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Monday, November 10, 2014

I was in Iguala Saturday, and..

I found that the town appears to have recovered from the tragedy of the missing (and now found murdered) students.  I bought 3 lots on a mountainside overlooking the city a few years ago and had to drive down to make my quarterly payment.

Myself and a few friends from Cuernavaca purchased 8 lots in this huge development and are either waiting for our investment to increase or the right time for development.  Although there was a definite lack of police visible in the city, the opposite was true for the Army.  There is an Army Base located in central Iguala, but on numerous past visits, I hadn't even realized it was there.  Basically until things settle down in Iguala, it is under martial law.  I don't know whether this actually made me feel safe or not.

We made our property payments and chatted with the lady selling us the property.  She went into great detail about how these innocent students were not quite as innocent as the news had made them out to be.  They come from a nearby town and are poor students trying to survive and continue their schooling.  Groups of them in the past have been hired to protest in theirs or nearby towns on behalf of various factions (including police, politicians and narcos).  Their protests have always been boisterous and many times have led to extreme violence.

Recently they burned the city hall with all the records in Iguala, destroyed the local mall and have stolen buses to return home and from what our friend told us; even set people on fire and killed them.  The residents of Iguala know these 'students' to be a little more than protesters.  We were even told explicitly that the residents were sorry that they were murdered, but quite relieved that they were gone.  Anyway, I have to return to Iguala to make the last payment on two of my lots this January, and we'll see if the city has settled back into it's normal routine by then.

As an aside, I have witnessed many protests in Mexico, and the chanting and sign-waving are always exciting.  However, if you ask many of the protesters just exactly what they are protesting and what the issues are, they will look at you dumbfounded.  You see, most of the protesters in Mexico are paid to attend, and some even make it a career.  Amazing.

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