Читать книгу I Couldn't Even Imagine That They Would Kill Us - John Gibler - Страница 12
ОглавлениеAn Oral History of Infamy
CARLOS MARTÍNEZ, 21, SOPHOMORE. I’m from a municipality in the region of the Costa Grande in Guerrero that is similar to Tixtla. It’s a very pretty place, with rivers and lakes. Starting some time ago it began to urbanize, which has led to some problems. But even so, the essence of the place and the people remains. I’m the second of three siblings. I have an older sister and a younger sister. I am the middle child. I live with my mother. My father left years ago, so, it was really quite difficult to aspire to a different career.
I started working afternoons when I was in junior high school. I started working first at a mechanic’s shop, then a hardware store, and then a taco stand. I did all that to try and support my studies, since it was hard on my mother, alone, having to provide for three kids. After much work, I was able to get a scholarship to study in Acapulco after finishing high school. I stayed there for a year studying accounting, but it was very expensive. I had to pay for inscription fees, books, rent, food, public transit, school projects, and all sorts of things. It was too much to cover with just the scholarship. After a while, I heard about the school here, Ayotzinapa, and I came here. I came hoping to be able to study, which is what I’ve always wanted.
I have a compañero, a friend who studied here and is now a teacher. I met him when I was working for a time in Atoyac de Álvarez. I met him there and he told me about this school, about it being a boarding school, about the classes, the cultural and athletic clubs, a bunch of things. But in the end what really grabbed my attention was that the school is truly free: a school where you can really study and follow your path, that is free. That struck me, and that’s why I came here.
SANTIAGO FLORES, 24, FRESHMAN. Many of my friends said that we should all go to study in Acapulco or at the college for physical education teachers in Michoacán. But I wasn’t really into that idea because it’s hard for me to be far from home. A cousin of mine graduated from here and said that I should come here, that all the expenses are covered—the school covers everything—and for that reason, really, the economics, that’s why I came.
JORGE HERNÁNDEZ ESPINOSA, 20, FRESHMAN. My brother graduated from the college here in 2011. He came in 2007 without knowing anything about this place or what he was getting into. He had heard that there is a teachers college, a boarding college, near Chilpancingo, it’s called Ayotzinapa; all you have to do is take an exam, pass it, and pass a trial week and that’s it. That’s all he knew, so he arrived here without a clue. He passed the trial week, and he graduated. He told me: “I want you to go study there.”
To begin with, we didn’t have money. My father had abandoned us. We are five children, four brothers and one sister. My brother was in his last year [at the college] when my father left us. My mother took care of us. One of my brothers and my sister were in high school with me. One of my brothers was in junior high, and my other brother is both hearing- and speech-impaired and wasn’t in school. So my older brother graduated from Ayotzinapa.
“If you want to study,” he said to me, “you don’t really have a choice, go there, you’ll learn a lot.” And he explained to me more or less how things operate at the college.
“Sure, I’ll go,” I said to him. I didn’t think twice about it. I arrived here at the college and in all honesty I felt strange, uncomfortable for having left my family. I wasn’t used to leaving my house for any length of time. I didn’t know anyone at the school. I arrived without knowing anything or anyone. I said to myself, “This is so I can get ahead,” so that one day my family can say, “I’m proud of you for what you have achieved. Big or small, what you have achieved is important.”
JUAN PÉREZ, 25, FRESHMAN. The majority of students here are the sons of campesinos. Where I come from we only have an elementary school, a middle school, and a high school. We don’t have any other options for study or pursuing a career, my small town is a bit more fucked-over than other places. I decided to come to this school, to study, to be someone, to go back to my town and be a teacher there, and give classes to the kids. Since in my town we all speak Me’phaa, we want a teacher who speaks Me’phaa. That’s the vision I have for myself.
COYUCO BARRIENTOS, 21, FRESHMAN. My father separated from my mother when I was about five years old. We lived in the mountains. But my mom, my sister, and I went to live with my grandparents then, nearer to the town center. My mom would leave us to go to work. We would stay with my grandmother, because my grandfather worked all day too, coming back at night, or if not, at the end of the week. So I became quite independent. By the time I came here, I wasn’t speaking to my father, it had been some time since we fought. Before coming here I had thought about joining the marines to pay for my studies and support my family. But it didn’t work out. I was almost accepted and at that point didn’t have any other options. I had studied tourism in Acapulco, but without any support. Around that time I had fought with my mom and my sister and was on my own. I had to work. I stopped studying and my cousin told me that if I wanted, I should come study here, that there was nothing else that could help me.
And so this became . . . like a light of hope, because I wanted to keep studying. I didn’t want to get stuck just working, so I took his advice. And it turned out that my cousin—he’s from Zihuatanejo, Daniel Solís—also was going to come take the entrance exam. So we arranged to meet up and we came. Before that, I took any job I could find. I helped my uncles to repair and clean refrigerators, washing machines, air conditioners. I made very little, but enough to get by. After that I went to look for more work and found an automobile body and paint shop. I showed up there knowing nothing, but started to learn just by watching. I got the hang of it quickly. The boss began to trust me and to give me jobs, simple ones that I could handle. And I told him that I needed to work to put together enough money to come and take the entrance exam. I needed to pay the travel costs and have something for whatever I’d need here. He understood and gave me a hand. I worked with him for about a month and a half, up until the day when I had to come here.
ANDRÉS HERNÁNDEZ, 21, FRESHMAN. I have a goal, which is to become a teacher, an educator. I came here with that objective, to go back and give classes in my community, which is quite remote, a community of about 200 people. The teachers who sometimes go there, I don’t know if it’s because of the heat or the food, but they leave after only a little while. They don’t even last half a year before requesting a change. That’s why I came here. I’m here with that goal: to be able to go back to my community and give classes, to be an educator there.
EDGAR ANDRÉS VARGAS, 20, JUNIOR. When we were in our third year of high school a number of kids started talking about where they wanted to study. The only teachers college that we had heard of was Tenería, in the State of Mexico. But my cousin, Óliver, told me that there was a teachers college like Tenería in Guerrero. But to tell you the truth, I was never inspired to go to a teachers college. My cousin told me that his uncle studied at the teachers college in Guerrero and that it was good. So he said we should go, he was trying to convince me, but I didn’t really want to, in all honesty. He went to the school to begin the admissions process and told me all about it, that I should apply as well. On the very last day I made up my mind. I left my town around two in the morning. I went with my father, because the school is quite far away. My cousin told me more or less how to get there.
I started the admissions process on the last day. I was one of the very last to apply. I walked around the college and I started to like it. I’m really close to my cousin; we’ve been friends since elementary school and we were excited to take the exam. Once I saw the place, the murals and everything, I was more interested and decided to take the exam.
JOSÉ ARMANDO, 20, FRESHMAN. This is the reason we come study at Ayotzinapa: because we are the sons of campesinos. We don’t have the resources to study at another school. And this school is committed to social struggle; it’s a school where we learn the values to keep fighting and create a better future, to support our families. And what does the government do? It kills students.
MIGUEL ALCOCER, 20, FRESHMAN. I came, really, due to a lack of money. I stopped studying for two years for that same reason: I didn’t have any money. I wanted to keep studying but my parents didn’t have more money to give me and there weren’t any savings. I already knew about this school and wanted to come, but it wasn’t until 2014 that I made up my mind. So I told my parents that I was going to come, and they said okay. You know, it was the only option, economically, because here you don’t pay anything for food or lodging. Here the school provides everything, and that’s why I wanted to come here.
JORGE HERNÁNDEZ ESPINOSA, 20, FRESHMAN. At the beginning, during the trial week, honestly, we didn’t like it. We asked ourselves: “Why do they do this to us if we just want to study?” But truthfully, during that experience you start to value certain things. You learn to appreciate everything from your family, meals, your compañeros, your friends, everything, everything. Because you hit a point where you get tired and say to yourself, “I can’t do this anymore; I’m going home.” But then you say, “I’ll get home and what will I tell my parents? Here I am, I couldn’t do it; I gave up, I couldn’t pass the trial week?” And that’s how you find courage inside yourself, and you think about your family and think: “I don’t want to let my family down; I want to make them proud; I want to go home and be able to tell them: I made it.”
It’s really true, the trial week is hard. We work; they make us do all the work of a campesino, because we are campesinos. But, for example, the work that a campesino does in a month, we do that in a week. We multiply the work.
There are times when we don’t drink water, when we don’t eat. It’s true and it’s hard. But at the same time, once you’ve been there at the college for two or three days during the trial week, you say to yourself: “I made it two days, just five more to go. I’m going to stick it out.” And you do.
SANTIAGO FLORES, 24, FRESHMAN. The trial week is tough. It was really kind of grueling. But, you know, that’s how it is here, that’s how they do it every year. They have you doing exercise, doing farm work, clearing brush and weeds from the fields, going out to help los tíos in their fields. It’s pretty exhausting, and only those who make it through the trial week get admitted. We helped each other out, though. If some of us couldn’t run anymore, the organizers would encourage us.
“Help each other out,” they would say, “help each other; never leave a compa alone, no one should ever get left behind; when you’re finished running, there should be no one left behind.”
If one of us couldn’t go on, we all had to stop and wait, or try to help him out by carrying him, but no one could be left on their own. That’s where we start building a sense of being compañeros within the group, always staying together, never leaving anyone behind, helping each other out. That’s where the compañerismo begins. We make deep friendships during the trial week. We become best friends during that experience with compañeros we didn’t know before.
EDGAR ANDRÉS VARGAS, 20, JUNIOR. On the first day they took us all into the auditorium. The students from the committee welcomed us, more or less, told us some stuff and then let us out early. We went to rest. Around four in the morning some of the students from the sports club showed up kicking our doors, shouting. In that situation, you wake up in a flash. They told us to be out on the soccer field in five minutes, or like two minutes. Since we had heard a bit about the trial week, we had an idea of what was about to happen. They made us do exercises and then run. They took us running. This was kind of complicated for me since I used to have asthma and always used an inhaler. I still was afraid I’d have an asthma attack, that’s why I hardly ever played soccer anymore. But in that moment we all took off running. And they had us chanting. Truth be told, it was tiring running up stairs, doing all that exercise, I wasn’t really used to all that. They made us run all through Tixtla. We went almost as far as the OXXO convenience store at the edge of town, and then they brought us back, running. They gave us a few minutes to rest and then, around eight or nine, they took us out to do shifts as lookouts, to sweep the school grounds, to clear weeds with a machete and all that.
The hard thing was that they didn’t give us any water to drink. There was very little water, and they didn’t give us water to drink. So, to be out there cutting weeds with a machete, thirsty, you get exhausted. But I didn’t give up. And then the meals were just some tortillas and a tiny spoonful of beans. Tough luck. You were hungry and you had to eat it and you couldn’t ask for more, because if you did they would fill every inch of your plate with beans, they’d give you bread and tortillas, but a lot of them, and you had to eat it all. So you had to settle for what they gave you. I think they gave us breakfast around ten or eleven and then a few minutes to rest, and then back to work: work, work, work. Then it wasn’t until around four or five that they fed us again. And those were the only two meals. They talked to us about the college, about its creation and everything, and then around eight at night they took us to the study groups and gave us political orientation. They talked about the essence of the teachers colleges, the founding of the teachers colleges, about the social movements there have been in the country, and about the bad governments.
Sometimes they showed us videos, films, but always related to, you could say, left politics. We would get out of there really late, around two or three in the morning. I remember that twice they took me out of the movies because I had fallen asleep. That was during the last days of the trial week. The students’ committee took me out of the movie because I had fallen asleep and they made me do exercises there in front of the auditorium. The first time they made me exercise, they told me to climb up all these stairs to see what was written on a cross. It was night. I didn’t go all the way, because I saw another guy coming down, I think they sent him up there to do the same thing, and so I just asked him what was written on the cross and then we sat there talking for a bit. Then we went back and they asked us what was written on the cross, we told them, and they sent us back into the auditorium until the study group was over.
The other time they took me out was also because I had fallen asleep; I was so tired I just couldn’t stay awake. But that time they made me eat an onion. They asked you if you wanted an apple or a pear. I remember that I said an apple and the apple was an onion, the pear was a habanero chili pepper. I chose the apple. And they told me I had to eat it, and I ate it. Afterward I couldn’t sleep. The smell was everywhere. It made your eyes cry. I had that taste in my mouth for three or four days.
And I made my way through the trial week. It was tough. A bunch of applicants couldn’t take the exhaustion or the hunger, and they left. Once they took us out to cut all the weeds from the cornfields. We went in a bus and got off on the shoulder of the highway and had to climb up the mountain. We arrived around noon I think, and in the sun began to cut the weeds. By around two, I couldn’t stand the thirst. I was so thirsty, my whole body felt weak. When I went to the trial week I didn’t take anything, just a couple of changes of clothes and a backpack. I didn’t take a blanket, just a towel. At night it would get cold and what I would do was lay out a change of clothes on the floor—the concrete floor would get really cold—and I’d lie down and cover myself with the towel. But after a while I struck up a friendship with the guy next to me: he had brought sheets and he shared his mattress with me.
I made it through a lot. It was kind of messed up, because they would take us out to clear weeds when it was raining, with thunder, and they wouldn’t let us take cover. The trial week was tough, but I was able to make it through.
ÓSCAR LÓPEZ HERNÁNDEZ, 18, FRESHMAN. In all honesty, they treated us pretty badly when we showed up here that first week. But even so, with what happened to us on the twenty-sixth, it all was useful. Here at the college, during trial week, they have us run, jump into the pool early in the morning, and that came in handy for real, because on the night of the twenty-sixth with the rain, me and several other compañeros spent some eight hours wet. And, yes, here at the college they do that to us, they make us jump in the pool and then go running all wet, and do exercise in the morning. And seriously, on that day, everything they had done to us during the trial week was really fucking useful because out there you really needed it, you had no idea where to run, and here at the college they had taught us to run and seek shelter, and to be in shape.
MIGUEL ALCOCER, 20, FRESHMAN. It’s a week when you’re here and you go out and do all the things that a campesino does: clear the weeds with a machete, feed the livestock, plant, feed the pigs and the hens. All that is what we do during adjustment week, as they also call it, to see if we are really the sons of campesinos. The truth is, for me it was easy because it was all things I’ve done with my parents. We’ve worked the land, we have some land and livestock. For me, I didn’t think it was hard because, you know, it’s stuff I do at home with my parents and my brother.
CARLOS MARTÍNEZ, 21, SOPHOMORE. I had finished my freshman year and was eager to start classes and keep studying. We even had plans in my sophomore class to take a study trip; we were planning on going to Chiapas. I felt a bit more relaxed, because the freshman year here is really intense. You show up and you have to adapt to life here at the school, to the academics, the way of life here, the context, the government harassment and persecution that’s always present, I mean it never dissipates, and you have to start, little by little, getting used to the idea that this school isn’t just any school, this school is very different.
When I was a freshman there was a flood here in Tixtla. This whole area down here flooded. Just about half of the municipality of Tixtla flooded. Many people lost everything: their houses, their belongings, and their work. The rains started on September 13, I still recall that day well, and it kept raining without a break for several days. All of Tixtla flooded, and almost immediately a bunch of people came here to ask us for help getting their things, their belongings out of their houses. There were sick people who couldn’t walk, the elderly, and they needed our help. And there we went when I was a freshman, in September, with the rains, with the water up to our necks, taking things out of the houses and cars, and helping people with any number of things. And that was where they taught us not only to look out for ourselves, but for everyone. It was a fast reaction. I’ll admit that maybe it wasn’t organized, but it did meet the need of helping the people of Tixtla out.
Later, the federal government designated all sorts of resources, hundreds of thousands of pesos to help this area recover. And to this day, many of the people affected haven’t received a thing. In fact, one time the army made a video where they paid some people to pretend to be wounded or something, and the soldiers were carrying them in the water. And they splashed water on their faces... well, they were actors, they were basically actors for the army. And the people here were so outraged when they saw that the only thing the army had come to do was pretend, precisely when people needed help. Because the soldiers didn’t get in the water, they didn’t go into the flooded houses to remove people’s things. They didn’t go in the water to rescue people. We did that. And the people were so outraged when they found out that the army was making that video that they went out to where the soldiers were, they encircled the soldiers and wouldn’t let them leave until they made a public apology.
I was also there on January 7, when two compañeros were run over in Atoyac de Álvarez. It was an accident, a hit and run. We were out [on the roadside] asking for donations, when a truck pulling some kind of heavy machinery—I don’t know what it’s called, maybe an excavator, it had like a shovel on it—and even though we were out in the road, the truck came through really fast and some compañeros weren’t able to move fast enough, to get out of the road. Three compañeros made it out alive, two others died there. Eugenio Tamari Huerta and Freddy Fernando Vázquez Crispín were the two who died there. We went after the person who had crashed into the compañeros. We followed him and were able to capture him about three towns down the highway, a place called El Cayaco. We held him there until the police arrived and took him away. That guy is in prison now for the murder of the two compañeros.
At times it might seem that you live through more bad experiences here than good, but that’s not true.
ERICK SANTIAGO LÓPEZ, 22, SOPHOMORE. It was around six in the evening when we gathered everyone together. The action that we had planned for that evening was to get some buses, nothing else. We left the school in two buses from the Estrella de Oro line. The action was planned in that moment, but long before that we had had a meeting with the student federation from the seventeen rural teachers colleges. In that meeting we planned for the October 2 march in Mexico City.1 Here at my school, as always, we try to support the other teachers colleges. So with the secretary and the other members of the committee—and at that time, I was a member of the committee—we came to an agreement that we would round up about twenty-five buses to transport our compañeros and compañeras from the other colleges. This had already been planned, but only people within the committee knew about it. Only the committee knows about the plans when we agree on actions, the student rank and file doesn’t know about the plans. We decided to head out that afternoon and make a call to the students that only the freshman would be going out on an action. We always take the freshman out on the actions, not the sophomores. Why? Because here at our college we say that the freshmen have to take the lead. After them, the sophomores, and at the back the seniors. Why? Because they are the ones who have to spearhead the activities. And the members of the committee go in front with the freshmen. The committee also goes at the lead, and everyone else behind them.
JOSÉ LUIS GARCÍA, 20, FRESHMAN. On the twenty-sixth of September we were out working in the fields. They called us together because we’d be going out on an action to collect donations. And so we all got on the buses. It was around five or five-thirty in the afternoon. We went to our rooms to get T-shirts and then we left.
OMAR GARCÍA, 24, SOPHOMORE. On the morning of the twenty-sixth we tried to go to Chilpancingo, but we couldn’t get any buses there. The police stopped us. And, you know, that’s fine, no? They stopped us as they should stop us, without beatings, without anything like that, strictly following protocol. And so we left empty-handed.
“Where are we going to go now,” we wondered, “what are we going to do? We absolutely have to have two more buses by this afternoon. If not, we’re not going to make the goal.”
COYUCO BARRIENTOS, 21, FRESHMAN. The argument I had with my mom had happened around January. Since then I had not communicated with her. On the afternoon of September 26, while we were in marching band practice, I saw, off in the distance, that she—my mom—was arriving. I stepped away from the compañeros, asked permission, and the vice principal gave me a chance to go talk with her. I hadn’t told her, in fact I had told hardly anyone, that I would be coming to study here. I had just focused on working, saving some money, and no one knew. I went and spoke with my mom, and after so much time you feel . . . well, nostalgia. All the other compañeros’ moms, or at least some relative of theirs, would come to visit them or send them something, money, or even just call them. And there I was, alone, without anyone to call me, or make some gesture of caring, or anything. To be honest, it was intense; I never imagined, after so much time, that she would come out here.
Afterward, with band practice over, I went to my room to rest. That was when I started to notice that there was something going on. They started to call us, to tell us that we should get ready, that we would be going out to an action. We started to gather together and head toward the bus. The majority of us didn’t know what action we would be going on. They just said: “Let’s go, this way.” Later they told us: “We’re going to Iguala to ask for donations.” And so we all took our seats, we were relaxed.
Other compañeros hadn’t had a chance to leave the school grounds. It was the first time they were going out. Some were talking, others were joking around. Others of us were quiet. In fact, for some groups that had been the first day of classes. And personally, for me, after not having seen my mom for so much time, it was the very day that she had come here, precisely that day. On the road I felt a kind of heavy vibe. Everything was calm. But I sensed something strange. But, you know, we kept going.
JOSÉ ARMANDO, 20, FRESHMAN. We had our first class that morning. We all got up excited that morning: we were happy, joking around with each other. We had class, went to eat lunch, and then went to another class. They called us out to the módulos, which is doing farm work in the different fields on campus. We went and were working in the fields, planting corn and cempasúchil and tapayola flowers. And there we were, clearing the cornfields, everyone in a good mood. Who could have imagined what was about to happen? At five o’clock they called us to go out on an action. The plan wasn’t to go to Iguala. We were going to get some buses for a reason, because Ayotzinapa was to host other students who would all travel together to the October 2 march that’s held every year to commemorate the Massacre of Tlatelolco. And so we went. We left from here at six. We all gathered together and we went in two buses that we already had at the school, they were from the company Estrella de Oro. And we went, everyone in a good mood, like we always are when we go out to an action, laughing, wrestling, and so on.
GERMÁN, 19, FRESHMAN. We were working in the fields that we have here when some of our compañeros came up and said, “Compas, we’re heading out for an action, everyone get ready.” We went off happy, running. We stopped the fieldwork and left. We got on the bus. I was with one of my compañeros who is disappeared. (In fact, five of the compañeros that are now disappeared are my friends.) So, with all of them we were messing around like always, you see how we are, talking, fucking around, talking about girls, everything.
SANTIAGO FLORES, 24, FRESHMAN. They had told us that that day in the afternoon they would let us go, we could leave the campus, I think for five days. They sent us to do fieldwork. They sent us to cut the weeds that had grown up in the cornfields. In the afternoon we were clearing the weeds, we were joking around with each other. The compa in charge had told us that as soon as we finished we’d be able to go home for a few days of vacation. But then some other compas from the committee showed up and told us that there would be an action. They told us we had to go, that it was required.
With another compa I went from the fields to change, we went to get a jacket, or a sweater, since it was already late afternoon and we thought we’d be out after nightfall. My compañero didn’t want to go. He is disappeared. His name is Jesús Jovany Rodríguez Tlatempa. We call him El Churro, Doughnut. He told me he didn’t want to go. I don’t know if he sensed something, but he didn’t want to go. I told him that we should go, because if not we’d get punished. And so he said to me: “Okay, let’s go.”
ALEX ROJAS, FRESHMAN. On September 26, we were at dance club practice when they told us there was going to be an action. They didn’t tell us exactly what kind of action it would be. And so, around six in the afternoon, together with the other compañeros from the dance club and other clubs, we went to the parking lot to get on one of the two Estrella de Oro buses. We got on the buses. I was in the second bus. We were all talking and having a good time. During the trip I was seated next to a compañero who was one of my better friends at the school. He’s from the town of Apango. And we were talking about how we wouldn’t get separated, we would stick together. I said that whatever happened we’d try and return early. We had heard that we were going to get two or three buses to use to drive to the October 2 march commemorating the massacre of students at Tlatelolco. And so we agreed that if we were going to hijack buses, we’d get on the first bus we grabbed, so we could get back to school early and avoid any trouble. My compañero, the one who was sitting next to me, is named Miguel Ángel Mendoza. He is disappeared.
ANDRÉS HERNÁNDEZ, 21, FRESHMAN. That afternoon I—I’m in the dance club—I had finished dance practice. We finished practice and went back to our rooms. Then they called us, saying that there was going to be an action. And so, you know, we went.
CARLOS MARTÍNEZ, 21, SOPHOMORE. Every year people commemorate the October 2 massacre in Mexico City. A whole lot of organizations from the Federal District and beyond all participate. A part of the commitment that we make to attend the march is to gather enough buses to get to the march. The issue here is that we have spent so much time asking the state government for buses to be able to get around. For example, during the week of September 22 to 25, we went to conduct classroom observations in a place called Copala, in the Costa Chica region of Guerrero.
When you go to do classroom observations, there are two options: you pay your way, or you figure something else out, because the state doesn’t provide travel expenses, lodging, or food. In other words, they make it a requirement for you to go out there and that’s it. Our observations took place during the week of the twenty-second to the twenty-fifth, but the freshmen observations were coming up, and that’s why they had to go out on the action, it’s a tradition. If juniors have to go to classroom observations, then they have to get the buses. If those who are going to do observations are sophomores, then the sophomores have to get their buses. If the compañeros who are going to do classroom exercises or observations are freshmen, then they go for the buses. So our plan was to get buses for the October 2 march and the upcoming freshmen observations.
We got back to school from our observations on the night of the twenty-fifth. I was really tired and went to sleep. I got up on the twenty-sixth and went to Chilpancingo to shop for some things and returned to the school around three or four in the afternoon. I was coming down the stairs and ran into Bernardo, the sophomore compañero who’s disappeared. I ran into Bernardo and he told me to go with them. I told him I had a whole bunch of stuff to do: I had to write a report, a paper we have to write when we go out to do classroom exercises. But he told me to go with them, that it would only be a while, it would be quick, and we’d have Saturday and Sunday to do our schoolwork.
“Okay then,” I said, “let’s go.”
We left from the college parking lot around five, maybe, around five o’clock. It took a while, a really long time, to get to Iguala, because there was construction on the highway and we were stuck there for maybe an hour and a half. We were there for a good while waiting for them to finish and open the road. We were all in good moods. The freshmen were all making jokes, messing around with each other. No one imagined that what happened was going to happen. When we got to Iguala we veered off the main highway and split up. We were in two Estrella de Oro buses. One bus stayed in Huitzuco to ask for donations, and the other bus, where I was riding, went to the Iguala tollbooth. When we got there it was beginning to get dark. The plan was to stay there and grab a bus.
ÓSCAR LÓPEZ HERNÁNDEZ, 18, FRESHMAN. That day, September 26, we were out working, like always. We work in the afternoons and that day the committee members came and said: “Paisas, ¡jálense! Everybody get over here! Action! We’re going to get some buses!”
MIGUEL ALCOCER, 20, FRESHMAN. That day, the twenty-sixth, we woke up early and went to the dining hall for breakfast at seven, I think. After that we had classes. We went to class. After that the teachers gave us homework. Here at the school there are five areas: farm work, academics, marching band, the rondalla [a guitar-based song group], and dance. After classes we had dance practice. We rehearsed and then got out at five. We went to the dining hall again, and since they had told us that we would be going to observe what a teacher does in the classroom, we wanted two buses, because we didn’t have other transportation. We left here around six, on the way to Iguala, to get the buses we need to go do classroom observations.
URIEL ALONSO SOLÍS, 19, SOPHOMORE. On September 26, I remember, we sophomores had gone to observe elementary schools in the Costa Chica. I remember those days in the communities well. I came back to school on the twenty-sixth at around three in the afternoon. The compa in charge of organizing that action, a sophomore, is disappeared. His name is Bernardo Flores, but we call him Cochiloco, Crazy Pig. He told me that there would be an action in the afternoon. And to be honest, I felt like staying at the school. I had a bad feeling that something was going to happen.
The first thing that came to mind was that we’d surely clash with riot police. But I recalled that we sophomores always have to be on the front lines when things come to blows, running alongside the freshmen. We got on the two Estrella de Oro buses here at the school and left for Iguala. We didn’t go to Chilpancingo because in previous days we had clashed with the police there. So we decided not to go there, thinking that surely there would be a lot of cops there to beat us back. We left here around six.
During the drive everything was really fun. We were all playing, joking around with the bus drivers. We cranked the music as loud as it would go. It was all fun, play, joy, and laughter.
IVÁN CISNEROS, 19, SOPHOMORE. That day the compañero who was president of the Struggle Committee here at the college had asked me to help him coordinate an action. I said yes because we had just returned from our classroom observations the day before. But I told him that we should make it quick, because I needed to write my report because the teachers wanted it on Monday. I remember well that I told him yes.
“We leave at five,” he told me.
“Ah, okay,” I said, “that’s fine.” Afterwards I went to my room. A few minutes before five I ran into the Struggle Secretary, the one we called Cochi, a compañero who is disappeared, named Bernardo, also a sophomore.
“Hey, paisa, we’re going to the action,” he said, “we’re going to bring back some buses.”
“Sure thing,” I said, “let’s go.” So I went to let some other compañeros from the Order Committee know. There I asked the president, I said:
“Hey man, what’s up? Aren’t you coming?”
“Help me out, no? I’ve got to make a trip to Chilpo. Cover for me.”
“Sure, man. No worries.”
We kept walking and Cochi said to me:
“Compa, I need more people. We’re going to get some buses.”
“Okay, no problem.”
“Lend me the activists.”
“That’s not my decision. That’s up to the COPI,2”— and right there was the compa in charge of the COPI and Cochi asked him.
“Hey, lend me the activists so we can go bring some buses.”
The COPI asked me directly:
“Are you going?”
“Yeah, I’m going,” I told him.
“Alright then, take ’em.”
And so the activists came out and got on the bus.
The atmosphere on the bus was fucking cool, for real. We were joking around. We were on two buses, two Estrellas de Oro. I was riding with the driver that everyone called Chavelote, Big Kid, and behind us, in the other bus, there were two other bus drivers. One was called Ambulancia, Ambulance, and the other Manotas, Big Hands. Manotas was driving the bus and Ambulancia was just going along for the ride. The atmosphere, I tell you, was fucking awesome. The freshmen were all joking around, and those of us sophomores at the front of the bus were doing the same.
The ones who were riding with Manotas and Ambulancia stayed behind at a place called Rancho del Cura, to ask for donations, and we went to the highway to grab the buses. We stopped and were just waiting for some buses to drive by so we could grab them. But there we noticed something strange. When some buses started to approach on the highway, the federal police stopped the buses, made the passengers get off, and sent the buses back. And the passengers came from the tollbooth on foot.
That’s when I said to Cochi: “No, man, the jig is up, we aren’t going to be able to grab anything.” We were going to go back to the college when we got a call that some other compañeros, who had grabbed a bus that was going to drop its passengers off at the station, were being detained. So we took off fast, we went straight to the bus station to bust out the compañeros being held there.
ÓSCAR LÓPEZ HERNÁNDEZ, 18, FRESHMAN. There in Huitzuco we started to keep a look out for buses. First we grabbed a Costa Line. Right then we asked the driver to take us to the college, because we were going to go to an event on October 2, the march they hold every year. And yes, the driver said, okay, and ten compañeros got on the bus because first the driver was going to drop off the passengers in Iguala. Ten compañeros got on the bus. About ten minutes went by and they hadn’t come back, so the guy from the committee said to call those compañeros, because a lot of time had passed. We tried to reach the compañeros. Then one of them called us and said: “Compas, we’ve got a problem here with security, the bus driver won’t let us out, he locked us in the bus.”
URIEL ALONSO SOLÍS, 19, SOPHOMORE. First we went to the Huitzuco stop and the first bus arrived. We spoke with the driver and he said yes. There were about five of us who got on the bus. We arrived at the bus station and that’s when he said, “No, can’t do it, nope. . . .” He had changed his mind and said no, not anymore. And since we were already there and we didn’t have any money with us to get back, we called the compañeros.
“You know what, come get us,” we said. “We’re in the bus station. The driver changed his mind. We’re trapped on board the bus, the driver already got off. He locked us in.”
“Hold tight,” they said, “we’re on our way.” And that’s when they came.
EDGAR YAIR, 18, FRESHMAN. We left around five-thirty, I think. We left in two buses from the parking lot here. I was in the second bus. The bus was sort of packed, there were a bunch of us. We arrived at the entrance to Iguala. We got out where we were going to do the action. It was around six or seven at night. Around eight o’clock a bus drove by. The driver was going to help us out, you know, getting to the march. But he had passengers. So the driver needed to drop off his passengers at their destination, which was the bus station in Iguala.
Ten of our compañeros, about ten, got on the bus. They left with the bus and we stayed back in the same place where we’d been. Well, we’d been out there for about another hour and we saw that our compañeros didn’t return. It was night at that point, it was already dark. Then we got a call from a compañero who said they’d been held at the bus station. We had to go and set them free. So we went. We got there and we all covered our faces with our T-shirts, so they couldn’t identify us, to protect our identities. We were there demanding that they let our compañeros out. At last they let them go, but we were angry by that point, and we grabbed three buses from the station there. We forced the drivers to take us in the buses. Two buses went a different way out of the station and the other three buses went out toward Avenue Juan N. Álvarez.
ALEX ROJAS, FRESHMAN. The two buses stopped near Huitzuco along a part of the highway that’s really straight. There’s a restaurant near there; I think it’s called La Palma. We stopped there by the restaurant. There’s a little chapel there where a number of us who are believers went to pray and make the sign of the cross. The first bus left. I don’t know exactly where it went, but it took off toward Iguala and I think they went to the tollbooth. I think they were going to do the action there. We stayed there, near the restaurant, where the highway is really straight, to avoid any accidents.
We started to do the action, and sure enough, a bus passed by, which we stopped and commandeered. The bus had passengers on board. So as not to affect the bus riders, we decided to take them to the station. I got on that bus with another seven compañeros and a member of the committee. We boarded the bus and left. I was talking with some of the passengers on their way to Iguala. They said to me that they were afraid and asked us not to do anything to them. I told them not to worry, that we never did anything to citizens, to the people, that we only did this action because it was necessary since we don’t have any vehicles at the school to use for transportation to our actions, whether it’s going to the march to commemorate the student massacre, or fundraising activities, or the classroom observations and exercises that the sophomores, juniors, and seniors all do.
I was talking with a woman and some other people in that part of the bus, telling them not to worry, that we never mean to inconvenience them, much less harm them, that we were just kids who were at the college to study, but that it was necessary to do this to be able to carry out our activities and attend some events at the other rural teachers colleges. That’s what I was talking with them about. A number of passengers were talking with us, and we were all getting along well.
“Yes, guys, we understand, but we still got scared when you all stopped the bus.”
“Don’t worry,” I said to them, “we’re going to the bus station, we’ll let you all off there without any problems and we’ll then continue with our action like we do every year, totally normal.”
We arrived at the bus station and yeah, all the passengers got off. We stayed on board the bus and told the driver that we had to get back. The driver agreed and asked us to wait a moment. But after about fifteen minutes, we got nervous that he wouldn’t want to come back. We told him:
“Let’s go now, driver!”
But the driver said no, that he had to get authorization, and well, he was just stalling. That’s when we called our compañeros so they would come help us. We were just eight kids, with the guy from the committee, nine, I think. So we called the ones who were out on the fundraising action.
ERICK SANTIAGO LÓPEZ, 22, SOPHOMORE. During that time a number of strange things started to happen. We were already out by the Iguala tollbooth. A red motorcycle started driving by. And a bit later a Policía Federal truck passed. . . . That truck went through the tollbooth to the other side and started to stop all the buses. The police started to make the passengers get off of all the buses that arrived—Estrella, Futura, Costa Line, Diamante, any bus that approached. They started to stop them. So they weren’t going to let us grab any buses. After a bit, my compañero, a guy who was in the committee and had stayed back around Huitzuco, he called my friend telling him that the compas had grabbed a bus out by Huitzuco, it was a Costa Line, but that when they got to the bus station they had been detained. They were being held there.
SANTIAGO FLORES, 24, FRESHMAN. We went to the Iguala tollbooth. We were hanging out with Churro, joking around. But at that time there were some police cars patrolling there, they were driving around and you know, I get a little scared just seeing them. What I did was look around to see where I’d run, thinking: “Okay, if they come after us, I’m going to run that way, head over that way, and grab rocks over there.”
Behind us there was a fence and on the other side there was some construction, there were a bunch of rocks over there, like bricks that were already broken up. I thought: “Okay, there are rocks over there.” But no, nothing happened. In fact, at the tollbooth, when the buses came up, they didn’t pass through the tollbooth. They turned around and went back because the police were making the passengers get off and the bus didn’t come through the tollbooth. We asked the passengers why the buses weren’t driving through, and they told us because the bus had broken down. We were there for a while. After a time the committee told us to get back on the bus, that we were going to the bus station.
CARLOS MARTÍNEZ, 21, SOPHOMORE. After night fell a number of federal police squad cars started driving by. They went by and what they did was to stop the buses before the tollbooth and make everyone get off. The people came through the tollbooth on foot and the police sent the buses back. The police did that with at least three buses. And we asked the people that were walking through:
“Hey, why did they make you all get off the bus?”
“The feds told us to get off and walk.”
We were on the Iguala side of the tollbooth and the feds were stopping the buses that were arriving in Iguala from Acapulco, from that direction, Tierra Colorada. The police stopped all the buses that came from that direction. The passengers all got out and walked, and the buses turned around and left. So we said:
“You know what? We need to go, because we’re not going to be able to get anything here. We’ll come back tomorrow, or we’ll come up with something later.”
We were making that decision to leave when a compañero who had stayed with the other bus out by Huitzuco called Bernardo and said:
“Hey, I’m here at the bus station, they’ve got me.” We told him:
“Okay, wait there, we’re gonna come get you right now.” We all got back on the bus and we went to the bus station.
GERMÁN, 19, FRESHMAN. I lost track of my friends in the bus station. I didn’t see them again. Once we got to the station we all spread out and I didn’t know what happened to them. I got on the bus. We pulled in, I got off the bus, and then, all of a sudden, I turned around and got back on. The gunshots started around the plaza. And we shouted out to them to leave us alone, that we were on our way out of town. We kept driving through town and there were gunshots and gunshots and the compas who were running got back on the buses. They had been trying to talk with the police, so they would stop blocking us and let us go, because we really wanted to get back to the school, fear had taken hold of us by that point.
JOSÉ ARMANDO, 20, FRESHMAN. We grabbed another three buses and were on our way out. Some headed out toward the south, an Estrella de Oro bus and an Estrella Roja. We exited toward the north to get to the Periférico; the other three buses went that way. The first bus was a Costa Line, then another Costa Line, and the third bus was an Estrella de Oro. That’s where we were. I was on the third bus when all of a sudden, as we were leaving the bus station in a caravan, the police pulled up and started shooting at us. We didn’t have anything to protect ourselves with, because, you know, we’re students. We got off the buses and wanted to defend ourselves with rocks to make the police get out of the way so we could keep going. I got off the bus. Most guys on the third bus didn’t get off, they stayed on the bus because they were afraid. But a few of us got off, grabbed some rocks and threw them at the police trucks so they’d move out of the way and we could keep going.
IVÁN CISNEROS, 19, SOPHOMORE. We got to the bus station. They had the compas trapped there. We busted them out. Once we were in the station Cochi said that we needed to take some buses quickly. The drivers were there. We grabbed two Costa Line and an Estrella Roja. The Estrella Roja went one way out of the station and we went out another way, the way we had come in. We went straight through the center of Iguala, straight all the way to head out toward the state capital. The other compas had gone out the station exit. On the way, an Estrella de Oro bus went off another way. So we were just the two Costa Line buses and one Estrella de Oro.
ALEX ROJAS, FRESHMAN. The compas arrived. We talked to the guy in charge of the station. He said he didn’t want any trouble, but the bus we were on was out of service. I think it needed some kind of liquid, I don’t know, and that’s why we couldn’t take it. The compañeros said that was no problem, that they could get the liquid. Then we saw that the guy had started talking on the phone, and the bus station’s security guards were on their radios. We figured they were letting someone know what was going on. What we did was leave as quickly as possible with the two Costa Line buses. I remember that the Estrella de Oro bus was parked out on the street, and we had the two Costa Line buses we meant to take back to the school with us. The compañeros started to get on the buses. I was going to get on the first Costa Line, but then I changed my mind.
I asked a paisa from the committee if we were only going to take those two buses or if we were going to grab another one. He told me we were going to take an Estrella Roja too. And so we did, we took the Estrella Roja. The two Costa Line buses went out first, a bit before, one or two minutes before, I think. Close enough that they went in a caravan with the Estrella de Oro bus. So those three buses left the station, but what I’ve heard is that the driver of the first bus took them deeper into Iguala. Instead of taking them out to the Periférico Sur, toward Chilpancingo, he took them deeper in toward the detour to Tierra Caliente, he was taking them in that direction. But we left the station in the Estrella Roja, going by the Aurrera3 there in the city center, direct and fast to get to the Periférico Sur.
CARLOS MARTÍNEZ, 21, SOPHOMORE. Once we were there in the bus station a compañero told us to grab some buses.
“We should take the buses from here, let’s grab them and go.”
It was already night. We left in the buses. I got on the first one together with some others, maybe six or seven compañeros got on that bus. From the bus I could see that our compañero Bernardo was down there organizing, he was coordinating the activity. I wanted to get back off the bus and help him, but the freshman compas wouldn’t let me. I said to them:
“Let me get by, I’m going to get off.” Or: “Get out of the way.”
But they didn’t hear me and so I stayed on the bus. And that bus was the first to leave the station, it went in the lead, the first bus that you see in all the photos. I was there with other compañeros. I didn’t see Bernardo again. The image I have of him is being down there directing everything.
COYUCO BARRIENTOS, 21, FRESHMAN. We got to the bus station and started to spread out. Some compañeros went into the station. We started to take some buses. We grabbed three in total. And we had two other buses that we brought from the school. There were five. We started to leave. The first two buses went ahead. I was in the third bus of the five. We were in the middle of the caravan, but the other two buses took a different route and we didn’t see where they had gone. So we arrived at the point where there is a zócalo. And the driver was going really slowly. He wasn’t getting very far. And I think that he gave the authorities time to arrive and try to get us off the buses. The driver was moving at a snail’s pace. I was in the middle of the bus and I shouted out to the compañeros up front to make the driver step on it, and if not they should get him out of the way and drive the bus themselves, that we had to hurry up. If we didn’t, we’d get caught there. And the driver went even more slowly; he didn’t pay any attention to us. In part, I blame the bus driver because he gave them time to arrive. It’s just that, that night, we didn’t know, no one knew there was a government event, that the director of the DIF4 was giving a speech right there in the zócalo. In fact, a number of newspapers say that we went to protest her speech. But that isn’t true. We were only going to our action, which was asking for donations and grabbing buses, and that was it. We didn’t even know about the government event.
SANTIAGO FLORES, 24, FRESHMAN. We got on the bus and took off. The driver didn’t want to go because he said he was sick, or something like that, that he had to get some medicine, or go to the doctor, he was saying something like that. He didn’t want to go, he refused, and a compa from the committee took the keys from him and said that he’d drive.
The driver said no, because if he left the bus the company would hold him responsible, I think. So he said that he would drive.
When we were leaving the station the driver said something strange, that he didn’t know the way. That was strange, that he would say he didn’t know how to get out of town. The compas were saying if he worked for the bus company he had to know how to get to the bus station, but he said he didn’t, that he didn’t know how to get out of town, he didn’t know the streets there. We left, but really slowly, the driver was going slowly. Around then, there’s a . . . what’s it called? I think in the center there is some kind of plaza, I think, a zócalo. I was in a window seat and I saw people having dinner. We went a few meters farther and I heard something like firecrackers. I thought they were fireworks, but the compas said: “They’re shooting at us.”
JUAN PÉREZ, 25, FRESHMAN. We went to the bus station. Everyone got on a bus and we left. In some buses twenty students got on, in others fifteen, in others ten, and so on. We left the station and we realized there were police trucks following us. A few blocks later a police truck pulled in front of the lead bus. A police officer got out of the truck and started running, shooting in the air. I was in the lead bus. All of us compañeros got off the bus to push the squad truck out of the way. Once we started pushing it, the driver backed up and took off. We kept going down the street. We were lost and so started asking people for directions.
“Hey, you, excuse me, sir: Is this the way to Chilpo?”
“Yeah, keep going straight.”
COYUCO BARRIENTOS, 21, FRESHMAN. And so a municipal police squad truck pulled up and cut us off just at the zócalo. The police officers in the back all got out and only the driver stayed inside. So the compañeros in the front of the lead bus threw rocks at the squad truck to make it move. They did that because the police started shooting. At first they shot in the air, but then they started shooting at us. That’s why the compañeros took action. They threw rocks at the truck, smashing its windshield. The other cops ran. And more police were running toward the zócalo, shooting behind them, not even looking to see if they were. . . . I mean, not looking to see if they could hurt someone who wasn’t even involved. But the police driver moved the squad truck and we kept going. The compañeros that had gotten off the bus stayed in the street, running next to the bus to repel another attack. We kept going forward.
CARLOS MARTÍNEZ, 21, SOPHOMORE. The guy driving the bus told us that he didn’t know his way around Iguala, that the bus was broken down, that he had a commitment at a certain time with his wife, you know, an endless list of excuses so that he drove really slowly. He was driving so slowly on purpose, as if he knew something. Who knows? But he drove the bus really slowly.
At that point, a police truck pulled in front of us. I saw through the bus window when the squad truck pulled in front and a number of police got out of the back aiming at us. The compañeros got off the bus. The police started to shoot in the air. We started to hear gunshots—a lot of gunshots. That was where the first shootings began. I got off the bus and when the police began to shoot I threw myself to the ground. The bullets were breaking glass. You could hear the glass breaking, and pieces of it started to fall on my back.
A few blocks later I started to hear music. I looked around and realized that we were at the Iguala zócalo, but people were running and soon the music shut off and everyone started running. By this time all the compañeros who had gotten off the bus, we were all running, fleeing while being shot at. We passed the zócalo. I remember I was running with a number of freshman compañeros. I crossed the zócalo and what we did was get back on the first bus. The bus had kept going, slowly, so we caught up with it and got back on, the first one like before. The bus kept going.
MIGUEL ALCOCER, 20, FRESHMAN. The police started shooting. The compañeros said that the police were shooting in the air, and I think they were. So many squad trucks started arriving. There were three buses in a caravan and I was in the lead bus. I don’t know much about Iguala, but we were on a straight street and on that street the municipal police would pull out from the intersections. At that time the shots were coming directly at us. The driver kept going straight ahead and the police would drive up and shoot at us. Some compañeros under the stress of being shot at got off the bus and picked up rocks. I think there is a zócalo around there. I don’t know what was going on, but there was some kind of a park and there were a lot of people around. A municipal police officer cut us off around there. The squad truck blocked us and the cops shot directly at us. There were also police shooting at us from behind. You couldn’t run anywhere. So some compañeros managed to find some rocks and threw them at the squad truck and broke the windshield. So the cop moved the truck out of the way and we were able to keep going.
EDGAR YAIR, 18, FRESHMAN. At first the police were shooting in the air. We weren’t scared because never. . . . Well, we knew that they couldn’t shoot at us because we’re students and they can’t do that to people like us. We kept going and at every street corner we passed, police squad trucks pulled out, and the bullets were coming more and more directly at us each time. And we had rocks. . . . Whatever we could find. We threw the rocks at the police because they were shooting at us. There were three buses in a caravan. I was in the second bus. We drove down that whole avenue and the cops didn’t even care that there were so many other people around, kids, women, all kinds of people. And the cops didn’t respect those people. As we drove along the avenue, we didn’t care about anything, what we cared about was getting out of there as soon as possible.
IVÁN CISNEROS, 19, SOPHOMORE. We came to what I think was the zócalo, or something like that, I couldn’t see well, when the first municipal police trucks started pulling up. They didn’t tell us to stop; they just pulled out in front and starting cocking their guns and aiming at us. And that’s when we got angry, because before, when we were asking for donations on the highway, the federal police would show up with the same attitude, cocking their weapons, but we would instantly tell them that we were students, and unarmed. And then the police would think about it and their commander or the person in charge would tell them to lower their guns. And so that’s what we did, it’s kind of like a truce, when we say: “We’re students, we don’t have any weapons,” and we show our empty hands in the air, that we’re unarmed, that was when, before, the police would lower their weapons and we’d have to start some kind of dialogue. That’s the way it had been before.
For example, the state police in Chilpancingo say to us: “Young men, you can’t grab vehicles like that, you have to come to an agreement with the bus companies and blah, blah, blah,” stuff like that. But at that moment, the police didn’t act like that. We said:
“We’re students, we’re unarmed,” but the police didn’t give a shit. They kept aiming at us and that’s when we heard the first gunshots from the back of the caravan. I told the others to get off the bus and grab rocks. We started pelting the squad truck that was blocking us. That truck took off, but we still heard gunshots coming from behind. They kept shooting, but I think they were shooting in the air. At that moment, we ran ahead to stop traffic from the side streets so that the bus could get through. All along the way we kept hearing gunshots, they popped in the air.
ERNESTO GUERRERO, 23, FRESHMAN. Leaving the bus station we made it about a block and a half when the first two police squad trucks came out of nowhere. At no point did they signal for us to stop, at no point did they try to speak with us, they simply started firing their weapons in the air. We were in a caravan of three buses: the two Costa Line buses that we had just taken, and an Estrella de Oro that was in the rear. I was in that bus, the third one. When we heard the gunshots, one of the sophomore compas who was with us said:
“Don’t be scared, paisas, they’re shooting in the air.”
But when we got off the bus we saw that they were not just shooting in the air, but also shooting at the bus, and they started aiming at us. That’s when we made the decision to defend ourselves. How? In the road there I found four rocks, and four rocks are what I threw. We didn’t have any choice. We had to defend ourselves with whatever was around, or let them kill us without putting up any defense. At least I’m of the opinion that if they’re going to kill me, at least let it be while I’m defending myself. And, well, I found four rocks and I threw four rocks. It was obvious that the municipal police wanted to take our lives. The gunshots were aimed at the bus and at those of us who had gotten off the bus. That was when we decided to get back on the buses. We ran a bit farther down the road. The Iguala police were still shooting at the buses. I didn’t find any more rocks.
How was I to defend myself? I ran. The third bus in the caravan closed its door. The second bus had its door closed too. I ran up to the first bus and that was when I was able to jump on. I stayed there in the entrance, by the door of the first bus.
ANDRÉS HERNÁNDEZ, 21, FRESHMAN. The police had already blown out the tires of the first bus, where I was riding. I realized this when a squad truck pulled out in front of us and parked there to block our way. All the police got out of the squad truck, hid around the street corners and shot at us. So what we did was run up to the squad truck to push it out of the way. We were pushing the truck when a second squad truck came within six or seven meters of us. It pulled up and the police shot at us, brutally, without thinking twice about it. They shot at us and that was when the first compañero, a student in my group named Aldo Gutiérrez Solano, fell. When we saw that he had fallen it enraged us. We wanted to escape, but the police were shooting at us, so we ran back to hide behind the first bus. In my case, I was there behind the first bus, taking shelter.
CARLOS MARTÍNEZ, 21, SOPHOMORE. We were driving along Álvarez Avenue. Through the window I could see the Periférico. We were so close to turning onto the Periférico when a police truck pulled in front of us. It was a municipal police Ranger-type truck. But something strange happened there. The squad truck pulled up with a guy driving it, and that guy got out, fled, and left the truck there, in contrast to the first time a police truck pulled in front of us and the cop driving then moved it out of the way. This time the cop left the truck there in the middle of the road. And so we got off the bus. I, Aldo, Malboro, a number of us got off the bus and tried to move the police truck. Imagine that this is the truck, here is the hood, and here is the back of the truck. I was here at the back trying to move the truck and Aldo was in front of me. We tried to move the truck out of the way. And then I heard when the shots began, loud. I ducked like this and when I looked at the ground that was when Aldo fell with a shot to the head and there was so much blood coming from the wound, too much blood, too much. I went into shock looking at his body for about three seconds; the shots were still ringing out and I just stood there, looking. Luckily, I wasn’t hit.
“Run,” we shouted, “run!”
We went to the space between the first and second buses. We stayed there throughout the shooting. Only those of us who were riding on the first and second buses took shelter there. We were about twenty compañeros between the two buses and there were police in front of us and police behind us shutting off any escape. They shot at us like you wouldn’t believe, there were so many gunshots, it was intense. At first I couldn’t imagine that they were shooting at us, I couldn’t even imagine that they would kill us. I thought the sounds were, who knows, bottle rockets or some kind of firecracker like that. But when I started seeing the bullets, the bullet shells, I realized they were going to kill us, I realized that they wanted to kill every single one of us.
Aldo was lying in the street for a long time. We started to call ambulances. We called 066 so they’d send ambulances. The number 066 is a federal number. It’s impossible for the federal government to say that they didn’t know what was happening, that the federal police didn’t know, because 066 channels information to the local branch of the federal police that is next to an army base.
SANTIAGO FLORES, 24, FRESHMAN. Farther down the road the police started coming out from the street corners. They started shooting at us again, and when we came up to a mini-Aurrera that was where a police truck shut us off. We got off the buses. We threw rocks at them, but the police got out of the truck and left it there in the middle of the street. We couldn’t keep driving, we were stuck. Other students told us to move the truck. I got off the bus, others got off the bus too. I don’t know if it was from fear or desperation, but we couldn’t move the truck. I remember that Aldo, the student who is brain dead, was there with us. I was in the front, at one of the headlights, pushing toward the back. There were about four of us there. Others were in back of the truck pushing it forward. I mean, I don’t know if it was because we were so scared or desperate, but some compas were pushing from behind and we were pushing from the front and none of us had a clue: they were pushing this way and we were pushing that way. We didn’t coordinate, you know, we didn’t know what to do. And another student was in the driver’s seat steering the wheel this way and that, but no way, we couldn’t move it. And that was when they started shooting at us, firing at us. More police trucks were arriving. And so what I did was put my hands behind my head like this, duck down and run. I wanted to throw myself to the ground because of all the shooting. You could hear the bullets whizzing by.
When we were getting to the space between the first and second buses I heard that the compas were shouting that one of us had been shot. “You shot one of us!” But the police didn’t pay any attention to them. They kept shooting and shooting. “You killed another one of us, you killed another, stop shooting!” But the police didn’t care. We raised our hands in the air to show that we weren’t going to do anything to them, that we surrendered, but the cops didn’t care. We asked them for help, saying: “Help us, he’s still alive!” Because a couple of compas said that they saw that Aldo was raising his hand, they said he was still alive. They screamed: “Help us, don’t be assholes, he’s still alive!” But the cops ignored them.
The shooting lasted a long time, so, so, so much time before they brought an ambulance. The ambulance took some twenty or twenty-five minutes to arrive. It took so long to arrive, but that was when they took the compa. We were there, shouting that we would turn ourselves in and the police ignored us. You looked around the edge of the bus and they shot at you. You held out your hand and they shot at you. One compa who stepped out from the buses, a bullet cut right here across his chest, the bullet sliced right across.
JORGE, 20, FRESHMAN. They were shooting at us all down the street, they were chasing us up to this intersection, I don’t know what it’s called. That’s where the police truck cut us off. The police got out and left the truck there. Since we wanted to keep going, with a number of compañeros, we got off the bus to move the truck. When we were moving the truck, the police ran back to take cover and from there they began to shoot at us. We were trying to quickly move the truck when they started shooting at us. And almost immediately a compañero fell when they shot him in the head. Well, I got scared and, you know, seeing how he fell, the majority of us ran and hid behind the first bus. Some of us jumped quickly aboard the first bus. From there we could see that the compañero who got shot was still alive, he was still moving. The bus driver told us to go get him out of the street but when we tried to get off the bus again, the police shot at us. We couldn’t get back off the bus. There were about ten of us who got back on the bus. So we went to the back of the bus and took cover there while the police were shooting at us. They didn’t stop shooting. We shouted out to them, but they ignored us.
IVÁN CISNEROS, 19, SOPHOMORE. We were coming to the intersection of Juan N. Álvarez and Periférico to head out toward Chilpo when police truck 002 came out of nowhere and cut us off. We got off the bus and went to move the truck. The police officers all got out of the truck and ran. When we tried to move the truck we heard the police shooting at us. That was when they hit Aldo, who was beside me. I ducked down and grabbed the truck to push it from the bottom and start to move it, lift it, push it and that was when they hit the compañero Aldo. He went down. When we saw that he fell we all froze, as they say, and we got scared for real then. We saw that this had gotten real serious. When we had heard the gunshots we said, “Those are shots in the air,” but who knew?
When we saw that the compañero went down, that was when the fear hit. We started to shout to the compañeros on the bus: “Compas, get down here!” We screamed to the police that they had killed a compañero, because we thought that the guy was dead. With a bullet to the head, you’d think that someone would die instantly. But he was just bleeding. We ran to the back of the first bus. We tried to take Aldo with us, but the bullets were flying by so close, we couldn’t do anything. We left the compañero there and went to the space behind the bus. We shouted to the compañeros on the second bus to come down, and we wanted to shout the same to those on the third bus, but the police were already machine-gunning that bus. We couldn’t see it, we just heard the shots. We shouted out to the police that they had already killed one of us, that what more did they want, that they had already fulfilled their mission. We shouted out to them, sarcastically: “You should act so tough with the narcos!” We didn’t know that they were also the narcos. We tried to help the compañeros on the third bus, but as soon as we peeked around the edge of the bus, as soon as we tried to do anything, the police fired at us and the bullets flew over the concrete. We couldn’t leave from behind that part of the bus, between the first and second buses.
When they shot the compañero, we started making calls to the students back here on campus. We called David, the student president. We called the other compañeros to tell them we were being shot at. I started to post about it on the social networks, that we were being shot at, that people should call the press or any media, that we were in Iguala, and they had killed one compañero. I started to post photos of the compañero who had been shot. I called my dad and told him what was happening. He told me to stay calm, and that the most that they could do was arrest us and beat the crap out of everyone. He thought that they would have to eventually let us all go.
At that point I was thinking: “Okay, well, fuck it, they’re going to grab us.” When we saw that more squad trucks were arriving, we thought: “They’re going to corral us, they’re going to come at us from both sides, and they’re going to arrest us.” But that’s what we were thinking, you know, that they were just going to arrest us. This is what we thought: “Yes, they’re going to beat the shit out of us, but we’ll be okay when it’s all over.”
JUAN PÉREZ, 25, FRESHMAN. Once we could see the highway just up ahead, a police truck shut us off; it pulled in front of us, the driver jumped out and ran, leaving the squad truck there in the road. The bus stopped. The bus following us also stopped. A bunch of us compañeros got off the first bus and tried to move the truck out of the way. About fifteen compañeros were at the front of the truck to push it. My compañero—we called him Garra, The Claw—and I were in the back of the truck. There were just two of us there. In a matter of seconds the cops shot at us, and in that instant a bullet hit his head. He went down, falling slowly. We screamed:
“A compañero is down!”
In that moment all of the compañeros that were at the front of the truck ran; they all ran. I was about two meters from the bus. There were about ten of us that ran to the bus and I was able to jump inside the door at the very end, landing on top of the other compañeros. I don’t even know where the cop came from, but he shot me in my left knee. I don’t know if it hurt or didn’t hurt. I just jumped inside the bus. Then, I went to the first seat and lay down and said to a compañero:
“I think they got me.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, they got me,” I said and grabbed my leg and just saw blood. I dragged myself toward the back of the bus, to the last seat at the back. Compañeros asked me:
“Camarada, are you okay?”
“I’m okay,” I said, “don’t worry about me, but if the police come inside the bus we can’t give up, if they take anyone, they’ll have to take us all.”
JOSÉ ARMANDO, 20, FRESHMAN. About five of us went out to put a T-shirt under the compañero Aldo’s head because he was still moving, we could see him move and we went to put something under his head because he had already lost so much blood. That was when they shot at us more intensely, and we took cover behind the squad truck. Aldo had fallen behind the truck. We took cover behind the wheel, all of us pressed together, and then we ran back to the space behind the first bus. The police had been coming closer to us. They were coming to take us away. Everyone was erasing all their contacts form their cell phones because we thought they were coming to take us—like they always do when they repress us—off to jail or the police station where they go through our cell phones. So, that’s why we were erasing all our contacts. That’s what we thought would happen. That or that they’d kill us all right there.
During the time we were in between the two buses another compañero started dying. He fell to the ground because he already had some kind of a lung illness. He fell, he was having trouble breathing, and we shouted out to the police for them to call an ambulance, but no. So we called the ambulance and we explained to them where we were and why we needed an ambulance. We told them that we were being shot at, that they should send the ambulance as fast as possible because otherwise the compañero would die, and that they needed to take Aldo as well.
EDGAR YAIR, 18, FRESHMAN. Like I told you, we had thought that they wouldn’t shoot directly at us. I mean, we thought they were shooting at the ground or something like that. But then we saw the compañero hit with a bullet to the head, and he fell to the ground. There were about eight of us trying to move the truck. Only three of us realized that the compañero had been shot in the head. The other compañeros didn’t realize what had just happened. With all the adrenaline they didn’t realize, until we screamed to them to stop pushing the truck, because it was almost right on top of the compañero. We screamed loudly for them to stop, that a compañero had been wounded, but they couldn’t hear us because of the noise of the gunshots and all the yelling. They didn’t understand what we were saying. Finally we gestured to them and they realized that the compañero was on the ground, bleeding from a gunshot to the head. We wanted to lift him up, but instead of letting us, the police shot at us more intensely, firing rapid bursts of shots.
We ran to a place between the two buses. A number of compañeros took shelter there, we were maybe twenty-seven there, I think. And we were there for a long time, almost two hours. We screamed to the police that we were unarmed, that we had nothing to hurt them with. We screamed for them to stop shooting at us, because if you leaned out just a bit, they shot at you. They didn’t feel the slightest pity seeing us all sad and afraid. We were all really nervous, really scared by everything that was happening, seeing how our compañero was still lying out in the street, convulsing. We wanted to go get him, but the police wouldn’t let us, they shot at us. At last an ambulance arrived.
MIGUEL ALCOCER, 20, FRESHMAN. They got off the bus to move the truck out of the way so we could get out of there fast, leave Iguala. That was when we heard the first shots and Aldo went down. Now they were shooting to kill us. They were no longer shooting in the air, but at us. The compañeros hid between the first and second buses. A number of us were still in the first bus, standing. I and ten or so other compañeros were about to get off the bus when a cop saw us and shot straight at us. He stood right out in front, like this, and opened fire. I threw myself back inside the bus. One compañero got hit in the leg and screamed. I thought they had killed him, that he had been hit, screamed, and had fallen. All my compañeros said that he had been killed but no, in that same instant he called out for help. We helped him get to the back of the bus and wrap his leg. And we stayed there.
We spoke out to our friends down between the two buses that we were inside the first bus. The compañeros were also taking shelter there because if the police saw you so much as peek out they shot at you. The police wouldn’t let you even look around the corner of the bus. The police had posted themselves at opposite street corners and from there were shooting and shooting at my compañeros. And we were stuck inside the bus. We thought that they’d come for us and they’d take us to jail. We already assumed that we’d just be taken to jail. And there we were all lying on the floor. Some compañeros were crying because we were being shot at. Then I heard that my compañeros in the back were shouting out to the police that we were students from the teachers college and that we were unarmed. And the police shouted back that they didn’t give a fuck. They said:
“You are all about to be fucked.”
And, well, I think that my compañeros, the ones who were crying, felt even more helpless hearing the police say that. And, in all honesty, we were really scared because they were shooting straight at us. And the compañeros shouted out for the police to call an ambulance for the compa who was wounded. One cop told us that we had no idea where we were. He said:
“Sure, maybe they’ll find your compañero, but dead, or maybe they’ll never find him.” He said that to us.
