Laura's Blog: In Ciudad Juarez, Protesting Violence Can Cost you Your Life

I´m in Ciudad Juárez now, here to talk about the drug war. Last night, the Federal Police shot a student participating in a march against violence. Jose Dario Alvarez is reported in serious but stable condition. El Diario de Juarez, the local paper we have written about before in this blog, has posted a video of the shooting. Young people are walking along the sidewalk, pick-up trucks filled with Federal Police armed with what appear to be assault rifles, troll the other side of the street. The shooting does not appear but people begin to scream, on cries out Dario´s name. The camera person rushes down the street and finds the wounded boy, inert in the street, his guts torn. In the last split second of the video someone flashes a handpainted sign with a single word painted on a red background--"justicia".

This is the opening scene of the conference against militarization starting today. The prologue--a week of intense violence in the city, including another youth massacre--had already given many involved in the conference more pause but more commitment to unite voices against what's happening here. The government keeps insisting that violence is a sign of success, most recently in the absurd statments of Blake Mora. But it doesn´t look like success to the people of Juárez. It looks like hell.

I will talk about the Merida Initiative today. I will talk about our new campaign to stop US funding for security forces and the failed drug war. I have a right as a political analyst and international affairs expert to say this. I have a duty as a mother to do what I can to stop the violence before it spreads. I am convinced that there are other, grassroots, non-violent ways to weaken organized crime and that under this model the cure (militarization) is worse or as bad as the disease.
Yesterday´s events only go to prove it.