INTERNATIONAL COORDINATION OF THE CARAVANA43: An Anecdotal Journal by Julio César Guerrero, MSW, MA

When Julio César Guerrero wrote a guest post a while back, I promised you the back story of the months of planning for the Caravana43. I know that many of you have already read much about Ayotzinapa. But now  — as we near the anniversary of the disappearance of the 43 students from Ayotzinapa on September 26  — we have much planned, including presentations of a documentary film with English subtitles that concern the atrocious acts of cowardice enacted in Mexico. The film is called Ayotzinapa, Chronicle of a Crime of State. Please write me if you are interested in knowing how to show this film near you. 

As promised, however, here is Julio César's account of the weeks of preparation and activity from beginning to end, as well as his recollections of the actual process of planning this monumental task. Although this is a condensed version of the original Spanish, he wanted to give you the highlights.

Julio César Guerrero doing what he does best, a presentation in NYC
to a community of activists with Dan LaBotz at his right. 
© Fanzine Detektor

So if you are an activist, if you believe in justice and freedom, if you want peace within our nations and real solidarity to exist, then I strongly encourage you to read Julio César's comprehensive testimony of his weeks with the caravana. 

You will learn a lot! 

And if you still feel the need to do something more, join one of the many social justice groups that may have developed from our presence throughout the country, since we know that Caravana43 was only the beginning and catalyst of our fundamental work. 

I am sure you can seek these groups out, because Caravana43 laid out the seeds.

But it is now our turn to nurture these seeds and make them grow. 

¡Todos Somos Ayotzinapa!

INTERNATIONAL COORDINATION OF THE CARAVANA43: 
An Anecdotal Journal

by Julio César Guerrero, MSW, MA

Checking my email, I found a message I sent out on November 11, 2014, proposing the idea of an international solidarity project for the parents of the 43 forcibly disappeared students from Ayotzinapa on September 26, 2014 in Iguala, Guerrero. The idea came about after my visit to Mexico City in October 2014, when I participated in a couple of marches to El Zocalo (Mexico’s Central Plaza), supporting the parents of the forcibly disappeared normalistas (students from the Raúl Isidro Burgos Rural Teachers’ College).

Thousands march into the Zócalo during the Global Day of Action for Ayotzinapa
Wednesday, October 23, 2014
Brett Gundlock/Boreal Collective/Mashable

The display of popular unity the parents of these student teachers generated everywhere they went gave me the idea of extending such support to the United States, something that has become a tradition for the human rights and trade union groups, especially after the enactment of the free trade agreement (NAFTA) in the mid-nineties. The previous year I had coordinated a support caravana for a group of Braceros traveling from Texas through the Midwest that culminated in Washington, DC and New York. I took this idea and adapted it, proposing the same support plan for the Ayotzinapa group.

Read, Think, Inform, ACT: the Transformation of the Written Word!

Though this began as an Ayotzinapa compilation of news, because my friend and colleague Vanessa Vaile knows I am infinitely interested in everything Ayotzinapa ⎼⎼ and she was gathering articles for me doing what she always does (she is an information activist, or better said, an informationist and thinktivist too) ⎼⎼ it turned out to be a lot more than Ayotzinapa articles by the end of this set, one of the endless many, she says. 

I don't know where she finds the time. 

Maná backs social causes with new song “Mi verdad”, a duet with Shakira

Ana María Alvarado  Abril 21, 2015  1:45 am 

The song “Mi verdad”or "The Truth" talks about the lies media and social networks sometimes tell, as well as dictators 

Maná with Shakira singing "The Truth"

In Maná's song "Mi verdad," the group talks about the lies media and social networks sometimes tell, as well as dictators who have always existed in Latin America. This shows that they have always been committed to this global problem and, especially, to their country.

43 empty chairs...

All You Want To Know About Ayotzinapa & the Caravana 43!

I decided to collect articles and videos from Dallas as the Caravana 43 contingent from Ayotzinapa came through our city. 

Trying to place them all together in one place for easy access, my colleague Vanessa Vaile from Precarious Faculty -- an invaluable educator and friend -- helped me incredulously in getting this huge list together. 

Vanessa Vaile & me

But I am sure there are a lot more articles and other telling bits of information. 

Please let me know what they are: post them here, add to our growing list, so that we have a repository for the great activism and awareness we so need to achieve -- the movement we are trying to bring forth -- so that everyone becomes aware that the disappearance of 43 students is now much more than these 43 students. It marks the disappearance of these 43 plus 25 thousand more. And with them, it also recognizes that over 100,000 have been lost to the horror of drug-related violence and crime. 

But what is worst is that this travesty is condoned, accepted, even propagated by those in power. 

This movement, Ayotzinapa with the Caravana 43, concerns the insolence of a government that made the mistake to think that its people -- because they were poor -- could be bought. 

Ayotzinapa's Caravana 43 USA: Calendar of Events

Our Dallas For Ayotzinapa T-shirt,
representing the central region: always fighting, ¡en pie de lucha!

The Caravana43 is well on its way through the country, taking its different routes, making news in Spanish media as well as English. By the time they finish, they will have stopped in over 40 cities nationally.

This is a quick post giving you the rest of their calendar schedule for the three segments of the caravana: west going up California, central going through Texas and north, and east going up through New Orleans to the east. They will eventually all converge in New York City and Washington, DC.

USA Welcomes Caravana43: Todos Somos Ayotzinapa!

I want to let you all know that finally the Caravana 43 will enter the USA with the parents and students of the disappeared normalistas of Ayotzinapa.

They will be crossing the border on Thursday, March 19th, and then they will break off into three contingents to drive through the country.

The Boys Behind the Symbol: Ayotzinapa

Where are the Ayotzinapa 43?

I first mentioned Ayotzinapa when I wrote about the tragedy of September 26th, 2014 in my other blog. Our loose group of grassroots activists had the first online encounter with the normalistas from the Raúl Isidro Burgos Rural Teachers' College, who had 43 students go missing from Iguala, in the state of Guerrero, Mexico.  


So, as I have been saying for some time now — after the 43 students of Ayotzinapa were disappeared — and after the government tried to quiet the parents with bribes and threats and impunity and all sorts of bully tactics (which adjunct faculty know only too well!), some of the parents decided that the next step was to come to the United States to seek justice and awareness for their cause.


Some of the other parents decided to go to Europe, that way raising awareness worldwide.

The president of Mexico, Enrique Peña Nieto, came and went to the United States at the beginning of January to also ask for assistance for the opposite cause — to have us help him get his government back under his control. What kind of control would you call that when almost 10,000 deaths have been reported in his administration alone, even when Mexico was already rampant with dirty drug wars, crime, corruption?

Yet still the parents and remaining students persisted, as is their right.

"We want our children back: give us the truth! Vivos se los llevaron; vivos los queremos. Alive they were taken; alive we want them back."

In DC, on January 6th protesting Peña Nieto's visit to the United States
© Ana M. Fores Tamayo

    I went to DC when Peña Nieto was here at the beginning of January, and it seemed quite the farce, all the antics both governments played together. What have we come to when our government condones the actions of a corrupt regime? Are we in league with the devil? Are we the devil? Why are we so eager to downplay the obvious ties to an unscrupulous system, a narco-government that gives no value to human life?

One of the things I ponder as I look through all the photographs and videos of the parents of the disappeared, is how venerated these students have become, yet how human they still remain.