IACHR: Mexico slow to grant access to soldiers in missing students case

Borderland Beat by DD from material provided by el Universal . ABC. Fox

In late 2014 an agreement was signed by the government of Mexico, the families of the missing students from the Ayotzinapa Normal School, and the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights to create a team of experts to analyze the government's investigation of the missing students and make recommendations.

.Four months after initiating proceedings, the Commission experts warn the federal government has only delivered 30% of the requested information completely, while 24 percent have been answered partially and the rest are being processed.

The Commission has made some progress and in a press conference last week announced that since their last report in May they visited the Iguala police station, the dump in Cocula where the government says the students' remains were burned and the river where the ashes were allegedly dumped. They also said they had interviewed former Iguala Mayor Jose Luis Abarca and his wife, Maria de los Angeles Pineda, who the government has said ordered the capture of the students. The team, which was formed to analyze the government's investigation and make recommendations, has two months remaining on its mandate.

The investigators said one of the biggest obstacles to pursuing their investigation is that the military has not allowed them to interview 27 soldiers that evidence suggests have some knowledge of the events of Sept. 26 and 27 last year.

The government says students from a rural teachers college in the state of Guerrero were seized by police in Iguala on Sept. 26, and turned over to a criminal gang that killed and incinerated them. The remains of only one of the students have been identified.

Some of the students say soldiers were present during the shootings and abductions on the 26th.

When the team pushed for an answer to their request which was made 3 months ago to interview the soldiers, the military said it was still "evaluating the validity of the source" that made the request and that "the official answer is that there is no answer".

There are only 2 months left on the teams mandate as set forth in the agreement signed to create the team.

Other problems of access have been, the visual inspections of the government of Guerrero files and satellite photographs that the PGR has not delivered. In addition, there have been no safeguarding of evidence, such as the commercial buses the students on and they were shot. Currently they are operating in the transport companies

The IACHR team has not released much of their findings preferring to release them in total in the final report.

But one discrepency in the Governments version of events in the case was their finding concerning the body of Julio Cesar Mondragon, the student whose body was found skinned hours after the attack normalistas Ayotzinapa, was tortured before his death.

The government medical examiner said animals may have chewed the skin off of his face.
"At our autopsy, based on scientific evidence the skin was removed from his face and indicates that there are other pre-mortem injuries of torture, obviously. There is no other explanation that could cause severe skull fractures that he had or causes lung hematoma, or hematoma behind the abdomen of the size he had, "said Carlos Beristain, one of the experts.

The team of experts, include Angela Buitrago, a Colombian expert, Spain's Carlos Beristain, Guatemala's Claudia Paz, Chile's Francisco Cox and Colombia's Alejandro Valencia.

Their final report which will analyze the governments investigation should be interesting. The governments reaction to the teams findings may be more interesting.