The Latin American Report # 331

These days many reports are coming out of or about Mexico in connection with the tenth anniversary of the shameful disappearance of 43 students from the Ayotzinapa's Rural Normal School, in the southern state of Guerrero. Edgar Vargas, then 19, barely survived by crawling to find shelter after unsuccessfully trying to help his classmates, who were trapped under corrupt fire. A bullet wounded the young's jaw, which has since undergone seven surgeries. “I knew that nothing would ever be the same again... I could hardly look at myself in a mirror,” he tells Reuters. So far, the most widely assumed thesis is that the students were attacked and kidnapped by a criminal group with links to the security forces.

There is no one convicted for this heinous act, while the relatives are clamoring for justice and the remains of the students to mourn over and give them a holy, dignified burial. The protests have turned violent, including attacks on federal government headquarters, harshly criticizing AMLO for certain statements and, ultimately, for not having solved the case, as promised. There is a thesis going around that the outgoing president has protected the Army from being duly investigated for its potential participation in what happened.

“We see the rottenness of the Mexican justice system,” says a young man who may have been one of the 43 missing. “We have not been in favor of any political government because we know that they are bourgeois politicians, that they are not in favor of the people, and until a party is in favor of the poor, a party that calls itself 'Party of the Poor,' that's as far as it goes,” says another student, displaying the socialist, anti-system spirit that spreads in the school. It's the same one that killed the youths, however, the motive for the crime has yet to be established.

So the Ayotzinapa rural normal school has tried to survive that fateful September 2014 feeding the aspirations of new students who today seek to fulfill the dream of becoming teachers, like those 43. “With what happened, it is a nervousness to think about when it could happen again. What if this year it is me? What if it is one of my classmates? It's always nerve-wracking to be here, but I'm proud to belong to this school,” Federico Vázquez, a first-year student there now, tells EFE.

Ecuador

This Andean nation is going through a very serious problem in terms of energy production, dependent as it is on rainfall for this critical activity. Hydroelectric power accounts for 70% of the total generation matrix, but the ferocious drought sweeping South America has also hit hard Ecuador. There is a structural problem here that current and past administrations did not foresee, leaving the country dependent on something as "crazy" in these times as rain. In several areas of Ecuador, power cuts can reach 11 hours a day, but there is no other alternative—at least not immediately—than rationing to deal with the crisis that is almost a year old and is still expected to worsen. The current deficit would be in the order of 1,200 megawatts.

And this is all for our report today. I have referenced the sources dynamically in the text, and remember you can learn how and where to follow the LATAM trail news by reading my work here. Have a nice day.