Breaking the chains of violence in Mexico

Updated Information:
Breaking the Chains of Violence in Mexico
Saúl Reyes Salazar

Web., Feb. 1, 9:30 am, talk at class at Holy Names University, Heafy Bldg Room 655, 3500 Mountain Blvd, Oakland (map) Free
Wed., Feb. 1, 7 pm,  Talk sponsored by UC Berkeley Peace and Conflict Studies. UC Berkeley, Wurster Hall Room 102 (map) Free
Thur.,Feb. 2, 7 pm, public talk at the Eric Quezada Center, together with Ted Lewis of Global Exchange, 518 Valencia St. (at 16th), San Francisco (map). Donation requested
Friday Feb. 3, 12:30, talk at class at Holy Names University, JM Long Student Lounge, Brennan Hall, 3500 Mountain Blvd, Oakland (map) Free
Friday Feb. 3, 7 pm event (6 pm, simple dinner), Catholic Worker House, 4848 International Blvd., Oakland (map) Free
Veteran activist Saúl Reyes Salazar has lost six members of his family in the last two and a half years to gun violence in Mexico. Earlier this month, he was granted political asylum by the United States.

The United States has played an important part in the escalating war for drug prohibition. Mexican activists like Juan are reaching out to people in the U.S. to support efforts for justice and help forge a different path.

John Lindsay-Poland of the Fellowship of Reconciliation will also speak on gun trafficking to Mexico, the drug war, and what we in the United States can do. At the San Francisco event, Ted Lewis of Global Exchange will speak about the upcoming caravan of the southern United States led by Mexican peace movement activists and poet Javier Sicilia.

 

Saúl comes from Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua, where he helped to found the municipality of Guadalupe in the 1980s. He served as a local councilman for Guadalupe from 1998 to 2001. His sister, Josefina Reyes, was a prominent activist for human rights and demilitarization in Juárez until she was murdered January 3, 2010, after one of her sons had been jailed and another murdered. In February 2011, Saul’s sister, brother, and sister-in-law were abducted, and subsequently found killed. Saul’s mother Sara issued a remarkable appeal to the kidnappers of her children in February, just before the family house was burned down. This year, he helped to found the organization Mexicans in Exile, in El Paso, Texas. You can read an account of the Reyes Salazar family’s experience (in English) and hear an interview with Saúl (in Spanish) conducted this week.

Saúl comes to the Bay Area after Juan Fraire Escobedo, who had been invited to speak here, was refused permission to travel by air from Texas by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) on January 30. Juan, who has applied for political asylum in the United States with the next hearing in 2014, has a GPS bracelet placed on his leg that ICE declined to remove.

Saúl brings a powerful testimony of the human costs of the drug war, militarism and gun trafficking, and is part of growing actions to forge a  path to peace with justice and dignity in Mexico. Pease join us.
Sponsored by: Fellowship of Reconciliation; UC Berkeley Peace and Conflict Studies; Holy Names University; Metta Center for Nonviolence; Global Exchange; School of the Americas Watch East Bay; Center for Political Education.