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

On 8 March 1895, a quixotic Mexican journalist-turned-revolutionary called Catarino Erasmo Garza was killed in battle a long way from home, his body tipped into a mass grave and lost.

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

López Obrador has a soft spot for Garza, about whom he wrote a book. He requested the expedition and the senate approved it earlier this year , dispatching a boat with almost 100 soldiers and staff from the National Search Commission to Bocas del Toro.

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

Garza would eventually mount a harebrained incursion from Texas into Mexico with a band of fewer than 100 armed men, hoping to eventually reach the capital and dethrone Díaz.

Related: Mexico battles over 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 defence of the rights of the Mexican people,” wrote Garza. “Down with the tyrants. Long live the Mexican people.”

The scheme failed in a little over a week, and Garza retreated to the US.

Soon after, he went into exile and landed in Costa Rica, where he joined up with Colombian liberals engaged in their own civil war, hoping to make allies that might one day help him topple Díaz in Mexico.

Garza, then 35 years old, was shot dead during an assault on a barracks in Bocas del Toro, in what was then part of Gran Colombia, before his body was tossed into a mass grave.

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

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

The historian Alfredo Ávila told El País that López Obrador admires Garza because he sees him as a precursor to the Mexican Revolution of 1911 that did eventually topple Díaz – and López Obrador compares the governments before his own with Díaz’s regime.

“That’s why a movement like Garza’s, opposing the regime, stirs the sympathies of the president,” said Ávila.

The expedition was criticised by relatives of the disappeared in today’s Mexico, who questioned why such resources were available to look for a long-dead revolutionary when the institutions searching for their loved ones suffer budget restraints.

Last year the National Search Commission was roiled by the departure of Karla Quintana , who had led it since 2019 and resigned citing political pressure to bring the number of disappeared down.

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

According to reports from staff , more than 100 people have since lost their jobs or did not have their contracts renewed.

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

“How can they put so many human and economic resources into looking for this person in Panama when they aren’t looking for the disappeared in our own country, who moreover disappeared during [López Obrador’s] presidency?” asked Cecil Flores , founder of the Madres Buscadoras de Sonora, when the expedition was announced.

Tijerina, Garza’s great-grandson, told Animal Político , that he 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 had proposed he sign a letter on behalf of his family stating that they asked for the expedition, and he had refused.

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