Rights Group Seeks Widened Search for the “Disappeared”

(Atoyac, JG 29 October) The excavations of former military bases near Atoyac, thought to be the final resting place of many of those who disappeared during the “dirty war” in the last decades against indigenous populations, have turned up few new clues. The federal attorney general’s office, responsible for the renewed investigations, has reported that the recent forensic work has not turned up anything new. Through its leader and spokesman, Julio Mata Montiel, the human rights group dedicated to finding the truth for victims of the ethnocide, said that the search should be continued and broadened. The organization, known as AFADEM (Association of Families of Arrested, Disappeared and Victims of Human Rights Violations in Mexico) has gathered eye witness accounts of what went on in the military barracks near Atoyac during the time of violence. They insist that “clandestine cemeteries” exist, and will continue pressing for further excavations. They want the Attorney General’s office to call military officers posted to Atoyac during the period to provide statements of the events and to assist in the search for the remains of family members.

Mata Montiel added that the efforts of the Attorney General are to prove, in a way, that Mexico has complied with the decree of the International Court of Human Rights concerning the period of oppression, “but in our submission [to the court] we assert that the government has not complied with the decree, as we have not found the remains of Rosendo Radilla Pacheo and the others who disappeared, and that the efforts to locate these victims should continue in that location, where they were last seen alive.” AFADEM will hold gatherings in University City in Mexico City on November 10 and in Acapulco on November 17 and 18, as well as others, “to keep alive the memory of the events and of the victims.”