Protesters firebomb police, try to shut airport in Mexico City
MEXICO CITY – Riot police blocked hundreds of hooded demonstrators Thursday from shutting down the Mexico City international airport at the start of a national day of protest that began with firebomb attacks and rock-throwing clashes.
Organizers picked a national holiday that marks the beginning of the 1910 Mexican Revolution to convene the protests over the disappearance, and likely murder, of 43 students in late September in the state of Guerrero.
Tens of thousands were expected to gather in central Mexico City on Thursday night. President Enrique Pena Nieto canceled a military parade to mark the holiday, sidestepping a possible confrontation with protesters in the capital’s main plaza. He exhorted citizens to protest peacefully.
“We Mexicans say no to violence,” Pena Nieto said at a ceremony to honor the military. “The society and government categorically reject any attempt to provoke or encourage it. Mexico, it is true, is in pain but the only way to relieve this pain is through peace and justice.”
Pena Nieto’s woes seem to be mounting amid a mood of national despair, a sputtering economy and a corruption scandal over a $7 million mansion that a government contractor built for the president’s wife. The scandal has laid bare what many see as official apathy toward poorer Mexicans.
Throngs of protesters, many of them covering their faces with kerchiefs and carrying sticks, approached the international airport around noon, blocking a multilane ring road. Cordons of federal police in riot gear barred their passage. Elsewhere, protesters set a police cruiser on fire and barricaded streets.
TV newscasts showed images of protesters tossing Molotov cocktails at riot police. In one image, an officer was enveloped in flames.
Police used pickups to ferry passengers around the protesters so they could reach the airport. Authorities urged passengers to arrive four hours early for their flights.
Organizers said students from 114 universities and institutes around the country were taking part in the day of protest, one of the largest in recent decades.
Parents and relatives of the missing 43 students were converging on the capital from three directions to join a massive rally in the main plaza.
In Chilpancingo, the capital of Guerrero state, thousands of protesters flooded onto the major highway from Mexico City to the Pacific coast and blocked it for two hours. Demonstrations also occurred in Guadalajara, Hermosillo, Monterrey and other cities.
How great a challenge the unrest will become to Pena Nieto’s two-year-old presidency is still to be seen. The missing students are clearly the greatest crisis of his tenure so far.
This story was originally published November 20, 2014 at 7:54 PM with the headline "Protesters firebomb police, try to shut airport in Mexico City."