Thousands of Mexicans staged vigils across the nation on Friday and Saturday, condemning the circumstances surrounding the recent discovery of an “extermination camp” in the western state of Jalisco.
In Mexico City, protesters painted an outline of the grave site at Izaguirre Ranch in front of the National Palace in the historic center. Additionally, roughly 400 pairs of shoes were scattered on the ground near the outline as those in attendance lit candles and chanted slogans demanding justice.
On March 5, a search group found burnt human remains at the Izaguirre Ranch near Teuchitlán, Jalisco, along with over 150 pairs of shoes and other discarded personal items such as clothing, backpacks and handbags.
The Warrior Searchers of Jalisco, the collective of family members of the missing that is responsible for “discovering” the site, were met with enthusiastic applause when they addressed the crowd in Mexico City.
Joined by other search groups and mothers of the disappeared, the Warrior Searchers called on President Claudia Sheinbaum to meet with them to discuss the crisis of the missing.
The disappearance of persons is a crime that “has become a national nightmare,” one speaker said, adding that the extermination camp in Teuchitlán “is not an isolated event.”
There was a brief scuffle with police when several masked protesters tried to knock over the barricades surrounding the National Palace.
According to Human Rights Watch (HRW), as of September 2024, more than 115,000 people have been disappeared in Mexico. Calling the situation in Mexico a “human rights crisis,” HRW said that while murders fell slightly for the third year in a row in 2023, reported disappearances have increased significantly.
The Izaguirre Ranch findings were particularly disturbing because federal and state authorities had seized the site last September, but it was not until the search collective walked into the unsecured ranch on March 5 that the grisly findings were made public.
Saturday’s Day of National Mourning was convened by activists led by the “Huellas de Memoria” (Traces of Memory) group.
In addition to the protest in Mexico City, crowds gathered and placed shoes in the central squares of Chilpancingo, Guerrero; Cuernavaca, Morelos; Fresnillo, Zacatecas; Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua; Tijuana, Baja California; Oaxaca, Oaxaca; Tuxtla Gutiérrez, Chiapas; Toluca, México state; Guadalajara and Teuchitlán, Jalisco.
In Guadalajara, hundreds filled the plaza in front of the governor’s mansion, leaving a red net filled with shoes in front of the main door. Shouts decrying the failure of the state government to fully investigate the site at Teuchitlán or to make public the investigation they carried out echoed off the buildings surrounding the square. In the evening, the group held a candlelight march to the Plaza de Armas.
On Sunday, about 1,500 members of various search collectives staged a March for Peace in the streets of Teuchitlán, concluding the protest with a Mass concelebrated by eight priests from the region. The Mexican Episcopal Conference called the findings at the ranch “one of the darkest and most heart-breaking events in Mexico’s recent history.”
Also Sunday, the news magazine Proceso reported that the Warrior Searchers have filed a complaint with the National Human Rights Commission (CNDH) after federal authorities investigating the Teuchitlán case prevented the collective from observing the investigation.
With reports from La Jornada, Debate, Uno TV and La Silla Rota
The Mexican people most definitely deserve better. And they need to demand it. 90 percent of murders go without being solved or anyone jailed in Mexico.
If the US had compassion they’d legalize drugs. As it is government, in both Mexico and the US, has too much to lose if drugs were legalized so the violence continues.
What would the governments of Mexico and the US ‘give up’ if they legalized the manufacture and sale of unapproved drugs, like they should if they weren’t afraid the political backlash of the under-informed
The Mexican gov officials would lose their jobs and the cartel bribes. The US gov bureaucrats would lose their jobs. Border security as well. Hundreds of companies that supply all kinds of items to the DEA would lose their contracts. There are hundreds of retired Gov employees that worked in the “drug war” that will readily admit it’s not winnable. And they are right. Was prohibition winnable? Nope. Al Capone and untold thousands of others became rich from prohibition, and lo and behold used violence to protect and enlarge their territories. Same scenario exactly as the current day war against cartels.
In the over 50 years we’ve been fighting this war we’ve spent over a trillion dollars. We spend upwards of 50 billion a year currently. For what? Are drugs not readily available? Of course they are. The only thing we’ve accomplished is providing jobs to tens of thousands, made manufactures lots of cash, and the cartels have absolutely cleaned up. They are filthy rich. And they cause mass chaos country wide. They negatively affect life in Mexico in a myriad of ways. Almost all negative.
And I forgot the judges and the cops and the state supplied lawyers and the prison industry. The drug war is a giant business for hundreds of entities. None of those entities want it to stop.
I don’t think I agree with your theories about the corruption to the extent you describe but I completely agree the War on Drugs is sadly a war with the Mexican people and it should end. My thoughts, as a retired R&D developer of Approved medicine s is the following:
Those who want access to ‘unapproved’ drugs should be allowed to purchase them at Unapproved Drug Stores. Access should be limited to those 26 yrs and older, willing to take the responsibility for the pharmacology of euphoria, toxicity, and possible death. Savings from the ‘War on Drugs’ would go to treatment of people who decide to exit this life of drugs. We do not need to expend more lives in Mexico or the US to ‘protect’ those who want this lifestyle. They are not ‘victims’. Those who die in the line of duty are
I’m starting to agree with your line of reasoning! Make them all legal, but as with alcohol, tax the heck out of them. Those who use drugs have a good chance of ending their lives with them through accidental overdose, or suicide due to despondency over losing everything in pursuit of the next “high,” so maybe the Darwin Effect will take place and they’ll weed themselves out. Problem solved! But don’t think that doing away with the high profits of the drug trade will eliminate the cartels and the gangs. These are not good guys and they’re used to living large; They’re not going to go get jobs at Walmart! These folks are going to pursue other illegal streams of income (like extortion, murder-for-hire, kidnapping, and human trafficking). May make things more dangerous for common folks like us!