Poet whose son was slain decries Mexico's "rotten" heart

Published April 02, 2011

Mexico City – The heart of violence-wracked Mexico "is rotten," poet Javier Sicilia, whose son was found murdered earlier this week in the central state of Morelos, said Friday.

Mexico's "political parties are not contributing at all," he told MVS radio. "We are living through a national emergency and no one is really working in earnest."

Juan Francisco Sicilia was among seven people whose bodies were discovered Monday found inside an automobile parked near a hotel in Temixco, Morelos.

The victims, who bore signs of torture, died from strangulation, the state Attorney General's Office said.

Javier Sicilia said Friday that he was abroad when he learned of his son's murder and received a telephone condolence call from Mexican President Felipe Calderon.

"He spoke to me, he was very upset and he told me that he personally was going to press for the (investigation) to be taken all the way," the poet said of his conversation with Calderon.

The elder Sicilia, who writes articles and commentary for the respected newsweekly Proceso, told MVS that Mexicans are fed up with the rampant violence.

"We are tired, very hurt. Every boy who is dying is becoming the son of each human being in this nation," he said.

Mayhem blamed on conflict among rival drug cartels and between gangsters and the security forces has claimed some 35,000 lives in Mexico since December 2006, when the newly inaugurated Calderon put the armed forces in the vanguard of battling the drug trade.

"Unfortunately, the issue is not outside, it's also inside the institutions, and that is terrible," Javier Sicilia said. "We are destroying the best of our people, of our boys. Those who have meager chances and are good people ... those who don't have opportunities and are cannon-fodder for the cartels."

Morelos Attorney General Pedro Luis Benitez acknowledged Thursday that former police officers are among the suspects in the killings of Juan Sicilia and the others found with him.

Javier Sicilia rejected the idea that his son or the other victims were informants for the army, as suggested by media accounts citing a message allegedly left with the bodies.

Mexico is sinking into a "demented, demonic decomposition," the poet said, calling on other parents who have lost children to the drug war to come together in "groups of solidarity" to resist the onslaught.

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