Today (November 29, 2011), the Associated Press reported the murder of a member of Mexico’s growing civilian anti-crime protest movement. He was shot to death in his hometown in the northern state of Sonora.
Nepomuceno Moreno repeatedly had accused police in the Sonoran capital of Hermosillo of kidnapping his 18-year-old son last year. The 56-year-old father became a vocal member of poet Javier Sicilia’s Movement for Peace with Justice and Dignity, which has held marches and rallies denouncing drug traffickers, street criminals and the Mexican government’s military-led offensive against crime.
The forming of the National Movement for Peace and Justice was poet Javier Sicilia’s response to his son being found murdered last March. In stark contrast to the recent plague of violence infecting the nation, Sicilia has now become a modern-day paladin for peace in Mexico, leading the National Movement for Peace and Justice, a social force of relatives of victims fighting to be heard. They have developed the Pact for Peace and Justice, a proposal that emphasizes civil unity over violence. This concept was embodied in the March for Peace and Justice, which triggered the Caravan for Peace that crisscrossed the country. On June 23rd 2011 they accomplished one of their goals: an unprecedented public discussion with President Calderón and his security cabinet, during which they harshly criticized the War on Drugs and aired their grievances.
Over 40,000 people have died in Mexico’s “War on Drugs” since President Felipe Calderón took power in a contested election in 2006. The National Movement for Peace and Justice has given a face to those nameless individuals who have lost their lives in this war.
For more on this story see: Javier Sicilia’s National Movement for Peace: A Speck of Hope in a Sea of Blood: http://www.coha.org/javier-sicilias-national-movement-for-peace-a-speck-of-hope-in-a-sea-of-blood/
by William Repicci
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