After a monthlong journey through 26 American cities, the Caravan for Peace with Justice and Dignity finally arrived Monday afternoon in Washington, D.C. Caravaneros, as members of the Caravan are known, descended their bus, parked in front of AFL-CIO headquarters, holding up signs with pictures of their disappeared loved ones, chanting:

“¡Vivos se los llevaron!, ¡vivos los queremos!” (They took them alive! We want them alive!)

And:

“¡De norte a sur!, ¡de este a oeste!, ¡ganaremos esta lucha!, ¡cueste lo que cueste!” (From north to south! From east to west! We’ll win this fight! Come what may!)

Half an hour later a group of some 80 caravaneros—victims of drug war-related violence in Mexico, their supporters and reporters—walked in single file into the AFL-CIO building, chanting: “¡Ni una muerte más!” (No more deaths!)

“Thank you for traveling here from Mexico to shine a light on the failed policies of the U.S. and Mexican governments and the impact they have had on working people’s lives,” said AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Liz Shuler, who spoke on a stage surrounded by pictures of some of the estimated 10,000 people who had disappeared and 60,000 killed during Mexico’s U.S.-backed war on drugs in the past six years. “We will continue to work with you to call on our government to suspend the multibillion-dollar Plan Merida that has helped fund the War on Drugs, which has only led to this greater violence.”

Héctor E. Sánchez, executive director of the Labor Council for Latin American Advancement, which co-sponsored the event, expressed the council’s “full solidarity and support to end the pain of entire families and communities due to policies that do not make sense.”

The last to speak, Javier Sicilia, Caravan founder and leader, stressed the importance of solidarity and cooperation between peoples on both sides of the border and hinted at the road ahead for the broader Movement for Peace with Justice and Dignity, which the Caravan is a part of. 

“Washington [D.C.] is both the end point and starting point for us,” he said in a composed but commanding Spanish. “It is the end point of our Caravan, but it is also the starting point for a peace process. If we don’t end this absurd war together, we will not be able to accomplish any other agendas relating to civil life.”

Other event speakers included Catherine Feingold, AFL-CIO international director, and Manuel Pérez-Rocha, associate fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies.

Among the caravaneros was 64-year-old María Herrera Magdaleno of Michoacán, Mexico. She joined the Movement for Peace because, between 2008 and 2010, four of her sons—Jesús Salvador, Raúl, Gustavo and Luis Armando—disappeared without any trace on their way to work selling discarded metals and to date her appeals to Mexican authorities to find them have gone unanswered.

“I have found support and strength in the Caravan,” she said in Spanish, intermingled with tears. “It has given me the courage to keep fighting and speak out against what is happening in Mexico.”

“We have come here because this is where the guns arming our military come from,” she said. “In the same way that the U.S. and Mexican governments can agree on their treaties, they should come together to stop this war against our society, families and children.”

For more information about the Caravan for Peace with Justice and Dignity, please visit www.caravanforpeace.org/caravan.