Ayotzinapa43 and Mexico's Disappearances: Breaking the Silence in Chicago

Public forum, Saturday April 4, 2015 - Iglesia San Pio, Chicago

A huge crowd gathered to hear testimony from parents, relatives, and supoorters of the 43 students who were "disappeared" in Ayotzinapa, Mexico, at the end of September, 2014.

Maria de Jesus, mother of Jose Eduardo

They were speaking in Chicago today at as part of the caravan of parents and relatives of the Ayotzinapa 43 who are now touring the US to bring attention to their case, and to the thousands of disappearances that happen each year at the hands of police, military, and other agents of elites in Mexico.

The caravan members made a stark point: Fourteen (14) people every day are "disappeared" in Mexico.

It is striking to me that on the weekend that people in Christian churches everywhere are commemorating the brutal state murder of an activist 2,000 years ago in Palestine -- together with the resistance mounted by his family and friends, their insistence on finding life in the face of death -- these family members of victims of here-and-now state violence are in our midst to demand, "Where have they taken the bodies?" and "Long live the Ayotzinapa 43!"

There are a series of related events Monday -- Chicago people are urged to participate, demonstrate solidarity, and commit to the cause of the oppressed people of Mexico:

Monday April 6 - 9:00 a.m. - Press Conference

Monday April 6 - 10:00 a.m. - March to Mexican Consulate

Monday April 6 - 10:30 a.m. - Protest at Mexican Consulate

More images from April 5:

Related posts

It will take me multiple posts to spell out everything that I feel needs to be said about the Ayotzinapa 43.  People in the US need to work to change their own attitude about Mexico, and about the culpability or all of us here in the US in the wrongs that are being done down there. The Ayotzinapa 43 were persecuted for saying "the future can be different." It's time for us to take up their cry.

(See Ayotzinapa43: US People Need an Attitude Adjustment )