Mexico essentially legalized the country’s growing “self-defense” groups on Monday, while also announcing that security forces had captured one of the four top leaders of the Knights Templar drug cartel, which the vigilante groups have been fighting for the past year.
The Mexican government said it had reached an agreement with vigilante leaders to incorporate the armed civilian groups into old and largely forgotten quasi-military units called the Rural Defense Corps. Vigilante groups estimate their numbers at 20,000 men under arms.
The twin announcements may help the administration of Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto find a way out of an embarrassing situation in the western state of Michoacan, where vigilantes began rising up last February against the Knights Templar reign of terror and extortion after police and troops failed to stop the abuses.
“The self-defense forces will become institutionalized, when they are integrated into the Rural Defense Corps,” the Mexican Interior Department said in a statement.
Police and soldiers already largely tolerate, and in some cases even work with, the vigilantes, many of whom are armed with assault rifles, which civilians are not allowed to carry.
Vigilante leaders will have to submit a list of their members to the Mexican Defense Department, and the army will apparently oversee the groups, which the government said “will be temporary.” They will be allowed to keep their weapons as long as they register them with the army.
The military will give the groups “all the means necessary for communications, operations and movement,” according to the agreement.
The vigilante leaders, who include farmers, ranchers and some professionals, gathered on Monday to discuss the agreement, but it was not yet clear for them what it would imply. It was not known if the army would offer anyone salaries.
Misael Gonzalez, a leader of the self-defense force in the town of Coalcoman, said leaders had accepted the government proposal. However, the nuts-and-bolts “are still not well defined,” he added. “We won’t start working on the mechanisms until tomorrow.”
Vigilante leader Hipolito Mora said in a TV interview that the agreement also allows those who qualify to join local police forces.
“The majority of us want to get into the police... I never imagined myself dressed as a policeman, but the situation is driving me to put on a uniform,” he said.
Latin America has been bruised by experiences with quasi-military forces, with such tolerated or legally recognized groups being blamed for rights abuses in Guatemala and Colombia in the past.
While the cartel may be on its way out, “there shouldn’t be abuses by those who come after, there shouldn’t be what we would call a witch hunt; there should be reconciliation,” said the Reverend Javier Cortes, who is part of a team of priests in the Roman Catholic diocese of Apatzingan who have publicly denounced abuses by the Knights Templar.
Before dawn on Monday, soldiers and police arrested one of the cartel’s top leaders, Dionicio Loya Plancarte, alias El Tio, or The Uncle.
Mexican National Public Safety System secretary Monte Rubido said the drug lord was arrested without a shot being fired. He said federal forces found Loya Plancarte in Morelia, the capital of Michoacan, “hiding in a closet” and accompanied only by 16-year-old boy.
The 58-year-old Loya Plancarte had a 30 million peso (US$2.25 million) reward on his head from the Mexican government for drug, organized crime and money-laundering charges. He was considered one of the country’s three dozen most-wanted drug lords in the late 2000s.
The Knights Templar ruled many parts of Michoacan with an iron fist, demanding extortion payments from businesses, farmers and workers, but the self-defense groups have gained ground against the cartel in recent months.
Mexican federal police and army troops were dispatched to bring peace to the troubled region, but the vigilantes have demanded the arrest of the cartel’s major leaders before they lay down their guns.
Ramon Contreras, an activist in the vigilante movement from the town of La Ruana, which was the first to rise up against the Knights Templar, said the arrest “means a lot” to the vigilantes, but added that they would not rest until they see all the top bosses arrested.
Contreras voiced a common belief that the man who founded the cartel under the name La Familia Michoacana, Nazario Moreno, alias El Chayo, is still alive, despite the Mexican government’s statement in 2010 that he had been killed in a shootout with federal forces.
“He’s still alive; there’s proof he’s still alive,” Contreras said.
Loya Plancarte got his nickname because he is believed to be the uncle of another top Knights Templar leader, Enrique Plancarte Solis.
Loya Plancarte joined Plancarte Solis and Servando Gomez in forming the Knights Templar after the purported death of Nazario Moreno.
A local journalist from Michoacan recounted watching when Loya Plancarte led a sort of pilgrimage to a shrine erected to Nazario Moreno and had his assistants hand out 500 peso bills to people who attended.
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
HYPOCRISY? The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday asked whether Biden was talking about China or the US when he used the word ‘xenophobic’ US President Joe Biden on Wednesday called for a hike in steel tariffs on China, accusing Beijing of cheating as he spoke at a campaign event in Pennsylvania. Biden accused China of xenophobia, too, in a speech to union members in Pittsburgh. “They’re not competing, they’re cheating. They’re cheating and we’ve seen the damage here in America,” Biden said. Chinese steel companies “don’t need to worry about making a profit because the Chinese government is subsidizing them so heavily,” he said. Biden said he had called for the US Trade Representative to triple the tariff rates for Chinese steel and aluminum if Beijing was