Update on the fight to end the drug war in Mexico

[the_future_modernes]

If Crime Is Organized, then Why Not Us?


Sicilia: “We Are Taking the First Steps in this Great Crusade to Dignify Our Country”

Before the Caravan of Solace, many of the families who had lost their own to the war on drugs remembered them in the privacy of their living rooms. They lived below a yoke of fear imposed by the government’s criminalization of the victims and they didn’t dare raise their voices in a cry for justice. Now, as a result of the caravan, many know each other and recognize each other. They dare to go out into the street and say that their son, daughter, husband, wife, father or mother was not a criminal. Families that beforehand did not know each other began to share their pain, hugging each other, in the street, to appeal for justice, peace and dignity.

The recognition between them, the sharing of stories of life and death, the pain and solace, the love, the desires for justice, helped them to dignify the names of their fallen family members, friends and neighbors. This is what unites María Elena Herrera Magdalena of Morelia, Michoacán, whose four children were disappeared, with the parents of Juan Martín Ayala and of Sarahy Méndez Salazar, murdered in San Luís Potosí. This is what joins María América Nava of Ecatepec, in the state of Mexico, whose brother, a community organizer, was assassinated, in a hug with Nepomuceno Moreno, from Sonora, who joined the caravan to continue seeking justice for his son. Estela Ángeles Mondragón, of the Rarámuri, (also known as Tarahumara) indigenous community, shares with them the constant pilgrimage she makes from the mountains to the courtrooms to claim justice for her daughter, gunned down, and her assassinated husband. MORE

Mexican Community Uses Barricades to Drive Out Organized Crime and Political Parties

Armed with machetes, sticks, and farm tools, residents of Cherán, Michoacan, covered their faces with bandanas and set up barricades around their community on April 15. It is a scene reminiscent of Oaxaca in 2006, except this time, the barricades aren't meant to keep out paramilitary death squads; they keep out organized crime.

The barricades have come at a cost for the town's 12,600 residents. Schools have been shut down since Easter, and the economy has come to a standstill. However, without the barricades, kidnappers and illegal loggers who are in league with organized crime would continue to prey upon the town with complete impunity. For Cherán's residents, unabated impunity is unacceptable, because in addition to the usual laundry list of drug war crimes--murder, kidnapping, extortion, and torture--the illegal loggers, protected by organized crime, have destroyed an estimated 80% of Cherán's woodlands.


When the municipal, state, and federal governments refused to protect Cherán from organized crime, the community took matters into its own hands. Now, not only are they driving organized crime out of they're community, they're also kicking out the political parties, whom they blame for allowing insecurity and crime in Cherán to spiral out of control.

Upside Down World spoke with "Emilio" and "Salvador," two Cheran residents who have united with their neighbors to maintain the barricades around the clock for the past month-and-a-half. For fear of reprisal against their families, they requested that their real names not be used in this interview.MORE

A Mexican Movement at a Crossroads: A Paper Pact or an Organized Community?


While the Media and Some Activists Obsess Upon the “National Pact,” a Deeper History Unfolds Among Drug War Victims

“Invention,” Javier Sicilia reminded this week, is “the daughter of necessity,” and a venture as ambitious as ending a war that has taken 40,000 Mexican lives in half a decade, by definition, requires a lot of creativity and innovation.

The two thousand kilometer Caravan of Solace through central and northern Mexico to the US border last week tested many preconceptions – both in the media and among its participants – about what it takes to make real change against the vested interests of governments and other institutions. This week marks forty years since US president Richard Nixon declared a “war on drugs” on June 16, 1971. Many good people have tried to bring an end to that war. None have succeeded to date. And yet there is something about this effort, a very Mexican one, that has awakened a hope and inspired action with the idea that something, indeed, can finally be done about it.

The media has focused largely on the so-called “national pact” – a draft document that was further elaborated, but not completed, during the caravan’s stop in Ciudad Juárez last Friday – that seeks to codify the demands of this nascent movement.
MORE