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.

photo: Caravan for Peace

The following is a post by Global Exchange/Caravan intern Chelsea Brown, who is traveling with the Caravan for Peace with Justice and Dignity. Global Exchange Executive Director Carleen Pickard who is currently in DC joining the last days of the Caravan, describes Chelsea as the “calmest force behind the Caravan for Peace scenes.”
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The Caravan has arrived in Washington, D.C. after a month on the road. From one coast to the next, we have listened to one another’s stories—learning how violence and fear has touched every part of Mexico—and to the stories of brave souls we met along the way. We have come to speak these truths to the power that resides within the nation’s gleaming capitol buildings.

Most of these truths are self-evident: drug prohibition does not work and it never will. AK-47s are not being used to hunt deer, it is wrong to put non-violent people in cages, and  real democracy is not sown with bullets. Yet U.S. policymakers, year after year, decide to ignore these truths and instead perpetuate – and in some cases escalate – policies that are detrimental to both individual and national security. Why?

Much has to do with the overwhelming influence of corporate money in politics. This year, corporate interests have invested billions of dollars in lobbying and pumped hundreds of millions of dollars into election campaigns to gain influence in DC. Though legal, corporate-dominated elections interfere with the basic democratic process of elected officials representing the needs and interests of their constituencies. There are powerful interests that are turning profits at the expense of human lives on both sides of the border, especially where arms control and drug policy is concerned.

photo: caravan for peace

In Baltimore, the Caravan heard from a local mother and activist, Kimberly, who lost her son to bullets fired by a 14-year-old. Tragically, this is not a rare occurrence in a neighborhood where, Kimberly averred, it is easier to buy a rifle than a tomato. Similarly, drug cartels in Mexico have easy access to firearms smuggled from the U.S. Loose regulations enable the purchase of large quantities of weapons, without conducting background checks and even without showing identification.

This cavalier irresponsibility prevails in large part due to lobbying by the National Rifle Association, which spent $7.2 million supporting Republican candidates during the 2010 election cycle, and which routinely spends huge sums of money opposing all forms of firearm regulations (Open Secrets).

At a Caravan event in New York City, our hosts at the CUNY Graduate Center screened the award-winning documentary The House I Live In, which explores the human impact of the war on drugs in the U.S. One of the many tragic vignettes featured a young black mother with a wide-eyed baby in her arms. The father of her child was convicted of a drug charge and at best would be facing a 5-year sentence as a product of mandatory minimum sentencing. He would join tens of thousands of others. In 2010 alone, over 1.6 million people were arrested for drug charges, 88% of which were for possession of marijuana (FBI Uniform Crime Report 2010).

Again, we can look to the influence of corporate lobbying to explain why policymakers uphold such an ineffective and wasteful strategy for reducing drug use. The drug war has been a boon for private prisons, which require 90% of their beds to be filled in order to turn a profit. One of these private enterprises, Corrections Corporation of America, spent $14.8 million on lobbying between 2003 and 2010, and has dedicated millions to pass anti-immigrant legislation in states like Arizona.

Yesterday, members of the Caravan spent a day on Capitol Hill speaking with the political representatives of the American people about the personal tragedies that have resulted from these irresponsible, inhumane policies. While we can never undo the tragedies and pain suffered from the drug war, it is never too late to end these harmful policies and let the healing begin. We hope that this people-to-people lobbying effort will remind and inspire legislators to push back against powerful interests that value profit over human life.

photo: Armando L. Sanchez/Chicago Tribune

After 25 cities, 5760 miles, and 30 days the Caravan for Peace with Justice and Dignity is in Washington, DC for the final days of action, press conferences, and lobbying to bring a human face to the costs of the War on Drugs to our nation’s capitol. 

Global Exchange’s Organizing Director, Kirsten Moller just returned from her leg of the trip and recounts her experiences of going from Texas through the Deep South, and into Chicago.

In Austin, TX Global Exchange’s Executive Director, Carleen Pickard passed the baton on to me to begin my leg of the journey with the Caravan for Peace.

From Austin we headed to Houston, TX where we performed a final act of buying, destroying and burying (in blocks of cement) an assault weapon to commemorate the huge numbers of people killed by weapons crossing the border from Texas into Mexico.

Going from Texas and heading into the Deep South was a profound experience for the members of the Caravan for Peace. Leaving a state, which was once Mexico, and shares deep cultural and historical ties for the state of Mississippi was like crossing an international border. The South, drenched in the history of the civil rights movement and suffering from a different kind of poverty, was a real eye opener for many of us.

Though the effects of the drug war in local communities are apparent in the South, as the victims of Mexico traveled through the towns, there was a definite collective and visceral realization that the struggle is the same.

Hurricane Isaac kept us from visiting New Orleans where a fabulous host committee had been prepared to meet the group. They survived the storm and are committed to continue their community organizing and work against the police corruption fueled by the War on Drugs.

photo: Caravan for Peace

After that detour, we were fortunate to have the Central United Methodist Church in Jackson, MS agree to host the group for two days instead of one and because of the visit, have expressed a strong interest in getting involved in the work of the local host committee, the Mississippi Immigrant Rights Alliance (MIRA).

In the ornately decorated Rotunda of the Capitol building and the former Supreme Court chambers, the Caravan members exchanged testimonials with politicians, the ACLU, Southern Poverty Law Center, the Children’s Defense Fund, and local activists.

Mississippi has the second highest per capita prison population in the country. “We’re losing a whole generation to the prison system,” said Father Jerry Tobin. The war on drugs is really a war on whole communities who are losing their civil rights in order to support for-profit prisons like the Correction Corporation of America, a prison system now used to hold undocumented immigrants as well.

Heading to Montgomery we stopped to walk across the historic Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama, made famous by the Civil Rights movement as the site where, in 1965, peaceful demonstrators were attacked as they tried to march to the capitol. Here Dr. Poe of NAACP and Javier Sicilia made the connections between the current struggle to end the drug war and the lessons we have to learn from the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s.

In Montgomery, AL there was a press conference featuring the NAACP and the Alabama Coalition for Immigrant Justice (ACIJ) calling for a focus on effective preventative and rehabilitative policies that have been proven to decrease drug abuse and associated violent crime instead of the current drug war policies. The ACIJ spoke about the new anti-immigrant law, HB56, calling for immigrants to ‘self-deport’ from Alabama, ignoring the fact that many can no longer safely return to their homelands due to the violent conditions created by the War on Drugs.

Elizabeth Brezovich, of ACIJ:
“We welcome the Caravan for Peace and the opportunity it provides the people of Alabama to learn about the interdependence of our countries and the effects of American domestic and foreign policies.”

Dr. Sharon Richards (NAACP) then invited us to a mega party in a mega church with a Job Corps choir and a drug program graduation ceremony and mountains of soul food!

photo: Caravan for Peace

From Montgomery we traveled on to Atlanta, GA where the Latino population is large and the Martin Luther King. Jr. Center creates a peaceful, yet powerful place to root the tradition of non-violent organizing. Reverend Durley of the Ebenezer Church extolled on the links to the past and urged us to Organize! Organize! Organize! as we laid flowers on the tomb and marched to the capitol building.

In the morning a men’s breakfast club hosted at the local Presbyterian Church brought out a dialogue about the failures of the Drug War and how it is used as a pretext to rob whole communities of their democratic rights. A prominent local prosecutor admitted that people caught in the War on Drugs, even for the smallest offenses can legally be discriminated against for the rest of their lives – in employment, housing and in some states in voting.

Then in Fort Benning, Georgia, we were invited by the School of Americas Watch to participate in a Die-In at the gates of Fort Benning  to highlight the role of U.S. military support and the thousands murdered during the past six years in Mexico. Family members of the victims and their allies, left photographs of their loved ones, signs and crosses on the main entrance’s sign.

photo: Caravan for Peace

After our time in the South, we made our way north to Chicago, IL with a stopover in Louisville, KY where churches, again, came to the rescue with delicious food and spacious lodging. Many of the victims on the bus commented on how generous the churches in the U.S . were, how much hospitality we experienced and how shocked they were at the levels of poverty and income disparity there are in the US. The myth of the streets paved with gold continues to be one of the biggest US exports.

In Chicago, the host committee arranged a three mile hike from the Latino community into the largely African American neighborhood bringing a message of unity and an analysis of what prohibition meant to Chicago historically and why that understanding of history is still relevant.

From Chicago, we drove through the rain to Toledo and Cleveland, OH where private prisons are a growing industry with groups organizing against them.

Much appreciation to the exhausted caravaneros, Sicilia and others from Mexico and the United States who have lost loved ones to the drug war and have led the Caravan for Peace on this journey highlighting the connections across borders and communities, strengthening and appreciating the local organizing and encouraging us to continue the struggle.

The next Caravan update installment will focus on the last leg of the journey.

60,000 dead. 10,000 kidnapped. 160,000 internally displaced.

These are the numbers and statistics that the War on Drugs has produced since 2006.

Here’s another one: Only 2% of all crimes committed in Mexico are investigated and solved.

Behind these numbers are actual people. Mothers. Fathers. Brothers. Sisters. Neighbors. Friends. All united by tragedy afflicted by the drug war. But, out of these tragedies the Caravan for Peace with Justice and Dignity seeks to bring “consolation, justice, and the path toward peace.”

The story of the Peace Caravan started with the loss of a loved one. In March of 2011, Javier Sicilia’s 24 year old son was killed by drug traffickers in Mexico. Sicilia describes him as “an athlete and professional who never tried drugs” that became an innocent victim in this “imbecilic war.” And it was with this loss that Javier Sicilia started the organization Movimiento por la Paz (Movement for Peace) to give a name and face to those that died and also giving a voice to the families of the victims.

Now traveling in two buses on the Caravan for Peace are 40 family members with their individual stories about their loved ones and one common goal to show the real costs of the drug war. Here are some of their stories:

Aracely Rodrí­guez – Mother of Luis Ángel León Rodrí­guez. In November of 2009, her son, a federal police officer was kidnapped and killed when he and his fellow officers refused to cooperate with a drug cartel in the state of Michoacán. She was told that they cut up their bodies with a chain saw and tossed their body parts in corrosive chemicals so the bodies would never be found. She is on the Caravan to “speak about the nightmare we are suffering in Mexico.” Read the profile on her in the Los Angeles Times. 

Maria Ignacia Gonzalez Vela – Mother of Andrés Ascención González, disappeared on March 27, 2011 in the city of Matamoros, Tamaulipas. She was on the phone with him when she suddenly heard him tell someone to drive faster. It was later found out that drug dealers had took her son.

Maria Guadalupe Guzman Romo and Maria Guadalupe Muñoz – Mother and sister of Miguel Orlando Muñoz, victim of forced disappearance in Ciudad Juárez on May 8, 1993. He was in the military, and reports show that he had stood up against his superior military personnel who had links to drug-trafficking operations in the area.

Dora Elvia Aguirre and Rosa Pérez Triana – Mothers of Guadalupe Coral Pérez Triana and Judith Ceja Aguirre, disappeared on July 24, 2011 along with Juanita Alemán, Almirsa Janet de León, Cinthia Lozano y Alma Mónica Álvarez García, when they where going from Reynosa, Tamaulipas to Monterrey, Nuevo León. Both mothers are part of the NGO Citizens in Support for Human Rights AC (CADHAC), which has documented hundreds of disappearances in the state of Nuevo León.

Guadalupe Aguilar – Mother of José Luis Arana Aguilar, disappeared in Tonalá, Jalisco, on January 17, 2011. It is suspected that the police in Tonalá were involved with this disappearance.

Benito Paredes – Benito comes as a representative for the Peoples of Morelos Council where there are more than 85 indigenous communities are experiencing problems with aggression, kidnappings, and murders.

Santos de la Cruz Carrillo – He is here representing the Wixárika people. The Mexican government is trying to give away 6,000 acres of their sacred land to a mining company. The mining operations would pollute and dry out their holy springs.

Sacario Hernández – He was wrongfully accused of murder, put in jail for five years and 51 days, and after a 35 day hunger strike, he was released and later exonerated. In his words, “I come to accompany the Caravan to demand justice for the victims who have suffered and to demand freedom for Profesor Alberto Patishtan Gómez as a political and conscience prisoner, who is a tzotzil indígena from Chiapas…. “In Mexico, guns are not only used for killing us each other, but for criminalizing Human Rights Defenders and mainly to the indigenous and outcast people from Mexico and Chiapas where they got us dying in jails.”

Gabino Israel Anzurez – Gabino is on the Caravan as representative of the Frente de Pueblos en Defensa da le Tierray al Agua (Peoples Front in Defense of the Land and Water). A thermoelectric plants is being built in his town without the communities permission, which would affect their surrounding environment, water reserves, and ultimately their lives.

Leticia Mora Nieto – Leticia is the mother of 22 year old Georgina Ivonne Ramírez Mora, who disappeared on May 30th 2011 on her way to the supermarket to pick up supplies for dinner. She never returned. Leticia is on the Caravan to represent other mothers whose daughters have disappeared.

08-SantaFE-VA from TUTTLE FILMS on Vimeo.

Arturo Malvido Conway – Arturo is on the Caravan to tell the story of his brother who was killed outside his home in Mexico City on August 11, 1997.

Teresa Vera Alvarado – Teresa comes representing her sister Minerva, a generous woman who often gave food, water, and clothes to passing migrants near the railway where she lived. She went out one day to a beauty parlor near her home, only to never come back.

Lourdes Campos Romo – Mother of Guillermo Gustavo Navarro Campos, murdered on June 16th, 2010. He was an organizer and an activist. Despite the violence that built up in his community he made sure to remind his neighbors to stay united to fight against insecurity in order to achieve change. He fought to create a family welfare program in the community to improve the standard of living for those living in the neighborhood. On June 16th 2012, he was shot five times through his window.

María Salvadora Coronado – María comes to represent her husband, Mauricio Aguilar, a kind and friendly person that loved soccer and always put others before himself. He disappeared from their home in Cordoba, Veracruz on May 27, 2011.

Olga Reyes – Her family are well-known human rights activists from Chihuahua that were able to organize and prevent the installation of a landfill in their community. For this, and for protesting against the growing militarization of their state. six members of her family have been killed and several others are living in exile to avoid the threats by cartels and public servants of the Mexican government.

Melchor Flores – Father of Juan Melchor Flores Hernández, better knwon as “El vaquero galáctico.” His son performed as a human statue on streets and various city squares throughout the country. He was repeatedly detained by police for not having the correct permit to perform. The last time he was detained was in Monterrey, Nuevo León on January 19, 2009. He has not been seen since.

José Carlos Castro – His family disappeared on January 6th 2011. A group of armed men broke into his home and took his wife, Josefina Campillo Carreto the former Mayor of Atocpan, Veracruz. They also took his daughters Joahana Montserrat Castro Campillo an Architecture intern at the University of Veracruz, and 19 year old, Karla Verónica Castro Campillo, a student of Graphic Design, at Getzal University.

Margarita López – She is the mother of 19 year old Yahaira Guadalupe who was taken from her home in Oaxaca by a group of armed men on April 13th, 2011. After faces multiple threats, some from authorities, during her search for answers on the disappearance of her daughter, she found out she was tortured, raped, and then decapitated. “I cannot breathe without thinking about my girl. Help me. Help me to let people know what’s happening.” Read the profile on her in the Los Angeles Times. 

María Herrera – She is the mother of four sons that have disappeared. Two of them from Atoyac de Álvarez, Guerrero, and two in Poza Rica, Veracruz. Raul and Jesus went missing in August 2008 and Luis and Gustavo in September 2010, all disappearing without a trace. She is on the Caravan with her 5th son, Juan Carlos Trujillo Herrera. When addressing a crowd in Alamo, TX she explained why she is on the Caravan, “At this time we are not fighting for our own but for each and every one of the children of the people who are here. Their hope is to stop the violence. We do not want more people to go through the pain that we have been going through.” Read the profile on her in the Los Angeles Times. 

The peace movement in Mexico has given these families of the victims the courage to step forward and honor their loved ones and demand justice. Despite the reality of fellow peace activists getting killed, the movement continues on.

No matter where we stand on any of the issues that this Caravan is bringing to light, we can all relate to the love we feel for our family and friends and will hopefully take time to reflect on the violence that brought all of this together.

As Javier Sicilia wrote, “Don’t wait until that pain reaches your intimate lives to hear the cry of those of us who cannot keep from uttering it: do not wait until the senseless death that this war has unleashed reaches your lives like it has reached ours, to know that such death exists and that it must be stopped. This is the moment for us to come together and change this policy of war and rescue peace, life and democracy.”

And as the poet does whenever he speaks about the victims, let us join in honoring those lost with a moment of silence.

…

In El Paso, TX the names of those killed in Mexico’s Drug War were projected on the side of the Annunciation House building, in this act of protest against harmful U.S. policies which fuel these deaths.

At every stop along the route, the Caravanistas, including more than 40 Mexican victims of the drug war, have been greeted by communities standing in solidarity on issues related to the War on Drugs ranging from challenging lax policies on gun trafficking, promoting immigration policies that respect the dignities of all people, to rethinking drug prohibition, and more.

The Caravan first embarked on its journey in Tijuana, MX and crossed the border into San Diego, CA before making its way to Los Angeles. Watch this ReasonTV video from the day.

After an energizing two days in Los Angeles, where the Caravan was joined by supporters from Hollywood, grassroots organizations, artist activists, members from the Los Angeles community at cultural events, candlelight vigils, actions, and marches, the group continued on to Arizona.

photo: peperivera.com

In Arizona, the Caravan made a symbolic visit to the “Tent City” jail to express solidarity with those incarcerated and to condemn the inhumane practices of the infamous Sheriff Joe Arpaio, longtime drug war enforcer also known for being anti-immigrant.

After making its way through Arizona, the next stop on the route was New Mexico, where one of the stops was a gun show. Watch two videos of Javier discussing gun control with a seller at the show. Part one. Part two. You can also watch archived livestream video of events in New Mexico.

Today, the Caravan marches on to Texas at the El Paso-Juarez border. The Caravan will be visiting the Drug Enforcement Administration Office (DEA) at the border town, where Juarez is seen as the epicenter of drug war violence.

If you are in Texas or in any city along the Caravan route, be sure to come to the events and get involved. Hear the stories of the victims of the drug war and help deliver the clear message to put an end to the war on drugs.

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

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

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

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).

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.

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.”

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.