Mexico is bringing home a long-dead hero – but what about today’s missing?

On March 8, 1895, a quixotic Mexican journalist turned revolutionary named Catarino Erasmo Garza was killed in a battle far from home, his body thrown into a mass grave and lost.

More than a century later, Garza’s story was revived by the president Andrés Manuel López Obradorwhich last week confirmed that an expedition to what is now Panama had found and would repatriate their remains – even as critics questioned the use of public money when there are more than 100,000 people missing in today’s Mexico.

López Obrador has a crush on Garza, about whom he wrote a book. He requested the expedition and the Senate approved earlier this yeardispatching a boat with nearly 100 soldiers and officials from the National Search Commission to Bocas del Toro.

As a young journalist on the US-Mexico border in the late 19th century, Garza criticized the then-regime of Porfirio Díaz, whose 30-year rule saw a centralized state drive uneven development through infrastructure and foreign investment. , while stifling political freedoms and muzzling the press.

Garza would end up putting together a brainless incursion from Texas to Mexico with a band of less than 100 armed men, hoping to eventually reach the capital and dethrone Díaz.

Related: Mexico fights for the legacy of revolutionary Emiliano Zapata

“The last of the independent journalists, the most humble of all, today puts down his pen to take up the sword in defense of the rights of the Mexican people,” wrote Garza. “Down with tyrants. Long live the Mexican people.”

The scheme failed in just over a week and Garza withdrew to the US.

Shortly afterwards, he went into exile and landed in Costa Rica, where he joined Colombian liberals involved in their own civil war, hoping to make allies who could one day help him overthrow Díaz in Mexico.

Garza, then 35, was shot dead during an attack on a barracks in Bocas del Toro, in what was then part of Gran Colombia, before his body was dumped in a mass grave.

The expedition sent by the Mexican government recovered fragments of teeth and bones from the suspected site, which was identified as Garza’s thanks to genetic information of his exhumed daughteraccording to the revolutionary’s great-grandson, Carlos Tijerina.

López Obrador described Garza as “an important revolutionary” and said he hopes to hold a tribute to him in Matamoros, his hometown, to commemorate the return of his remains.

Historian Alfredo Ávila told El País that López Obrador admires Garza because he sees him as a precursor to the 1911 Mexican Revolution that eventually overthrew Díaz – and López Obrador compares governments before his with the Díaz regime.

“That’s why a movement like Garza’s, in opposition to the regime, arouses the president’s sympathy,” said Ávila.

The expedition was criticized by relatives of missing people in today’s Mexico, who questioned why such resources were available to search for a long-dead revolutionary when the institutions searching for his loved ones suffer budget constraints.

Last year, the National Search Commission was disturbed by the departure of Karla Quintana, who had led it since 2019 and resigned citing political pressure to reduce the number of missing people.

Quintana was replaced by Teresa Guadalupe Reyes Sahagún, who had previously been general director of the National Institute of Adult Education.

According to team reportsMore than 100 people have since lost their jobs or have not had their contracts renewed.

The Extraordinary Forensic Identification Mechanism, created in 2019 to help identify the more than 50,000 bodies found in Mexico’s forensic system, is also set to close.

“How can they invest so many human and economic resources in searching for this person in Panama, when they are not looking for the missing in our own country, who actually disappeared during [López Obrador’s] presidency?” asked Cecil Floresfounder of the Seeking Mothers of Sonora, when the expedition was announced.

Tijerina, great-grandson of Garza, told Animal Político, who was excited to find out where Garza’s remains are, but thought too much money had been spent on the search. He added that the Mexican government proposed that he sign a letter on behalf of his family stating that they requested the expedition, and he refused.

“I don’t want someone in the future to say, ‘Look, because of your great-grandfather you were prioritized over thousands of people,’” Tijerina said. “We are in [US-Mexico] border. We know what it’s like here, where people are disappearing.”