A woman holds up a sign that reads in Spanish “We Want Peace,” during a massive march in Mexico City on Nov. 20, 2014. Protesters marched to demand authorities find 43 missing college students, trying to step up pressure on the government on a day traditionally reserved for the celebration of the 1910-17 Revolution.MEXICO CITY – Tens of thousands marched in the capital Thursday demanding that authorities find 43 missing college students, seeking to pressure the government on a day normally reserved for the celebration of Mexico’s 1910-17 Revolution.
Officials had canceled the traditional Nov. 20 Revolution Day parade, and marchers carrying “mourning” flags with Mexico’s red and green national colors substituted by black suggested the country was in no mood for celebration.
“The entire country is outraged,” said housewife Nora Jaime. “It is not just them,” she added, referring to the 43 young men who haven’t been seen since being attacked by police in a southern city Sept. 26. “There are thousands of disappeared, thousands of clandestine graves, thousands of mothers who don’t know where their children are.”
The march in Mexico City was largely peaceful, in contrast to recent protests that have ended with the burning of government buildings in Guerrero state, where the students disappeared. Whenever masked protesters tried to join Thursday’s march, demonstrators shouted them down with chants of “No violence!” and “Off with the masks!”
The protesters converged on the city’s main square, where families of the missing students stood on a platform in front of the National Palace holding posters of their relatives’ faces. Amid chants for President Enrique Pena Nieto to step down, family members repeated that they do not believe the government’s account that the youths were killed by a drug gang,