Feature photo by Atoq Wallpa Sua via Flickr. Ayotzinapa, Mexico
September 26 will mark one year since the enforced disappearances of the 43 Ayotzinapa students. A few weeks ago, we sent an email asking our supporters to join in, create, or send information about actions across the U.S. and Canada to commemorate the first anniversary of the Ayotzinapa state crimes. From New York to L.A., Toronto to Topeka, and other cities in between, the responses have been inspiring and the list of actions next weekend continues to grow!
Click here for an updated list of actions, and please continue to send information our way.
New important evidence has emerged (SEE BELOW) about what really happened to the Ayotzinapa students last year and we are now asking you to take URGENT ONLINE ACTION in addition to action in the streets:
- Send emails to your Members of Congress, the White House, Sen. Marco Rubio and other U.S. officials – The Pentagon, U.S. Congress, and the White House cannot continue to remain silent about the obvious crimes and cover-up by the Mexican state, while enabling their violence through arms, training, and funding. SOA Watch will be helping 5 Ayotzinapa mothers meet with Members of Congress next week when they arrive in Washington DC to demand answers about their children’s whereabouts. Amplify their voices by participating in this online action.
- Join our THUNDERCLAP campaign – If you are on Facebook, Twitter, or Tumblr you can help us get the message out – The U.S. government must stop enabling the Ayotzinapa cover-up and follow its own laws and cut all aid to Mexican military and police involved in human rights violations. This link will take you to a page where you can authorize Thunderclap to post on your Facebook and/or Twitter account on September 27th with one collective message.
NEW, IMPORTANT EVIDENCE – A long awaited report on the Ayotzinapa disappearances by the Interdisciplinary Group of Independent Experts (GIEI Report) was released on September 6. The experts’ findings are damning, and erase all doubt – the Mexican government has been lying and covering up for the crimes of its security forces for almost a year. The experts presented compelling evidence that there was no way that the students were killed and their bodies burned in the manner the Mexican Attorney General’s office “concluded”, and that federal police and the military were intimately involved in the murders and disappearances of the night of September 26-27, 2014.
Another recent report by the University of California at Berkeley’s Investigative Reporting Program pointed to evidence that the Mexican military not only monitored the violence against the students throughout the night, but also may have fired at the students.
The 1st Anniversary of these tragic and anger-inducing crimes is almost here. It is time to let the U.S. government know that we will not tolerate the Pentagon, Congress, and White House’s continued enabling of the impunity surrounding the Ayotzinapa disappearances. Unfortunately Ayotzinapa was not an isolated event. Since Enrique Peña Nieto took office less than 3 years ago, one person is forcibly disappeared every 52 minutes. And those are only figures for the reported disappearances. There have been countless human rights violations perpetrated by the corrupt Mexican security forces – local police, federal police, and military – who are being armed and trained with U.S. taxpayer money. ENOUGH IS ENOUGH!
Please take a moment to demand that U.S. officials, including Senator Marco Rubio, Presidential candidate and head of the Senate Subcommittee in charge of overseeing the Drug War in Mexico, end the Drug War and immediately cut all aid and training to the Mexican Army units implicated in Ayotzinapa and other human rights violations. The parents of the Ayotzinapa 43 deserve better. They deserve truth and justice.
In Solidarity,
SOA Watch