Mass Disappearances in Mexico: The Case of Ayotzinapa (Berkeley)

Journalist Anabel Hernandez presents her new book, What Really Happened in Iguala.

On September 26, 2014, Mexican police and military forces attacked and disappeared 43 students from the Ayotzinapa teachers college in Iguala, Guerrero. Faced with such events, no country can go forward without knowing the truth to which the victims the society have a right. The events in Iguala force us to reflect on what is occurring in Mexico: they show crudely the degradation of state forces who are supposed to carry out justice and protect. At the same time, they show the society's deepest fears - and also its hopes.

In What Really Happened in Iguala (La Verdadera Noche de Iguala), Hernandez traverses the labyrinth of the Ayotzinapa case, its traps, it darkness and light. The reader sees the streets where the events took place, the bullet casings, and sandals left on the ground; hears the voices of the Ayotzinapa students; visits the places where torture was applied to manufacture guilt, as well as the offices of high-level officials who carried out the cover-up.

Anabel Hernandez is among the most important investigative journalists in Mexico and the winner of numerous national and international journalism awards. She was a Fellow in the Investigative Reporting Program at UC Berkeley in 2014-2016. She has reported for The Guardian, Le Monde, La Repubblica, La Stampa, Reforma, Proceso, Univision and Telemundo. She is the author of The Presidential Family (2005, co-authored with Areli Quintero), Party Over in Los Pinos (2006), The President's Accomplices (2008), Narcoland: The Mexican Drug Lords and their Godfathers (2010), and Mexico in Flames: Calderon's Legacy (2012).

On May 3, we will also show the 26-minute documentary, Where the Guns Go: U.S. Policy and Human Rights in Mexico. Through testimony of victims, activists and journalists, the film exposes the U.S. role in violence in Mexico affecting so much Mexican communities and migrants seeking refuge.

Free