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.

In every city we visited, the Caravan for Peace achieved powerful results and raised awareness that will fundamentally alter the course of the failed drug war.

Starting in Southern California, through the South West, into Texas, across the Deep South, north to Chicago, and along the East Coast, each community greeted the caravaneros with heartfelt and moving events, complete with music, food and commitments to support the Caravana’s on going agenda. Our journey would not have been possible without solid grassroots support — thank you!

photo: Caravan for Peace

Thousands of people have expressed their support for ending military aid to Mexico, changing the dialogue on prohibition, promoting immigration policies that respect the dignities of all people, and ceasing the flow of illegal weapons across the border.

Continue to join the Movement for Peace with Justice and Dignity for the next ten days as we take action for 10 Days for Peace & Human Rights from September 12-21.

Join the call on President Obama to stop the flow of assault weapons into our communities. Help us get to the critical 100,000 petition signature mark and support the victims of the drug war.

10 Days for Peace & Human Rights Sept 12 – 21

• We mourn the lives lost and dedicate ourselves the changes we need to see.
• Organize Your Communities and Prepare for the International Day of Peace on the 21st.
• Organize Conferences, Screenings and Artistic events that help further awareness of Human Rights.
• Generate working groups to peacefully and effectively speak out against violence and injustice you see in the world.
• Be creative!

Plan your action: 

1. Find a central place or a symbolic place where people can gather.
2. Dress in white and carry flowers, candles and statements calling for the end to the violence.
3. Make a call to your local press person and designate a press spokes person.
4. Sing, chant, march! Keep speeches to a minimum.
5. Send your best pictures and descriptions to Info@caravanforpeace.org so it can be posted on the Caravan for Peace website.
6. Collect names in order to continue your local work – passing a city resolution, setting up speaking events for victims fundraising for the Movement for Peace and Justice with Dignity.
7. Don’t forget to send us a description of your event it can be posted on the Caravan for Peace website.
8. Help reach the goal of 100,000 signatures in our petition to stop illegal gun smuggling by September 12th. You can do so by texting “peace” to 225568 or visiting the petition online at Presente.org.

Once again, thank you for your continued support every step of the way on this journey for peace with justice and dignity.

The Caravan for Peace consists of two full size buses carrying the caravanistas across the United States and, to date, one RV.

The RV looks funny tailing the buses wrapped with the Caravan for Peace banner and the Movimiento Por la Paz dove that has become iconic to the movement, because it’s one of those CruiseAmerica vans that clog campgrounds and National Parks every summer and are typically viewed as greedy, gas guzzling monsters contributing to climate change.

The buses make sense. The Caravan for Peace is itself meant to be a spectacle – our branding is visible and proud and at each rest stop or restaurant we offload and talk to anyone and everyone about our travel and our mission. The victims from Mexico spend time together, with U.S. riders and Mexicans and U.S. media, giving lots of time for coverage. Their solidarity with each other grows each day and people’s good-night hugs grow stronger when we get split up into home stays.

But even I’ve been thinking – an RV? Really?

I boarded our RV monster at 5am today (Wednesday) and for the next 10 hours en route from El Paso to Laredo, TX I’ve thought very carefully about its service to the Caravan for Peace.  As I’m part of the Committee in charge of the overall finances, I need to be mindful about it’s cost versus benefit to the Caravan. Can we keep it? Should we keep it?

Firstly, it’s used as a ‘peace room’. Organizers meet en route and review the day’s agenda, make changes to the schedule, come up with new ideas for actions as we approach cities and pieces fall into place (look out, Houston!). Reviews are also done of the previous days, so that we are sure to take our new experiences forward.

Javier Sicilia giving a mobile interview

For example, this morning we talked about the City Council meeting in El Paso yesterday, thought through the presentations by Javier and  Ruben Garcia of Annunciation House, and agreed we can be a little more clever in our messaging at the next opportunity to speak to elected officials.

Second, it acts as Javier’s mobile interview room. There is never a moment – even while we are en route – without a reporter around and the RV acts as a quiet(ish) place to conduct an interview. After addressing the crowd in El Paso on Monday night, Javier was swarmed by reporters and could barely make it back to the RV.

Third, over and above the organizing and the planning, we organizers are learning too.

Gas pump for the RV!

This morning Oscar Chacon of National Alliance of Latin American and Caribbean Communities (NALACC) in Chicago talked through his vision of the Caravan ‘planting a seed’ for the future of successful progressive organizing, building on his decades of experience organizing immigrant Latino communities. Roberto Lovato of Presente.org supported our media strategy planning, advising on the delicate line to tell victims’ stories, but not exploit the story for the purpose of ‘getting the hit’. He later, and somewhat privately, takes Javier aside and records an interview with him about his poetry. And Janice Gallagher – an amazing woman leading most of the logistical planning for the Movimiento por la Paz continues to blaze our path forward, modeling calm and dedicated organizing.

So, I’m not sure. Do we keep this beast, which does provide a decent mobile meeting and interview space, and some solace between city stops? We’ll see.

TAKE ACTION!

Follow the Caravan on…

• Twitter: @CaravanaUSA
• Facebook: Facebook.com/Caravan4Peace
• Hashtag: #Caravan4Peace #CaravanaUSA
• Caravan for Peace website:  caravanforpeace.org
• Global Exchange People-to-People blog: Caravan Road Reports or Subscribe via RSS to receive new posts automatically

CARAVAN PHOTOS

Check out Caravan photos from the road…

Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/globalexchange
Facebook: Southern California photos. South-West photos. Texas photos.

Lend Your Support: Donations are still being accepted to help fund this important trip. Will you give?

Javier Sicilia builds support for this summer's Caravan for Peace

Javier Sicilia, poet and activist continued his tour this week to Los Angeles, El Paso and Tucson to bring people and issues together to pave the way for peace with justice and dignity.  As he boarded planes, sat in classrooms and stood in front of large audiences  his message continued to be that there is real human suffering behind the statistics coming across the border between US and Mexico.

As Carleen Pickard wrote in last weeks blog he reminds that there are over 60,000 Mexicans dead, 20,000 Mexicans disappeared and 250,000 Mexicans displaced from their homes because of the failed War on Drugs and that the government is incapable or unwilling to crack down on organized crime or investigate the deaths of the many innocent victims.

With a poet’s voice, Javier Sicilia, dressed in worn blue jeans, an old flannel shirt and his ever-present felt hat, tells the adoring audiences of immigrants and activists, some of whom are refugees from the violence, that the time has come to stop treating the drugs as a national security issue start dealing with them as public health issue.

At La Placita, a sanctuary church in the heart of Los Angeles, he was joined by a group of victims under a mural of the Virgin of Guadalupe with the US and Mexican flags framing the speakers. Candles and flowers commemorate the missing and the dead. One woman who lost her brother held up a small studio portrait of a young man dressed in blue sports clothing – another shed tears when she talked about the 20,000 people who have just disappeared. No one is looking for them and there is no place to put a flower and say a prayer. Javier embraces and kisses all the victims and the power of their collective grief transforms the individual sadness to a strong and clear call for action.

Procession on the Loyola campus

Loyola Marymount and Pomona College hosted Sicilia where students wrestled with their own complicity. We, in the US are the consumers of drugs, yet we don’t pay the real price. We import the drugs and export the arms — one is for personal pleasure and the other can only be used to harm another person. Dealing with US consumption of drugs and US gun trafficking are key to solving the problem.

Even Fox News  admits that after 40 years and 1 trillion dollars, the War on Drugs has failed to meet any of its goals. Still discussion of drug legalization continues to be an extremely difficult topic to broach in this country. Javier Sicillia suggests we start talking about drug regulation; about public health and safety and about our common humanity with the victims in Mexico as a way to start moving in another direction.

To start that discussion, he and a group of victims from the Movement for Peace with Justice and Dignity (MPJD) have proposed a Caravan for Peace this summer, starting in Tijuana/San Diego on August 12th and ending in Washington DC on September 10th. This letter was released during the Los Angeles events, calling on civil society groups across the North America to support the Caravan. As the Caravan of buses and cars makes its way along the border between our two countries they will be meeting with community groups, putting faces to the statistics and sharing ideas about how to stop the flow of guns southward. As communities organized in an election year we can change the priorities from a futile War on Drugs to an investment in community development and justice.

In Los Angeles, 40 community groups were represented at an organizing meeting, including home town associations from Oaxaca and Zacatecas.

In El Paso, Javier was awarded the Voice of the Voiceless award from the Annunciation House, at a beautiful vigil marking the loss of over 10,000 lives since 2008 in Juarez/El Paso.  An installation projected a moving scroll of names on the house every night for a week while people brought flowers, mementos and other symbols to place on an altar in their memory.  Javier spoke about “Hope in the Midst of Violence” and the 400 guests lit candles and pledged to add their little light to the struggle.

In Tucson activists met with us and urged us to expand the network beyond the border region. “When I can’t get anyone to pay attention to another body in the desert, then we have truly lost our humanity’, said Mike Wilson human rights activist of the Tohono O’odham Nation who maintains water stations for migrants on the Tohono O’odham Nation. “We have to get the people outside of the border region to pay attention”

Do you live in one of the communities along the route? Let us know who we should be talking to about how the drug war affects your community, how we can stop gun violence and defend the security and dignity of immigrants. Find out more about the Caravan here.

Javier Sicilia with Juan Mora, from DePaul University in Chicago

Javier Sicilia’s message to the audiences of four public events in Chicago, IL was clear and powerful;

“In 1994 subcomandante Marcos introduced the Zapatistas to the world, declaring Mexican President Salinas’ signing of NAFTA opened ‘the gates of hell’ for Mexico, and now Mexico is living in that hell.”

He begins every speech quoting terrifying statistics: Since 2006, there are 60,000 Mexicans dead, 20,000 Mexicans disappeared and 250,000 Mexicans displaced from their homes, all a result of a drug war launched by a deaf and dumb government. And there is no end in sight. More than 98% of homicides committed in Mexico are never resolved. He brings home the message that if anyone in the audience decided to kill someone in Mexico, there would be less than 2% chance of ever being held accountable.

The cost of the war reflected in these numbers has grown inexorably since last year when the respected poet announced to an adoring Mexican public that he was putting aside his poetry to protest the government’s complicity with organized crime and inexcusable inaction in investigating the deaths of those killed in drug war related violence.

Altar outside of the Municipal Palace in Cuernavaca Morelos, with names and pictures of drug war related victims

Javier’s son Juan Francisco was murdered along with six friends on a fateful night in March of 2011 in Temixco, Morelos. Suddenly, Javier –who had long been active in Mexico’s cultural and political life — became the voice for a movement led by people who are simply called ‘las victimas’.

He is emphatic that the statistics don’t convey the real picture. He says that the face of the person who suffered ‘one death’ or ‘one disappearance’ is one person who had a character, a personality and merits justice. One death represents a family torn apart in grief. The fact that more than 98% of the time those seeking answers from authorities get no satisfaction adds to their pain and misery. One disappeared person represents a family consumed with fear and unanswered questions. One displaced family lives in constant upheaval and suffering. In short, the statistics are overwhelming but even one is too many.

The public events were co-sponsored by the National Museum of Mexican Art, UIC (Latin American and Latino Studies Program), DePaul University and The Resurrection Project and well attended by students, activists and members of the Latino community in Chicago. In each speech Javier repeated the urgent demands of the Mexico-based Movement for Peace with Justice and Dignity – the organization of victims that came together last year to declare Estámos hasta la Madre/We Are Fed Up (with the drug war) – to the Mexican and US governments. The Pacto Nacional (link in Spanish) was signed May 12, 2011 with the following demands:

• End the drug war, a failure of tragic proportions;
• End the easy access to high-powered weapons that facilitates weapons smuggling;
• Crack down on those who help criminal enterprises by laundering money;
• Defend the human security and dignity of immigrants;
• End US support for the militarization of Mexico.

Mothers of disappeared victims, criticizing the government’s inaction to investigate their missing loved ones

In Mexico, the Movement for Peace with Justice and Dignity is campaigning for approval of the Ley de Victimas this week. This law would place new responsibility on the government to investigate drug war related crimes and provides a fund for impacted families.

Carrying the voices of las victimas to the United States, Javier is widening the Movement for Peace with Justice and Dignity’s profile and building support for a US Peace Caravan this summer (link in Spanish). Javier and the Caravan will cross the United States in cars, buses, and RVs joined by victims of drug war related violence from Mexico, supporters, activists and journalists. The Caravan will stop at key cities along the route for public conferences, demonstrations and meetings with key local leaders.

TAKE ACTION!

• For more information about Javier Sicilia’s speaking events in the USA, click here.
• For more information about the US Peace Caravan, click here.