Category: Paz y Seguridad

Mexico’s House of Deputies has brought the country to the cusp of a police state. The reform to the National Security Law now before the lower house would grant sweeping military powers to the executive and limit congressional oversight of domestic military activity. It would grant President Felipe Calderón the ability to effectively declare states of exception without congressional approval and unilaterally use the military against any group he deems to be a “threat to internal security.”

The clock on the Torre Latinoamericana strikes 5:00 on April 6 as the ragtag group that fills the esplanade of the Bellas Artes museum yells ‘No more blood!’ and ‘Down with Felipe Calderon!’. This is not a common place to begin a protest, but this march was called by poets and artists, friends, followers, and men and women who read the poems and articles of Javier Sicilia, who lost his son Juan Francisco Sicilia Ortega on March 28 in a shooting in Cuernavaca.

Thousands of Mexicans took to the streets last week to protest violence related to drug trafficking and the Mexican government’s inability or unwillingness to prevent it. U.S. and international activists who want to show solidarity with the people of Mexico must recognize that the most effective step we can take is to bring the war on drugs to an end.

In a startling and frank interview with La Jornada, General Villa Castillo, Torreon, Coahuila’s Director of Public Security, talked openly about his systematic use of brutal and extrajudicial drug war strategy.