Javier Sicilia to lead summer Caravan for Peace
From The San Diego Union Tribune
Written by Elizabeth Aguilera May 31, 2012
"Calderon says he doesn't regret his strategy to fight organized crime, despite calls to end a confrontation that has killed at least 35,000 during
his administration.
What: U.S. Caravan for Peace led by Mexican poet Javier Sicilia
When: August 12 - Sept. 13, 2012
Where: Starts in San Diego, ends in Washington D.C.
Who: Mexican poet Javier Sicilia, joined by groups across the U.S. including San Diego-based Border Angels and Gente Unida
For more information: Caravan for Peace
Border Angels and Gente Unida has joined with Mexican poet and journalist Javier Sicilia who is leading a summer "U.S. Peace Caravan," calling for an
end to the drug war and to bring attention to violence occurring on both sides of the U.S. - Mexico border.
Sicilia's son Juan Francisco, 24, was murdered by drug traffickers last year. In response to his son's death the poet wrote his last stanza and says
he will never write poetry again.
"El mundo ya no es digno de la palabra" ("The world is no longer worthy of the word").
From that moment of stunning loss, Sicilia has focused on fighting against violence in Mexico. He started the Movement for Peace with Justice and
Dignity and led the Marcha por La Paz in Mexico last year that won national attention and a response from Mexican President Felipe Calderon.
"Drugs are not a national security issue, they're a national health issue," Sicilia told Democracy Now! during an interview last month. "Turning a
public health issues into a security issue has created an absurd war that has killed 60,000 and we don't even know how many disappeared."
Other victims of the drug war from both sides of the border will join Sicilia and various organizations from across the country on the Caravan that
begins in San Diego and ends in Washington D.C.
The poet has been vocal about his believe that the problem does not just fall on the shoulders of Mexico but that it is also the responsibility of the
United States. That is why he is joining with U.S. groups for the American Peace Caravan, to shed light on the "shared responsibility" for the dead
and displaced from the drug war, which he said being fortified by U.S. guns.
The mission statement of the upcoming Caravan is: "Led by victims of the drug war on both sides of the border, the US caravan aims to put forward a
critique of the drug war and suggest actions people and governments, north of the border, can take to reduce the flow of weapons into Mexico, take the
profits out of the drug trade, and retool drug strategies to produce real results to end the violence. We also support Humane Immigration Reform, Ni
Una Muerte Mas."
The San Diego groups, Border Angels and Gente Unida, are chairing the San Diego Host Committee and Border Angels has moved it's annual Marcha Migrante
to coincide with the Caravan.
Planning is ongoing but events could take place at Friendship Park, Chicano Park and the Holtville Cemetery before the Caravan heads to Los Angeles
and more than 25 cities across the United States."
“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow mindedness.”
—Mark Twain
\"La vida es dura, el corazon es puro, y cantamos hasta la madrugada.” (Life is hard, the heart is pure and we sing until dawn.)
—Kirsty MacColl, Mambo de la Luna
\"Alea iacta est.\"
—Julius Caesar
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