Last week I talked to Javier Sicilia, the former poet who became a prominent human rights activist in the wake of his son Francisco’s tragic assassination. Mr. Sicilia has been able to mobilize at least a part of Mexican civil society in a way other recent movements could not: he had personal meetings with president Calderón and party leaders, and managed to organize several relatively large protest marches in recent months.
Sicilia and his new ‘Movimiento Por la Paz con Justicia y Dignidad’ (Movement for Peace with Justice and Dignity) so far has been able to capture at least partly the attention of the nation’s public servants: the public apology made last week by prominent members of the legislature for the sluggish pace in which important reforms in Mexico are moving through the legislature is, in fact, a feat rarely seen since Calderón took office in 2006.
One of Sicilia’s principal goals is to stop the militarization of the country. His movement feels that, by employing thousands of soldiers in 2006 to fight organized crime, the Calderón-administration has led the country into a fight it cannot win, where citizens have become trapped in the crossfire between violent organized crime groups and a law enforcement effort unable to contain the violence. Thousands of serious allegations of human rights violations by the military fuelled this discontent and caused both Sedena (National Defense Secretariat) and Semar (Navy) to lose its traditionally solid public support.
Javier Sicilia’s demands are valid and need to be taken seriously by the Mexican government. There is, however, one problem that his movement might encounter in the future. The Movement for Peace with Justice and Dignity has become an umbrella for a great many social movements, all with their own complaints and demands. Support for his cause comes from disenchanted farmers from Mexico State, women’s rights organizations from Chihuahua, environmental activists from Chiapas and traditional pressure groups such as the Zapatist Army of National Liberation (EZLN) and unions.
One of the groups supporting Sicilia is the now autonomous community of Cherán, in Michoacán state. Since April this year, the (mostly indigenous) inhabitants of Cherán have risen in resistance to the destruction of their environment by illegal logging, which is allegedly sponsored by regional organized crime. When I visited Cherán one week ago, locals implored the federal government to send troops. Perhaps their most serious complaint wasn’t the presence of soldiers, it was actually the absence of the military.
Whether or not the citizens of Cherán are fully aware of Javier Sicilia’s demands with regard to the military is unclear (communication with the outside world has been limited since the town rose in arms), but their interests seem to be wildly different. This might pose a problem if Sicilia’s movement is starting to achieve real results: for Cherán, recalling the military is not in their interest. I have seen and heard several examples of this problem over the last few months: even though the general consensus amongst civil rights groups in Mexico is that the federal government and congress aren’t doing their job the way they should, the preferred outcome of protests can be quite different, sometimes even contradictory.
We must of course not forget that Javier Sicilia has only been around for a few months as an activist. His organization has barely been founded but has already risen to a prominence few other groups in the country could dream of. In such a short time, organizing and attending such a broad palette of voices and demands is not an easy thing to do. Sicilia should, however take his time to recognize the wildly different interests he currently represents, and at some point will have to present all of his followers’ wishes and complaints.
If he doesn’t, discontent within the ranks of the Movement for Peace with Justice and Dignity looms dangerously at the horizon. Mexico unfortunately has a tradition of social movements burning out as easily as they flare up, making any real change in the country a difficult and slow process. Sicilia seems to be achieving real results and even managed to pull some concessions out of the high-profile meetings he’s had in the past few weeks. It is in everyone’s interest that he maintains this momentum, making it equally important that he presents not only his own wishes, but also those of other movements that back him, contradictory as they might be with his own demands.