Collateral Damage of Whack-a-mole: Tired of violence, Mexicans ready for mass protests

AFP: Tired of violence, Mexicans ready for mass protests: "The murder of a well-known author's son in Mexico's out-of-control drug war has become a key catalyst for organizing nationwide protests set for Wednesday against crime and violence.

Juan Francisco Sicilia, 24, was found dead in a car along with four close friends on March 28 near Cuernavaca, 90 kilometers (55 miles) south of Mexico City. Police also found the bodies of two close relatives of one of Sicilia's slain friends nearby.

Police said they found a message in the car signed CDG -- the initials of the Gulf drug cartel organization.
Juan Francisco was the son of Javier Sicilia, a poet and columnist for the daily La Jornada and the weekly Proceso, two of the country's leading publications.

The senior Sicilia was out of the country at the time of the killings, and called for the protests as soon as he returned to Mexico. 'We are sick and tired of you politicians... because in your struggle for power you have torn asunder the fabric of the nation,' Sicilia wrote in an open letter released Monday....

In an interview with the daily La Reforma, Sicilia said it was time for the government to negotiate with the country's leading drug cartels.

Mexico has to live with the drug traffickers, he said. If the government "is not conducting the war successfully, then let's go for negotiations. Wars end in agreements, after all... and this is going to end in a pact, sooner or later," Sicilia said.

Why, he asked, does Mexico have to "protect the back" of the United States, a country "that is not helping us at all.""