# Antimonumento +65

Antimonumento +65 is an antimonumento near the Mexican Stock Exchange, on Paseo de la Reforma, in the borough of Cuauhtémoc in Mexico City. The installation features the number 65 along with a plus sign to honor the sixty-five miners who died during the 19 February 2006 Pasta de Conchos mine disaster in San Juan de Sabinas Municipality, Coahuila. Only two bodies had been recovered as of 2018.
Protesters installed the anti-monument on 18 February 2018, the eve of the twelfth anniversary of the disaster, as a plea for justice for the collapse and for justice for the government's inaction. The artwork was not given an official name, and those who installed it referred to it simply as Antimonumento.
The plus symbol in the sculpture is engraved with the names of the victims and the Spanish phrase A una voz, ¡rescate ya! (transl. 'With one voice, rescue now!'). The plus sign also carries the meaning of honoring other miners who died under similar circumstances. The following year, the demonstrators placed a metal cage with sixty-three helmets buried in coal mined from a Coahuila mine behind the main sculpture.

## Background

Pasta de Conchos was a coal mine in Nueva Rosita, San Juan de Sabinas Municipality, Coahuila. It is owned by the Mexican conglomerate Grupo México. On 19 February 2006, approximately at 2:00 a.m. CST (UTC−6), a methane explosion occurred inside the mine. Sixty-five miners were trapped. The company reported that each had up to six hours of oxygen to locate a tunnel ventilation system. To avoid additional explosions, rescuers refrained from using electric or gas-powered machinery and instead used tools such as picks and shovels. A monitoring team was not installed to allow for accurate location tracking, and the miners' location was never precise, estimated to be anywhere in a tunnel between 490 meters (1,610 ft) and 5 kilometers (3.1 mi) from the exit, at a depth of 150 meters (490 ft).
Five days later, Grupo México suspended rescue operations and declared that the miners had allegedly died, stating that "there was no possibility of survival after the methane explosion". Before the disaster, there were multiple reports of methane leaks. On 23 June 2006, the body of Felipe de Jesús Torres Reyna was recovered, as was the body of José Manuel Peña Saucedo on 1 January 2007. Subsequently, Grupo México suspended the rescue of the other sixty-three bodies claiming sanitation and safety reasons. According to a study by the non-governmental organization Poder, Grupo México submitted three technical documents with irregularities requesting authorities to suspend the rescue operation. In two reports, there is a contradiction regarding the amount of water supposedly present in the tunnels, ranging from 25% to 75%, and it is also claimed that the water could be contaminated with hepatitis, tuberculosis, and HIV due to the decomposition of bodies.

## History and installation

Various relatives of the victims formed the organization Familia Pasta de Conchos. On several occasions, the group has claimed that Grupo México distorted the events that unfolded the disaster. Following the 2010 Copiapó mining accident, the organization sent a letter congratulating the families for the rescue of thirty-three trapped miners. In it, they stated: "Grupo México and the federal and state governments lied to us. They told us there had been a massive explosion, that the miners had died and even disintegrated. The truth has come to light: the two bodies that were recovered were intact, not even burned".
On the afternoon of 18 February 2018, on the eve of the twelfth anniversary, relatives of the deceased miners protested in Mexico City. They started their demonstration at the Benito Juárez Hemicycle and walked toward Paseo de la Reforma. In previous protests, they carried 65 coffins on their shoulders. However, in this demonstration, about 200 people, including four priests, marched toward the Angel of Independence column and stopped at the Glorieta de la Palma traffic circle, the location of the Mexican Stock Exchange Building. A truck was parked on the avenue and three red steel structures were unloaded, a number six, a number five, and a plus sign. There, they listed the names of the miners, plus Félix Schleevoigth, who worked for Grupo México and died in a similar collapse in 1973, with his body never being recovered. Bishop Raúl Vera and Father Miguel Concha held a mass.
The pieces were fitted, screwed in, and welded, and the foundations were filled with cement on a traffic median of the avenue. It stands 4.5 meters (15 ft) tall and weighs over 1 metric ton (0.98 long tons; 1.1 short tons). The plus sign has the phrase "A una voz, ¡rescate ya!" (Spanish for "With one voice, rescue now!") engraved in its middle, while the front and the back have the names of the miners and Schleevoigth engraved as well. Guillermo Iglesias, the son of one of the miners, stated that it also serves as a cross, one "they have carried for a long time". Additionally, it is dedicated to all the miners who have died in similar circumstances. According to the report El carbón rojo de Coahuila: Aquí se termina el silencio (2018), written by Elvira Martínez Espinoza and published by the Heinrich Böll Foundation, 3,103 miners have died in collapses and explosions since 1900 in Mexico. Martínez's report establishes that at Grupo México mines, the bodies of the deceased are only recovered if it is deemed viable to continue extracting resources.
The location was chosen because of its proximity to the Mexican Stock Exchange Building, where Grupo México trades. During his mass, Bishop Vera said that "[businesspeople], like Satan in the Gospel, seek the destruction of life, the land, the human being, and the social fabric in the coal mining region of Coahuila". He added that politicians "hate the people" and "are killing the country". The following year, on 19 February 2019, the organization installed a 2-meter (6 ft 7 in) tall red cage filled with pieces of coal that bury hard hats of various colors. The miners' relatives carried sixty-three helmets with their family members' names and pieces of coal from a Coahuila mine. Once the cage was in place, the helmets were buried in the coal. According to the protesters, if a body is rescued, the respective helmet will be removed. In 2022, the cage was vandalized, with several helmets showed signs of burning.