Enforced Disappearance and Human Rights in Mexico

Posted by Haverford College on September 19, 2016

Enforced Disappearance and Human Rights in Mexico
Film Screening: Tuesday, September 20
Talk: Tuesday, October 4
Haverford College
Free and open to the public

Past years’ violence related to the State and organized crime has increased tremendously in Mexico, currently conservative numbers point out between 26,000 and 30,000 families affected by enforced disappearance. However, victims and families of disappeared have been organizing and demanding justice, moreover they have been taking steps to locate and work themselves on mass graves trying to find their beloved ones. How (state) violence is affecting people and particularly rural and indigenous communities? What conditions or political scenario made it possible to blend organized crime with authorities? Is there a historical background that can help understand current issues of massive disappearance? What are families of disappeared people experiencing and proposing? How literature and journalism are related to human rights? Why is it relevant to address this current issue in Mexico in our community?

Documentary Film: Watching Them Die. The Mexican Army and the 43 Disappeared
(English Subtitles) By Coizta Grecko, Témoris Grecko & Juan Castro Gessner, 2015 (100 min)
Tuesday, September 20th
Stokes Hall Auditorium
6:30-9:00pm

This documentary film addresses the issue of state violence, corruption and impunity, particularly by inquiring the role of Mexican army during the attacks in Iguala against Ayotzinapa’s students and bystanders on September 26, 2014. The research made by journalist Témoris Grecko points out inconsistencies of official investigations presented as the “historical truth”, and which were based on unreliable and planted evidence in the Cocula dump garbage. Moreover, it shows that enforced disappearance is systematic and it has been affecting more than 28, 000 families who are searching for their beloved ones. The film screening is free, but the producers are asking for donations, from which 50% will help to cover production and crew expenses and the other 50% will be delivered to relatives of disappeared people “Los otros desaparecidos de Iguala” and the relatives of the 43 students of Ayotzinapa School. Video conversation with producers, Xitlaly Miranda from “Grupo de búsqueda de los otros desaparecidos de Iguala”, and relatives of the 43 students will follow after the screening. Conversation live streaming 8:30PM (EST).

Talk: “Enforced Disappearance and Ayotzinapa Testimonials” By Paula Mónaco Felipe and John Gibler
Tuesday, October 4
Multicultural Center (Stokes Hall 106)
4:15-6:00PM

From dozens of books already published about Ayotzinapa’s disappeared students, John Gibler’s An Oral History of Infamy. The attacks against Ayotzinapa student’s (Spanish) and Paula Mónaco’s Ayotzinapa: Eternal Hours (Spanish) are by far the more accurate, mindful and committed to human rights. Writers will be addressing issues of violations of human rights, ethics and journalism in Latin America and Mexico. Live streaming 4:30PM (EST).
Paula Mónaco Felipe, journalist and writer, joined at a very young age the organization HIJOS (Sons and Daughters for Identity, Justice and Against Oblivion and Silence). As a daughter of disappeared people in Argentina under the dictatorship, Mónaco has been an activist for human rights in Argentina and Mexico. Her recent book Las horas eternas (2015) recovers the identity of 43 disappeared students, their families and their lives before they were taken away by the state. She has collaborated with different journals in Argentina, Ecuador and Mexico, as well as she has been correspondent for TeleSur. She also has participated in audiovisual productions for Al Jazeera, TeleSur and Encuentro Channel in Argentina.
John Gibler, journalist and writer, has been reporting last decades about social movements and politics in Mexico. His major non fiction works are: Mexico Unconquered: Chronicles of Power and Revolt (2009), To Die in Mexico: Dispatches From Inside the Drug War (2011), Tzompantle La fuga de un guerrillero (2014), and his last book Una historia oral de la infamia (2016). Gibler has been working in human rights and social justice organizations in California, Peru and Mexico, he has taught in Hampshire College and University of California at San Diego (La Jolla), as well as he has delivered talks in various universities in US, Canada, Colombia, and Mexico.
For info on both events, contact Assistant Professor of Spanish, Aurelia Gómez Unamuno

Sponsored by Department of Spanish, Distinguished Visitors Program, and the Center for Peace and Global Citizenship.
Visit our blog: http://blogs.haverford.edu/disappeared-students/