I Couldn't Even Imagine That They Would Kill Us

by John Gibler

  The soliders ordered us to go downstairs.

  I hid. There were three of us hiding up there. But then a compa went back and said: “Ok, fuck it, let them just take us already.” So we all went downstairs. I had a backpack with me. I always carry some cookies and water in case I get hungry.

  “You all with the backpacks,” the soliders said, “drop them.” We set them down.

  “If you have a cell phone, put it on the table.” We all took out our cell phones and put them on the table. Before putting mine on the table I took out the chip and hid it.

  The commander, I think, came in and asked us: “Where are you all from?”

  “We’re from Ayotzinapa.” We thought that they were going to help us, that they would support us. They didn’t.

  “Alright, everyone sit over there.” We all sat down where they told us. They asked the compa who had been shot in the lip for his name and where he’s from.

  A paisa said to the soldiers: “Please, help us! The compa is bleeding to death! Call an ambulance!” But the commander didn’t pay him the least attention.

  “What you all are doing is wrong,” the commander started saying to us. He said that we needed to show our parents that we are really students by making good grades. Then he said that an ambulance would be there in half an hour. Then they walked outside and left. Just like that, like nothing was happening.

  A doctor showed up and told us he was going to close and lock up the clinic and ordered us to get out. I thought at some point he would help us, but he never did. He didn’t help the compa with the bullet wound. He could have given him a piece of cotton with alcohol, but he didn’t. Nothing.

  We all went outside and ran, scared. We thought that the men with guns would come back again since the soldiers didn’t help us or guard us. The solidiers didn’t support us at all. They left us there like nothing had happened, and we took off running.

  OMAR GARCÍA, 24, SOPHOMORE. We went to the Cristina Clinic and took shelter there until the soldiers arrived. They busted in together with the owner of the clinic. He was with them; they brought him in their patrol trucks. And, well, the shit hit the fan there in a big way, because of the serious lack of support from the army. They could see we had a wounded person with us. We identified ourselves as students from Ayotzinapa, and said there was a teacher with us. They had to have helped us, without a doubt. They realized we weren’t criminals, that we were students, that there was a seriously wounded person with us. They should have done whatever they could to help him. And they could have done a great deal: they had trucks they could have used to take him to the hospital immediately. We didn’t care if they came in threatening us and saying we were criminals, we wanted them to help our compañero. If they were going to arrest us, put us on trial, or whatever, well that all comes later: the first thing is to help the wounded. But they didn’t do that. Instead, they made note of our information, they took our photographs, and they left threatening us saying that the municipal police were on their way. What’s more, when they asked for our information they said, crystal clear, even repeating it, pointing at us all:

  “Give us your real names; if you give us false names, you’ll never be found.”

  At that moment we didn’t know what was happening. We thought that we’d be able to go to the jail to look for the compañeros who had been taken, that we’d pay their bail or whatever and get them out. We thought that there’d be some kind of a trial or legal process and we’d get them out like we had before, in earlier years, because we’re students, and we always get out of jail with political pressure or whatever. We didn’t know they were orchestrating a forced disappearance.

  EDGAR YAIR, 18, FRESHMAN. I ran straight ahead. When I had made it about a half a block I heard someone shout that a compañero was wounded, for us to wait. We stopped to see what was happening. And we saw a compa who’d been wounded in the mouth; he didn’t have a top lip anymore, he didn’t have anything there. We carried him.

  “Bring him here inside our house,” some neighbors said to us.

  But we didn’t want to, we wanted to find a hospital. We shouted out to them asking where we could find a hospital. They said we could find one a bit farther down the street. So we ran.

  There was a hospital there. We knocked on the door, but it was an X-ray laboratory and two women came out. I don’t know if they were nurses or if they were just caretakers there. But they told us that they couldn’t help us because the doctor wasn’t there. They said that they didn’t have the materials to operate because the place was just an X-ray lab. But they said we could stay there until daybreak. And we said okay. We tried to stop a taxi, but none of them wanted to help us take the wounded compa to the hospital. We were there in that building for about an hour when the soldiers arrived.

  The compañero was pretty much bleeding to death. He took out his cell phone and wrote on the screen for us to get him out of there, that he couldn’t take it anymore, that he was dying. And we tried everything to get him out of there, but the soldiers showed up. It seemed like they were going to arrest us. They took all our phones away. They took our pictures. Their commander told us that we had no business being there, and that we were looking to get killed. And we started telling him that we were students from the college here. But he said no, that for him we were criminals, and we’d have to prove we were students by making good grades.

  There was also a teacher there helping us and he asked the soldiers to help us, to take our wounded compa to get help. The doctor came at the end. I think the two women called him. He arrived, but the soldiers were there and wouldn’t let him help the wounded compa. The doctor said he was the owner of the place and that was it. He didn’t say anything else. The military commander told us we couldn’t stay there, that we’d have to find someplace else, but not there.

  IVÁN CISNEROS, 19, SOPHOMORE. I didn’t run very far because I saw some people carrying a compañero, the junior who got shot in the mouth. We helped carry that compa and took him to where there was a clinic. We walked a block or two blocks at most and found a clinic. There were some nurses there, but they said that no doctors were there. I think the nurses took off and left us there. We told the boys to go upstairs and not come back down. The wall downstairs was glass, with all the windows, and you could see inside. We were scared that they’d see us. We were there for a while. The compañero who was bleeding half to death took out his cell phone and wrote:

  “Get me out of here; I’m dying.”

  I went upstairs to check on the compañeros and when I came down, some ten minutes later, I saw that the soldiers were outside at the door.

  “Hey, man,” we said to La Parca, “the soldiers are outside.” We thought they were going to help us, and we opened the door. They came inside with the characteristic subtlety of the military.

  “Okay, assholes, everyone downstairs!”

  They pointed their guns at us and herded us all to one part of the waiting room. Then they told us something like this:

  “If you’ve all got the balls to start a shitstorm, then have the balls to face the consequences.”

  They made everyone come downstairs. They made us put all our belongings—cell phones, keys—on the table there in the waiting room. And basically they told us we’d all be arrested by the police for being on private property, for breaking and entering, or something like that. They said they were going to hand us over to the municipal police. And then we all said no, that the police had been shooting at us earlier.

  “You all are the ones who invaded this place,” they said. And then they told us that two of our compañeros were dead in the street. And we didn’t know. It hit us like a bucket of cold water.

  They took our photos there and then pretty much sent us running. One person stayed behind with the wounded compa to wait for an ambulance, and the rest of us ran about a block and then turned left. A tía took us in there.

  JUAN SALGADO, FRESHMAN. I kept running and about two blocks down the street I saw some
people carrying a compa who was bleeding. I thought: “Damn, what happened to this compa?” I stopped to see what had happened. That was when I saw that his lips were gone. The compañeros were getting tired and I went to take over for one of them. The shots were still ringing out and we kept going as best we could. We were running and asking if there was hospital or clinic nearby. And a woman, a pregnant woman from the second story of a house shouted out to us that there was a clinic.

  “Where? Where?”

  “There, right where you are, in front of you, that’s it.”

  “Thank you!”

  We knocked and there were two receptionists there. The lights were all off, but the receptionists were there.

  “Please, open up!” But, it’s like they were thinking twice about opening up for us or not. “Please, open up! A compañero is wounded! Please!”

  Pretty much in tears we were asking them to help us. When they opened the door we all ran inside; there were about twenty-seven of us. The others had run as best they could. A bunch of us hid beneath the stairs, sitting down there. The wounded compa sat down on a sofa, bleeding.

  “A doctor,” I said, “a surgeon for the compañero.”

  “He’s not here right now, the doctor’s not here; I’ll have to call him.”

  One of the receptionists kept calling until the doctor answered. He said that he wasn’t going to go to the clinic because it was too late.

  “Please, at least call a taxi or an ambulance so we can take him to the hospital.”

  The receptionists could see that the compañero was seriously wounded. But the only thing they said was that the doctor couldn’t help because it was nighttime, that they couldn’t help us. That’s what they said, but we saw them call a taxi. The taxi service wouldn’t send a driver to pick us up. They weren’t going to put their drivers at risk while there was shooting nearby. The receptionists didn’t want to call an ambulance.

  We were there for about thirty or forty minutes when the soldiers came. Two military trucks arrived and they gathered us all in the waiting room and made us show them all the things we had with us. They went through our stuff like we were the suspects or something. They took note of how many of us were there. That’s when I noticed something strange: when the soldiers arrived the receptionists were gone. The soldiers looked through the clinic, but the receptionists were gone; we were the only ones there. I asked myself: “What is this, what is going on here, how is it that the receptionists are gone and the soldiers are taking notes about all of us? Why aren’t they helping the compa who is seriously wounded?”

  “At least call an ambulance or a taxi to take him to the hospital,” I said.

  But they didn’t want to call an ambulance or a taxi. The soldiers said they couldn’t arrest us because that’s not their job. They said their job was to patrol and watch over things, but that it was the job of the municipal police to arrest us. But they said they would be keeping watch out in the street because there were three bodies lying on the pavement. That’s when we learned. We were asking ourselves: Whose bodies? Were they compañeros from the school?

  The soldier in charge said that he was going to call the police to come get us because we were committing acts of vandalism. He said that he understood that we had to struggle, but that it would be better if we were to show our struggle by bettering ourselves academically and making good grades. He was saying that what we do is bad and that it would be better if we just learned to make do with what we’re given; that if we’d get a job we would be lucky, and if not, then tough. That’s pretty much what we took away from what he said, that we should give up our struggle because it only led to wounded compañeros. That was the lecture he gave us. And that’s how they qualified our struggle: vandalism. And he said he was going to call the municipal police so they would come, arrest us, and take us to the local jail, Barandillas.

  We told him no, that we didn’t trust the municipal police, that if they were going to arrest us, they should do it themselves.

  “That’s not our job,” they kept insisting. “If we get mixed up in this then they’ll come after us, and that might not go so well for us.” That’s what the soldier said. And so we asked him to call an ambulance for the compañero.

  “The ambulance is on its way,” he said. “We’re going to leave, you can wait here for the ambulance that will take your compañero.”

  We said to ourselves: “No, now they all know where we are.” But we also didn’t want to leave the compa with the wounded lips.

  “Leave me with him, if the ambulance comes we’ll wait for it and I’ll go with him to the hospital, you all go, run, hide wherever you can,” one compañero said when the soldiers had left.

  There was a teacher with us too. I don’t remember where he taught, but he stayed with us and helped us, and he also stayed with the wounded compa. An overweight doctor showed up. The only thing he said was that we needed to take the compa to a hospital, nothing else. And so we took off running wherever we could.

  PEDRO CRUZ MENDOZA, IGUALA-BASED TEACHER, MEMBER OF THE STATE COORDINATION OF EDUCATION WORKERS OF GUERRERO (CETEG). Everyone ran in different directions; we all lost track of each other, hiding wherever we could. I ran down Álvarez and threw myself in one of the buses. I hid on the floor there for a while. I said to the boys: “Don’t stand up!” The shooting lasted, I’d guess, about three to five minutes. I was down inside the bus for a good while and said to the compañeros from Ayotzi: “Don’t stand up, don’t stand up, hold on, hold on, don’t stand up,” because the gunmen were still shooting. I thought that if we stood up they’d be able to target us. When there was a break in the shooting I took out my phone and called a compañero in Tixtla. I put my cell on speakerphone.

  “Hey, Juan, they are shooting at us!”

  “Hide! Take cover,” he said.

  “Send the press!”

  He was the statewide spokesperson for the CETEG, so a number of reporters know and get along well with him.

  “Give me your phone, prof,” a boy from Ayotzi said to me, “I’ll film what’s going on.”

  “No, no, no, no, no, if you go out there to film they’ll kill you; no, let’s get out of here, let’s go.”

  We went about fifteen or twenty meters from the bus where we’d been hiding and saw a guy who was bleeding badly. We went up to him and grabbed him, and one of the boys asked me:

  “Where should we go now, to the general hospital?”

  “No,” I said, “it is really far from here to the general hospital, it is very far.” It was about five kilometers. “We’ll never make it walking there; he’ll die on us.”

  We went back to Álvarez from the little street we had turned onto and tried to stop a number of taxis, but no one would stop for us. They threw their cars in reverse and took off. Then I remembered.

  “There is a clinic near here,” I said. “Let’s go to the clinic, there’s one close by.” And I remembered the Cristina Clinic.

  We arrived and there were only two nurses there. The clinic was closed but there were two nurses. We knocked loudly on the door. The nurses came to the door, but they didn’t want to open up for us.

  “Please, tía,” the boys begged, “let us in.”

  “Listen, this boy is dying,” I added, “please let us in, he’s dying.”

  And we held the compañero up to the door window so they could see him. Only then did they feel some compassion and open the door. We all went inside. But they left. They left us alone there. There was no doctor on duty. So we sat the compañero down in the little waiting room. We sat him down and started fanning him with whatever we could: our hands, a T-shirt, someone found a magazine there and used that to fan his mouth saying that he might choke on his blood. It is a lie that he was able to talk. He took out his cell phone and wrote:

  “I need air, I’m dying, I feel really bad.”

  He had to use his cell phone to communicate with us. Seeing how bad he was I started to call compañeros from the CETEG to come
and help us because this kid was dying. I even called one of my brothers to tell him that we’d been shot at. I thought they were going to kill me, for real, that they’d kill all of us. I called my brother and told him what had happened.

  “If they kill me,” I said, “don’t let them accuse me of being involved in organized crime; they killed us, they’re going to kill us, because of what happened tonight.” My brother knew what was going on and called back later to see how I was doing.

  So I kept trying, with compañeros from the CETEG. First, a compañera called a taxi for us. I went outside. It was drizzling. I told the taxi driver:

  “Hey, there’s a wounded guy in here, he’s dying.”

  “No, I can’t give you all a ride,” he said. “We received instructions not to give rides to any of the wounded.” The taxi driver! Just then another taxi pulled up next to him.

  “Hey, they’re asking me to pick up a wounded person,” he said.

  “No, you can’t pick him up,” the second driver said.

  “Come on, man,” I said, angry, “we’re human beings, some day you’ll need our help.” But he left.

  I called my compañeros again: “Listen, please help us, he’s dying, this kid is dying.” I called one compañero who has a small truck. I called him and said: “Come pick us up, this kid is dying on us.”

  “We’re on our way,” he said. “Where are you?”

  I told him that we were inside the Cristina Clinic. As they were getting close, the compañero called me and said:

  “We’re here, but we can’t pick you up. The army is on their way. We’re just going to drive by.” And they drove by the clinic. When my compañero told me this I saw the army trucks park right in front of the clinic. The wall has like some smoked glass, but since we had all the lights inside the hospital turned off, we could easily see out in the street. Two army trucks with between twelve and fifteen soldiers pulled up. I told the Ayotzinapa students: