MEXICO CITY—The struggle for peace and justice continues in Mexico, poet Javier Sicilia told his supporters in the city’s main square Friday.

Sicilia, leader of the Mexican Movement for Peace and Justice, entered Zocalo square to shouts of “the fight continues.”

His movement of around 600 people has been travelling through some of the country’s most violent states to demand an end to Mexico’s war on drugs which has cost an estimated 45,000 lives since President Felipe Calderon took office in 2006.

Sicilia was joined by members of the Mexican Electrical Workers Union, who have been camped out in protest for the last six months at government cuts.

“We need to unite and give a face to pain in this absurd war,” he said.

Sicilia blames corruption and impunity for the current climate of fear in Mexico.

“Politicians are fighting and blaming us when they should be doing their job,” he stated.

Sicilia’s son, Juan, was found in a car on March 26 — strangled, showing visible signs of torture — in Cuernavaca, a colonial town south of Mexico City.

Since then, Sicilia has been calling for a change to government policy, including the removal of the military from Mexican streets.

After travelling through the north of the country in June, the movement heads south to Guatemala, which has seen an increase in drug-related violence due to an increased presence by the Zetas, a drug cartel known for their extreme violence.

This time the caravan will hear the stories of indigenous people and Latin American immigrants who have been the main victims of drug gangs.

Speaking later in the day in the main square in Cuernavaca, Sicilia’s hometown and the birthplace of the movement, Sicilia said people in the south “had been treated like animals.”

Rocato Balbot, one of the founders of the movement, agrees. This war on drugs is a war against the poor, according to Balbot.

Bloodshed in the north of the country normally dominates the news and he hopes that the journey through the south will call attention to the murders and kidnappings that happen there.

“This is a stand against impunity,” he said.

What Mexico needs, explained Balbot, is to unite.

This caravan is “a symbol of unity and hope,” he said. “It has been a long time since Mexico saw a movement like this.”

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But the movement is not without its problems. A swell in numbers has meant that organizers are short of funds. And some also question what the movement has achieved. Change is taking its time.

“The government is slow to react,” Sicilia said.

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