As many as 1,000 activists from all
over Mexico took to the streets in Ciudad Juárez on June 10,
demanding an end to the violence that has plagued their city since
President Felipe Calderón took office in 2006.
The demonstrators marched down Avenida
Lerdo, a major street through the business center of Juárez, and
shut down traffic for around an hour and a half. They chanted in
Spanish: “Juárez is not a barracks! Get the Army out!” and “The
border united will never be defeated!”
Avenida Lerdo was once a thriving
business district, filled with quinceañera and bridal shops. Now,
seamstresses sew quietly inside empty stores. Many storefronts appear
abandoned. The remaining businesses struggle with the loss of
customers from the United States, because of spiraling violence in
the city and lengthy wait times at the border.
Pepe Ortiz, who came from Guanajuato to
attend the protest, said the chants reflected the people’s need for
change in their country.
“Vox
Populi es Vox Dei––the voice of the people is the voice of
God,” Ortiz said. “The people don’t scream just because. They
scream for something.”
When Felipe Calderón was elected
Mexican president, he declared a “war on drugs.” In Mexico, the
“war on drugs” is an actual, extremely violent war; over 34,000
people were murdered from the day Calderón took office until the end
of 2010.
In fact, the actual number is likely
much higher because thousands of missing people are not counted among
the dead. Meanwhile, new mass graves are a common discovery.
Part of an ongoing series of actions
The Juárez march was part of an
ongoing series of actions known as the “Hasta La Madre” protests,
roughly translating as “We have had enough.” It was also the last
stop on a peace caravan organized by Mexican poet Javier Sicilia,
whose son was killed by drug traffickers in March.
Families of victims of drug violence
traveled from all over Mexico to join the march.
The marchers gathered at the Monument
to Benito Juárez for the signing of the Citizens’ Pact of Juárez.
The pact, read by Sicilia, called for
“an immediate end to the strategy of war, the demilitarization of
the police force, the return of the army to its barracks and the
retirement of the military’s charter.”
About a hundred marchers from the U.S.
crossed the border to Juárez, now one of the most violent cities in
the world, to join the protest.
El Paso resident David McKenney said: “I hope this makes people realize
that these people don’t agree with the point of view of the federal
governments that the war on drugs is working, that they’re winning
some kind of war, and that it makes sense. This is the point––that
it’s gotta change.”
Juárez-based artist David Flores said
the fact that Americans marched across the bridge demonstrated that
the violence in Mexico affects both sides of the border.
“We need to show that Juárez and El
Paso are one community,” he said. “At the border, it’s almost
like living in both cities at the same time.”
Flores was not
optimistic about the prospects of the government changing its
policies as a result of the protest or the Citizen’s Pact.
“The government,
nothing. I believe they won’t do anything about it,” he said. “It’s
up to the people to do that.”
