On a day marking the start of the Mexican Revolution 104 years ago, demonstrators marched from a monument commemorating that struggle to the capital’s central square, or Zocalo, imploring President Enrique Pena Nieto to improve security in a nation racked by a drug war.
Banging drums and waving flags, demonstrators shouted “the people are rising” and “justice.” One group arrived at the Zocalo carrying a 20-foot tall paper-mache effigy of Pena Nieto in a dark suit, with the red, white and green presidential sash on his shoulder and blood on his hands. As chants of “Pena, get out” intensified, they set it ablaze.
Beatriz Aguilar, 49, walked into the square with tears in her
eyes and a sign that said, “We don’t want to just survive, we want to live.”
“It’s not just 43 disappeared people, it’s thousands -- and among them is my daughter,” she said. “Now she would be 29. She is 29. I’ll never give up hope.”
Her daughter Leni Gomez went missing in 2010 in the northern state of Tamaulipas that borders Texas, she said. More than 70,000 have died in organized crime-related violence since 2006, according to data compiled by Mexican newspaper Milenio. Another 22,000 have gone missing, statistics from the Attorney General’s Office show.
Rallying Cry
The disappearance of the 43 students from the southern town of Iguala, less than three hours’ drive from Mexico City, has become a symbol for how drug-related violence has undermined the state’s grip on law and order.Police kidnapped the students from Iguala at the orders of the town’s then-mayor to stop them from disrupting an event featuring the mayor’s wife, Attorney General Jesus Murillo said at a news conference on Oct. 22. The mayor and his wife have been detained along with more than 70 others who include local police and alleged gang members.
The government has been unable to identify remains found near Iguala as belonging to the students because the fragments of bond and teeth were too degraded and has sent them to experts in Austria for DNA testing, according to the Attorney General’s office. In the search, they uncovered at least 38 other bodies in mass graves that didn’t correspond to the students.
Evidence in the case of the missing students, including confessions from suspects, points to mass murder, Murillo said on Nov. 7.
‘Solidarity, Pain’
Responding to recent protests in a speech on Nov. 18 after returning from a weeklong trip to Asia and Australia, Pena Nieto said that the most violent demonstrations seem designed to destabilize the nation and undermine his agenda, which includes pushing forward with an opening of the state-controlled energy industry.“The federal government has been the first to be in solidarity with the pain that’s been caused by the disappearance” and has undertaken an exhaustive probe of the incident, Pena Nieto said. “The protests at times aren’t clear in their objective. They would seem to respond to an interest in generating destabilization, social disorder and attacking the national project that we’ve been pushing forward.”
Pena Nieto has also faced public criticism amid revelations that his wife, Angelica Rivera, agreed in 2012 to buy a home held in the name of a contractor that this year won part of a $4.3 billion Mexican high-speed rail contract. Pena Nieto’s administration canceled that award on Nov. 6, three days before the report was first published by Aristegui Noticias.
‘Pretext’
Rivera, a former soap opera star, said this week that she plans to sell rights to the house because she doesn’t want it to “continue to be a pretext to offend and defame my family.”While most of the protesters marched peacefully, some tore down a barrier outside the National Palace and lobbed Molotov cocktails at security officials guarding the building. The officials responded by spraying water at demonstrators before clearing out the plaza with batons.
Some marchers waved Mexican flags that replaced the red and green national colors with black in a sign of mourning.
Last night’s protest came less than two weeks after demonstrators burned the doors of the government’s National Palace, which occupies one side of the Zocalo and is home to the Finance Ministry and one of Pena Nieto’s offices.
Government buildings in Iguala, in the state of Guerrero, and Chilpancingo, the state’s capital, have also been burned, as well as a bus in Mexico City.
Peso Performance
Despite the unrest, Mexico’s peso is the third-best performer against the dollar in the past month among major currencies tracked by Bloomberg. While losing 0.8 percent against the dollar, its performance is better than the 3.5 percent decline for Brazil’s real and 9.1 percent drop for the Japanese yen. Mexico’s benchmark IPC stock index has gained 2.3 percent in the same period, compared with a 4.2 percent drop for Brazil’s Ibovespa.Protests in the eight weeks since the disappearance are ratcheting up pressure for change from Pena Nieto, said Shannon O’Neil, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York.
‘Real Unhappiness’
“Such big protests and so many people coming and joining in shows a real unhappiness in a broad segment of the population,” O’Neil said in a telephone interview from Mexico City. “It doesn’t seem as of yet that the steps the government is taking are addressing the real concerns of the protesters.”Comments from Pena Nieto and cabinet ministers have failed to placate the public in a nation that each year commemorates the Tlatelolco massacre, when government troops shot and killed hundreds of students protesting anti-democratic practices in 1968, days before Mexico City hosted the Olympic Games.
Mexico decided against holding the traditional parade marking Revolution Day yesterday, with Pena Nieto instead attending a ceremony for army and navy personnel being promoted to higher ranks at a military field near the capital’s Chapultepec Park.
Two Mexico City police officers were hurt in clashes near the airport earlier yesterday, Mexico City Public Safety Minister Jesus Rodriguez said in interview broadcast on Radio Formula. Officers prevented demonstrators from setting fire to an LP gas transport truck, he said. A total of 31 protesters were arrested, Mexico City Mayor Miguel Angel Mancera said in an interview broadcast on Televisa.
At the march last night, Elsa Yebra, a 37-year-old Mexico City housewife, said she was participating so the parents of the missing students can know the Mexican people support them.
“We want justice for all and a better Mexico,” she said.
“Staying in our homes and talking about this on Facebook won’t do anything,” Yebra said. “We need to go out to the street to get the future we want.”
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