Ten years later, the anger remains

Through driving rain, Luz Maria Telumbre traveled from the western state of Guerrero to Mexico City to commemorate 10 years since the darkest night of her life.

Her son, Cristian Alfonso, would be almost thirty years old.

Instead, she carries an image of him frozen in time – when he was just 19, when he and his classmates were kidnapped by Mexican police.

Christian was one of 43 student teachers who traveled from the teacher training college in Ayotzinapa, which has a strong history of activism, to an annual protest in Mexico City.

The students disappeared from the town of Iguala and were last seen on security camera footage lying face down on the back of police pickup trucks as they were driven out of town.

The full story of the treacherous relationship between the state and the cartels in Guerrero – and its role in the kidnapping of the students – has never been fully explained.

In the intervening years, Luz Maria and the parents of the other victims have called for the same thing. “They took them alive, alive we want them back,” they sing.

Essentially, it is a call for the authorities to clarify what exactly happened to their children that night on September 26, 2014, to admit full guilt and to prosecute those involved.

An initial investigation, led by then-President Enrique Peña Nieto, concluded that the corrupt municipal police of Iguala and surrounding towns, acting on orders from the local mayor, turned the students over to the Guerreros Unidos drug cartel.

According to the investigation, the cartel murdered the students and disposed of their remains, while the federal police and military were considered not involved.

However, this version, which was labeled ‘the historical truth’, was met with widespread skepticism. The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) disputed the findings, calling them “scientifically impossible”.

Further research has added new layers of complexity.

Journalist Anabel Hernández presented an alternative theory. She suggested that buses commandeered by the students to take them to Mexico City – a regular practice tolerated by the bus companies – were secretly transporting heroin.

According to her theory, the Mexican military, acting on behalf of drug traffickers, intercepted the shipment, leading to the deaths of the students and the elimination of any witnesses.

As a presidential candidate, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador made repeated promises to do everything he could in the 43’s case, and as president he set up a “truth commission” to reopen the case – pledging to follow the evidence wherever it leads would lead.

About a dozen soldiers were subsequently arrested, as well as former Attorney General Jesus Murillo Karam. However, almost all those arrested have now been released.

Moreover, the independent investigators abruptly withdrew from Mexico last year, citing a series of problems with state authorities, including a “lack of information,” “secrecy” and “hidden evidence.”

In February, the families of the missing students announced they would cease contact with the committee amid frustrations over the military’s lack of transparency.

Luz Maria firmly believes that Lopez Obrador’s government blocked the investigation as it approached the military.

“Given the way the investigation failed under Mr. Lopez Obrador, he never gave us an answer,” she told the BBC as the march got underway.

“Things started to get difficult when we told him that the Mexican military was responsible for the disappearance of our children and that he did not want to investigate further,” she claims.

Luz Maria is concerned that the military is now playing an outsized role in Lopez Obrador’s government, responsible for everything from building government infrastructure projects to national security.

“The army consists of criminals dressed in military clothing,” is her brutal assessment.

As the march makes its way through the rain along Mexico City’s Reforma Avenue, groups of young indigenous teachers sing defiantly, anger evident in their voices.

They are outraged that ten years later they are still demanding to know what happened to their friends, and worry that the impunity of this case means it could easily be repeated in the future.

Earlier in the day, President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador stressed during his morning press conference that his outgoing government had “done everything to find the students.”

He has publicly called their disappearance a “state crime” and again assured the families that his government was “protecting no one.”

“We wanted to know everything,” he said. “But things became complicated and confused because of different interests.”

As protesters pause at a monument erected to the 43, Margarito Guerrero, the father of another kidnapped teenager, Jhosivani, says the president’s assurances no longer mean much.

He even believes that Mexican officials have deliberately placed obstacles in the path of relatives to prevent them from reaching the truth.

“We feel like they’ve been stringing us along for years in an attempt to tire us out. But we are not tired,” he says with a hint of a smile. “And if they don’t give us an answer, we’ll move on. To us, our children are still alive until we see any evidence to the contrary.”

The soaked demonstrators – with wet feet but their resolve unbroken – reach their final destination, Mexico City’s main square, the Zócalo.

The parents of the victims, those most affected by the terrible events of ten years ago, walk onto the stage to address the crowd. Behind them is the National Palace, Mexico’s seat of power, surrounded by a steel ring.

As fervent left-wing speakers deliver speeches about the 43’s place in a broader struggle between the indigenous poor and the Mexican state, the barricades represent more than just a fence.

They form a different kind of barrier between the Mexican government, led by a president who promised to get to the bottom of what happened that night, and the families.

“One, 2, 3, 4” the parents count out loud until they reach 43, a number that Mexico is now synonymous with one of the worst human rights violations in its modern history.

“They took them alive, we want them back alive,” they shout again into the rainy night.