Mexico's Missing Students: Were 43 Attacked by Cartel-Linked Police Targeted for Their Activism?

Protests continue in the southern Mexican state of Guerrero over the disappearance of 43 teachers' college students missing for more than two weeks following a police ambush. More than 20 police have been detained and accused of collaborating with a drug gang, Guerreros Unidos, that has ties to the city's mayor, who has fled. Fears over the students' fate have escalated following the discovery of 10 mass graves. But on Tuesday, Mexican Attorney General Jesús Murillo said DNA tests showed none of the 28 bodies tested so far belong to the missing students. "This particular attack reflects … decades of criminalization of these schools, and a situation where in the current Mexican government it is really hard to tell where the state begins, and where drug cartels end," says Tanalís Padilla, associate professor of Latin American history at Dartmouth College, who is writing a book on the history of rural normal schools in Mexico. Padilla says the schools offer education to lowincome students unserved by the public school system, and have a legacy of political radicalism that has prompted political crackdowns in the past. We are also joined by Valeria Hamel, an activist and law student at Mexico City, where students have launched a 48hour strike, calling for the students to be returned alive. "These students were politically involved in their communities, so that makes us think this is political," Hamel says.

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