Morelia, July 23.- In Tarejero, Zacapu municipality, Purépecha residents paid tribute to five members of the Guzmán Cruz family 48 years after their disappearance, after being detained by federal security forces during the period known as the Dirty War.
Nothing has been heard from them since then, and there has been no response to these crimes against humanity, but their families continue to insist, even before international organizations, that justice be done after almost half a century.
The four brothers, Amafer, Armando, Solón, and Venustiano Guzmán Cruz, were between 15 and 19 years old, but only the three oldest were involved with the guerrilla group Movimiento Armado Revolucionario (MAR). Their father, Jesús Guzmán Jiménez, was also detained and disappeared between 1974 and 1977.
The forced disappearances were reported and documented before the National Committee for the Defense of Prisoners, Persecuted, and Disappeared Persons; before the National Human Rights Commission (CNDH), which issued Recommendation 26/2001; before the Special Prosecutor's Office for Social and Political Movements of the Past; before the United Nations Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances; and finally, before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR).
It should be noted that the IACHR declared the Guzmán Cruz family's case admissible on July 12, 2013. Subsequently, on July 7, 2017, the merits hearings were held at the 163rd Extraordinary Session in Lima, and the case is currently awaiting a ruling on the merits.
