Pubdate: Tue, 11 Jun 2013
Source: Los Angeles Times (CA)
Copyright: 2013 Los Angeles Times
Contact:  http://www.latimes.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/248
Author: Tracy Wilkinson

Mexico Under Siege

TOWNS JUST SAY NO TO DRUG CARTELS

COALCOMAN, Mexico - Rafael Garcia slaps the oversize wooden desk 
where he sits, one of the last mayors still in office in this region 
of Mexican farm country known as Tierra Caliente - hot land.

Mayors from a couple of the nearest towns fled with their drug-cartel 
pals, people here say, when locals took up arms against them.

But at Garcia's City Hall, the facade is festooned with hand-lettered 
signs supporting local gunmen who challenged the cartel, loosely 
referred to as community "self-defense" guards, comunitarios. Several 
cities in Tierra Caliente are now patrolled by such groups, whose 
members, often masked, man checkpoints and pull over passing vehicles 
for inspection. They have reached a kind of tense coexistence with 
the army, which moved in a couple of weeks ago in an attempt to bring order.

"There is no government here. There is no state. There is no law," 
said Garcia, who became mayor in January 2012. "The people finally 
exploded when they couldn't take it anymore.

"You serve God, or you serve the devil," the mayor said. "Or you just 
have to leave."

This westernmost section of Michoacan state is experiencing a rare 
phenomenon in Mexico: Communities have risen up against the 
drug-trafficking gangs that terrorized them for years. And although 
questions remain over who exactly is behind all of it, the 
developments are posing a challenge to President Enrique Pena Nieto, 
who must confront the possibility of widespread vigilantism, possibly 
even outbreaks of civil war. His decision to send in the army last 
month was the first major military operation against traffickers in 
his 6-month-old administration.

Locals had tolerated cartel henchmen for years - and often 
collaborated with them - but increasingly, the bad guys harassed the 
public. First there was the steady stream of extortion as the cartel, 
which took the name Knights Templar ("Caballeros Templarios") after 
the Middle Ages crusaders, gained a stranglehold on the economy 
throughout Michoacan, one of the most bountiful agricultural states in Mexico.

The Templarios dictated whom cattlemen could sell their stock to, 
then insisted on a 10% cut. Same with lumber. Lime pickers, tortilla 
vendors and everyone else had to pay a fee to the cartel. Homeowners 
had to pay 1,000 pesos, about $80, per square yard of their houses.

Refusal meant your business or residence might be burned down. Ten 
lime pickers who resisted were slaughtered, their bodies dumped on 
the side of a road, in mid-April. Garcia said he had to pay 10% of 
his municipal budget to the Templarios as protection money.

Then, they began raping women, often the wives or daughters of 
prominent residents. "That's when it became a matter of dignity," Garcia said.

"They see a house. A car. A woman," said Misael Gonzalez, a timber 
man who heads the community guards in Coalcoman. "They wanted it, 
they took it."

For years, this region of avocado and methamphetamine was home to a 
cultlike cartel called La Familia. Then-President Felipe Calderon 
first sent the military after the outlaw group in late 2006, the 
start of what would become a nationwide drugwar offensive. If 
anything, La Familia just got stronger and eventually morphed into 
the larger and more insidious Knights Templar.

In convoys of SUVs emblazoned with red Maltese crosses and armed with 
grenade launchers, the Knights Templar roamed the land, kidnapping, 
collecting money, recruiting followers (often from drug rehab 
centers), trafficking in meth and all the while portraying themselves 
as protectors of Michoacan.

They infiltrated police departments and local governments in many 
parts of western Mexico, and also came to control Michoacan's Lazaro 
Cardenas port, one of the country's busiest. There, they joined 
forces with Chinese traders to bring in chemicals for cooking meth 
along with cheap Chinese clothing and other products for sale, 
intelligence officials said.

Their control of the economy was so overwhelming that Mexico, 
normally a huge exporter of limes, primarily from Michoacan, will 
probably have to import the fruit this year. Knights Templar thugs 
forbade lime harvests when they didn't receive their cut, and tons of 
limes have simply rotted on the ground.

The cartel's purported leader is revered by many as something of a 
saint. Federal authorities reported that they killed Nazario Moreno 
Gonzalez - alias El Mas Loco, the Craziest - in a shootout in 
December 2010. But a body was never recovered.

Most people in Tierra Caliente are convinced that he is still around 
and very much in charge. According to local lore, he appears in 
villages, baptizes babies and preaches a firebrand form of 
evangelical Christianity. Many worship an angelic looking icon of him 
encrusted with sparkling jewels.

Throughout Tierra Caliente, supporters have erected chapels and white 
adobe shrines to honor "Saint Nazario." One, on the outskirts of a 
town called Buenavista Tomatlan, up the road from Coalcoman, now sits 
in ruins. It was trashed when the people of Buenavista rose up 
against the Knights Templar, a couple of months before Coalcoman.

Several armed skirmishes between local vigilantes and the Knights 
were reported in the weeks leading up to the army's arrival, with 
casualties in the dozens.

Coalcoman, about 270 miles west of Mexico City and 140 miles west of 
Morelia, rose up in mid-May. For the first few nights, Garcia, 42, 
and his allies camped out in City Hall. He now is on the move daily, 
along with his wife and three children.

The Templarios have retreated, Garcia said, at least for now.

Some in the federal government have suggested that a rival cartel is 
the force instigating the uprisings in Tierra Caliente. Garcia 
vehemently denied that ("If this is a cartel, it's a cartel of the 
people!") while acknowledging that wealthy local ranchers were 
responsible for arming the comunitarios.

"You think they can fight with slingshots?" Garcia demanded.

The roads through Tierra Caliente are still relatively deserted, as 
residents wait to see who ultimately gains the upper hand in this 
phase of the battle.

Reporters traveling a 120mile stretch into the most battle-scarred 
area pass through seven military or police checkpoints - sometimes 
manned jointly with the comunitarios. The army has been negotiating 
with these vigilante groups, trying to persuade them to lay down or 
at least not openly brandish their weapons.

In Coalcoman, Mexican fighter aircraft circle overhead in a show of 
strength. The burned-out shells of passenger buses, tractor-trailers 
and sawmills can be spotted along the way, the remains of Knights 
Templar retribution.

"We will not let down our guard, or put down our weapons, until we 
see results," Garcia said. "We want to see them behind bars."
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom