n the first few months of the administration of Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto, the human rights thermometer is burning red. Migrants, indigenous communities, women, social activists, journalists and many others confront mounting threats.
They set out on February 25, from different parts of a country torn apart. In silent defiance, they entered the capital city of Tegucigalpa on March 6. On International Women’s Day they made their demands of a government that has trampled their rights and brought bloodshed across the nation since the rule of law was shattered three and half years ago.
For ten days, men and women walked many kilometers toward the capital of Honduras, making stops along the way, accompanied by people who joined in solidarity. Called “Step by Step for Dignity and National Sovereignty”, the walkers demanded the derogation of the Law of Special Development Regions, freedom for Chavelo Morales, derogation of the Mining Law and cancelation of environmental edicts that privatize water, energy and natural resources. Indigenous, Afro-Honduran, peasant women, and feminists formed the core of the Walk for Dignity.
More than 500 people from 12 countries traveled the sinuous mountain road from Oaxaca, México to the small Zapotec community of Capulálpam de Méndez to attend the “Yes to Life, No to Mining” Forum of Mesoamerican Peoples. Community activists and indigenous leaders shared experiences of resistance, and developed strategies for defending their territories against the onslaught of ongoing and planned mega-mining projects that threaten their communities.
Last September, more than a hundred Mexican drug war victims on the Caravan for Peace with Justice and Dignity gathered with New Yorkers in Riverside Church. The testimonies they presented, in the same place where in 1967 Martin Luther King called for an end to the Viet Nam war, revealed the similarities between the two unjust wars and why we should oppose them.
In November of 2011, six months before the United States gave Colombia a clean bill of health and allowed the US-Colombia Free Trade Agreement to take effect, paramilitaries invaded the home of Juan Carlos Galvis in Barrancabermeja. Two black-clad invaders held a gun to the head of Galvis’ daughter…
Mexico is seeing the birth of a movement for real democracy. It is led by a generation that wants to break through the cynicism of a nation accustomed to corruption and authoritarian rule. Its members challenge not just the election results, but the very definition of democracy.
