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“Una tristeza infinita agobia mi corazón…tu ausencia. Triste realidad que el llanto nos arranca, mas tengo en mi tristeza una alegría ¡Que algún día te voy a encontrar!” “Hija, solo vivo para encontrarte.”

“An infinite sadness overwhelms my heart..your absence. This sad reality moves us to weep, but within my sadness is a happiness that someday I will find you! Daughter, I only live to find you.”

This was one of many homemade signs hung by victims on the walls of the high school auditorium where victims of violence and human rights activists from Mexico, Canada, and the U.S. gathered in Mexico City last month to take stock and chart next steps for Mexico’s Movement for Peace with Justice and Dignity (MPJD).  Before discussions started, Father Solalinde, a Catholic priest well-known for his valiant efforts to protect migrants at a shelter in Oaxaca, reminded us all of the urgency of this effort, calling us to “ponernos las pilas,” to buckle down and focus on moving the effort for peace and justice forward...

Now is the time. With spring just around the corner, it’s time we all start thinking about Days of Prayer and Action for Colombia. Every year, communities across the United States come together and join in solidarity with our Colombian brothers and sisters in an effort to show policymakers that now is the time for real change in U.S.-Colombia policy.

2012 has come and gone and Colombia still has far to go in following up on the Labor Action Plan (LAP). The Labor Action Plan was signed by both the U.S. and Colombian governments during the contentious debate for approval of the Colombia-U.S. Free Trade Agreement.  It was intended to serve as a road map to address severe labor rights problems in Colombia as well as the systemic problem of anti-union violence which has made Colombia in recent years the most dangerous country in the world to exercise worker rights...

That was the title of the January 30th Senate Judiciary Committee hearing to consider how Congress should move forward to address gun violence. Emotions ran high as the hearing began with a statement from Gabrielle Giffords, the former congresswoman from Arizona who survived a gunshot wound to the head two years ago. She still struggles with speech, but as she faced the Senate members, she spoke with a determination and force belying the gravity and urgency of her message. “Too many children are dying. Too many children. We must do something. It will be hard, but the time is now. You must act. Be bold. Be courageous. Americans are counting on you.”...

Our partners at the Guatemala Human Rights Commission/USA posted this blog about a historic ruling for justice in Guatemala on January 28, 2013.  Here's their blog:

A Guatemalan judge affirmed there was sufficient evidence against Generals Ríos Montt and Rodríguez Sánchez to proceed with the case against them. The first hearing will be held on Thursday, January 31.  

As Colombia's peace process advances, here are some words to live by.

“We can't condemn Colombians to another one hundred years of solitude and violence.”
--Enrique Santos Calderón, former editor of El Tiempo, brother of President Juan Manuel Santos

“It's one thing that the victims aren't present at the table in Havana, and it's another thing to ignore their voice, deny their rights.  A peace without victims will have neither political nor moral legitimacy.”
--Senator Juan Fernando Cristo

"The dialogue for ending the armed conflict should be a moment in which sectors of Colombian society that have been marginalized, discriminated against and excluded have an opportunity to effectively present their demands, needs and rights that have long been neglected."
--Coordinación Colombia Europa Estados Unidos...

The police tried to impede Trinidad Ruiz from looking for the bodies of her husband and son. They were disappeared by paramilitary forces on March 23, 2012.  Manuel Ruiz, age 56, and Samir Ruiz, age 15, were executed. Their bodies were dumped in a river and discovered more than four days later by the surviving members of the Ruiz family who were accompanied by Colombian and international human rights organizations. More than eight months later, Mrs. Ruiz and her family are still searching for justice in the highest profile murder of 2012 in Colombia.....

Cuba policy faces a new era with a second Obama Administration and a State Department soon to be led by Senator John Kerry (D-MA). We could well have have some friends in high places, and that’s not at all wrong. President Obama has made some serious changes to U.S.-Cuba policy in allowing for Cuban Americans to travel freely to Cuba without restriction and liberalizing purposeful (people-to-people), religious, academic and cultural travel. Senator Kerry has been a strong congressional ally in advocating for a rational policy towards Cuba. In 2011 he placed a freeze on $20 million in USAID funding that was designated for “democracy promotion” in Cuba, until a report on the ineffectiveness of these programs was produced by the Government Accountability Office (GAO). While there has been progress made in the last four years in pursuing a more sane Cuba policy, there is still a cloud hanging over a real change in our relations with Cuba. That cloud is Alan Gross, a USAID subcontractor who has been detained in Cuba since December 3, 2009. Why? Well, Arturo Lopez-Levy shares some important facts in his piece on The Havana Note, “Is Obama Acting Pragmatically in the Alan Gross Case?”...

As we continue our national conversation about gun violence in the aftermath of the Newtown elementary school shootings, let's also consider a plea from our neighbors in Mexico. One hundred thousand people -- yes, 100,000 people -- have been killed in the violence that has devastated Mexico in the last six years. Twenty-five thousand people have disappeared. Seven thousand bodies lie unidentified in morgues.

Three years after the most devastating natural disaster in Haitian history, the earthquake that killed over 300,000 people on January 12th, 2010, Haitians are still struggling to rebuild a semblance of normalcy in their daily lives. Despite the $6.34 billion in humanitarian and recovery funding from the international community that supposedly has already been disbursed in Haiti, reconstruction efforts still appear painfully slow in the eyes of many Haitians. President of the Catholic NGO Caritas Haiti, Pierre André Dumas, called upon all sectors of the country to unite in this time of disillusionment with shortcomings of reconstruction efforts:

"The momentum that followed the earthquake has faded. Much of the promises have not been kept. There is a sense of disappointment among the people: a large part of the population still lives in tents ... We need greater political will, national dialogue and love for this country. We must put aside individual interests."