Since the disappearance of 43 first-year teacher’s college students near Iguala, Guerrero on September 26, Mexico has been engulfed in its greatest human rights and political crisis in perhaps a century.
In a tragic irony, the students were embarking on a protest action to commemorate another student massacre, which was perpetrated by government forces on October 2, 1968. The Ayotzinapa students were intercepted by local police summoned by the local mayor and his wife, who was upset that a political event she was headlining would be disrupted. Police opened fire on the unarmed students, killing several, and eventually handed over the remaining 43 to a local drug gang, which, it is believed, murdered them and incinerated their bodies.
Students throughout Mexico have staged protest actions ever since, and there have been solidarity events at college campuses all over the world. LMU will hold a teach-in and procession to inform its campus community, express solidarity with the families of the disappeared, and:
- Pray for the disappeared and their families;
- Urge the Mexican government to, with the utmost transparency, investigate the Ayotzinapa case until the fate of the disappeared students is established with absolute certainty and those responsible are brought to justice;
- Urge the U.S. government to cease providing Mexico with resources for prosecuting the drug war and reflect critically on its complicity in the violence and suffering it causes on both sides of the border.
The event is sponsored by the Center for Service and Action, Chicano and Latino Student Services, Modern Languages and Literatures, Latino Faculty Association, Latino Staff Association, Fletcher Jones Chair in Literature and Writing
What:
Teach-in on the human rights crisis in Mexico and
procession representing the disappeared students of the
Ayotzinapa Normal School
Who:
Concerned students, faculty, staff
Where:
Loyola Marymount University
Hilton 100
Hilton Center for Business
1 LMU Drive, Los Angeles
When:
Tuesday, Nov. 18
12:15 – 1:15 p.m.
