Poverty
and Drugs in the Americas
The weekend of May 19-21st,
the KWRU hosted a tour which included representatives of poor people's
movements from Colombia, Bolivia and Panama. We were honored to have
with us again Leonilda Zurita, who marched the entire March of the Americas
with us in October 1999. Leonilda represents the Six Federations of
Women of the Tropics of Cochabamba, Bolivia. Also with us were Ruben
Hernandez, from the Process of Black Communities (PCN) of Colombia;
Edilsa Beltran, from the Popular Women's Organization (OFP) of Colombia
and Clemente Wilson, from the Kuna Youth Movement (MJK) of Panama. During
their visit we shared painful stories of common situations of poverty,
of struggles to survive and organize the poor, of being harassed and
repressed for our efforts to ensure the leadership, voices and organization
of the poor of our countries, and of experiences of being the victims
of the drug war in both the United States and Latin America.
A highlight of the tour was a town meeting held in Kensington, in which
poor families from Philadelphia, religious people, leaders of the peace
community, lawyers, health care providers and our guests from Latin
America spoke about and discussed the impact of the drug war on our
communities. The event "Poverty and Drugs in the Americas"
included as speakers our four guests from Latin America, and representatives
from the KWRU, New Jerusalem, Women's International League for Peace
and Freedom (WILPF), Community Legal Services and People's Global Action
(PGA). KWRU members spoke of the toll of drugs and the drug war on Kensington,
where drugs is the second largest source of income (and with the welfare
cuts will become the first), and where almost every family has someone
who has been lost to drugs and/or is imprisoned. The representatives
of the movements of the poor, of the indigenous, of women and of Afro-Colombians
from Panama, Bolivia and Colombia talked about the Plan Colombia, in
which the United States is spending money on bombing communities and
killing people in Latin America, while not providing for the basic needs
of people in this country, such as health care, housing and food.
Speakers from both the US and Latin America talked about how it is not
the poor in any country who are benefiting from drugs, and how drugs
are merely a tool used by the rich and by governments to keep poor people
from getting organized. The drug war is not aimed at stopping the flow
of drugs, but at intimidating, displacing and controlling the poor and
keeping us disorganized and divided. We left the meeting in agreement
that the most important way we could support each other in our struggles
is to keep organizing in our communities and to build massive movements
of the poor and all of those committed to social and economic justice
in our countries. The way we will truly stop the casualties of drugs
and the drug war in both the US and Latin America is by ensuring the
leadership and organization of the poor in all of our countries, and
by building direct relationships and unity between movements of the
poor in the United States and Latin America.
