentious, source of hope is the diminishing power of the PRI. Both Tlatelolco and Ayotzinapa happened under the administration of the party and, in both periods, the incumbent refused to accept his responsibility and fault in state crimes. Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s anti-establishment agenda against graft and corruption might succeed in freezing the resources that fuel violence and impunity. He has also promised that “our back will never be turned towards young people anymore”. Perhaps as evidence of that promise is the recent reinstallation of the GIEI on the 6th of May 2020 after ceasing their investigation in 2016 due to substantial obstacles like the refusal of local and federal authorities to cooperate. As promising as this may sound, however, his leftist populism might just mean these are empty words. Regardless of whether he fulfils those promises, the ousting of the PRI in the 2018 election is a stark reminder that democracy has improved since 1968 and that the electorate can and will condemn impunity at the polls.

It would be naïve to say that impunity can be corrected in Mexico in the near future. It certainly will take more than one president’s anti-establishment administration to change that. However, the refusal of Mexican activists to cease protesting, demand justice, and take to the streets proves that these crimes do not go unnoticed. As the chants of ‘No Se Olvida!’are now followed by ‘Todos Somos Ayotzinapa’ there is a sense that grievances are connected, joined, and reinforced, creating powerful social resistance.

Fernanda is a second-year student of Politics and International Relations at the London School of Economics and Political Science. Originally Mexican, she is passionate about the political history of Latin America, particularly that of her home country.

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