Mexicans rap Germany for provision of arms to corrupt police
Leaflets
with the images of 43 missing students from the state of Guerrero are
shown before a massive protest march in Mexico City, December 1, 2014.
Fri Dec 26, 2014 1:25AM GMT
Protesters
in Mexico say that German weapons suppliers delivered arms to a corrupt
local police department believed to have been involved in the
disappearance of 43 students.
Around 100 demonstrators congregated outside the German embassy in
Mexico City on Thursday, slamming the provision of German-made G36
assault rifles to police in the southern state of Guerrero.Protest leader Felipe de la Cruz said Germany should avoid making such sales.
In 2010, the German government demanded that weapons manufacturer Heckler & Koch GmbH stop exporting arms to Mexico over concerns that the weapons might get into the hands of individuals living in parts of the country to which Berlin has banned weapons exports over human rights issues.
On September 26, 43 student teachers disappeared in the southern city of Iguala in the state of Guerrero following an attack by police forces suspected of having links to drug gangs.
Local Mexican police are being blamed for handing the students over to a drug gang.
Mexico has been witnessing violent protests ever since officials announced that members of the Guerreros Unidos drug cartel had confessed to killing the young men and burning their remains after receiving them from corrupt police officers.
Austrian experts have so far only identified the remains of Alexander Mora, 19, one of the missing students, from a piece of bone in a bag of ash and burned tire discovered in a river, where the drug gang members claimed to have thrown the students’ remains.
The families of the students have urged further investigations.
AB/HJL/MHB