Presidents Barack Obama and Enrique Peña Nieto met at the White House Tuesday, discussing a wide range of issues including the opening of US relations with Cuba, immigration, trade, security, cartels and violence. My chief concern was the specific case of the violent abduction of 43 students who studied at the rural teachers college in Ayotzinapa, and, reason dictates, their senseless and brutal murder. The lives and deaths of each one of the 43 students who disappeared resonates in me. For all the parents this is a nightmare were living and cant wake up from, says Epifano Alvarez, father of 19-year-old Jorge Alvarez. The families of those students, the students friends and fellow citizens, people like me and others who have had a child, brother, sister, father, mother, cousin, friend or person who was a part of the fabric of their lives disappear, each person who has held dear a murder victim, all of us live inside a vice being turned dispassionately by a carpenter in league with Evil. Gripped in the vice are our minds, our hearts and our lungs. Each time another person disappears, each time another person is murdered, each time another person is tortured, each time that affects not just the immediate victim but another human being, the vice tightens. Caught in the vice, you cannot breathe. You cannot think. All you can feel is the pain of gut-wrenching loss and your amputated spirit. There were protestors outside the White House as the two presidents met, demanding to know what happened to the Ayotzinapa students. Those protesting decry a status quo which accepts violence as a fact of life. Safe is a word that no longer has a definition in Mexico. No one is safe, each citizen a heartbeat away from being disappeared, each member of each cartel with a target in the center of his forehead. Mexico is a great country, her people a great people. They are a people enraged by the tolerance of violence and corruption. They are a people ground down who clamor for the rule of law, who rally to live in a country where the outcome of a situation is not for sale, where a persons life is not a commodity or an inconvenience to be eliminated, where tolerance and fairness eclipse fear that cripples humanity and greed that is a bottomless pit. They want their country back. They demand answers. They demand accountability. The 43 students did not have the chance to save their lives. Those who protest are aware of that. Their protest is a fight to save their own lives and their countrys future. I stand with them as the mother of a son who told me he wanted to show the world that someone could be free, that someone could embrace Life wherever in the world he found himself, with whomever crossed his path. Harry said he had learned first hand that life is tough all over but happiness is a choice. Harry was a joyful person until the final hours of the last day of his life. This I know. Choosing happiness, choosing freedom are not passive activities. I stand with those who strive for human rights, with those who want Ayotzinapa to represent the renaissance of hope and possibility for Mexico and a beacon for all the world. I am certain Harrys heart is with them. I stand with them, beside my son. May the light that shines in the protestors and in each and every one of us prevail. Ayotzinapa somos todos. - Ann, Harrys Mom From the Washington Post: WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama pledged to stand with Mexico against “the scourge of violence and the drug cartels” as he met Tuesday with President Enrique Peña Nieto amid concern over the unsolved abduction of 43 Mexican college students last September. Protesters in front of the White House questioned what happened to the students who are presumed dead, allegedly at the hands of local officials and police in league with a drug cartel. The dozens gathered in the city’s first winter snowfall were a smaller version of the massive street protests that have occurred in Mexico calling for Peña Nieto’s resignation. The case has come to signify an engrained abuse of authority and corruption in Mexico, and sparked indignation that federal authorities took 10 days to intervene. Peña Nieto has drawn criticism for saying it was time to “move beyond” the case just weeks after their abduction and taking a month to meet with their families. Obama was under pressure from groups including Human Rights Watch and the AFL-CIO to press Peña Nieto to take the case more seriously. Mexican officials initially said they did not expect Obama to raise it, but he did by pledging U.S. support. Obama told reporters in the Oval Office that Americans have been following the “tragic events surrounding the students whose lives were lost.” He said Peña Nieto described reforms he’s initiated around the issues that were raised. “Our commitment is to be a friend and supporter of Mexico in its efforts to eliminate the scourge of violence and the drug cartels that are responsible for so much tragedy inside of Mexico,” Obama said. But, he added, “Ultimately it will be up to Mexico and its law enforcement to carry out the decisions that need to be made.” Peña Nieto responded by thanking Obama for working with Mexico to improve security, “especially this clear challenge: Mexico has to continue fighting organized crime.” Pressed later on whether the Obama administration believes that the investigation in Mexico has been credible, White House press secretary Josh Earnest pointed out that arrests have been made and the probe continues. He said Obama stands with Peña Nieto as he tries to put reforms in place. The protesters across the street in Lafayette Park were so boisterous they could be heard by people in the Oval Office during the presidents’ meeting. The Oval Office is on the other side of the White House from the protesters in Lafayette Park. We are very upset,” said Ivan Almonte, a 36-year-old Mexican who has been living in the United States for 16 years. “We want Peña Nieto to quit and to tell us where are the 43 students. Why so much silence?”
Posted on: Thu, 08 Jan 2015 19:32:13 +0000
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