http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/co ... 00658.html

Rifle-toting Mexican peasants are own policemen

By Catherine Bremer
Reuters
Thursday, June 29, 2006; 8:42 AM



SAN LUIS ACATLAN, Mexico (Reuters) - Half a dozen men in black combat gear jump out of a jeep, weighed down by huge rifles, and nudge a shirtless prisoner through a dusty yard and into a cramped cell with two other men.

An accused rapist, he is one of 10 prisoners who escaped in the night from a improvised jail near the indigenous mountain town of San Luis Acatlan in the southern Mexican state of Guerrero.

Also at the scene, stepping over chickens and flea-bitten dogs, is a fuming lawyer from Mexico City, who says town elders wrongfully pronounced one of the prisoners guilty of murder.

Forget calling the federal police to sort it out -- they don't venture this far into Guerrero's poor, lawless hills, say townsfolk.

Left to fend for themselves in a part of Mexico where drug bosses rule, violence is everywhere, and no peasant leaves home without a gun or machete, locals took matters into their own hands 11 years ago and created a community police force.

The unpaid police volunteers investigate crimes and detain those they believe are responsible. Town elders act as judge and jury, and those they convict are made to do hard labor.

"We don't need the federal police. And they don't come up here. We are protecting the unprotected," said Sidronio Aburto, keeping guard at the San Luis Acatlan base that serves dozens of nearby Nahua and Mixtec indigenous communities.

LACK OF FAITH

Days before the July 2 presidential election, where voters cite crime as a key concern, the spread of self-policing in Guerrero underlines an alarming lack of faith in the government to keep people safe.

Active in six of Guerrero's 77 municipalities, the community police are not officially recognized but are tolerated as an indigenous custom like child marriages.

The three men in the cell at San Luis Acatlan, their only furniture a bucket, will be locked up for several years.

They will do hard labor like carrying rocks to building sites until town elders decide they have paid their dues.

"Here we work differently to the government. We use our heads," said community police chief Abad Flores.

"We don't suffocate or hurt suspects to make them talk," he said, referring to the brutal interrogation techniques of Mexico's federal police.

However shaky it may look to outsiders, locals regard their volunteer police as fairer than a federal system notorious for corruption and incompetence.

"Before, there was a lot of crime. People would murder a partner, parent or friend over something small. There were rapes. Our delivery truck was often held up on the road," said grocery store owner Judith Zavaleta, 45.

"Things are better now. The community police turn criminals into good people."

Most of the crime in Guerrero's indigenous villages, where illiteracy and alcoholism is rife and eating meat is a luxury, stems from feuds over land and livestock.

Hold-ups by rock-throwing looters on mountain roads became common in the 1990s when some peasants grew briefly richer from coffee. Now, even children as young as 11 are armed.

POLICE IN BIG TOWNS, BUT POWERLESS

Federal police operate in Guerrero's bigger towns and cities but have been powerless to stop weekly machine-gun shootings and grenade attacks, often on busy streets.

In the run-up to the election, drive-by shootings of police have soared in resort towns like Ixtapa and Acapulco, key fronts in the government's war on drug cartels.

Gangs also kidnap, torture and even behead their victims, recently dumping two severed heads in central Acapulco.

Opinion polls for the presidential vote show that violent crime tops concerns for voters but few in Guerrero see a new government as the solution.

"There's a disillusionment here over the election. Crime is out of control and the police are incapable of stopping it. The underclass has no confidence in the authorities," said human rights lawyer Vidulfo Rosales in the hilltop town of Tlapa.

"The federal police are part of the problem; officers often belong to one of the gangs," he added, noting that wages of just $300 a month prompt many police to turn to crime.

In the hills, clashes are on the rise between peasants growing poppies and government troops battling a growing heroin trade. Peasants on donkeys have shot at army helicopters whose herbicide sprays have destroyed corn and bean crops.

Many say community policing is preferable to the lawlessness created by decades of neglect for Mexico's some 10 million Indians. Yet it is far from perfect.

Human rights workers recount horrific stories of sexual abuse of children that went unpunished by community police because indigenous families were to ashamed to speak up.

Some criticize the rudimentary way guilt is decided and say grudges for wrongful imprisonment can fuel more violence.

"The origin of all this is poverty," said shopkeeper Zavaleta. "People here live like animals, not human beings. Politicians trick them into voting for them but once in power they do nothing."