By Nancy Caouette
MEXICO CITY
Since being elected president two years ago, Enrique Pena Nieto has strived to change the image of Mexico on the international scene. He has claimed that violence, corruption and murder are fleeting memories in Mexico.
But recent high-profile cases, including the disappearances of 43 students from a rural teachers college in southwestern Mexico have led several leading scholars and activists to say that the corruption and impunity are still the law in Mexico.
“In Mexico, we more know how many oil barrels are exported every day than how many people disappeared in the country,” said Ariel Dulitzky, president of United Nations Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearance. “It is showing what are the Mexican governments priorities,’’ he told local media.
The students went missing Sept. 26 following a clash with local police in Iguala, about 120 miles from Mexico City. The investigation exposed a big open secret in Mexico – the connection between authorities and gang members. Iguala’s mayor and his wife are suspected with working with a drug cartel to deal with the students.
The search for the students has recovered 39 bodies in mass graves near Iguala. Tests on 24 of those remains, so far, have not resulted in any matches for the students.
“We would have to compare the DNA of those human remains with the one of disappeared people in Mexico. But there is no official list of disappearances in Mexico and no political will to create such a list,” Dulitzky said. “So, we exhume bodies but we will never know from whom they are.”
The missing students case comes on the heels of the killings of 22 suspected gang members who were “executed” by police in June after they surrendered, at least one witness claimed. Then there is the suspected police connected killings of three American tourist and their Mexican friend last month.
During the 50 days since the students disappeared, the international community and perhaps more importantly the financial community have taken notice. The Bank of Mexico said Friday that the missing students crisis could threaten the country’s economy. "Those events could deteriorate the confidence level of local and international economical agents, what could be traduced by less investments in Mexico’’ said Agustin Cartens, the bank’s governor.
According to bank analysts, the downward trend in oil price, a decrease in energy exports and the missing students, all point to the likelihood that Mexico will not reach its 2014 growth objective of 2.7 percent.
The students’ case has left Pena Nieto facing the toughest political crises of his presidency. Next Sunday, he will return to Mexico after a weeklong foreign tour and will face growing criticism about his administration and his handling of the case.
He will also have to calm the ire of Mexicans whose anger has steadily grown since the attorney general announced last Friday that three suspects confessed to killing and burning at least 40 of the students in Cocula, near Iguala.
Following the prosecutor’s press conference announcing the confession, marches and protests have been organized throughout the country. Demonstrators are demanding a transparent investigation and Pena Nieto’s resignation.
In Guerrero state, the radical CETEG teachers union protested and torched several cars and buildings in recent days.
And buses carrying 150 students who studied at Ayotzinapa College in Tixtla with the missing students, left the school Wednesday on a cross country trip to bring awareness and attention to the case.
The attorney general’s investigation has received little credibility in the eyes of protesters and the parents of the victims, who have said they will accept the findings only of Argentine DNA experts who are also working on the case.
The relatives of the missing students searched an area earlier this week where one of the suspects who confessed to the killings cited a 14-hour mass burning, but no evidence was found. “We just found animal bones,” said a father of one of the missing students.
But national crises aside, President Pena Neito is embroiled in a different kind of domestic turmoil.
An investigation by the Mexican news website Arestegui Noticias found a house the president owns in Mexico City, and valued at more than $ 7 million, belongs to Grupo Higa, a construction firm.
The firm is also linked to the Chinese-led consortium that received a $3.7 billion contract from the Pena Nieto administration to build the first high-speed rail in Mexico. The president’s wife, Angelica Rivera, claimed that the house belonged to her and that she was buying it on credit from Grupo Higa. But her explanation has not silenced critics.
“The response of the presidency is full of gaps, holes and lacunae that need to be clarified,” political analyst Denise Dresser told Arestegui Noticias.
The Mexican president shocked Chinese investors when he canceled the contract last week, citing his need to address favouritism accusations.
For many Mexicans, however, the circumstances surrounding the contract that was awarded without competition to a Chinese company, is just one more reason to continue to protest.
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