With Justice and Dignity - A Caravan For Peace
Channel: MM411
Date: 2012-08-09

On Sunday, August 12, the "Caravan for Peace with Justice and Dignity" will begin its voyage across the United States as it works to create a bi-national movement against the failed drug war that has left more than 70,000 dead in Mexico in the last five years.

Led by Mexican poet Javier Sicilia, families of victims from Mexico will tell the story of the human toll of the war on drugs, while building powerful ties with local communities in the United States that are also deeply impacted by the failed drug war—the longest and deadliest war in U.S. history.

The goal of the Caravan for Peace is to engage in citizen diplomacy to put an end to the war on drugs and start a healing process from the national emergency that has devastated Mexico.

The Caravan will trek over 6,000 miles through more than 25 cities and communities in ten states—including Los Angeles, Santa Fe, El Paso, Houston, Montgomery, New Orleans, Chicago and New York—before arriving in Washington, D.C., on September 10. At each stop, the Caravan will be welcomed by local communities, who have planned rallies, marches, candlelight vigils, forums, performance art and more.

The Caravan will officially conclude on September 12 by calling for an International Day of Action for Peace in Mexico. You can learn more about when the Caravan will be near you at www.caravanforpeace.org.

LEAP and Medical Marijuana 411, along with dozens of other organization across the contentent are supporting the Caravan, including groups like Drug Policy Alliance and Students for Sensible Drug Policy, as well as the School of the Americas Watch and Veterans For Peace, to name a few.

LAPD Deputy Chief Stephen Downing (ret.) is now a LEAP speaker, and often discusses how he saw the Bloods and Crips grow from a handful of kids to the gangs we know them as today because of drug prohibition laws like Organized Crime did during alcohol prohibition.

Javier Sicilia emerged as a leader of the Movement for Peace with Justice and Dignity (MPJD) after his son Juan Francisco was killed in senseless prohibition-related violence last year. Since then, the MPJD has undertaken similar caravans across Mexico to collect stories of the destruction caused by the war against drugs and organized crime.  Through these caravans, victims have expressed in their own voices the drug war's disastrous consequences.

"Our purpose is to honor our victims, to make their names and faces visible," Sicilia said. "We will travel across the United States to raise awareness of the unbearable pain and loss caused by the drug war -- and of the enormous shared responsibility for protecting families and communities in both our countries."

Since 2006, Mexico has experienced unprecedented pain: more than 70,000 people have been killed and more than 10,000 have disappeared in violence resulting largely from the failure of drug prohibition.  The drug war has produced painful consequences in the United States as well, especially the mass incarceration of non-violent people -- overwhelming people of color.

Bringing together victims of the drug war from both countries, the Caravan aims to expose the root causes of violence in Mexico, to raise awareness about the effects of the drug war on communities in the U.S., and to inspire U.S. civil society to demand new policies that will foster peace, justice and human dignity on both sides of the border.