The Narco News Bulletin

Javier Sicilia Proposes the Legalization of Drugs, Not Impunity for Criminals

The Mexican Journalist and Poet Who Has Sparked a Mass National Protest Has a Solution to the "War on Drugs"

By José Gil Olmos
Proceso

April 6, 2011
This report appears on the internet at http://www.narconews.com/Issue67/article4351.html

CUERNAVACA, Mor., 5 de abril (apro).- Author Javier Sicilia says that his statements about establishing a pact with narco-trafficking were not well understood.

He said that such a pact would not come at this moment, but, rather, once drugs are legalized and their consumption will be treated as a public health matter.

In a brief declaration sent to the media, the poet and collaborator of Proceso, Javier Sicilia - whose son Juan Francisco was assassinated with six others on March 28 - said that if we don't want to make such pacts then there will have to be "pacts of honor" so that the civilian population isn't touched and the prisoners of the gangs should be treated according to human rights standards.

"My statements about a pact with narco-trafficking, as tends to occur in such a tense world and distorted by political interests, were not well understood. When I referred to a pact, I referred precisely to the fact that narco-trafficking has existed for a long time in our country. It is part of our life. However, since the war was unleashed as a means to exterminate it, the US, which is the grand consumer of these toxic substances, has not done anything to support us.

"The weapons that are arming organized crime and are killing our kids, our soldiers, our police, come from the US and they are not doing anything to stop them. These guns are maybe worse than any kind of drug, they are powerful, terrible and widespread," said Sicilia.

He asked that "if the US doesn't prosecute and put a stop to its arms industry - a legalized horror - why should we prosecute the producers of the drugs?"

This was the context of the pact he proposed: "We have to subject them to the ferocious laws of the market and treat their consumption as a public health matter and come to fundamental agreements with those who are in the black market that send the drugs to the US. The problem of their consumption is theirs, not ours. It doesn't reach the Mexican public, nor its youth, nor its young children.

If they don't want to create those pacts, sooner or later when we are tired of assassinating each other, of planting horror, it will end up being done. We have to then have pacts of honor: that the civilian population won't be touched, that innocents won't be assassinated and that the prisoners of gangs in conflict must be treated according to human rights standards."

Finally, in his brief message, he insisted that "It is now a necessity that can't be postponed, to find a way that brings us peace and the reconstruction of the dignity of the nation."

Meanwhile, at a press conference, the organizers of the national march for peace, that will take place Wednesday afternoon, informed that there will be demonstrations in at least fifteen cities.

At press time, mobilizations were confirmed, at the same hour, in Ciudad Juárez, Monterrey, Saltillo, Manzanillo, Guadalajara, Aguascalientes, San Luis Potosí, Guanajuato, Puebla, Xalapa, Mérida, Cancún, Torreón, Mexico City, and here in Cuernavaca.

Last weekend, the writer Javier Sicilia called for a national protest march after the assassination of seven people in Temixco, among them his son, Juan Francisco. The organizers said that the response as grown and now includes protests at the Mexican consulates in France, the US, Chile and Argentina.

According to the organizers, among them the Independent Commission on Human Rights of Morelos, the expression of "¡Ya basta!" ("Enough Already!") of the assassination of innocents amidst the war against narco-trafficking is an expression that is shared throughout the entire country, as the climate of violence has grown at a grave rate without any possibility that it will lead to a period of peace.

They said they had also received support from non-governmental organizations of many regions of the country: unions, professional associations, universities and citizens who have been affected by the violence.

The demonstration in Cuernavaca will arrive at the municipal Plaza of Arms, in front of the Government Palace of the State. There will be stops at the gates of the 24th Military Base, where they will demand the withdrawal of the Army from the streets, and at the state Attorney General's office, which is investigating the multi-homicide and more than a week since the act has not offered positive results, as well as at the offices of the state Governor and Congress.