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Violence Crisis in Mexico: The Case of Ayotzinapa

Nov 26, 2014 | 0 comments

   On September 26, 2014, forty-three students from the Raúl Isidro Burgos Rural Teachers’ College of Azotzinapa went missing after clashing with police during a protest. They were arrested and subsequently handed over to the Guerreros Unidos crime syndicate. All forty three are assumed dead, although there has been no official confirmation. The morbid disappearance of the normalistas has not only shed light on the thinly veiled involvement of the Iguala government with criminal cartels, but has also become the largest political scandal of Enrique Peña Nieto’s presidency.

As part of a day-long, two-session event on these troubling developments, the Center for Latin American Studies cosponsored “Violence Crisis in Mexico: The Case of Ayotzinapa” in conjunction with Latin American Matters, the Katz Center for Mexican Studies, and the Pozen Family Center for Human Rights. Comprising the afternoon session, Mauricio Tenorio of the University of Chicago, Guillermo Trejo of the University of Notre Dame, and Arturo Cano of La Jornada, spoke on issues of governance, corruption, and possible programmatic responses. Check out a link to a video of the session here and the audio recording here.

In the evening, Benjamin Lessing of the University of Chicago and Arturo Cano drew on their interests in comparative politics, cartel violence, and Latin America to lead a roundtable discussion on the events of Ayotzinapa followed by a Q&A with students.