The 43 of Iguala

«In front of me –writes the author–, on my desk there are photographs, documents, reports, court transcriptions, testimony, recordings and videos that record the extreme cruelty that shook up a summer night in a city in the south of Mexico. A place where, due to a malicious collision of events, fate, luck and intention becomes a clear example of the existence of the perverse within apparent normality; a place where global power and resistance collide.»

On the 26th of September 2014 en Iguala, Guerrero, dozens of Mexican students were attacked by policemen and criminals. Later one of the most barbaric acts of recent times was perpetrated. According to the Mexican government, the students had been kidnapped by criminals, tortured and murdered, their corpses incinerated. The families of the victims refused to accept the tragedy, saying: «They took them alive and that’s how we want them back!», blaming the government for their disappearance. The anger provoked by these atrocities divided society into two sides: those who steadfastly supported the cause of the students and those who accepted the «historic truth» of the government.

This book suggests a reading that breaks the artificial divide between the good and the bad, the insurrectionists and the rulers. A book that tries to understand the truth behind a cruelty that makes the atrocious normal, that makes the extermination of human life inevitable and which studies the dark relationship between Mexico and the world’s most powerful country: the United States. «I need to speak–says González Rodríguez– about something which no one else wishes to discuss. I need to speak against silence, against hypocrisy, against lies. I need to say it. And I do it because I know that there are others like me, in any part of the world, who share this conviction: that the influence of the perverse has devoured civilisation, institutional order and the common good».

In memory of the 43 victims, and through this well researched and devastatingly argued chronicle, the agents, causes, factors and responsibilities that were the spark that detonated that night of atrocities are meticulously uncovered.

The author warns: «The same story is happening in other parts of the world, but we refuse to see it. If anyone denies it or doubts it, I ask you to read this book. We must recover lucidity against the presence of indulged terror, and use our freedom to transform the tragedy.»