Per la Pau / Peace in Progress

The Caravan for Peace - Justice and Dignity, a citizens' movement against drug-related violence led by the poet Javier Sicilia, travelled around three thousand kilometers in northern Mexico in July, from Cuernavaca in central Mexico, to Ciudad Juarez, the country's most violent city, on the border with the United States. The Caravan, which is supported by 180 social organizations, is seeking justice for the 35,000 victims of the drug war in the last five years and is demanding a change in the anti-drug strategy of Felipe Calderón's government, which is based on the deployment of 50,000 soldiers. The demonstrators' journey ended with the signing of a Partnership for Peace which among other things, demands demilitarisation, an end to corruption and impunity, the reconstruction of the social fabric and recovery of the memory of the victims.