User:NadineH1234/Anti-Drug War protests set to continue in Mexico
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{{Mexico}} {{date|May 13, 2011}}
Image: Senate of México.
Over 20,000 protestors were drawn into the streets of Mexico City on Sunday May 8, to protest the US-backed war on drugs, which has claimed some 38,000 Mexican lives since its implementation by Mexican President Felipe Calderón in 2006.
Demonstrators demanded government officials sign a national pact that included "demanding an end to the strategy of war," removal of corruption from all three levels of government in less than six months, and the quick solving of several notable high-profile cases.
This issue is on-going and the protest leader and popular poet Javier Sicilia, has made public his plans for a second protest on June 10, in the violence plagued city of Ciudad Juarez which shares a border with El Paso, Texas.
Mexican President Felipe Calderón has deployed some 50,000 troops to the nation's trouble spots since he began a crackdown on cartels shortly after taking office in December 2006.
Sicilia’s son is amongst the casualties of the Mexican government’s drug war, the 24-year-old was found dead on March 28, crammed into a car with six other bodies. He is believed to have been killed by a drug-cartel related gang.
Sicilia has become one of the loudest critics of Calderon's approach, voicing his concerns of deep corruption within the police force.
"There are good people in the army, but the structures of the institutions are very bad. The police are not carrying out justice," he said at last weekend's march.
Authorities’ exhumed 4 pits or mass graves, over the past month in the Northern Mexican state of Tamaulipas. These pits contained a total of 183 bodies; all but three are yet to be identified. Families of missing persons are coming forward and offering DNA samples in an attempt to identify the bodies found.
After the discovery of the most recent mass graves, 16 police officers were detained under suspicion of involvement. Many newspapers on the Tamaulipas side have almost stopped covering drug-related violence entirely for fear of repercussions.
Category:North America
Category:Politics and conflicts
Category:Crime and law
Category: Mexico
Category:UoW student
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Sources[edit]
- The CNN Wire Staff. "Mexican poet plans Juarez march as more troops head to border" — CNN, May 13, 2011
- Michael Deibert. "Mexican border region lives in fear amid drug cartel war" — The Daily Star, May 13, 2011
- Molly Molloy. ""A War on Civilians": Mexico’s Drug War Draws Protests as Grueling Death Toll Grows" — Democracy Now, May 11, 2011