U.S.-Mexico Drug War: López Obrador Rejects Appeal from Javier Sicilia to Change Strategy; Sicilia Calls Response "Fatal" and "Small"

Proceso: Jaime Luis Brito

The poet Javier Sicilia described as "fatal" and "misleading" the response of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador to his demand for a new strategy to face the insecurity and violence that plague the country.

“He banalizes an argument that he has misread. He is reading the reality of the country badly and that makes him small,” said the activist.

This past Sunday's edition [of the print magazine] Proceso published a third public letter from Sicilia to López Obrador, in which he announces he would undertake a "walk" [march] to the National Palace to demand a new strategy. President López Obrador [aka AMLO] responded that he respects the protest, but warned that there will be no change in strategy “because we are not going to return to the past ”, referring to the measures [use of the military directly against the cartels] applied by the governments of Felipe Calderón [Dec. 1, 2006- Nov. 30, 20012] and Enrique Peña Nieto [Dec. 1, 2012- Nov. 30, 20018].

In an interview on Monday, the founder of the Movement for Peace with Justice and Dignity [MPJD], lamented the president's response and warned: “

We are going to walk, we are going. If they receive us, it's good, if not, that's okay, too. In the end, the one who is going to have go on carrying hell, the one who is going to have to assume Mexico's reality is him. We will carry out our call.”

The poet denied that his proposal is a call is to divide the country.

MV Note: On social media a significant part of the response to his letter charges that, by criticizing AMLO, he is making himself an instrument of the reactionary right, while others support him, based on his past leadership of the MPJD.

“Our agenda is unity. It is not against Andrés Manuel, it is not against his government. On the contrary, it is to remind him of his commitment. We have the moral authority to remind him that he has not fulfilled his commitment” he said.

MV Note: López Obrador's commitment was made on Sept. 14, 2018, at a Second Dialogue for Peace, Truth and Justice, to collaborate with citizen groups representing victims to design a thorough program of transitional justice that would make clear who, including those in the military and government, are responsible for the carnage. 

“Our agenda, our positioning, our call is unity. It is not against López Obrador, it is not to return to the past, it is to rescue the future, to save this country. The massacres continue, the violence continues and the strategy is clearly not working. We don't have time, we have to act now and, as the leader of this country he is the main person responsible.” he said.

He also said that the march he will lead, that he called for in the letter, has no date as of yet. He said he will wait because "there is a lot of noise, a lot of movement." He said he

“will wait for the nation to be receptive, for the political class to be more receptive, so that then they will listen to us, so that the future of this nation, of this people can be rescued.”

Sicilia also responded to the disqualification of his proposed walk by Father Alejandro Solalinde, who, on his Twitter account this morning, wrote regarding the poet's letter:

“Javier Sicilia is my friend, an excellent poet, but lousy as a politician. It is unfortunate that he has left his Movement in difficult times [Sicilia retired from leadership of the Movement in the fall of 2012 after devoting himself to it full time for a year-and-a-half.]. It is unfortunate that he (is) opposed to the regime [the López Obraor government] that fights for peace as an outcome of justice. This time I will not go with him.”

MV Note: Alejandro Solalinde is a Mexican Catholic priest and activist who defends the human rights of migrants. He is coordinator of the Pastoral Ministry for Human Mobility for the South Pacific region of Mexico [states of Oaxaca, Chiapas and Guererro] of the Mexican Episcopate. He is also director of the Hermanos en el Camino (Brothers on the Way) shelter in Ixtepec, Oaxaca, which provides comprehensive humanitarian assistance and counsel to migrants from Central and South America on their way to the United States.

He has publicly condemned the abuses committed against undocumented Latin American migrants for which he has been threatened on several occasions by criminal groups that profit from the clandestine businesses of trafficking in people, weapons and organs. He was an active participant in the caravans of the MPJD across Mexico in 2011. In December 2012, he was awarded the National Human Rights Prize by then Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto . In 2019, he was awarded the Dutch Geuzenpenning Award recognizing defenders of democracy and human rights. He supports the López Obrador government. 

The poet regretted the reaction and replied: 

“What a pity that (Solalinde) has lost his moral position. Morality must confront power, though not overdo it. It must be done so that power does not go astray, so that it does not neglect its commitments. It's a shame.

“I hope he manages to rescue the moral man he has been, the one who has always defended the weak, the most vulnerable in this country and in these lands, the most hurt. Hopefully instead of being on the side of power, he will recover his authority and his place along side the most hurt.”

Spanish original