L.A. woman travels to D.C. to protest Peña Nieto’s visit
Category : Press
Nansi Cisneros has been posting missing person flyers on Twitter and Facebook since her brother disappeared in Mexico in October, 2013. Now she’s traveling across country from her home in Los Angeles to Washington D.C. to protest Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto’s visit to the White House because she says the president’s administration has done nothing to help her find her brother.
“Peña Nieto’s government hasn’t been able to help me with my brother’s disappearance or the other thousands of disappearances that are going on in Mexico,” said the U.S.-born Cisneros, 33. “To me, he’s not welcomed in the country where I’m from.”
Cisneros is one of thousands of people who will are expected to protest Peña Nieto’s Jan. 6 visit as part of a campaign called #USTired2.
Cisneros’ brother Javier was making a living as a tattoo artist in the U.S. when he was deported to Mexico in late 2013. But soon after in October 2013 Nansi Cisneros says her brother was kidnapped from his home in Tala, Jalisco.
#TeBuscamos FRANCISCO JAVIER CISNEROS #Secuestrado 19/10/13 #Jalisco INF: @JusticeForJavi Cel3841074261 pic.twitter.com/ngGN7uuuIC @TeresaEse
— LaAlamedaMorelos (@LaAlamedaMor) January 2, 2015
“We have government leaders telling us that the only people that are murdered or disappear are people who were looking for trouble,” Cisneros told Fusion. “But not all the disappearances are related to that,” she went on to say, denying her brother had anything to do with gangs or drug trafficking.
The international organization Human Rights Watch analyzed 250 “disappearances” cases that occurred in Mexico between 2007-2013 and found evidence in about half the cases that suggested they were enforced disappearances — ”meaning that state agents participated directly in the crime, or indirectly through support or acquiescence.”
In September 2014, 43 students were disappeared from the Ayotzinapa teachers’ college in the state of Guerrero, Mexico.
An investigation published last month by Mexican news magazine Proceso, implicated Federal Police in the attack on Ayotzinapa students and alleged that the Peña Nieto administration has covered up the federales’ role in the incident for over two months.
The Mexican government denies the allegations made by Proceso.
Organizers of the #USTired2 campaign are urging the Obama administration to revisit U.S. funded drug trafficking programs that provide financial aid to Mexico’s security forces.
“Two years into his administration, it’s now abundantly clear that instead of ‘saving Mexico,’ Peña Nieto and his failed policies are destroying Mexico to the point where it is disgraceful that our President [Obama] is even meeting with a Mexican Administration that, under US law, should have its funding cut for massive human rights violations,” said Roberto Lovato, one of the founders of #USTired2, in a statement sent to Fusion.
“How many US-funded massacres will it take before Obama and Congress shift course on Mexico?”, Lovato went on to ask.
Cisneros arrived in Washington D.C. on Saturday. She’s planning on protesting in front of the White House and she’s has scheduled meetings with elected officials, including staffers for U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA.)
Cisneros says she wants everyone to know that “Mexico has a human rights problem.”
“Mexico has a lot of people missing and this happens everyday,” Cisneros said.
Article originally posted on Fusion by Jorge Rivas (on Twitter @thisisjorge)