Army's role questioned in missing Mexican students case

An independent probe into the disappearance of 43 Mexican students put a spotlight on the army's failure to protect them from crooked police despite knowing about the attacks.
A report by experts from the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, released Sunday, found that soldiers had been spotted at the crime scenes and that one intelligence agent had seen police clash with and detain a group of students.
Parents of the students and survivors of the tragedy have held protests in front of the headquarters of the army's 27th battalion in Iguala and have repeatedly questioned the military's role in the incident, on the night of September 26, when municipal police in the southern city of Iguala whisked away the students after shooting at their buses.

While the police forces of Iguala and neighboring Cocula were the "direct assailants," agents from the army and federal police "were present at different times" when the students were detained and disappeared, the independent report says.
The report called on the authorities to investigate the actions of all security forces that night and whether any failed in their "obligation" to protect the students.
"It's clear that the government is responsible" because "lives could have been saved and they didn't," Santiago Canton, executive director of US-based RFK Partners for Human Rights, told AFP.

While the commission's experts were never allowed to interview soldiers in person, they had access to the testimony of military personnel and reports of communications between regional security forces.

A military intelligence agent wearing civilian clothes rode on a motorcycle to the scene of one confrontation in front of Iguala's courthouse, according to his statement to investigators.
There, he reported that police cars intercepted one of the buses that the students, known as leftist radicals who hijack buses to head to protests around Guerrero state, had seized earlier in the night.
The agent, identified only be the initials "EM," said masked police officers tossed two tear gas grenades inside the bus to force the students to come out.
The police and students traded insults and officers warned: "Come out, or it will get worse for you."

The agent reported seeing 10 students taken out of the bus, handcuffed and thrown "aggressively" to the ground.