The event is to magnify their call for action from the governments of both the United States and Mexico to stop the failed war on drugs.
WHAT: The National Alliance of Latin American & Caribbean Communities (NALACC) and their allies aboard the Caravan for Peace with Justice and Dignity are coming together for a peace procession in Washington, D.C. on Wednesday Sept. 12, 2012 to magnify their call for action from both the U.S. and Mexican governments to stop the failed war on drugs that has killed more than 60,000 people in Mexico since December 2006. Washington, D.C. is the final stop of this broad binational coalition traveling the United States from coast to coast for a month raising awareness on the human costs of the war on drugs and the social disasters caused by violence in Mexico and in the United States.
The Caravan offers five solutions to stop the violence and its ramifications in Mexico and the United States: the exploration of alternatives to drug prohibition; a halt to the illegal smuggling of weapons across the border to Mexico; concrete steps to combat money laundering; the immediate suspension of U.S. assistance to Mexico’s armed forces; and an end to the criminalization of immigrants.
WHO: NALACC, along with other 100 U.S. civil society organizations, has formed an alliance with Mexico’s Movement for Peace with Justice and Dignity (MPJD), co-led by Mexican poet and activist Javier Sicilia, on the Caravan as a sign of solidarity with Mexicans as well as a way to share its “Somos” / “We Are” initiative, which mirrors the same goal: to humanize the debate of policies that directly affect the immigrant communities in the United States.
WHEN: Wednesday Sept. 12, 2012
WHERE: Washington, D.C.
SCHEDULE:
5:30 PM: Procession meets at St. Stephen and the Incarnation Episcopal Church, 1525 Newton Street Northwest
6:30 PM: Procession begins from St. Stephen’s and proceeds down 16th Street Northwest toward Meridian Hill/Malcolm X Park
7:30-9:00 PM: Music and Caravan for Peace closing at Meridian Hill/Malcolm X Park, 16th St. and Euclid St. NW
Please click here for procession route
WHY: The war on drugs has left more than 60,000 people dead in Mexico in the last five years, and has resulted in over 500,000 Americans behind bars for drug offenses. Blacks and Latinos are vastly overrepresented among those arrested and incarcerated for drug offenses in the United States. The Caravan opens the possibility to initiate a transnational debate among the stakeholders searching for a new program of “human security”, whose main criterion should be the well-being of the people, including the decriminalization of migration.
About NALACC
The National Alliance of Latin American and Caribbean Communities (NALACC) is a network of community-based, Latino and Caribbean immigrant-led organizations, that seeks to raise the quality of life for immigrant communities in the United States, as well as communities in migrant-sending countries in Latin America. Facebook:facebook.com/NALACC2004 • Twitter:@NALACC_ORG • Web page:www.nalacc.org
