New Serial Investigation: After Ayotzinapa
Seven years ago, 43 men disappeared from the Ayotzinapa Rural Teachers’ College in Guerrero, Mexico. The students were taken by armed men in the middle of the night. They were never seen again. Their disappearance sparked mass protests as the 43 became symbols of Mexico’s unchecked human rights abuses.
In a new three-part investigation that begins today, Reveal’s Anayansi Diaz-Cortes and Kate Doyle of the National Security Archives dig into what happened to the Ayotzinapa students—and how the Mexican government tried to cover up the truth. In recent decades, tens of thousands of people have gone missing in Mexico, and almost no one has been held accountable. The culture of impunity is so ingrained that families often don’t go to police for help, believing they’re either corrupt or too afraid to investigate.
The first episode of the series features never-before-broadcast voices of survivors who were with the 43 students on the night they were captured. From their stories, we piece together the true story of the attack and learn why families of the missing men long had doubts about the government’s official story.
The show also follows the story of the international experts and their work to untangle a huge government cover-up, and the role of their assistant Omar Gómez Trejo.
For almost three years, Diaz-Cortes and Doyle followed Gómez Trejo, the man tapped by a new Mexican President to prosecute the crime. When the pandemic nixed plans to record in-person interviews with him, Reveal’s reporting team mailed Gómez Trejo a recording kit. Our series creates an intimate portrait of the man in charge of piecing together details about the attack on the students, and bringing to justice those responsible for the crime, and the cover-up.
Diaz-Cortes spent two years investigating this story for Reveal. I talked with her about why she felt it was crucial to dig into this case and the power of sharing it on U.S. radio.
Why did you personally feel like was this an important story for you to report?
When I applied for my job in 2018, I said this is one of the stories I would pitch if I came to Reveal. I'm a Latin American Studies major. I was born in Mexico, I went to college in Mexico. So I wanted to grab gringos by the collar and say, “There's more to Mexico than the U.S.-Mexico border. There's this complexity.” I want to use the power we have in U.S. media to tell stories that can make a difference. It's about using that power to create an impact. We need to understand the relationship between Mexico and the United States more deeply than just, like, “Oh, it's so confusing. I can't think about that.” I had a deep drive to unpack the concept of impunity, and also to truly get Mexican stories and human rights stories on National Public Radio. This is not a niche thing. It should be airing alongside daily news in the United States.
What do you want listeners to really take away from this story?
I want people to be outraged. Every editor that we would take this to would say, “Why is this important to a U.S. audience?” After the story airs, I want it to be clear why it's important to a U.S. audience. I want us to see our own power as Americans on this side of the border to hold people accountable and to take a moment to understand and unpack a very complicated story.
I also want people to understand the stamina, organization and intelligence of the families of the disappeared men, who were able to see the global connection. They understand that impunity can only happen if the world is not looking. If the world doesn't care. So, they got the world to look. And because the world saw, the UN stepped in. That only happened because of their vision.
This has been a massive story in Mexico, but I think you’re right that it's not seen as important in the U.S.
This goes beyond Mexican borders. They're 43 missing students in a sea of 90,000 people who have disappeared in Mexico. Most of them since the new era of the War on Drugs started in 2006. This is the case where like all the issues cross, and this is the case that blew open the number of people who have disappeared. Until these 43, the government was like, “That's not even happening. That's not a thing.” This case blew the top off that. So it's almost like, if we can't solve this case, what does it mean for the whole 90,000?
Listen to episode one: After Ayotzinapa Chapter 1: The Missing 43
Episode two of the investigation will debut next Saturday, January 22.
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