Javier Sicilia, poet essayist from Cuernavaca, Mexico, held a peace rally in El Paso this summer. His criticisms of the Mexican government has grown stronger since the death of his son. He said, “I have begun to learn the names of the 40,000 dead, who died crying out for justice.”
Sicilla also placed some of the blame on the United States. The drug consumption of the States is the basic problem. The desire for drugs here is at the heart of this tragic situation.
Add to the mix, the United States provides weapons, meant to help, but only make the situation worse. Gun shows abound along the border. These gun sellers and their gaudy shows are legal, but deadly.
The rival gangs in Mexico are creeps who see only dollar signs. These “scum of the earth” Mexicans bandit-armies have proven that human life of their own people mean nothing to them. It is now an undeclared war. There is little prospect of it ending until the United States makes some sensible changes in the drug laws.
To have such a war right in our own back yard is not acceptable. But it goes on, just as it has for years. When it becomes personal, in the case of Javier Sicilla, we stand up and complain.
Add to the mix, the United States provides weapons, meant to help, but only make the situation worse. Gun shows abound along the border. These gun sellers and their gaudy shows are legal, but deadly.
Oscar Menendez, filmmaker and friend of Sicllia, says: “he is very hurt by the death of is son.” Mexico. Like the States have had many protests and marches , but they soon fade away. Menendez, however is on record as saying, “I think this one will be different. We’re in it for the long fight. Javier is not going to drop this.”
A poet has a way of touching the hearts of the people. He can put the problem in a context for thinking people, on both sides of the border, to get serious about this war.
To bring us up to date, last March Sicilia’s 24-year-old son, Juan Francisco, and six of his friends were killed by drug cartel criminal goons in Cuernavaca.
The local police have little power in this war. The Army has come and only made things worse. The evident corruption of government institutions makes it difficult for anyone trying to live a normal life.
Sicllia, in his letter to the government, trys to get the point across that the obsnece number of deaths has become an epidemic in the countryside.
In Mexico City’s main square over 90,000 people gathered to protest the inaction of government to the crisis. Mexico President Felipe Calderon has a lot to answer for. It is said that Ciudad Juarez alone has had 9,000 killed since 2007.
In Juarez, just across the little stream known as the Rio Grande, El Paso slumbers in peace. The Texas city is safe from the slaughter because it makes a good transfer point and does not upset the local government. Washington, DC. Is a long ways away.
To be so close to a war should be unnerving, but it does not seem to strike a cord of care. To just blame El Paso is wrong, for San Angelo is not all that far from the Rio Grande. The Texas-Mexico border is long and what hurts on one side affects the other side.
Austin is closer than the politicians realize. They need to wake up to the realities of war next door. When we “Remember the Alamo,” be good to recall who won the battle in that little mission in San Antonio.
Poets are naïve.
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