Mexican government forces clash with vigilantes in drug-plagued region


Posted: Saturday, January 10, 2015 7:19 pm | Updated: 7:35 pm, Sat Jan 10, 2015.
Associated Press |

COLONIAS, Mexico - New clashes between vigilante groups and government forces in Mexico's violent western state of Michoacan are calling into question the strategy of a federal commissioner appointed a year ago to restore order.

Top cartel leaders have been captured or killed, and President Enrique Pena Nieto's administration has held up Michoacan as a success in battling drug violence. But now former vigilantes are fighting with government forces and each other. All sides are accused of being infiltrated by drug traffickers trying to take over from the Knights Templar, which controlled commerce, politics and daily life in much of the state until self-defense groups rose up in February 2013.

In the most recent bloodshed, nine civilians died Tuesday during federal operations in the community of Apatzingan.

One was hit by a car while fleeing from federal forces seizing the city hall from armed civilians, and eight were killed later after they allegedly opened fire on a federal police convoy, said the federal commissioner, Alfredo Castillo. He first said they were killed by the army, then by federal police. Now the government investigation is leaning toward a third version - that six of the dead were killed by friendly fire, according to an official who spoke Saturday. The official said the government would give more details Monday.

Witnesses and survivors disputed all the official versions. They said the dead were former self-defense group members who were angry that federal police had arrested 44 of their comrades, and that the protesters were armed only with sticks. Those who died came out of their trucks shouting that they were unarmed, witnesses said.

"They screamed, 'Don't shoot, don't shoot, don't shoot,' many times," said a neighbor, one of six people who spoke on condition of anonymity, either out of fear of reprisal or because they were not authorized to speak to the press.

Carlos Vazquez, who during the shooting was in a civilian convoy following the federal police, said former vigilante group members are disillusioned with the government. As vigilantes and then rural police forces, the government had them do its "dirty work" rounding up cartel members but later demanded they turn in their weapons, he said.

"We don't know what's going to happen," Vazquez said near a mural of a gangster-like character with a gun, stacks of dollars and a brick of cocaine, with the Grim Reaper at each shoulder. "We don't want the criminals ... but we don't want the government either. We're tired of their repression, of living this way."

Castillo was brought in to restore peace in Michoacan, which was wracked for years by drug-related violence and then the vigilantes' armed uprising. The government subsequently captured or killed most key Knights Templar cartel leaders, except for the top one, Servando "La Tuta" Gomez, who has leaked videos of politicians, journalists and others collaborating with him.



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