A Growing Political Insurgency due to Deaths and Disappearances in Mexico

Frontera NorteSur: In a little more than two months, the movement for justice for the murdered and disappeared students of the Ayotzinapa rural teaching college in Mexico has transformed from protest into a growing political insurgency.

In some regions of Guerrero state, where the students were attacked by police last September 26, the residents are forming citizen assemblies with an eye toward replacing local administrations they accuse of corruption and collusion with organized crime. while, in turn, laying the groundwork for new forms of governance without the country’s political parties. Read more. 

In the hot land, Mexicans just say no to drug cartels

Los Angeles Times
By Tracy Wilkinson
June 11, 2013

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.  Read more. 

Worry grows over Mexico vigilante movement

Armed citizen patrols fighting drug cartel violence join forces with a radical teachers union in Guerrero state opposed to an education reform law.

The Los Angeles Times

By Richard Fausset and Cecilia Sanchez
April 11, 2013

Mexico City - Debate is intensifying over armed vigilante patrols that have sprung up in crime-plagued sections of rural Mexico, particularly in the state of Guerrero, where some patrols joined forces this week with a radical teachers union that has been wreaking havoc with massive protests, vandalism and violent confrontations with police.

The two groups, on the surface, would appear to have little in common. The vigilante patrols, typically made up of masked campesinos, are among dozens that have emerged in the countryside in recent months, purporting to protect their communities from the depredations of the drug cartels. The state-level teachers union, meanwhile, has taken to the streets to protest a sweeping education reform law backed by Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto.

Their alliance was announced in a joint meeting Sunday. A leader of the vigilantes said they were joining with the teachers because it was the vigilantes' "watchword to fight against injustice."  Read more. 

Only the People Defend the People: Guerrero Human Rights Center Weighs in on Uprising

by the Tlachinollan Human Rights Center of la Montaña
Translated by Kristin Brickier
January 15, 2013

On Saturday, January 5, 2013, at about 11pm, citizen Eusebio Alvarado García, commissioner of Rancho Nuevo, Tecoanapa municipality, was taken by force from his home by people who belong to the criminal groups that have overrun the Ayutla region.  Eusebio had recently arrived at his home with the news that he had been elected a subcommander of the Community Police.  That afternoon there was a regional assembly of the authorities of El Portrero, which is also in Tecoanapa, where there were also representatives from other municipalities such as Cuautepec, San Marcos, Cruz Grande, and Ayutla.  Previously, the communities in this corridor of the Costa Chica met to plan joint actions against organized crime, which for years has dominated as the scourge of the indigenous and peasant communities because of the authorities' indifference at all three levels of government.

According to residents, the situation became unbearable because of the cruel and abusive manner in which these groups acted.  That's why, in the assembly on Saturday they felt the pressing need to construct a basic structure that would confront this de facto power.  Various groups of police were formed, each with its own commander, who were given the order to practice armed self defense when faced with any circumstance that would put the fiscal safety, freedom, or life of their compañeros and compañeras in the struggle at risk.  Read more. 

In Mexico, self-defense squads are springing up against drug-fueled violence

The Washington Post: January 21, 2013

AYUTLA, Mexico — The young man at the roadside checkpoint wept softly behind the red bandanna that masked his face. At his side was a relic revolver, and his feet were shod in the muddy, broken boots of a farmer.

Haltingly, he told how his cousin’s body was found in a mass grave with about 40 other victims of a drug gang. Apparently, the cousin had caught a ride with an off-duty soldier and when gunmen stopped the vehicle, they killed everyone on the car.


“There isn’t one of us who hasn’t felt the pain ... of seeing them take a family member and not being able to ever get them back,” said the young civilian self-defense patrol member, who identified himself as “just another representative of the people of the mountain.”

Now he has joined hundreds of other men in the southern Mexico state of Guerrero who have taken up arms to defend their villages against drug gangs, a vigilante movement born of frustration at extortion, killings and kidnappings that local police are unable, or unwilling, to stop.

Vigilantes patrol a dozen or more towns in rural Mexico, the unauthorized but often tolerated edge of a growing movement toward armed citizen self-defense squads across the country.  Read more. 

In crime-toughened Mexico City, cash-for-weapons exchange extended

Los Angeles Times 

By Daniel Hernandez
January 3, 2013.

MEXICO CITY -- Promised that no questions would be asked, they've brought in handguns, pistols, rifles, grenades, bullets, and dozens of gun replicas that may or may not have been used to spook a robbery victim.

Hundreds of people have turned in nearly a thousand weapons and at least one grenade-launcher in nine days in exchange for gifts and cash -- as well as anonymity -- in a holiday pilot program that has exceeded government expectations in Mexico's populous capital.

The program, "For Your Family, Voluntary Disarming," was launched at the historic Santuario de la Cuevita church in the crime-toughened borough of Iztapalapa on Christmas Eve, with promises of tablet computers and bicycles for handing over any firearms.

By Dec. 31, when the pilot was supposed to end, about 900 weapons had been turned in, said Rodolfo Rivera, the Mexico City police department official in charge of the program. His team restarted the exchange on Wednesday. Read more. 

On Mexico City’s flat roofs, tiny gardens help feed families, provide an urban respite

The Kansas City Star, Tim Johnson

MEXICO CITY -- Climb to a rooftop and scan the horizon of this metropolis, and you’re likely to see nearby rooftops or balconies with vegetable gardens.

Urban rooftop gardening is on the cusp of a boom here, sponsored by a City Hall that sees gardening as a way to alleviate poverty, provide residents with their own healthy food and add some green to one of the world’s most populous cities.

In a program begun five years ago, Mexico City’s municipal government has given grants to 3,080 families to build gardens on their rooftops, sometimes sheltered by simple greenhouses to protect from nightly mountain chill and occasional hail. Many more families have attended urban gardening classes and struck out on their own to grow tomatoes, lettuce, chilies, scallions, guava, passion fruit and other edibles. Read more. 

Reclaiming the Forests and the Right to Feel Safe

NY Times: Karla Zabludovsky. CHERÁN, Mexico — The woman’s exhausted eyes reflected the flames dancing in front of her. A 38-year-old grandmother, she is also a leader of the civilian insurgency that has taken over this mountain town in the state of Michoacán, 310 miles west of Mexico City. Sixteen months of cold and sleepless nights at Bonfire No. 17, one of a number of permanent burning barricades set up here, have taken their toll.

But like the rest of the residents, she cannot afford to let her guard down.

On the morning of April 15, 2011, using rocks and fireworks, a group of women attacked a busload of AK-47-armed illegal loggers as they drove through Cherán, residents said. The loggers, who local residents say are protected by one of Mexico’s most powerful criminal organizations and given a virtual free pass by the country’s authorities, had terrorized the community at will for years. Read more.

Google takes aim at Mexico's drug cartels

AP: Martha Mendoza. WESTLAKE VILLAGE, Calif. — Google, so far, has won the search engine wars. Now it wants to target international crime, including Mexico's powerful drug cartels.

Eric Schmidt, Google Inc.'s executive chairman, has taken a keen interest in Mexico, where more than 47,500 people have been killed in drug-related violence since President Felipe Calderon launched an offensive against the cartels in 2006. Schmidt recently visited most of Mexico's most violent cities, Ciudad Juarez, where civic leaders asked if he could help.

"Defeated, helpless, these people have been so hardened in their experience with cartels that they have lost battles and they have lost hope," Schmidt told a conference on international crime this week. "They were looking for a universal hammer to protect them. For me the answer was obvious. It was technology." Read more.

Mexico election diary: #YoSoy132 at a crossroads

The Economist: MEXICO’S presidential candidates have had two official televised debates, one in Mayand another earlier this month. On June 19th there was a third, unofficial one, hosted by a student movement called #YoSoy132. The pressure group, which was born in May after a disastrous visit by Enrique Peña Nieto, the leading candidate, to a Mexico City university, got the candidates together for two hours of discussion ahead of the election, which is now little more than a week away.

It was a decent debate. The questions put by students were good and specific; candidates had to answer simply yes or no, before outlining their proposals in more detail, which cut down on the off-topic speeches that politicians often like to dive into. It was transmitted on the internet, complete with severe technical problems due to heavy traffic (or perhaps, Twitter rumours ran, to sabotage). Read more.

Drug War: Intellectuals and NGOs call for Peace and Self-Sovereignty

La Jornada: New civil society group calls upon society as a whole to unite their efforts to rescue the country

Facing a situation of “national emergency” in Mexico where “liberty and sovereignty are at risk,” intellectuals, artists, academics, civic organizations, and union leaders called upon Mexican society as a whole to unite their efforts to rescue the country.

Figures such as the former dean of the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) Pablo Gonzalez Casanova; the Bishop of Salitllo, Raul Vera Lopez; writer Javier Sicillia; priests Gonzalo Ituarte and Miguel Concha, researcher Magdalena Gomez, actors Julieta Egurrola and Daniel Gimenez Cacho; activist Miguel Alvarez; and anthropologist Gilberto Lopez y Rivas, among others, have joined forces through a “call” for civic participation beyond the 2012 elections to solve the country’s problems.

In a conference in which several signatories of the “call” participated, Miguel Alvarez, of Services and Advising for Peace (Sepaz) indicated that the objective of the document is an effort of unity during the campaign suspension period (veda electoral) in order to encourage action outside the political parties and apart from the candidates. The goal is to transform society itself into an actor in the country’s transformation.

He added that the initiative has been signed by more than 100 people and organizations from 26 states, such as the Movement for National Liberation (MLN), the Mexican Electricians Union (SME), and the National Coordination of Education Employees. Those interested in joining the initiative can register through the group’s email emergencianacionalporlapaz@gmail.com.

“The country (is) caught up in an absurd war that seriously threatens social coexistence; it renders the people’s dignity vulnerable and it denies justice. The economic crisis deepens the severity of the problem. But despite everything, the poorly run government persists in following the same strategy. Now we are facing the grave risk that the contenders to succeed the President will assume the continuation and commitment to this strategy that’s causing a humanitarian disaster,” declares the initiative that was read by Magdalena Gomez. It will be passed out to diverse political organizations, embassies, and even Pope Benedict XVI during his nearing visit to the country.

The initiative adds that much of the country is mired in “anxiety and living in fear because of a bloody and cruel war (against drugs) that the government declared, proclaiming peace, and now in the countryside and in the cities people are suffering the most irrational form of violence."

It emphasizes that right now state institutions “are immersed in processes of profound decomposition and deterioration caused by corruption and due to the penetration of organized crime in all levels and spheres of the government. The armed forces are irresponsibly exposed by sending them on missions divorced from their constitutional functions which, in turn, gives rise to grave human rights abuses. Paradoxically, the backbone of drug trafficking remains intact due to the systematic refusal of the Executive to address their financial networks.”

The signatories underline that the State “abdicates its constitutional responsibility by failing to provide for the security, tranquility, and well-being of the people,” and that this federal administration “cedes important principles and levels of sovereignty under pressure from United States.”

Facing this “national emergency” and on the eve of the changing of powers, those who subscribe to the proclamation said that they have an autonomous and independent front against the power of the parties, even while some members share certain party sympathies.

“We have the conviction that independently of the electoral result, the participation of civil society will be necessary: if the option for change wins, the mobilization and organization to demand and support the changes in strategy and policy from the previous governments will be important. If the result doesn’t turn out that way, it makes even more sense that a great, peaceful movement of resistance will be necessary to force a change in direction.”

"Today economic and social policies of former governments are becoming even more entrenched, aggravating the difference between a couple of powerful millionaires and the great majority. There is unemployment, inflation, low wages, shortages, insufficient aid in the countryside, loss of sovereignty, drought and famine without precedent, oppression of indigenous peoples and communities as well as their natural resources, wisdom, and traditions."

“Without a doubt, the current government has condemned millions of Mexicans to hunger and extreme poverty, which contributes to the rising threat to the secular state by religious and conservative forces.”

The supporters of the new initiative called for more debate and diffusion of the group’s ideas, for more activity through social networks “that give substance and strength” to the main components of the initiative, and to reconstruct the coordination and unity of the movements and struggles of the countryside and the cities to join the actions of the initiative and to form a “a wide and representative patriotic front, committee or commission” that promotes the objectives of the document." read more

By Emir Olivares Alonso

Translation by Mikael Rojas, CIP Americas Program intern