Who is Vidulfo Rosales?

By Ricardo Raphael

The relatives of the 43 missing students of Ayotzinapa chained themselves to the gates of the Ministry of the Interior, headed by Miguel Ángel Osorio. They say they are concerned about the departure of the Interdisciplinary Group of Independent Experts.

"We are concerned and regret that Mexico is heading towards an authoritarian state that refuses to be supervised by human rights organizations," said Vidulfo Rosales, legal representative of the parents of the victims.

Who is this lawyer trusted by the families of the victims? A lot has been said and written about him; yet, his biography is barely known.

Vidulfo Rosales is one of the 100,000 me'phaa Indians who live in the central part of the state of Guerrero. He was born in 1977 in Totomixtlahuaca, Tlacoapa municipality, in the mountains.

His father was a commoner and the family plot, where corn and grass is sown, is less than one hectare big. He is the eldest of seven siblings.

When he was 16, his father died in an automobile accident, so his mother raised her children alone.

Vidulfo studied primary school in Ixtlahuaca and secondary school in Tlapa. He also worked for some traders who offered him a place to stay, a bedroll and food in exchange for housework; a common agreement in the mountains of Guerrero.

He got his first pair of sandals when he was a teenager. He studied highschool in Tlapa and his teachers convinced him that he should continue studying, so he enrolled at the Law School of the Autonomous University of Guerrero. In Chilpancingo he lived in a students house and worked to support himself and send money to his family.

While he was studying he began participating in social causes and after graduating he started working at the José María Morelos Human Rights Center defending indigenous people.

In this job he advised Nahua communities from Guerrero in agricultural issues. Then he was hired by the Tlachinollan Human Rights Center, where he fought forced sterilization of women in Ayutla.

He was also the attorney of 20,000 indigenous people affected by the hydroelectric project La Parota and got the Agrarian Tribunal to rule in favor of communities.

In December 2011 he defended the teachers in training that were repressed after blocking the Carretera del Sol higway. After doing so he received death threats that led him to leave the country for the first time.

On September 27, 2014 Abel Barrera, director of Talchinollan Center, told him that police was firing against young students in Iguala.

Rosales drove his car for seven hours and asked the surviving youngsters to meet him at the local offices of the Attorney General.

Around two in the afternoon on Saturday, Rosales and 45 other people were afraid because the building of the Attorney General's office was surrounded by "hawks" linked to organized crime.

He called Barrera who contacted the governor's office. Chilpancingo government ordered to put the survivors and Vidulfo Rosales on a passenger bus and escorted to Chilpancingo.

Since then Rosales earned the trust of the relatives of the victims and became his lawyer.

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