Mexico City, Feb 10 (IANS/EFE) A report by Argentine forensic experts on the investigation into the disappearance of 43 students in Mexico has given fresh hope to their parents who are more confident that their children are alive even as the Mexican government accused the experts of wanting to plant doubts.
"We are already sure that our children are alive and we are not going to stop nor be scared of the repercussions. Now we are going to fight even harder for our children," declared Mario Gonzalez, one of the parents.
The families of the missing students organised a press conference Monday to speak about the irregularities reported by the Argentine Forensic Anthropology Team (EAAF) in the investigation into the disappearance of the students Sep 26 last year in Iguala in the southern state of Guerrero.
In its report, the EAAF said that its members were not present when the bag containing the human remains was recovered by personnel of the attorney general's office from the San Juan river a month after the students went missing.
Last month, Attorney General Jesus Murillo Karam said in a press conference that there was sufficient scientific evidence to conclude that the students were murdered and their bodies burned by the Guerreros Unidos drug cartel members at a refuse landfill in the nearby town of Cocula, with the ashes dumped in the San Juan river.
However, the report by the Argentine experts said: "The EAAF still does not have scientific evidence to establish that, in the Cocula trash dump, there are human remains that belong to the students," adding that: "The investigation into the (missing students) cannot be wrapped up since a large amount of evidence has still not been processed."
The parents are with the experts "100 percent", said Gonzalez, accusing Murillo of "not believing the Argentines" but rather "the criminals" in reference to the testimonies of the arrested gang members that formed the basis of the official hypothesis.
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"The experts have the full backing of the students' parents. In its decades of experience, the Argentine team has never acted without scientific rigour, but the attorney general's office has," said Omar Garcia, the students' representative.
"The historical truth has not been established, there is no scientific truth to what happened. Dozens of implicated people are still absconding, the army's protection of the (criminal group) has not been investigated," said Garcia, touching on the unresolved issues of the investigation.
He asked for "respect and optimal conditions" to allow the Argentines to carry out their work and hand over all the reports pertaining to the case to the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACHR) who will be meeting in Mexico in the next few days.
The representative of the parents, Felipe de la Cruz, also expressed his concern over the repercussions that the EAAF could suffer.
"When something doesn't work out well (for the government) and there is someone who criticises it, there is repression and pressure. As all that may happen to the team of Argentine forensic experts, we, the parents, want to hold the Mexican government responsible," he added.
Despite the prosecution's attempts to close the case, added De la Cruz, the families would keep seeking justice to the end without resting until they arrive at the truth.
Nevertheless, tha violence in Mexico goes on. The campus of the Universidad Valle De Mexico (UVM) in Nuevo Laredo (north-eastern Mexican state of Tamaulipas) has closed down, weeks after it announced the suspension of its on-campus activities "until further notice" due to threats of extortion, kidnapping and attacks.
"From today onwards, we will be communicating with each of our students to let them know the alternatives that we offer them to continue their studies," said the university in a Facebook post Monday.
It further said that the UVM "has 36 campuses throughout the country and a solid platform of online degrees," which makes it confident that each of its students "will find an alternative to suit their needs".
The UVM declared that its priority "is to protect of the entire academic and administrative community" and that it was studying how to make up for the classes that some 700 students of that branch have lost.
Tamaulipas has high levels of violence and insecurity due to clashes between the Gulf and Los Zetas cartels who are vying for control of illegal activities in the area.
--IANS/EFE
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