Fighting for the Disappeared in Argentina and Ayotzinapa

The mother of one of Mexico’s 43 disappeared Ayotzinapa students Saturday visited Argentina’s internationally-renowned Mothers and Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo to share experiences from their movements and commemorate decades of struggle.

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Honoring Families Seeking Justice for the Disappeared

Cristina Bautista, a Mexican woman of Indigenous Nahua origin, is the mother of three children, one of whom, Benjamin, was among the 43 students that disappeared two years ago Monday. Despite a series of forensic investigations which dispute the Mexican government's official version of events, none of the parents of the disappeared know what occurred when local police intercepted several buses in the southwestern city of Iguala headed for Mexico City.

Bautista will officially mark the Ayotzinapa anniversary Monday with the Assembly of Mexicans in Argentina. The mothers and grandmothers' organizations are internationally-renowned for their decades-long struggle to disclose what happened to the estimated 30,000 Argentines who vanished during the right-wing junta's Dirty War against Leftist dissidents.

“The same pain and the same suffering united us,” she said in a statement. “We want to know what they recommend to use because since the beginning we have mobilized ourselves, but the government doesn’t listen to us.”

Estela Carlotto, one of the founders and current president of the Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo who was reunited with her missing grandson after decades of searching for him, congratulated Bautista and her peers for their courage, and resistance.

Argentina’s Mothers and Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo have stated solidarity with the Ayotzinapa families over the past two years, and Carlotto met Bautista in the wake of the disappearance of her son and 42 others.

“Don’t stop demanding to know. We know that the disappeared are unfortunately dead, but in the face of that reality we want to know where they are to be able to mourn,” Carlotto said in a statement. “To know who did it, who are responsible, and put them in jail. Demanding truth and justice.”

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'It Was the State': Unmasking the Official Ayotzinapa Narrative

The visit comes as the Mother and Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo mark 40 years of searching for their missing children and grandchildren abducted during the militarized campaign against leftist activists in the 1970’s and early 1980’s.

The families of the 43 students kidnapped on Sept. 26, 2014, from Mexico’s Ayotzinapa teacher training college in Iguala, Guerrero, are preparing to mark two years Monday without answers about what happened to their children. In Mexico, a national day of action will memorialize the students and echo calls for justice with a march in the country's capital and other events led by the families of the victims and joined by diverse social groups.

“It’s been nearly 104 weeks of collective pain. It’s 731 days of absence, of tears and searching,” wrote Mexico’s Network Against Repression and for Solidarity in a statement announcing its support of the anniversary activities. “It’s been two years of justice for justice, truth, and memory.”

Families of the Ayotzinapa students have said that without the involvement of international independent experts in the investigation, the government would have buried the case and the truth of what happened long ago. Now, the official investigation has been forced to open up new lines of inquiry for the first time in months. The small step is a positive sign after the government has long refused to backtrack on its theory that the bodies of the students were burned in a garbage dump, even though multiple independent studies have disproved the official story.

Parents of the 43 students and their supporters accuse the government of trying to cover up the potential involvement of federal agents in the kidnapping and disappearances. The case has become a hallmark of Mexico’s rampant human rights violations, systemic violence, and state complicity in abuses with impunity.

And as Bautista highlighted, Ayotzinapa is one iconic example of a larger crisis and a national battle for justice.

“We know there are thousands and thousands of disappeared people in our country,” she said. “That’s why we speak for all, because this struggle is for all Mexican people.”