For a democratic Mexico

November 20 marks the anniversary of the Mexican Revolution of 1910. Now, 104 years after Mexico took up arms against dictator Porfirio Diaz, Mexicans are rising up once more. Unarmed, peacefully, insisting on their civil rights, they are railing against a dictatorship of organized crime, corruption and impunity.

For days now, thousands have marched across the country to converge on Mexico City's main square for a mass demonstration on Thursday. In every province, they have been informing people about the fate of the 43 students who disappeared on 26 September in Iguala in the state of Guerrero. The official enquiry has now established that the Iguala police handed the students over to a local drug trafficking group known as "Guerreros Unidos" - on the instructions of the mayor of Iguala, who is now in custody. Three members of the group have testified that the students were burned alive and their ashes tipped into a river.

Mexico, land of mass graves

The pain felt by the parents of the missing students has become the pain of the entire nation. Almost two months after they were abducted, their parents are still clutching at every last straw. They're hoping test results from a lab in Austria will show that the charred remains of what probably were their children perhaps were not their children after all. These bodily remains have come to symbolize all of the nameless people who lie in the countless mass graves that are turning Mexico into a huge cemetery.

Even if it is confirmed that the Iguala students are indeed dead, the parents' motto - "They took them alive, we want them back alive" - should not change. This monstrous tragedy must become an unshakable foundation for Mexican civil society's demands that the government in power - regardless of party - fulfill one duty above all others: to protect the life and well-being of all its citizens.

No president in modern Mexican history has resigned before the end of his term. But pressure is growing on the current incumbent, Enrique Pena Nieto: More and more people are calling for him to go. And as long as President Pena Nieto lacks the sensibility to see where his priorities should lie, these voices will not fall silent.

It took more than two weeks for him to react appropriately to the events in Iguala and received the parents of the missing students. Prior to that he stuck to his schedule - despite the unrest in the country - traveling to the APEC summit in China and the G20 meeting in Australia. He ignored the fact that the Mexican people had very different priorities at this time: to find the missing students, name the dead, and arrest and punish the people responsible for the violence in Iguala.

A government that understands nothing

And the government still doesn't seem to have grasped the situation. As if his absence during one of the most critical moments in modern Mexican history were not enough, President Pena Nieto is now accusing "groups" of trying to destabilize the country, undermine government projects and of causing the violent protests of recent weeks. It seems that an inability to assess priorities is now compounded by an inability to assess reality: The demonstrators' violence is a response to the absence of justice - and not just over the past two months, but for decades!

As for the "groups" that are destabilizing the country, their names have been known for years: the Sinaloa cartel, the Zetas, the Gulf cartel, the Beltran Leyva cartel, the Knights Templar, the Juarez cartel, the Jalisco cartel, the Tijuana cartel, to name only the biggest of a very long list.

The cry, "They took them alive, we want them back alive" must not fall silent until the last of the dead in the mass graves are given back their names and the last murderer is punished for his deeds.

Today's mass demonstration on the 104th anniversary of the Mexican revolution is just another step in the right direction. The bereaved of Iguala, the emergent Mexican civil society and the international public must not let up the pressure until the Mexican government finally becomes the democratic government President Pena Nieto pretends it is when presenting his country on the international stage.