10 Years After the Movement for Peace and Mexico Is Still Plagued by Crime

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Sunday, March 28th, marked the tenth anniversary of the Mexican Movement for Peace with Justice and Dignity. The founder of the movement, poet Javier Sicilia, accused the Mexican president of not acting on the commitments he assumed regarding violence in Mexico. 

In Proceso Magazine of Mexico, Jaime Luis Brito reported that thousands of victims of crime had hoped that their president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, would go through with the promises he made during his electoral campaign. Javier Sicilia said in an interview that “the contempt he has shown since he came to power has made it clear to us that the Mexican State is captured by crime. They, the politicians, are at the service of organized crime.”

Sicilia is a poet and founder of the Movement for Peace which occurred spontaneously on March 28th, 2011, in Cuernavaca after his son Juan Francisco was found dead in a car among others. Sicilia soon realized that he was not the only one suffering from such a loss; in fact, thousands of Mexican families had lost a loved one due to violence. The poet explained that naturally they were filled with rage, but the “Movement for Peace transformed that pain, that anger, into action and proposals,” he said. The movement fights for six main proposals: truth and justice, ending war and changing the focus towards security, combating corruption and impunity, combating the economic roots of crime organizations, paying attention to the youth, and repairing democratic participation. 

Since its inception, the movement was able to promote Mexico’s Victim’s Law which in turn created the Comisión Ejecutiva de Atención a Víctimas. Once López Obrador came to office, however, the trust fund meant to keep the commission alive suddenly disappeared, leading to its finalization. Javier Sicilia said, “Now it is the feminist movement that can articulate other demands to achieve the true transformation of the country. That or Mexico has no future.”