Nov. 22--Last week, the Mexican government canceled the annual Mexico City parade for Revolution Day. The reason: It was afraid political demonstrations against the ruling powers would get out of hand. Imagine the embarrassment if a revolution began on Revolution Day. But thousands of protesters massed in the capital anyway, demanding the resignation of President Enrique Pena Nieto and chanting, "Justice! Justice!"
The government has grounds to be nervous. In recent weeks, public outrage has boiled in response to the disappearance of a group of university students who are presumed dead. In September, students from a college in the southern state of Guerrero were on buses in the city of Iguala when they were attacked, allegedly by police and members of a drug cartel. Six people died by gunfire, and hours later, 43 students were abducted, and they have not been seen since. Three suspects in custody say they killed the victims and burned their bodies.
Why did this atrocity happen? "The mayor's wife was speaking at an event in the town center and was worried that the students would disrupt it, prosecutors say," reported Time magazine. So the mayor ordered police to stop them.
Disappearances are a grim fact of life in Mexico, which for years has been wracked by bloodshed committed by powerful drug cartels. So is murder: More than 60,000 people have been killed since 2006 in drug-related violence.
But this incident has roused a suffering public like nothing before. Protesters have blocked roads, occupied TV stations and torched state government buildings in Chilpancingo, the capital of Guerrero, as well as Iguala's City Hall. In Mexico City, dissidents created a sign giving a stark judgment of whom to blame: "It was the state."
The gruesome incident is shocking enough for its senseless destruction of young lives. What makes it still more outrageous is that it involved the organs of government that are supposed to protect people.
Not only did the mayor allegedly initiate the attack, says Human Rights Watch, but "state and federal authorities failed to intervene to protect the students, despite local human rights activists having alerted the state government while the incident was in progress, and that the buses had been stopped 100 meters from a military installation." HRW says it has found 149 cases of disappearances at the hands of government security forces -- none of which have led to successful prosecutions.
In Mexico, corruption has long been deeply embedded in government and society. Since 2001, its ranking in Transparency International's Corruptions Perceptions Index has dropped from 51stin the world to 106th. Just last week, unwanted publicity forced the president's wife to cancel the purchase of a $7 million mansion from a contractor who does a lot of business with the federal government.
Many people despair that things will ever improve. But the fate of the students has emboldened citizens to mobilize on behalf of greater honesty, transparency and basic decency -- including from the normally nonpolitical Catholic Church, whose bishops have urged action.
The government can forgo parades that would offer a forum for those who say it is irreparably compromised. But what it really needs to do is take concrete measures to liberate the nation from pervasive graft and brutality. Putting a lid on a simmering pot does not lower its temperature.
