Mexico leader forced into action over 43 missing
Two months after 43 students vanished in the night, change is afoot in Mexico: protests have swept the nation, sounding a wake-up call for the president to finally tackle corruption and police brutality.
Facing the biggest crisis of his two-year- old administration, President Enrique Pena Nieto will announce Thursday a new strategy to tackle the country’s dysfunctional justice system.
The national soul- searching began in September after police in the southern state of Guerrero attacked busloads of college students, abducted 43 young men and handed them over to drug gang members.
The gang members later said they had killed the captives.
The government, Pena Nieto said Tuesday, must take “profound actions that require a collective effort from Congress and society to find the best path” to avoid a repetition.
The case has become a tragic example of collusion between criminals and corrupt officials in a drug war that has left tens of thousands of people dead since 2006.
In the Iguala case, the mayor is accused of having unleashed the police on the students over fears they would protest a speech by his wife, who prosecutors say has links to a drug cartel.
“This has sparked a civil awakening,” said Jorge Hernandez, a political analyst at the National Autonomous University of Mexico.
“The political class is under scrutiny. The country has come face-to-face with the raw reality that many didn’t want to see.”
The case has also rocked Mexico’s main leftist party, the Democratic Revolution Party ( PRD), because Iguala’s mayor was a member. The PRD’s founder, Cuauhtemoc Cardenas, quit the party late Tuesday due to infighting over how to regain the trust of Mexicans.
After focusing his presidency on internationally- acclaimed economic reforms, Pena Nieto must now confront the country’s security failures. — AFP