Vigilantes seized a drug cartel’s bastion in western Mexico on Sunday, sparking a shootout as civilian militias gained new ground in their struggle against the gang in a violence-plagued region.
Hundreds of armed civilians riding in more than 100 pickup trucks rolled into the Michoacan state town of Nueva Italia and were met by gunfire from presumed Knights Templar cartel members when they reached the municipal office.
“They shot at us from two locations and the clash lasted about an hour and a half,” said Jaime Ortiz, a 47-year-old farmer and vigilante leader from the town of La Ruana.
Two members of the self-defense unit were wounded, he said, standing in the 40,000-population town’s main square, surrounded by hundreds of men armed with AK-47 assault rifles, bulletproof vests and radios.
Some sidewalks were soaked in blood in the town’s empty streets.
Later, on a highway leading to the town, authorities found two men hanging from a bridge, though it was not immediately know if the killings were related to the vigilantes’ advance. Mexican cartels have hanged many victims in recent years.
Michoacan’s growing civilian militia movement, which first emerged nearly a year ago, has seized more communities in recent weeks in its bid to rout the Templars.
The turmoil in Michoacan has become the biggest security challenge of Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto’s 13-month-old administration, which inherited a drug war that has killed more than 77,000 people in the past seven years.
Pena Nieto deployed thousands of troops and federal police to the state in May last year, but the reinforcements have failed to contain the violence.
Mexican Minister of the Interior Miguel Osorio Chong has said the self-defense units are illegal.
Yet some critics charge the government is protecting them.
The Templars have accused the vigilantes of being a proxy force for the rival Jalisco New Generation drug cartel, a charge the militias deny.
The militias have now surrounded Apatzingan, a city of 123,000 people considered the main Templar stronghold in Michoacan’s lime and avocado-growing region known as Tierra Caliente.
Vigilante leaders say Apatzingan is a key target because of its importance to the cartel and because it is a vital trade hub for their limes, avocados and mangos.
In October last year, hundreds of self-defense militia members marched into Apatzingan unarmed and fled after being welcomed with gun shots in the main square.
“It is very close. We want to seize it, but we don’t have a date yet. It will be in the next few days,” said Hipolito Mora, a prominent vigilante leader from the town of La Ruana.
In Nueva Italia, the streets were empty, restaurants and shops closed their doors and residents shut their windows after the vigilante incursion.
The vigilantes met with the mayor and residents to explain their strategy against organized crime.
“At first we supported the Templars because we believed that they were protecting Michoacan,” said a mother of two who attended the meeting and requested anonymity.
“But now the economy is very weak, they don’t let us work and they charge protection money,” she said.
Towns began to form vigilante forces in February 2012, saying they were fed up with the local police’s inability or unwillingness to stop the cartel’s murders, kidnappings and extortion rackets.
However, some see the self-defense forces with suspicion.
Opponents of the vigilantes have burned trucks and buses in the past week to protest the militias’ incursions in the region.
The vigilantes say the protesters are coerced or paid by the Templars.
Michoacan Governor Fausto Vallejo said new “coordinated actions” with the federal government would be announced yesterday to deal with the unrest.
Critics say that Michoacan has become a “failed state,” with local authorities powerless to control the situation.
“What we are observing is the absence of the state, the absence of governability,” the Mexiand National Human Rights Commission Director Raul Plascencia told El Universal newspaper.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese