López narrates how her 19-year-old daughter, Jahaira Guadalupe Vaena López, was abducted in Tlacolula, Oaxaca. She describes her efforts to get the authorities to investigate the crime, how she was warned not to press the matter, how informants told her that her daughter was murdered in a turf battle between fractured drug gangs. Just days before leaving for the United States with the Caravan for Peace, she faced one of the assassins who had been apprehended and listened as he described in detail how her daughter was raped and beheaded.

Margarita has joined some 50 grieving family members to accompany caravan leader Javier Sicilia on a trip across the United States. Sicilia, a poet who lost his son to drug war violence in March of 2011, catalyzed a movement of victims and Mexican citizens fed up with the bloodshed that has claimed more than 60,000 lives and left tens of thousands more disappeared since former President Felipe Calderon launched the drug war five years ago.

Mexico’s Movement for Peace with Justice and Dignity decided to organize the U.S. caravan after taking two caravans from Mexico City–one north to Ciudad Juarez on the U.S. border, and one south to the border with Guatemala. Both drew out victims of the drug war and registered their cases to provide support for family members seeking justice and solace.

The decision to take their pain across the border came after discussion with the San Francisco-based group Global Exchange. Soon a coalition came together that included Law Enforcement Against Prohibition, the Latin American Working Group, the RFK Center, the Washington Office on Latin America, our CIP Americas Program, the Drug Policy Alliance, and the National Alliance of Latin American and Caribbean Communities, among the key players. The coalition later expanded to include the NAACP, and local organizations in each of the cities along the route.

A binational meeting in June defined five demands of the U.S. caravan: to open public debate on humane alternatives to drug prohibition, to ban the import of assault weapons and crack down on illegal gun smuggling over the border, to combat money-laundering with full investigation and strict enforcement, to suspend all aid to the Mexican armed forces and end the war on drugs abroad, and to halt the militarization of the border and criminalization of migrants.

I joined the caravan on the final east coast leg of its 6,000-mile trip. I had heard most of the stories before in Mexico, having accompanied the northern caravan and numerous marches and meetings.

I was curious to see the impact on people in the United States. As the women in the room told their stories, each one struck like a cold blade in the heart. Although women are a minority of the war’s deaths, attacks on women usually include brutal sexual violence, and women make up the majority of those actively seeking justice and an end to the war.

Along the route, caravan members like these women have become confident and eloquent spokespersons to end the drug war. They speak from the heart and appeal to the heart. Their empowerment as leaders is one of the most important achievements of the caravan. Another is the sympathy and outrage their testimonies evoke.

And it’s not a one-way street. Caravan members also listened to the stories of U.S. citizens. Like Kimberly Armstrong in Baltimore, whose 16-year-old son was shot and killed by a 14-year-old in endemic drug violence. Or Carole Eady, who struggled her way out of the stigma and life disruption of imprisonment for a drug offense in New York City.

The threads begin to come together. In her brilliant book The New Jim Crow, Michelle Alexander notes that in Washington, D.C., the caravan’s last stop, it’s estimated that three out of four black men can expect to serve time in prison. She calls this mass incarceration of black people a new racial caste, the latest Jim Crow system of social control, where young black men and women are jailed, stigmatized, and in many cases disenfranchised for life by discriminatory drug laws.

Based on the shared sorrow of losing loved ones to jail, violence, death, or disappearance, Mexicans and Americas found they fight the same unjust system of social control of the poor and people of color. The drug war generates profits for the defense industry and siphons public funds into perpetuating itself. It rips apart families and communities, north and south of the border. The bogus attempt to eliminate rather than regulate something in great demand creates a multibillion-dollar black market run by groups that become more violent as they are selectively attacked. It pits security forces against the public, providing them with the tools to violate human rights and life with impunity. It erodes democracy and the rule of law it purports to uphold.

Whether it’s through imposing a military/police state in Mexico or shunting youth into the margins of society, the drug war machine runs on the human lives it destroys.

A binational peace movement?

The caravan’s call to end the drug war resonated in city after city. But has the caravan forged a binational movement for peace?

Not yet. As the Mexican caravaners go back home, their U.S. hosts return to daily life. Many will simply guard the memory of Mexico’s pain and begin to read the news a little differently.

But others will act. The Peace Caravan has already achieved something remarkable. It brought together groups in U.S. cities that scarcely knew each other before. Some community organizers in the scores of cities from San Diego to the nation’s capital plan to continue the dialogue with the Mexican movement and among themselves.

In New York City, the Latino and African-American communities plan a meeting to discuss the impact of mass arrests and detention. In Baltimore, the movement to block construction of yet another multimillion-dollar prison in one of the nation’s most economically devastated cities is making common cause with movements for drug policy reform, racial justice, and youth rights.

In Texas, faith-based organizations advocating stricter enforcement of gun laws are intensifying their campaign against gun show sales and arms smuggling after seeing close up the human cost of the flow of guns to Mexico. In Arizona, human rights organizations working against the militarization of the border and the death and detention of migrants came face-to-face with activists protesting Mexico’s militarized drug war in a cross-border reflection. In Washington, members of Congress received caravan lobbyists whose power to convince came not from money or influence, but from human empathy and reason.

The way many U.S. citizens understand the drug war has changed through meeting the Mexicans who bear the brunt of it. While U.S. politicians and media portray it as a necessary fight against the threat that organized crime supposedly poses to national security in both countries, the victims spoke of the violence that resulted from the war on drugs itself. Audiences and congressional representatives were surprised to learn that many of the victims on the caravan accused not gangs but the U.S.-funded Mexican police and military for the murder or disappearance of their loved ones.

Organizers now face the question of how the moral victory can lead to a political one. On the drug policy front, U.S. society seems to be moving toward a tipping point despite push-back from law enforcement and private prison interests that make big money off incarceration, as well as from politicians who convert insecurity into “law and order” votes. A recent poll shows Colorado could legalize marijuana in the November elections after a similar measure narrowly lost in California. The award-winning film The House I Live In presents a stunning indictment of the domestic drug war through the words of its enforcers, its participants, and its victims.

But the federal government continues to be on the wrong side of the trend. Some hope that President Obama, if he is reelected, could make bolder moves toward reorienting a policy that imprisons so many mostly African-American youths and costs the nation $51 billion a year, according to the DPA. I’m inclined to agree with a LEAP editorial that warns the reform movement to watch the actions, not the rhetoric, of the Obama administration. It will take a stronger push from constituents to get the administration to take on the interests that benefit from sustaining America’s longest war.

Moral victories plant seeds that are often slow to bear fruit. Evaluating the experience on the last morning in a church hall, exhausted caravan members saw a mix of catharsis and consciousness-raising that gave them strength. Lopez noted that the “the tragedy I’m living through can be useful to a lot of people.” Melchor Flores, whose son was arrested in January of 2009 in Monterrey and never seen again, stated that the caravan had “touched consciences”.

He added, “Wherever my son is, he should be satisfied because he knew I wouldn’t let him down.”

Teresa Carmona, a tiny, white-haired woman whose son Joaquin was murdered in Mexico City, has become a powerful voice before the public and the media. She believes the caravan met its goal.

“We brought the faces of our beloved children, parents, and relatives all the way here, and so we legitimated this pain and this reality.”

In the nation that first invented the drug war and exported it to their country with deadly results, the Mexican bereaved have left a mark in the hearts of thousands of men and women. Sometimes it takes tragedy to make change. The cumulative histories recounted in the peace caravan represent a tragedy of mammoth proportions.

That should be more than enough to act on.

AUTHOR: Laura Carlsen
URL: www.cipamericas.org and http://americasmexico.blogspot.com
E-MAIL: lecarlsen [at] gmail.com

Forming a coalition government and being the 35the Prime minister of Nepal, Baburam showed immense hope to the public in taking the country towards the path of development. Making people believe of finding a solution to the peace process and the constitution was a point of understanding.

His appointment in post expected a certain level of political morality and ethics that certainly seems to stretch with the outcry of publicity and marketing strategy that has been adapted and practiced. The lack of political understanding and the gaps between the political parties certainly shows the bad example of political culture and its practice in Nepal.

The Peace process and constitution seems to be in a pendulum state which searches its definition among the intrinsic factor that influences and manipulates it identity at times of need or else it’s just there to hold its position for the recognition.

Constitution Making: Constitution making process has been a joke from the past 3 years where the chairman of the Constitution Assembly Subash Nembang fails to recognize the importance of time validation and believes in extension of the Constitution Assembly again and again. What can we expect from leaders like this? Searching solution for the stalled Constitution in the area conflict, public memorandum is the best possible solution but it seems the Nepali Constitution Assembly (CA) Law Makers and political parties are scared that their regular income will be curbed. Legally Law makers earn NRS 60,000 (USD 800) per month officially excluding perks so one can imagine the level of income that they are enjoying.

Peace Process: Looking at it from an expert’s point of view, peace process is like the middle point of a stoppage. All the parties and law makers talk about Peace and how it should be managed but when it comes to the management and table’s things don’t work. Reality is peace process is agreed upon the points of agreement and terms of reference that are signed to make government but when it comes to action bad political practices rules in. The coalition government was formed to solve the peace process but it’s so happening that peace process seems to be the greatest hindrance for the current government.

Moving forwards with the peace process seven teams of 210 surveyors have been set up for the categorization of 19,000 Maoist combatants. They are expected to complete the categorization process by November 28, where at policy level things seem unclear. On Sunday Maoist Chairman Pushpa Kamal Dahal reached Bardiya accompanied by UML leader Bamdev Gautam and NC leader Krishna Prasad Sitaula to direct his party cadres to return land seized during the insurgency to their rightful owners, but returned Kathmandu without giving unambiguous directives to the cadres in this regard. Some of the party cadres had also threatened to retaliate if the properties were returned to the owners forcefully.

It is estimated that the United Communist Parties of Nepal (Maoist) has captured around 2,000 bighas of private and public land in Bardiya. According to the district administration office, 242 families have registered complaints about seizure of land by the Maoists.

In 2010 the UN had rehabilitated over 4,000 disqualified combatants, including child soldiers. These combatants disqualified by the United Nations Mission in Nepal during the 2007 verification of the Maoist army have frequently expressed their dissatisfaction over their rehabilitation.

Amid lack of political modality and culture, Nepal political situation lies in a rest situation pointing figures at each other. Political leaders getting rich and famous and political agendas lacking recognition is a question of where we are moving. The definite solution to any problem can be done if there is an effort to solve but when there is no effort there is no solution.

AUTHOR: Shreedeep Rayamajhi
URL: http://www.shreedeeprayamajhi.blogspot.com
E-MAIL: weaker41 [at] gmail.com

The Malaysian government’s response to Saturday’s protest drew widespread international criticism. Police baton charges and tear gas were used to disperse the crowd leading to scores injured, the death of one activist and nearly 1,700 arrests. Even voices within the Prime Minister’s own party UMNO (the United Malays National Organization) have criticized Prime Minister Najib’s handling of the affair. Of these the highest ranking is outspoken Deputy Prime Minister Datuk Saifuddin Abdullah, who has argued that the Prime Minister is likely to suffer a political backlash from the rally. Indeed most commentators now think that an early election is less likely. While another election does not have to take place until 2013 many suspected that Prime Minister Najib (who was deputy Prime Minister at the last elections in 2008) might seek to capitalize on the success of the ruling Barisan Nasional in elections earlier this year in the state of Sarawak.

Given the range of legislative mechanisms at the UMNO’s disposal, its huge coffers and patronage network, and its essential control of the mainstream media it always seems incredulous that UMNO leaders are so fearful of an opposition that lacks institutional capacity and financial strength. UMNO after all has over 3 million members across the country, a figure that easily dwarfs the membership of any other political or civil society organization. Historically UMNO was able to craft a 14 party coalition largely by co-opting opposition parties. After all Gerakan was once an important ‘foe’ on the island of Penang and even the Islamic part PAS was briefly part of the coalition in the 1970s. And yet increasingly the government’s response to any opposition has been marked by overkill.

Besides the Bersih rally, another vivid example of this has been in the reaction to the satirical cartoonist Zulkiflee Anwar Haque (better known as Zunar). Zunar has long parodied the government, and more recently the Prime Minister and his wife, in his cartoons which have appeared in newspapers, magazines, books, and more recently on the website of the independent news service Malaysiakini. Last year in June a book of his cartoons was banned and in September he was arrested for sedition accused with producing material that was both “detrimental to public order” and which could “influence people to revolt against government policies”. While Prime Minister Najib clearly is ‘not amused’ his increasing use of repression and overt and heavy-handed manipulation of the mechanisms of electoral authoritarianism risks stripping away the veneer of democracy that Malaysia has maintained successfully since the 1980s. In so doing he risks undermining the legitimacy that this has accorded among Malaysia’s ‘silent majority’ and making the regime more fragile than it was. By trying to crack a proverbial walnut with a sledgehammer Najib may actually create an even greater challenge both to his rule, and to the Barisan Nasional coalition that has ruled Malaysia for over 50 years. A pressure cooker that doesn’t let off steam will inevitably explode.

On a separate, but related note, Zunar was in the United States this week to collect an award from The Cartoonists Rights Network for Courage in Editorial Cartooning.

AUTHOR: Dr. Jason Abbott
URL: http://profjabbott.blogspot.com
E-MAIL: jason.abbott [at] louisville.edu

Abu Aita said: “The Egyptian Independent Union Federation has a very clear position and that is one of solidarity with the Palestinian Arab people, support for their right to a state in the whole of their land and support for their right to use all forms of resistance against the Zionist state. The EIUF announces its rejection of all forms of normal relations with the racist, settler Zionist state and we will not co-operate with any of its official or trade union bodies because they are all connected to the Zionist occupation of our land. It is impossible for us to work with this racist regime, and it is vital to build a movement of humanity which aims to get rid of racist regimes against the world, just as we got rid of the Apartheid regime in South Africa.

The Egyptian revolution opened the door wide for our people to express their rejection of the Zionist state. From the beginning, the revolution has worked in the interests of the Palestinians, by stopping the export of Egyptian gas to the Zionists, and opening the border crossings. Egyptian youth besieged the embassy of our enemy and demanded the expulsion of the ambassador.

We reject any relationship with the Histadrut because it is part of this racist regime. We call on all friendly unions to boycott the Histadrut as part of the campaign to get rid of racist regimes all over the world.”

Omar Barghouti, one of the founders of the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI), said:

“The support of the Egyptian independent unions, represented by their federation, for the Palestinian Boycott Campaign is a source of pride for us, just as we are proud of Egypt’s leadership in the march of freedom from imperialism both old and new. We look forward to the return of the spirit to the all the Arab peoples struggling for freedom and social justice, and to break away of dependency on imperialist domination.”

AUTHOR: Hossam el-Hamalawy
URL: http://www.arabawy.org
E-MAIL: hossam [at] arabawy.org