Javier Sicilia: Obama and Pena Nieto Need to Focus on Curbing Drug-War Violence Javier Sicilia - The Los Angeles Times
go to original May 2, 2013

Activists of Amnesty International hold a protest in front of the U.S. Embassy in Mexico City. Dozens of activists demand that President Obama assume a responsible role in the negotiations of a Treaty on Arms Trade. (Yuri Cortez/AFP/Getty Images)

MEXICO CITY - President Obama has much to discuss with Mexico's new president, Enrique Peña Nieto, when they meet in Mexico City this week. No issue, however, is more urgent than the search for peace, justice and dignity for and between our peoples.

For seven years, Mexico has been living a nightmare. More than 70,000 people, by some estimates, have been killed and thousands more have been disappeared in the wave of criminal and institutional violence of Mexico's war on drug cartels. The collateral damage is a humanitarian tragedy that requires our leaders to have deep and frank discussions about how to transform the failed policies exacerbating the violence.

Our countries need to work together in prioritizing public health and regulation over a strategy that makes suspected drug offenders into military objectives. The effect of four decades of Mexico's drug war has been, ironically, to strengthen and enrich the very criminals we oppose. We also need urgent common action to shut down the torrent of guns being smuggled from the United States into Mexico, and into the hands of criminals, at a rate of more than 200,000 a year.

For me these issues are personal and transcend ideology, politics and even nationality.

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