Pablo S. Olmos Mexico City

Mexico City

Updated Wednesday, March 6, 2024-20:24

  • Mexico The 43 students of Iguala: dead for the State, but not for their families

A group of hooded young people

linked to the Ayotzinapa Normal School

, the same one from which

43 students disappeared in 2014

, has tried to assault the National Palace where Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) lives and works.

The protesters have been

demanding a meeting with the

Mexican president for several weeks to demand progress in the investigation, after more than 10 years without answers.

After several minutes of tension, the military police in charge of guarding the presidential headquarters have managed to disperse the assailants who continue to mobilize in the surrounding area.

The Mexican president has accused them of "provoking" and has

refused to meet with them

, as they have been demanding for months.

The attack occurred at the same time that López Obrador offered, inside the National Palace, his usual morning press conference, popularly known as 'Mañanera'.

After heading to one of the sides of the government building, the hooded men

knocked down one of the access doors

, using a stolen truck from the Federal Electricity Commission as a battering ram.

After several attempts, the wooden door collapsed and the protesters threatened

to enter the building

, but they found a human barricade erected by military police officers, armed with shields and batons.

The scene of tension, which was close to becoming a tragedy, lasted about 10 minutes in which the young people broke

several windows

,

painted

and threw

stones with slingshots

into the building, before being dispersed with gas. tear gas.

Asked by a reporter, the Mexican president confirmed that the Undersecretary of the Interior, Arturo Medina, is going to meet with the protesters, but that he is not going to receive them: "No, I am analyzing and conducting everything because what matters to me is is to find the (43) young people".

"We don't want confrontation"

AMLO has also regretted the critical position that the victims' environment has adopted in recent months, "the attitude, not of the parents, but of the advisors and organizations that supposedly defend human rights, is an attitude, at best of the cases, politics, very confrontational against us, provocative, and

we do not want confrontation at all

."

The Mexican president has accused the relatives of allowing themselves to be manipulated by "right-wing conservative groups supported by foreign governments who want to do us harm politically speaking (...) what they want is not for us to come to know the truth and for it to be done justice, but they already have it as a flag against us.

Likewise, AMLO has downplayed the attack, which has once again evidenced the widespread discontent of victim groups with his Government, and has reiterated that he feels safe "in any part of the country, the people take care of me."

During

his campaign for the Presidency

, López Obrador

championed the case of the 43 students who disappeared

in Iguala, pledging to find their bodies and provide answers to the victims' families.

However, beyond some symbolic gestures, such as classifying the case as a state crime or banishing the 'historical truth' that his predecessor, Enrique Peña Nieto, sold as the thesis of what happened, the investigation has offered very little progress. .

Last July, the independent group of experts (GIEI) left Mexico denouncing the opacity of the Army, which has refused to hand over hundreds of military espionage documents that, according to them, could hold the key to unblocking the investigation.

Next

September 26 will mark 10 years since this tragedy

, one of the most symbolic in the recent history of Mexico, and everything indicates that the AMLO government will not fulfill its promise to resolve it.