Civil society organizations from the U.S., Mexico and Central America delivered a letter to their presidents on the eve of President Obama’s visit to the region, calling for an end to militarization under the drug war and protection of human rights.
The visit of Obama to Costa Rica to attend the meeting of the Central American Integration System (SICA, by its Spanish initials) was nothing more than a smokescreen for anything but the SICA meeting. There was never any intention of holding a real SICA meeting.
For now, hawk talk is being toned down dramatically in response to Latin American pressure and grisly evidence of the Drug War’s failures. As for Cuba, Obama will have to move toward better relations over the fierce opposition of Cuba Lobby hard-liners, like Miami Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen.
It has been five months since the Movement for Peace with Justice and Dignity led a peace caravan across the United States to end the war on drugs. Yet much has happened in that time that changes the context for our movement, or rather, collection of movements.
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.
The negotiations between the government and the guerrilla forces are seen by a large part of the Colombian public as a good opportunity to seal a peace deal. Many believe that the hour has come and that the main actors in the conflict will not let this opportunity escape. The reality, however, is much more complicated.
Yesterday I lost my son. My son will be turning two and has a beautiful name that means message or word. Born into a period of violence because of the coup in Honduras, he was for many of us a symbol of life and hope amidst a reality informed by pain and death. Panic [...]
