Saturday, May 07, 2011

Remembering Rachel Hoffman: Third Anniversary

Today marks the third anniversary of the murder of Rachel Hoffman, a former SSDP member and 23 year old graduate of Florida State University. Rachel was murdered by two drug dealers after the Tallahassee Police Department pressured her to become an informant in an undercover sting operation, promising to keep her safe, only to lose track of her.

Despite only finding 4 ecstasy pills and a few ounces of marijuana in her home, the police department asked Rachel to purchase 1,500 ecstasy pills, 2 ounces of cocaine, and a handgun (which was contrary to department policy as it opened the opportunity for the suspected criminals to explain the presence of the gun), using $13,000 cash in a buy-bust operation. She was murdered with the very gun police had sent her to buy. Rachel's lawyer, family, or the state prosecutor were never informed about the operation and after her murder, the Tallahassee Police Department held a press conference to blame her for her own death.

Three years later, this tragic loss of life must serve as a reminder of the need for reform of drug policies nationwide. It must remind those in defense of such policies that they simply don't work. More than that, it must help us all to change our mindsets about the relationship between people and drugs. This drug war has grown so large and seemingly unstoppable that its supporters no longer seem to care about measuring it's success. Rachel was labeled as a being some sort of drug kingpin despite only a few ounces of marijuana being found in her home. Now she's gone and the two drug dealers that murdered her are behind bars for life. If the drug war works, and this is what is called success, then no one should be able to find and use marijuana in Florida anymore right? We all know that's not true.

Margie Weiss, Rachel's mom, fought hard for the introduction and passage of Rachel's Law to help prevent more young people from being taken advantage of by police as informants. The law passed in 2009 and established minimum standards that law enforcement must meet when dealing with informants. Under Rachel's Law, law enforcement must "take into account a person's age and maturity, emotional state and the level of risk a mission would entail." It also prohibits police from promising informers more lenient treatment. 

The Purple Hatters Ball, a music festival to benefit the Rachel Morningstar foundation and celebrate Rachel's life and energy is taking place next weekend in Live Oak, FL. Named after the bright purple top hat Rachel would wear to concerts, the festival features lots of great live music and embraces Rachel's passion for life.

We wish the best for the Hoffman family and thank them for their strength and determination to bring change to Florida's criminal justice system.

Wednesday, May 04, 2011

Somethin's Happenin' Here: Mexican Youth Congress Formulates Anti-Violence Strategy

You'd be forgiven for thinking that the center of the drug war exists in Washington, D.C. With all the bloviating, all the Congressional handwringing, all the dissimulating by the White House's Drug Czar, Gil Kerlikowske and all the hardheadedness of the DEA head Michelle Leonhart, the power of prohibition does seem to lie within the DC Beltway.

But what is going on in Cuernavaca, a city south of Mexico City? And how does it concern youth and students who oppose the drug war?

First, the context: in Cuernavaca, at March's end the son of a somewhat famous poet and writer -- Juan Francisco Sicilia, father Javier Sicilia -- died in despicable circumstances, along with six of his friends, all of whom were dumped in a car in Cuernavaca. In his anguished wrath, Javier Sicilia blamed Felipe Calderon's failure of a drug war. With 35,000 dead and his son and friends more statistics, Sicilia projected publicly a letter to the president which protested all violence, repeating time and again that they were all fed up with a type of imagination in public life that led only to death.

Sicilia soon commanded a massive social movement, whose first action, a march in Cuernavaca, attracted more people than at any time in its history. At the march, Sicilia called for national and international marches against violence and the drug war at the beginning of May.

A vibrant, viable social movement comprised of youth and students has emerged within this context. Last weekend, on 28 and 29 April, youth and students from all over Mexico convened an emergency national congress. In a post from the Americas MexicoBlog, on-the-ground-correspondents reported the proceedings and an outcome. What emerged was a complex document that defines what Mexican youth and students want from their government.

Among other things, the document demands reforms in the following areas:

  • Immediate Demilitarization: The War on Drugs is a War Against the People; Its US origins violate Mexican national solidarity; Youth have already won a major victory, curbing national military service and converting it to social service.

  • End the Violence and Impunity: The systemic violates human rights, and negatively affects women, young girls and boys, and youth.

  • Decriminalization of Drug Consumption: The drug war must be seen as a public health problem; legalization must be debated, and prohibition opposed as it enriches the political class and drug traffickers.

  • Lives with Dignity: Death lives among urban and rural marginalized populations, neoliberal policies have inflicted instability and misery in people's lives, making them move, making low-level drug trafficking a survival strategy.

  • Art and Culture for All: Decommodifying artistic and cultural expressions.

  • Education: Guaranteed access for all and policies that promote human liberation tied to creativity.

The Youth Declaration embraces a new type of anti-prohibition, an anti-violence strategy national in scope and local in significance. It defines the next steps to follow in order to secure the objectives, outlined above.

- Convene a plural, inclusive, democratic space to discuss and construct the proposal of our Pact for Rebuilding the Nation on May 9 at 10 in the morning at the Journalists’ Club (Club de Periodistas) in Mexico City

- Propose to the new forum that a national body be formed to struggle for Peace with Justice and Dignity

- Organize mobilizations at the headquarters of the institutions responsible for the war

- Occupy symbolic spaces and build organizing centers with regular activities that allow us to have a presence and be a point of reference in the fight for Peace with Justice and Dignity

- Build a strategy to consolidate this process we’ve begun today based on the following initiatives.

- Convene a national meeting in Ciudad Juarez within the framework of the Signing of the Pact, which would follow up on youth networking and organizing

- Convene Committees for Peace with Justice and Dignity in every school, neighborhood, community or work center

- Convene a second Youth Meeting for Sept. 1-3 at UNAM’s University City

- Pay homage to the children and mothers killed in the armed conflict on May 10 in Mexico City’s Zocalo

-National Art and Culture Festival for Peace in Mexico, along with a protest march

- Organize an international academic forum for discussion of the armed conflict and the social problem at its root.

No conclusion yet exists to summarize what is happening in Mexico. The Mexican population of various generations and in various parts of the country seems fed up with Washington's security discourse, promoted by the Calderon government. Something IS happening here. And what is happening stands directly in contrast to the drug war policy objectives of Barack Obama's government.

Monday, May 02, 2011

Better to Live: Mexicans Mobilize against the Drug War

The last few months have seen bodies heaped upon bodies in Mexico. In some cases, the heaping is quite literal: drug graves have been opened up in the northern Gulf state of Tamaulipas, the largest contained almost two hundred people. Authorities sent cadavers to Mexico City for identification by forensic specialists. Though killed by drug gangs, investigators in Tamaulipas suggest that the local police was complicit.

And yet the greatest outcry to this uptick in brutality came in the wake of the deaths of several teenagers in Cuernavaca, just south of Mexico City. Cuernavaca is known as the city of eternal spring, it has an enviable climate: spring, all year round, and is the second home for many Mexico City residents. It's now also known as the place where poet, writer, and journalist Javier Sicilia initiated protests against the Mexican government and its failed drug war policies. Why has Sicilia become an outspokent figurehead for pain? At the end of March, Sicilia had to confront that which all parents fear, the death of his son. Juanelo Sicilia and six other friends were found dead in a car near Cuernavaca, the result of drug war violence.

Deaths in Mexico attributed to the drug war now number 35,000 since 2006. Juanelo Sicilia and his friends are yet more grim statistics. Yet Javier Sicilia decided to use the deaths of his son, and those of his friends, to move people to protest the violence in Mexico, its scope, and President Felipe Calderon's inability to imagine his government acting in ways that do not heighten violence.

At the end of March Javier Sicilia convened a national series of marches. The Cuernavaca march ended up being the largest in the city's history. He also convened more marches for the week of 5 - 8 May. The second Cuernavaca march starts on 5 May and ends in Mexico City's main square, zocalo, on 8 May, a distance of almost 100kms. Many Mexican cities are participating, as are some foreign cities. You can find a list of registered marches, here.