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One of Mexico’s best-known poets, Javier Sicilia, laid down his pen last year after his 24-year-old son was murdered by drug traffickers in Cuernavaca, Mexico. In his son’s memory, Sicilia created the Movement for Peace with Justice and Dignity to urge an end to the drug violence – violence that has left an estimated 60,000 dead, 10,000 disappeared, and more than 160,000 Mexicans displaced from their homes over the past six years. Sicilia is now in the United States to launch a month-long peace caravan to “bring to the American people’s conscience their shared responsibility for the thousands of dead, missing and displaced in the drug war.” [includes rush transcript]

Javier Sicilia, poet, essayist, novelist and journalist in Mexico. He is leading a caravan of Mexican anti-violence protesters. Sicilia began speaking out after his 24-year-old son was brutally murdered by drug traffickers in early 2011. He is being honored tonight in New York by the North American Congress on Latin America. 

Rush transcript:

JUAN GONZALEZ: We end our show today with one of Mexico’s best-known poets, Javier Sicilia. But he is a poet who no longer writes poetry. Sicilia laid down his pen last year after his 24-year-old son, Juan Francisco, was murdered by drug traffickers in Cuernavaca, Mexico. In his son’s memory, Sicilia created the Movement for Peace with Justice and Dignity to urge an end to the drug violence-violence that has left an estimated 60,000 people dead, 10,000 disappeared, and more than 160,000 Mexicans displaced from their homes over the past six years.