More than 100,000 frustrated Mexicans, many carrying pictures of kidnapped loved ones, marched across the country on Saturday to demand government action against a relentless tide of killings, abductions and shootouts.
The mass candlelight protests were a challenge to the government of Mexican President Felipe Calderon, who has made fighting crime a priority and deployed more than 25,000 soldiers and federal police to wrest territory from drug cartels.
The organizers of the marches were to hand in their demands to Calderon yesterday. They planned to hand him a document with a string of requests, including proposals collected during the demonstrations.
PHOTO: AP
Cries of “enough” and “long live Mexico” rose up from sea of white-clad demonstrators filling Mexico City’s enormous Zocalo for the Iluminemos Mexico or “Let’s Illuminate Mexico.” The protesters held candles twinkling in the darkness as they sang the national anthem before dispersing.
“We can no longer live, we can’t be safe anywhere,” said Enrique Contreras, a 42-year-old salesman who said he has been robbed several times, most recently last week. “I hope those in government do their jobs. Otherwise, they should resign.”
City officials refused to give a crowd estimate, but the Zocalo can hold nearly 100,000 people. Tens of thousands overflowed into the surrounding streets, unable to squeeze into the square.
Thousands more protested in cities across the country.
In the capital, Romana Quintera, 72, wore a T-shirt with a photograph of her baby grandson, who was kidnapped for ransom five years ago when gunmen burst into her home and killed her niece. Two people imprisoned for the attack have refused to reveal the boy’s fate, and Quintera said investigators have given up on the case.
“We’re desperate,” she said, holding back tears. “We ask authorities with all our heart to be more sensitive. Maybe nothing like this has happened to them, or they would be more sensitive.”
Despite the arrest of several drug kingpins, little has improved the ground since the Calderon government began its crackdown.
Homicides have surged as drug cartels battle each other for control of trafficking routes and stage vicious attacks against police nearly each day. In the gang-plagued border state of Chihuahua alone, there have been more than 800 killings this year, double the number during the same period last year.
This week, a dozen headless bodies were found in the Yucatan Peninsula.
Saturday’s marches brought out thousands of middle-class citizens who are often the targets of kidnappings. The protest was inspired by the abduction and murder of the 14-year-old son of a wealthy businessman — a case that provoked an outcry when prosecutors said a police detective was a key participant in the abduction for ransom.
The boy’s father, Alejandro Marti, called on top government officials to quit if they could not stem the crime wave. His challenge became a rally cry at the march, where many held up signs with his words: “If you can’t, resign.”
The first to arrive for the Mexico City protest was the family of 24-year-old Monica Alejandrina Ramirez, who was kidnapped in 2004 and has not been heard from since.
Hours before the march began, the family stood silently beneath the independence monument, holding up large banners with her picture. Some colleagues of her mother, a circus performer, walked on stilts and wore clown wigs to help draw attention.
“The most frustrating thing has been the indolence of many of the authorities, their insensitivity,” said her father, Manuel Ramirez Juarez, a doctor. “I have often asked myself, why? Why me? Why my daughter?”
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