Can the Caravan for Peace Force Us to Rethink the War on Drugs? Michael Barajas - San Antonio Current
go to original August 29, 2012

Javier Sicilia, front man of Caravan for Peace. (Reuters)

Javier Sicilia's words still ring of poetry, though he says he's stopped writing it. A renowned novelist, essayist, and poet — winner of Mexico's top poetry prize three years ago — Sicilia told mourners gathered at his son's funeral in May 2011 when he read his final poem: "No puedo escribir más poesía … la poesía ya no existe en mí."

It's no longer in me.

The murder of his son Juan Francisco last year, an innocent 24-year-old university student found along with six of his friends bound and shot by drug traffickers in Cuernavaca, shook Sicilia's world. With deep anguish also came conviction.

With the rallying cry "¡Hasta la madre!" Sicilia became the unlikely front man to a people's movement across Mexico, leading peace marches throughout last year to publicly denounce the violence, the cartels, and the government corruption that's allowed the problem to fester.

Now Sicilia, over 40 Mexican families broken by drug violence, and a slate of activists and human rights organizations have turned their sights north, traveling the length of the U.S.-Mexico border in a month-long Caravan for Peace. They aim to highlight the instability in Mexico along with U.S. drug policy, saying Americans shoulder equal blame in Mexico's current chaos.

Read more at The San Antonio Current

Visit the Caravan for Peace With Justice and Dignity website

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