Abstract

OIKION SOLANO, Verónica. Of Mass Graves, Extermination, and Impunity in Michoacán. A Reflection from Recent History. Hist. graf [online]. 2021, n.56, pp.89-128.  Epub Feb 23, 2021. ISSN 1405-0927.  https://doi.org/10.48102/hyg.vi56.357.

This article adopts an inquisitive perspective to address a phenomenon that has scarcely been analyzed in the recent history of Michoacán: the waves of detention-disappearance that fill mass graves with unidentified bodies with the consequent absence of loved ones that has brought time to a standstill for thousands of people. The acts of organized crime groups and bands of delinquents -often in complicity with government and public security agencies- privilege and apply a macabre logic designed to produce maximum suffering -the most unimaginable kind- among victims and their families.

Exposing the routes of criminality and unravelling the labyrinth of disappearances in various regions of the state of Michoacán opens a window of visibility for readers that casts light on some thousands cases of women and men whose historicity is destined to be summarily blotted out through methods of extermination. History must assume its social function and document whether or not the State is really willing to search for these disappeared persons, for the Commission to Search for Disappeared Persons in the state is today but a timid effort to achieve this objective, while families insist they can neither forget nor forgive.

Keywords : Detention-Disappearance; Michoacán; Stopped Time; Recent History; Impunity.