President Andrés López Obrador has announced that he is repatriating the remains of Catarino Erasmo Garza, a 19th-century Mexican journalist-turned-revolutionary who was killed in battle and buried in a mass grave in Panama. However, critics are questioning the use of public resources for this purpose when there are over 100,000 people reported missing in today’s Mexico.
Garza’s story has been revived by López Obrador, who wrote a book about him and requested an expedition to retrieve his remains. The expedition was approved earlier this year, and a boat with nearly 100 soldiers and staff from the National Search Commission was sent to Bocas del Toro, Panama, where fragments of teeth and bone were recovered.
Critics argue that the resources spent on retrieving Garza’s remains could be better used to search for today’s missing persons. The National Search Commission has faced budget restraints and the departure of its previous leader, Karla Quintana, who resigned due to political pressure. Since then, over 100 people have lost their jobs or had their contracts renewed.
The Extraordinary Mechanism for Forensic Identification, established in 2019 to identify the over 50,000 bodies lying in Mexico’s forensic system, is also set to close. Relatives of the disappeared have questioned why such resources are available to look for a long-dead revolutionary when institutions searching for their loved ones suffer budget restraints.
Garza was a young journalist on the US-Mexico border in the late 19th century who railed against the regime of Porfirio Díaz and eventually mounted an incursion into Mexico with a band of fewer than 100 armed men. He was shot dead during an assault on a barracks in Bocas del Toro, Panama, before his body was tossed into a mass grave.
López Obrador has described Garza as “an important revolutionary” and plans to hold a tribute to him in Matamoros, his birthplace, to celebrate the return of his remains. However, his great-grandson, Carlos Tijerina, has expressed reservations about the expedition, stating that he does not want it to be said in the future that Garza’s family was prioritized over thousands of missing persons. The controversy surrounding Garza’s repatriation highlights the ongoing struggle to address the issue of disappearances in Mexico. As President López Obrador continues to navigate this complex issue, it remains to be seen how he will balance his admiration for Garza with the needs and concerns of today’s missing persons and their families.
Source: The Guardian
