On July 7, Antonio Tizapa, the father of a missing normalista student,
alongside Semillas Collective, Somos Los Otros NY, Unidos Con El Pueblo, independent Mexican activists and Mexican immigrant community members held an action in front of the Permanent Mission of Mexico to the UN which is also located in front of UNICEF and U.N. headquarters.
The rally took place a month after Antonio Tizapa presented evidence revealing the last known location of the 43 disappeared Ayotzinapa students, evidence that implicates the Mexican state itself in the disappearance of these students.
The evidence Tizapa presented during the Indigenous People’s Forum at the United Nations in May showed that the students’ last known location was in fact the 27th Battalion Mexican Army Base.
Activists outside of the Permanent Mission of Mexico to the UN held up many signs displaying their indignation against the Mexican state. “Your mission should be clear, end the genocide against indigenous people executed by the state. Stop killing indigenous people and people of color,” read one poster by Semillas Collective.
Several Mexican activists noted that the impunity and state repression seen in Mexico is the same as that we are seeing in the United States. A Semillas Collective member added, “As Mexicans we know that the deadliest and most powerful cartels are the federal police and military. They kill, disappear, repress…justice is never served. The same can be said about the NYPD, about police in general in the U.S. They may go to trial but the state always enables these crimes against humanity justice is never served, this is the definition of impunity isn’t it? It’s systematic, it doesn’t happen to al,l it’s happening only to our communities of color and our Indigenous communities, it’s genocide, es el estado [it is the state].”
Antonio Tizapa requested that the UN Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, Victoria Tauli Corpuz, visit Ayotzinapa to conduct a formal investigation. The problem is that the Special Rapporteur must receive an official invitation from the Mexican government in order to conduct such investigation. It’s been almost 2 years since the Ayotzinapa disappearance and no support or cooperation has been given by Mexico at the UN level; the rapporteur continues to wait for an invitation.
A member of Somos Los Otros NY explained “Mexico’s governing party el PRI has not only infiltrated academic spaces but censors media both in the USA and in Mexico. They have also infiltrated the United Nations’ ie. La Mision Permanente de Mexico that’s supposed to ensure that the Mexican government complies with international law. This is why having actions at the UN is important. The language of international offenses such as war crimes and crimes against humanity is significant in the context of the United Nations, it’s time we change the language about what’s actually happening to our people both here in the U.S. and in Mexico.”
The U.S. has been the number one supplier of weapons and military support to the Mexican government. “ It’s time we go beyond the idea that Mexico needs weapons to fight the supposed Drug War; as Mexicans we know that these weapons are only used against the people, innocent civilians, students and teachers. The helicopters used against the Oaxacan teachers were supplied by Bush’s Administration,” said another Semillas member.These are the same weapons given to law enforcement agencies in New
York and across the country used against civilians in the United States, Oaxaca , Ayotzinapa and Palestine. These arms are the same used by the Mexican cartels who have their own sourcing methods enabled by their government’s relationship with the United States.
All progressive and revolutionary people should stand in solidarity with the people of Ayotzinapa and Oaxaca to end police terror on Black and Brown bodies in Mexico, in the United States and all over the world. After the event in front of the UN concluded the activists decided unanimously to march across the island of Manhattan to join thousands of Black Lives Matter protesters on 9th Ave.
It was clear to the activists gathered that day that Alton Sterling, Delrawn Small, Anthony Nuñez, Alex Nieto, Almicar Lopez Perez and Loreal Juana Barnell-Tsingine were taken from our communities by the same force -an armed state institution which acts in the interests of the rich powerful, not poor and working people.
The activists gathered understood all too well how it feels to lose a loved one to U.S. sponsored police terror and state repression. They have for too long been searching for their 43 Indigenous brothers kidnapped by the state, and tragically lost 12 teachers and civilians recently in teacher led protests in Oaxaca. Antonio Tizapa shared his message of solidarity to parents who have lost their children to state-related impunity saying, “Your son is my son, Tu hijo es mi hijo.”
Ya basta! We will not sit by and do nothing about this ongoing genocide both in the U.S. and Mexico. Black Lives Matter and Brown Lives Matter, Indigenous Lives Matter, they always have and they always will.
Por que vivos se los llevaron, Vivos los Queremos! Fue el Estado!
