Mexico City, Mexico — A group of protestors tried to knock down a set of wooden doors that belong to the National Palace. The group were protesting the lack of advancements in the Ayotzinapa normalista case where 43 students went missing in 2014.
While the group were outside trying to break in, President Andrés Manuel López Obrador was inside giving a press conference update on the investigation.
“What we want is to know the truth and we are going to achieve it. I have confidence in that and we are going to find the young people, which is the most important thing,” López Obrador said about the Ayotzinapa normalista students.
During the morning press conference, he indicated that he is conducting the investigation and promised that, within a maximum period of 20 days, he will meet with mothers and fathers of the missing young people in order to provide them with more information and evidence about the case .
“Just tell the parents that we are dedicated and that we are making great progress in the research,” he said.
He pointed out that advisors and lawyers of the mothers and fathers of the 43 young people, supposed organizations in defense of human rights and right-wing conservative groups supported by foreign governments, manipulate the information for political purposes and prevent the relatives of the victims from accessing progress of the investigation that the Government of Mexico tried to hand over to them.
“I want to have more evidence because I want to talk to them and evidence of how the investigation was manipulated to protect certain people. The responsibility that their lawyers and the supposed human rights defenders (…) and other organizations have and how they are linked to (Emilio) Álvarez Icaza and the OAS and what they want is not for us to get to know the truth and for it to be do justice, but they already have it as a flag against us,” he explained.
“Many of the parents do not even have all the information because the lawyers prohibit them from speaking with us. You know that I sent a report to each of the fathers and mothers and they did not want to receive them because the lawyers forbade it,” he added.
During the press conference, a group of around a dozen people were outside a set of doors using a pickup truck to break them down. During that, AMLO maintained that the violence will not escalate because the federal government will not fall into provocations or confrontations.
“They kind of want to distract us so that we don’t do our work, take away our time. We are working every day to search for the young people, (…) but we no longer have confidence in the advisors. I do not have confidence in them and I have elements to maintain that I do not have confidence in them because they helped free those who I have evidence participated in the disappearance of young people,” he emphasized.
“What they would like is for us to respond violently. We do not do it. We are not repressors. (…) The door is going to be fixed and there is no problem. What they want is to provoke,” he said.
