Mexico, News Briefs
Mexico: Javier Sicilia’s Peace Caravan Marches On Despite Threats
September 19, 2011 By Andrew OReilly
Poet/Activst Javier Sicilia speaks to the press.
Poet and activist Javier Sicilia promised that no threats or intimidation would stop his caravan for peace from heading deeper into southern Mexico, even as the state of Veracruz bumped up security to protect the marchers.
Sicilia, whose son was killed in March by alleged drug cartel members, has led a march for peace around the country called the “Movement for Peace with Justice and Dignity.” The poet is also a main proponent of legalizing drugs, ending the drug war and advocating for the removal of Mexican President Felipe Calderón.
While traveling through southern Mexico in recent days, the caravan has encountered several incidents that threatened the safety of the human rights activists. In one incident, federal police stopped the group after the presence of hooded men was reported on the Cotzacoalcos-Villahermosa highway.
The organizers of the caravan asked the state government of Veracruz for protection while traveling through the region, said the state’s undersecretary Érick Lagos Hernández.
“We hold, once warned, the federal government and any state government for what happens to this caravan and any victim, advocate and activist who has decided to raise their voice against corrupt practices.” Sicilia said, according to Mexico’s El Universal newspaper. “If something happens to us they are responsible.”
Coinciding with the beefed up security and threats to the caravan was the arrest of Father Tomás González, a migrant rights activist from Tenosique in the state of Tabasco, by the state police and military who argued that the activist was drunk. Rubén Figueroa, one of the priest’s companions, was also allegedly beaten in the face.
“We know what it is, but the bottom line is that you can’t be at peace in this country. There is no authority,” Sicilia said to El Universal. “Thank God we have professional bodyguards.”
While in Veracruz, Sicilia also defended the two so-called “Twitter terrorists”, María de Jesús Bravo Pagola and Gilberto Martínez, and demanded their release from custody. He condemned the classification of an offense that considers issuing a tweet the same as terrorism.
Photo: Sarihuella @ Flickr.
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Immigration Propaganda – Fueled by Ignorance
Do you ever wonder why US politicians seldom if ever criticize the Mexican government for anything? You know, that infamously corrupt Government to the south that in 2006 started a drug war that has murdered close to 40,000 of its own citizens?
Why do we rarely hear Washington criticize the Mexican Government for its failure to adequately provide for its own Mexican citizens? How about for its shared responsibility for the immigration nightmare that we face in the US today?
There is a reason that half of the people in Mexico are in poverty. It is about greed. There is a reason that Washington coddles the Mexican government. It is about greed. There is a reason that the Mexican undocumented cross our border. It is about greed. There is a reason that US taxpayers foot the bill for this failed immigration. It is about greed. There is a reason that Washington turns a blind eye to the entire situation. It is about greed.
Oil, trade, NAFTA and cheap labor are real important to the rich on both sides of the fence. It is so important that those rich (who run both governments) could care less about the average citizens of either country, let alone the Mexican poor or undocumented who are here.
Those very rich have us average Americans fighting about immigration. It is by design that we are fighting. The rich are extremely happy when we fight. As long as we are at each other’s throats and blaming the symptom (the undocumented) and not the cause (their greed) nothing will ever improve. Actually that is with the exception of their profit margins.
Their immigration propaganda is fueled by ignorance. They depend upon our ignorance to continue the status quo. The status quo is the decades of continuous fighting of the immigration left and immigration right. All that fighting, and lo and behold, little in Washington is ever done about it.
This form of the raping of the US taxpayers is no different than failed mortgages, failed health care, and our failing economy. The rich profit from these failures, and we pay the price.
Actually it is much more insidious because it involves the greed of the elite of two nations. It involves the raping of the good citizens of both nations. Most insidious of all is that it involves the purposeful use of propaganda to coerce the darkest anger of our country’s victims against the equally victimized citizens of our good neighbors to the south.
They and their propaganda have built and militarized a border wall between the good people of both countries. It is a wall built to protect their greed and to fortify their lies. It is wall built to keep the good people of both countries from knowing and loving each other.
This is lie that the rich hide behind. This is what puts their cronies into office. This is just as threatening to our country’s humanity as any terrorist’s plot.
We could bring the bi – national immigration scam to a halt if we can overcome our own ignorance.
http://twopesos-protestfortheundocumented.blogspot.com/2011_03_01_archive.html
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