Heart-to-Hearth on the Drug War
Margarita López begins to speak about the horrible events that marked the end of her daughter’s life in a low, even tone. Some 40 women in a plush Washington, D.C. meeting room listen silently as tears roll down their cheeks. López narrates how her 19-year-old daughter, Jahaira Guadalupe Vaena López, was abducted in Tlacolula, Oaxaca. [...]
Join the U.S. Caravan for Peace with Justice and Dignity!
Mexico’s Movement for Peace with Justice and Dignity set off from San Diego on August 12 to traverse the country with a message: To end the war on drugs in the U.S. and Mexico. The caravan description reads: “Led by the poet, Javier Sicilia, the caravan will meet with members of US society through dialogue [...]
Guatemalan Femicide: The Legacy of Repression and Injustice
One generally overlooked feature of the Guatemalan government and military’s 36-year (1960-96) genocidal counterinsurgency campaign against the country’s Mayan population is the strategy of targeting women with violence. Rape, mutilation, sexual slavery, forced abortion, and sterilizations were just some of the sadistic tools used in a systematic practice of state-sponsored terror to crush the surviving [...]
‘Dirty War’ Tactic of Disappearances Reappears in Mexico
The War on Drugs is becoming another “Dirty War” in Mexico, with the tactic of enforced disappearances reappearing as a commonplace occurrence in the country. “Enforced disappearances in Mexico have happened in the past and continue to happen today,” the UN Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances stated during a presentation of its findings [...]
Mexico’s False Dilemma: Human Rights or Security
Mexico is currently confronting a human rights crisis. Headlines document the overt violence that has claimed more than 50,000 lives since December 11, 2006 when President Felipe Calderón launched the war on drugs. Yet beneath the bloodshed, the erosion of the rule of law and the systematic violation of human rights in the context of [...]
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