Mexican poet Javier Sicilia destroyed a gun during the Caravan for Peace this summer, 2012.

Millions of anguished conversations about the murder of so many small children at a Connecticut elementary school have produced new resolve to do something. As the holiday season starts, there is a palpable wave of revulsion against the gun industry, the gun fanatics, and the powerful lobbyists who have intimidated our political representatives into allowing all manner of guns – even military style weapons – to be widely and easily available.

Now, with a sense of sea change in public attitude, politicians are waking up. Several unlikely Democrats have spoken in favor of the initiative by Senator Dianne Feinstein (D. CA) to reintroduce the now expired ban on assault weapons she successfully championed in the mid 1990s. Meanwhile, for the first time, the Obama Administration is tentatively articulating leadership on gun regulation. If President Obama commits to strong and sensible gun regulation, we should have his back.

This new commitment to at least talk about gun restriction is heartening. Nevertheless, those, such as myself, who have watched previous waves of horror sweep in, and then recede in the wake of other gun-murder outrages, know we need a broad and resilient coalition against gun violence. We have to be able to win battles now as well as in future confrontations with gun industry interests.

A coalition that can effectively parry the U.S. gun lobby needs to work at a local, state, national, and international level. Locally, we need to involve the representatives of communities and neighborhoods most affected by the more than 30,000 annual gun homicides in the United States in the evolving conversation about how to make our communities safe. At the state level we need to work with legislators like California Senator Leland Yee (D-San Francisco/San Mateo) who is working (with our partners at the Brady Campaign and other Senators like Kevin de Leon, (D-Los Angeles) to make California a laboratory for sensible and exemplary gun policies.

At the national level we need vision and leadership from an Administration that has not previously engaged the difficult politics of gun control. For more than a year, we have worked with allies from Mexico, Washington and important networks like Presente.org to petition Obama to use executive power to ban the import of assault to the U.S. This request to President Obama was a central element of the Mexican Caravan for Peace that crossed the country last summer, led by victims of the wave of violence 60,000 and counting – fueled by drug profits and guns smuggled from the U.S.

Candlelight vigil at East Los Angeles Church for Caravan for Peace

Restoring the ban on assault weapons, as Senator Dianne Feinstein seeks to do, would be a vital first step that would go much further than any available executive action to limit access to military style assault weapons. But passage, even such a common sense bill, is by no means guaranteed. Those who profit from the gun trade and their lobbyist enablers like the NRA have a strong grip on the leash of legislators, especially the Republican who control the House of Representatives.

For sensible gun control measures to succeed, the local political math must change. That is why sea change moments – when Washington’s policy silos disappear momentarily and the grief of a few moves the hearts of millions – are so important.

Such a moment came in Mexico when the Mexican President Calderón suggested that 14 teenage victims of an October 2010 massacre at a birthday party in the border town of Ciudad Juarez were linked to organized crime. In fact, the teens were all football players mistakenly targeted by cartel hit men. Later, when the boy’s mothers confronted the President about this during a televised meeting the video of the encounter went viral and caused an opinion watershed and eventually a powerful movement led by victims of Mexico’s drug war. This is the same movement that crossed the border to dramatically make the case for steps to regulate assault weapons in 29 US cities last summer.

As the New Year dawns and members of Congress will likely face decisions about how to weigh in on restoring the assault weapons ban and other possible gun control legislation. We must keep alive the urgency of these initiatives even as attention to the families and victims of Newtown recedes.

Constituent pressure on specific members of Congress will be key to any legislative success. Additionally, the voices of people from both sides of the border with loved ones lost to this long plague of gun violence bring a powerful and morally urgent voice to this conversation. There is no question that banning assault weapons would benefit the security and safety of Mexican border communities. Ending the large scale smuggling of assault weapons used by criminals throughout Mexico is human and national security priority.

As the year closes people gather. I hope we can all look each other in the eyes and muster the courage to ask what kind of world we want to live in and how we can love and work together to get there.

TAKE ACTION!

Please join the call on President Obama to stop the flow of assault weapons into our communities.

Most of the 60,000 people killed in Mexico as a result of the “Drug War” were killed with guns sold in the U.S. Tell President Obama that you don’t want greedy gun merchants selling assault weapons, built for war, into our communities where they are then used to massacre tens of thousands of innocent people on both sides of the border.

Mexico’s outgoing president, Felipe Calderon, left, gives a Mexican flag to Enrique Peña Nieto during the official transfer of command ceremony at the National Palace in Mexico City. // AP Photo

The Mexican Peace Caravan that crossed the United States last summer was bracketed between elections. It began in Tijuana, just six weeks after Mexico’s July presidential election, and concluded in Washington just six weeks before Obama’s re-election. Now, as 2013 is dawning, Mexicans can begin to see the outlines and true colors of their return to PRI rule.

On Dec. 1, in the final act of his blood-drenched presidency, Felipe Calderón passed his tri-color sash to incoming PRI strong-man, and now President, Enrique Peña Nieto. The handover was backlit by protest and chilled by concerns about what it means to hand Mexico’s executive branch back to a party that, until 2000, had absolutely controlled — and corrupted — the nation during 71 years of unbroken one-party rule.

Of course, millions of Mexicans voted for Peña Nieto last July. Some undoubtedly yearn for the peace and security they associate with the earlier era of PRI domination. To suppose that restoring the PRI’s power might facilitate clandestine contact with major drug trafficking organizations is not unreasonable. In decades past, such ties have reportedly allowed PRI operators to communicate with, take bribes from, and exert significant influence on major drug trafficking organizations. The current vision is of a restored pax mafiosa that could reset or even free the country entirely from the disastrously aggressive drug war policies of outgoing President Calderón.

Few say so publically, but whispers that Peña Nieto should somehow reach out to the drug bosses are widespread. Peña Nieto decried this notion in a New York Times op-ed the day after the election, but speculation continues about the possibility of a pact that could effectively legalize the wealth of the big traffickers in exchange for peace and their eventual conversion to legal enterprise. Such an amnesty brought the Kennedys and countless other American families back into the fold after U.S. alcohol prohibition was lifted in 1933. More recently, large drug syndicates in South East Asia’s golden triangle have paid steep one-time taxes to repatriate capital into the legal economy as part of a broader deal aimed at ending their participation in the drug trade.

Yet, in fact, even if Peña Nieto did want to return Mexico to an imagined earlier era of tolerance or otherwise evolve drug and security policies, it won’t be easy. This is especially true due to continuing U.S. rejection of real discussion about international drug policy reform. Yet ongoing prohibition guarantees continued drug mega-profits that are a siren song for the most ruthless criminal elements. This grim reality, in combination with strong U.S. pressures to stay the drug war course, severely limits the options and flexibility of Mexico’s new president.

Peña Nieto also faces a suspicious civil society and energized opposition. More than 60% of the electorate rejected the PRI and voted for opposition candidates. A significant social movement arose to oppose his election under the broad banner of Yo Soy 132. This group continues to organize on both sides of the border and was an essential part of gathering grass roots support for the Peace Caravan in several key cities.

Millions of Mexicans fear the PRI will resort to its authoritarian playbook while it pushes the same brutal mix of neo-liberal policies the party forced into place at great cost to Mexico’s economic sovereignty and well being during the crisis ridden 1980’s and 90’s.

But the realities of deepening poverty, inequality, and humanitarian crisis don’t stop Mexico’s plutocrats and their enablers from smearing lipstick on the pig of an economy that has left a majority of Mexicans in poverty. I recommend this article “Mexico’s New President Is Off to a Troubling Start” that UNAM professor John Ackerman just published in The Atlantic Magazine. In it, Ackerman repudiates highbrow happy talk about Peña Nieto and the Mexican economy currently emanating from Washington establishment sources such as the Woodrow Wilson Institute, the Inter-American Dialogue, and the Council on Foreign Relations.

Many agree that Mexico urgently needs to undertake thorough and difficult internal reforms. To be effective, such reforms must challenge impunity all the way to the upper echelons of the military and Federal Police as well as top political and corporate circles. Washington officials and the Obama administration have shown little stomach for pushing such actions on Calderón. Similarly, Obama gave no visible signs of pushing Peña Nieto on such reforms during their first encounter in late November. Pressure for change must come from somewhere else. That is why we must continue to build the movement against the drug war into an unstoppable force.

The violence unleashed in Mexico during Calderon’s six long years has resulted in 60,000 murders but resolved nothing. In fact, drug trafficking organizations have thrived, diversified, and some think that they have deepened their penetration and corruption of Mexico’s institutions during this period. Any genuine change starts with an end to the drug war.

photo: Caravan for Peace

Last summer, victims and activists from Mexico rolled with people from across the United States for a 5,700 mile-journey through 29 cities. They had the support of Global Exchange and more than 200 other U.S. organizations who shared the ambitious goal of revealing how Mexico’s murder epidemic is rooted in more than forty years of deadly and fruitless drug war fostered, funded, and implemented by the United States.

The caravan relentlessly made the case for concerted action north of the border to regulate drugs more sensibly in order to remove the hyper-profits of illicit drug trafficking. Such a move could dramatically reduce the large scale brutality in Mexico, slow southbound gun smuggling, reverse mass incarceration trends in the U.S., challenge corruption on both sides of the border, and address the distortion of our national security priorities.

Mexican peace movement organizers are calling for a meeting in early 2013 to evaluate, strategize, and strengthen ongoing work between the organizations and peoples movements that built the Caravan on both sides of the border. They know the momentum around drug policy is on the side of reformers.

Recent elections in Washington state and Colorado are potential harbingers of a mature, new approach to drug policy that embraces regulation and public health metrics instead of the “just say no” militarization we have lived with for decades. Domestic and international opinion is moving faster than the politicians. And on a range of related questions — like the absurd legality of assault weapons for civilians or ill-advised U.S. support of Mexico’s military security apparatus — our job is to keep the debate moving and force them to catch up.

A Bright Candle in the Darkness

In mid-August 2012 the Caravan for Peace with Justice and Dignity – led by the mothers, fathers, sisters and brothers of Mexicans murdered and disappeared during the drug war – began its sojourn across the United States. Starting from the Pacific shoreline where the wall dividing the U.S. from Mexico meets the sea, the 120-person Caravan traversed 5,700 miles holding events in 26 cities and generating extensive coverage in most of the major U.S. media markets.

On the U.S. side hundreds of people affiliated with more than 220 Caravan partner organizations – many of whom had never before worked together – joined forces to organize, support, host, feed, house, transport and finance the Caravan. A broad array of religious, police, Latino, labor, African-American, human rights, survivor, parent, artistic, peace, university, and other organizations from the U.S., Canada and Mexico endorsed the message of the Caravan. They worked with NGOs who broke policy ‘silos’ to draw the connections between U.S. drug, immigration, gun, prison, public health, Latin America, criminal justice and the twisted priorities of the drug war that continue to frustrate reform efforts.

Peace Caravan participants sharing their stories

Mexico’s peace movement arose to address a national emergency of criminal violence, institutional corruption and a moribund judicial system all combined to create a maelstrom of death and impunity. The survivors of violence, at the heart of the Caravan, have all borne searing tragedy and personal desolation. Nevertheless they stand up, speak truth and courageously work toward a future of peace, with justice and dignity for their country. By giving names and faces to just a few of the more than 65,000 dead; they’ve broken paralyzing fear and silence – mobilizing a broad movement for peace by bringing hundreds of thousands of Mexicans into the streets while engaging the government at the highest levels.

Javier Sicilia

One of these courageous survivors is the Mexican poet, Javier Sicilia, who stepped forward to give voice to the movement. In March 2011, Sicilia’s son Juan Francisco and six companions – who had nothing to do with the drug trade – were asphyxiated by cartel thugs. In response, Sicilia announced he would give up writing poetry to voice his pain and to give space to the voices of tens of thousands of other victims of Mexico’s brutal war.

In the summer of 2011 the new Movement for Peace with Justice and Dignity (MPJD) organized two major Caravans from Mexico City, one to the north and another to the southern border of Mexico. They sought to connect with, console, assist and organize victims of the war.

Both Caravans were followed by televised dialogues between President Calderón and the survivors. But it quickly became clear that Calderón was impervious to advice and that that even if he were open to a new direction he would be unable to change course as long as the “Made in USA” drug war ideology held sway in Washington. That’s why Sicilia and his movement called for a third Caravan through the United States to focus on changing the errant U.S. policies on the drug war, arms trafficking, money laundering, military aid and immigration that feed Mexico’s nightmare.

All along the road the Caravan members spoke boldly and used creative non-violent actions to dramatize the issues while seeking common ground on which to build the difficult, bi-national road to peace. In San Diego, CA Mexican mothers who had lost sons or daughters embraced American mothers who had similarly lost children to violence, drugs, or prison. The mothers called out their common humanity in the first of many candle-lit vigils.

Caravan for Peace participants in front of Sheriff Arpaio’s war on drugs tank. Phoenix, AZ 2012

In Phoenix, AZ the Caravan picketed the local jail and later sat down with notorious Sherriff Joe Arpaio to question his humiliation of undocumented Mexicans. In El Paso, TX the mayor met with Caravan leaders and then successfully urged the city council to pass a resolution supporting the Caravan and its goals. This action is a clear sign that the city that shares the border with Ciudad Juarez, the Mexican city hardest hit by the drug war, understands military escalation is futile and leads to more deaths and insecurity.

Javier Sicilia holding a gun chopped in half

In Houston, TX a team from the Caravan filmed a purchase of a .357 Magnum pistol with cash and no ID at a gun show. At the same show, Caravan supporters purchased an AK- 47 that survivors later symbolically destroyed: cutting it into pieces which were encased in cement and later delivered as messages to officials in Washington.

Melchor with James Evans, Democractic Rep (MS), in front of Caravan for Peace bus parked by the State Capitol Building in Jackson, Mississippi.

In the south-east, where the Caravan was primarily hosted by African-American organizations, the drug war’s role in the mass incarceration and criminalization of whole communities came to the fore. It is not just that the U.S. has 5% of world’s population yet 25% of the world’s incarcerated or even that the number of drug offenders has increased twelvefold since 1980. It’s worse: African-Americans who comprised just 13.6% of the U.S. population in the 2010 census represented 39.4% of the U.S. prison population in 2009. Michelle Alexander, the brilliant author of The New Jim Crow, who has analyzed these issues at great depth, thanked the Caravan for prying open the debate and furthering her better understanding of the way Mexicans are suffering from the same forces that have damaged the life prospects of so many in African-American communities.

Along the Caravan’s entire path, the “caravaneros” – citizen ambassadors of Mexico’s peace movement – built new friendships and alliances, and left indelible marks in countless thousands of hearts. The collective moral force and creativity of the Caravan generated vast coverage in both Mexican and U.S. media; more than 750 unique electronic and print stories with a combined reader and viewership of more than 500 million.

Hence, even before we reached Washington D.C. and fanned out across the capitol for dozens of meetings with Congress, State Department officials, think tanks, university audiences, and in television studios, thinking about drug war strategy was inexorably pushing its way onto the U.S.- Mexico bilateral agenda at a critically important moment of political transition in both countries.

President Obama’s September 20 replies to Univision’s questions about changing drug war strategy reflect both progress and the distance the movement behind the Caravan still must travel. Obama conceded that U.S. demand for drugs drives violence and corruption in Mexico and the need for public health strategies to treat addiction and reduce demand. Unfortunately, the President went on to praise Calderón’s disastrous military campaign, calling it “courageous” and then making clear that he intends no immediate break with reigning prohibition and drug war orthodoxies.

Candlelight vigil at East Los Angeles Church for Caravan for Peace

But let’s keep in mind something else the President said earlier in the same interview. Change in Washington comes from the outside, not from inside. It is our job to keep the Caravan’s candles burning and organize that change.

TAKE ACTION!

Travel the Caravan in pictures: All along the Caravan route, photos were being snapped. You can check them all out on Flickr or on our Facebook page where we have some arranged by region; Southern CA, Southwest, Texas, and Southeast and Chicago. 

After the Aurora, Colorado movie theatre shooting that killed 12 and wounded 59 two weeks ago, we asked ourselves, ‘Why?’

After the gunning down of U.S. Representative Gabby Giffords and eighteen other people at a public meeting in a Safeway parking lot near Tucson, Arizona in 2011, we asked ourselves, ‘Why?’

Why do people do these things? Why are so many military style guns and ammunition available to the assailants?

These are the same anguished questions being asked by our neighbors in Mexico.

In Mexico, massacres which receive relatively little press coverage, yet have become chillingly common, have left over 60,000 dead in the last six years. There an escalating war for control of drug routes and the profits generated by drug prohibition has created a huge market for guns.

And the awful, shocking answer to those ‘Why?’ questions is this: 70 percent of the guns that were recovered in Mexico and submitted for tracing in the last three years came from the United States as a result of lax and poorly enforced gun and ammunition regulation laws.

Watch U.S. Guns: The Awful, Shocking Truth produced by the Washington Office of Latin America (WOLA) and Cuéntame. It illustrates how these guns are trafficked to Mexico, who profits from their sale, and what President Obama can do to stop this kind of trafficking.

Watch and share the video, and sign the petition to help end gun smuggling to Mexico.

In response to the tragedy in Mexico, the Peace Caravan to the United States will embark in less than two weeks on August 12th, arriving in San Diego and traveling to Washington, DC. Stay updated on the latest news from the Peace Caravan and if you can’t join the route, please donate to support the work.

Global Days of Action will take place September 12-21, as the Caravan returns to Mexico. Mark your calendars and look out for more information soon.

 TAKE ACTION:
Sign the petition and tell President Obama to stop gun smuggling to Mexico.

Starting August 12 in San Diego, the caravan will travel through 25 cities before arriving in Washington, DC on Sept 10 raising and joining the voices of victims of drug war victims from both North and South.

The caravan, made up of buses, cars, RVs, and campers welcomes the participation of all those who have had enough of drug war violence, gun smuggling, mass incarceration, money laundering, and the many other ills arising from more than forty years of a senseless war.

Javier Sicilia and dozens of other Mexican mothers, fathers, sisters and brothers who have lost loved ones to this maelstrom ask you to join the caravan.

Become part of this historic cross-border partnership. Join us for a few miles, a few days, all the way across the USA.

Space is limited on the bus, so you are encouraged to register as soon as possible. Once the bus is filled, there will also be an opportunity for people to follow the bus in private cars and carpools.

If you live along the route, join a local host committee.

If you can’t go on the road with us you can support Global Exchange to make the Caravan a success. Your generous donation will go a long way towards guaranteeing the success of the Caravan.

We hope to see you on the road with us in August and September.

For those in the Bay Area, School of Americas Watch, Fellowship of Reconciliation, and Breaking the Chains will hold a send-off event for the East Bay feeder caravan on Friday, August 10 at 6pm at Fruitvale Avenida, Oakland (34th & International).

Just this morning, Javier appeared on Democracy Now! to talk about the national emergency in Mexico and how the major mobilizations he has led to make visible the fear, suffering, and thirst for justice of thousands of families impacted by drug related violence in Mexico.

He went on to explain why the MPJD has chosen to cross the border to organize a major caravan in the U.S., the birthplace of the disastrous war for drug prohibition.

Watch the interview:

UPDATE: Watch the second part of Javier Sicilia’s interview on Democracy Now!

The MPJD invites North Americans from all backgrounds, walks of life, and a rainbow of communities to join them their cross-country cry for peace, justice and dignity.

This initiative seeks to promote dialogue with American civil society and its government regarding: the need to stop gun trafficking; the need to debate alternatives to drug prohibition; the need for better tools to combat money laundering; and the need to promote bilateral cooperation in human rights and human security in two priority areas: promotion of civil society and safety, as well as protection and safety for migrants.

Please join part or all of this caravan if you can. Meet us along the route. And even if you can’t go on the road you can support Global Exchange to make the caravan a success.

Sign up for our Mexico News email list to get the latest updates about the Caravan.

Mexico’s Movement for Peace with Justice and Dignity (MPJD) has now made the call for a major international peace caravan in the USA this summer.

The caravan, led by Javier Sicilia, the Mexican poet whose son was murdered just one year ago and is the founder of the MPJD, will begin in August and run from San Diego to Washington, DC. Victims of violence from both south and north of the border will join the caravan and aim to reframe the debate by calling for an end to the “drug war” and its tragic consequences at a pivotal moment between Mexican and U.S. presidential elections.

In the lead-up to the caravan, Javier Sicilia will be in the U.S. to speak in cities across the U.S. about why we need to build an international movement to end the war for prohibition, stop southbound gun smuggling, and reverse the alarming militarization of North America.

Javier’s first speaking event will be on April 4th in San Francisco, and will end in New York City May 10th. Cities to be visited include San Francisco, Stockton, San Jose, Los Angeles, Tucson, El Paso, Chicago, and New York. For a full listing of his speaking dates, please refer to our website.

Please spread the word about the speaking tour. Global Exchange is coordinating closely with the MPJD and will advise in future emails about how you can contribute to, join, or otherwise support the caravan.

If you would like us to contact you directly about how you can help, please send a message and/or question to mexico@globalexchange.org with the subject line, “Help with Caravan.”

In the last year, an unprecedented number of Mexicans have received international recognition for their courageous work on behalf of migrants, workers, and the millions of victims of the country’s spiraling violence, institutional decomposition and appalling inequality. Just today, Mexican poet, Javier Sicilia, received a nod in this year’s TIME Magazine Person of the Year issue.

Below, we profile some of these movement leaders, artists, grass roots organizers, labor leaders, and clergy people working in the front trenches of the struggle for human rights. Through them we can hear the voices of millions more Mexicans crying out for justice and for the very soul of their nation.

They urge us to respond to the frightening militarization of Mexico, the hyper-exploitation of the poor, indigenous, and working classes; and the infuriating impunity enjoyed by well-connected and ruling-class criminals. They embody the struggle to end the profound injustice — both economic and legal — at the root of the murderous crime wave sweeping the country.

These eight distinguished advocates have been recognized because the Mexican government has failed to respond to a growing national emergency. As Mexico’s crisis deepens these patriots have gone abroad to sound an urgent alarm — amplified by the human rights, labor, and cultural groups who invited them — that Mexico is at the breaking point.

These are the kinds of Mexicans that President Obama, Congress, the media, the American public, and philanthropic foundations should be listening to and taking their cues from. These are the voices of those who have lived the tragic consequences of bad bi-national policies – so unlike President Calderon and his supporters north of the border who echo the hollow victories of the drug war and repeat market based delusions of success in the face of NAFTA’s bitter harvest.

The need for profound systemic changes on both sides of the border is painfully clear. 50 thousand Mexicans are dead since Presidents Calderón escalated the war for drug prohibition. Millions are displaced by the economic disaster of “free trade”. In Mexico, as in the US, ultra-rich plutocrats have hijacked the political system and are trying to foreclose on a dignified future for the poor and middle classes.

We need intelligent strategies and urgent action to end the “war on drugs”, level the economic playing field, and to make real our democratic aspirations on both side of the border. We must not let the inheritance of Mexico’s NAFTA generation be a disintegrating society where neither jobs nor educational opportunities exist for an expanding and politically repressed underclass.

In 2012 presidential elections will be held in Mexico as well as in the U.S. These elections, while no doubt important, will not bring the kind of deep changes needed in both countries. Such change and the movement necessary to make it happen must be driven from below — by those who bear the greatest burdens of inequality and have the most to gain by shattering the toxic status quo.

During 2011 movements led by victims of violence and those who are alienated from politics as usual have broken through the discourse of silence, altered the political landscape, and brought calls for revolutionary change back into view in both our countries.

The new struggle for fundamental reform is just getting underway and will take many forms, some of them unpredictable. But, you can be sure that, as resistance to war and inequality grows on both sides of the border the Mexicans leaders profiled below will be on its frontlines, joining their voices together with millions more on both sides of our shared border.

• Abel Barrera, a anthropologist and human rights defender of indigenous and rural communities, who founded the respected and successful NGO Tlachinolan in the southern and impoverished state of Guerrero, was honored by the RFK Center for Justice and Human Rights;
• Javier Sicilia, leader of the Movement for Peace with Justice and Dignity awarded a “people’s choice” human rights prize by Global Exchange; The movement is led the victims of the “drug war”. He was just profiled in TIME Magazine’s Person of the Year for 2011 issue;
• Gael Garcia, well known Mexican actor, and AMBULANTE, an organization he co-founded, headlined the Washington Office on Latin America’s (WOLA) annual Gala in recognition for his passionate and committed work to give visibility to the plight of migrants who undertake the perilous journey north and to the organization’s work to promote documentaries and to bring these films to the Mexican population;
• Father Pedro Pantoja received 
  the Letelier – Moffitt International Human Rights Award from the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington, DC on behalf of Bethlehem, the Migrants’ Shelter of Saltillo, for their work to protect migrants in Mexico from kidnapping, extortion, sexual abuse, and murder — courageously challenging organized crime and corrupt public officials.
• Marta Ojeda, a long time maquiladora activist was saluted by the New York Radio Festival and received an award for her organization, the Coalition for Justice in the Maquiladoras and “La Frontera” a documentary investigation of organized crime, violence and impunity and injustice along the Mexico – U.S. border; Marta connects the dots between neoliberal policies, economic dislocation, arms industries, money laundering corruption and impunity that have Mexico submerged in a deep crisis.
• Napoleon Gómez Urrutiais the mine workers’ union president. He received the AFL-CIO Kirkland Award in recognition of his honest work work that included accusing the Mexican government of industrial homicide following a mine explosion that killed 65 miners –and whose bodies remain buried. The government retaliated with bogus charges and he has been forced into defacto exile in Canada.
• Sister Consuelo Morales who received 
  the Human Rights Watch’s Alison Des Forges Award for her work in Mexico to defend victims of human rights violations and hold their abusers accountable. She has worked with indigenous communities, street children, and founded Citizens in Support of Human Rights (CAHDAC) in her native Monterrey.
• Tita Radilla was granted an 
  award byPeace Brigades International and the Alliance for Lawyers at Risk for her relentless struggle for human rights.She has worked for more than 30 years with the Association of Relatives of Disappeared and Victims of Human Rights Violations (AFADEM), demanding justice for the victims of enforced disappearance in Mexico.

Ted Lewis directs the Mexico Program of Global Exchange.

Manuel Perez Rocha is an Associate Fellow of the Institute for Policy Studies.

Don Nepo turns away after talking with Felipe Calderon during a meeting on Oct 14th . Flanking the President are his wife, Margarita Zavala and the late Secretary of Gobernacion, José Francisco Blake Mora who died in a helicopter crash on November 11, 2011. photo: Pepe Rivera

Nepomuceno Moreno Núñez, an activist of the Movement for Peace with Justice and Dignity (MPJD) was gunned down on November 28th while walking in Hermosillo, Sonora in northwestern Mexico.

“Don Nepo” (as he was known to friends) joined other victims of Mexico’s violence to speak out and seek justice – in his case on behalf of his son, Jorge Mario Moreno León, who was kidnapped and disappeared in July, 2010.

Don Nepo with photos of his murdered son, Jorge Mario Moreno León during a healing ceremony for victims of violence who participated in the MPJD “Caravan to the South” in September, 2011. Photo: Ted Lewis

Don Nepo took part in the Caravans that crisscrossed Mexico earlier this year and was part of a small group that met with President Calderon in mid-October. That same month, several armed men came to his home and threatened him with death if he did not stop looking for justice for his son. Despite his high profile complaints, the government offered him no protection.

MPJD supporters surround an inner circle of movement leaders, including Nepomuceno Moreno Núñez, who have lost loved ones to violence. The early morning ceremony took place at the ruins of Monte Alban in hills above Oaxaca City last September. Photo Ted Lewis

Now, after his murder, concern for the safety other family members has led the MPJD and others to request pressure on Mexican officials to provide necessary protection and carry out a full and credible investigation of both murders.

Please join us in making that call. Tell Mexican officials to protect Don Nepo’s family and to investigate his murder! Send a letter today!

Links in Spanish:
Exigir justicia, una sentencia de muerte en México
Pronunciamiento del MPJD ante el asesinato de Don Nepo
En memoria de Don Nepomuceno Moreno Nuñez

Mexico’s Peace with Justice and Dignity Movement looks north of the border

After months of marches and caravans covering thousand of kilometers of Mexico’s highways and back roads, Javier Sicilia, other family members of murder victims, along with a small support team, traveled to Washington, DC and Los Angeles, CA at the invitation of Global Exchange.

They came with the goal of making the movement more visible in the U.S. and to talk about three things:

1. breaking the Pentagon’s co-dependency with Calderon’s failed and duplicitous war strategy;
2. challenging lax U.S. regulation of assault weapons that allows thousands of guns to be smuggled into Mexico and criminal hands every week (please sign the petition);
3. ending drug prohibition policies that have led to 40 years of a foolish, counter-productive, and ever more bloody “war” on drugs.

The decision to more deeply engage the public and officials in the United States is based on a recognition by the movement that any real and lasting solutions to the crisis of violence and impunity that has exploded during Mexico’s drug war will require deep changes on both sides of the border.

In Washington, they gave testimony to the Inter-American Human Rights Commission and the head of Human Rights Watch (which just delivered a scathing report on torture by Mexico’s military including the elite marine units favored by President Calderón). In events organized by our partner, the Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA), they also met with Obama Administration officials, key Senate offices and addressed the public at a forum hosted (and videotaped) by the Woodrow Wilson Institute.

Ted Lewis and Javier Sicilia at #OccupyLA

In Los Angeles, Sicilia was a headliner at the International Conference of the Drug Policy Alliance attended by over 1,000 advocates and organizers from around the world. During his brief visit Sicilia visited the Occupy Los Angeles, met with reporters and editorial board members, spoke at a large open air rally against the drug war in MacArthur Park, and gave TV interviews broadcast nationally on Univision and Telemundo.

At the Drug Policy Conference, Sicilia took part took part in a roundtable conversation I facilitated on “Mexico’s Crisis and the Bi-national Movement Against the Drug War”. The wide ranging discussion also featured: Brisa Maya, Director of Mexico’s National Center for Social Communication (CENCOS); John Gibler, Journalist and Author of To Die In Mexico; Zulma Mendez, Director of the Pacto por la Cultura in Ciudad Juarez; Diego Osorno, Journalist and Author, El Cartel de Sinaloa; Victor Quintana, social leader and Former Congressman from Chihuahua; and Susie Byrd, a City Council Representative from El Paso, Texas.

The conversation probed the causes of Mexico’s anguish and the terrible forces tearing and testing the fabric of the nation. For the United States, Mexico’s emergency tests our national character and ability to learn as people and neighbors.

The Movement for Peace with Justice and Dignity has plans to do more in the U.S. during 2012 as both Mexico and the U.S. face presidential elections. Mexico’s crisis and the urgent need to address it need to be put front and center whenever and wherever possible.

While in the U.S., Javier Sicilia gave voice to the idea that the same impulse to seek deep structural reforms that inspires the movement in Mexico is reflected in the Occupy Wall Street and other surging movements that aspire to break the death grip of money and power over our democracies. We are all in this together.

Our friends from Mexico will be back up north soon and will be looking for your help to take the struggle for peace to the next level. Stay tuned and refer your friends to our e-mail list.