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Activists have launched a five-country Caravan for Peace, Life, and Justice starting in Honduras to raise awareness about the failure of the war on drugs in Central and North America and to kick-start an “open and honest dialogue” on alternatives to tackle drug-related violence while guaranteeing basic human rights in the region.
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“We have to listen to victims, family members, and human rights organizations,” said Honduran lawyer and human rights defender Wilfredo Mendez in a press conference in Honduras’ capital Tegucigalpa Monday about how to confront the devastating impacts of the war on drugs and shift the failing policy narrative around the issue.
The initiative set out from Tegucigalpa on Monday, and is scheduled to arrive in the northern coastal city of La Ceiba on Tuesday.
After wrapping up the Honduran leg of the tour, the group will travel to El Salvador on Friday, continuing on through Guatemala, Mexico, and into the United States with the goal of arriving at the United Nations headquarters in New York on April 19 in conjunction with the start of the U.N. General Assembly Special Session on Drugs.
According to Mendez, the Caravan plans to put forward a “much stronger” argument about drug policy in New York by leveraging the experiences and testimonies gathered on the journey.
The Caravan will focus on visiting affected communities and hearing about the human rights violations that have taken place in each country in the name of the war on drugs to humanize and uncover the social consequences of militarized drug policy.
“This drug war that has been declared in our country is a threat to Indigenous communities,” said Tomas Gomez, a coordinator COPINH, the Indigenous rights organization co-founded by murdered environmental leader Berta Caceres, in Monday’s press conference. “It violates our self-determination and sovereignty because there is systematic violation of Indigenous rights and there is an increase in U.S. military bases in our country.”
Participants plan to visit communities that have experienced increased militarization, organized crime, and mass incarceration.
The launch of the Caravan for Peace, Life, and Justice comes as a U.N. expert in Mexico called for an end to the war on drugs and a comprehensive policy focus with attention to public health.
“The drug war that was declared more than 35 years ago in this hemisphere has ended or has to end,” said Mexico representative of the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime, Antonio Mazzitelli, according to Mexico’s La Jornada.
Drug reform advocates are pushing for the 2016 U.N. General Assembly Special Session on Drugs to break with the anti-drug approach of recent decades and prioritize health and human rights to put an end to the devastating consequences of the war on drugs.
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