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  1. #1
    Senior Member AirborneSapper7's Avatar
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    Mexican Citizens Topple Cartels And Are Rewarded With Government Retaliation

    Mexican Citizens Topple Cartels And Are Rewarded With Government Retaliation

    January 21, 2014 by Brandon Smith

    SPECIAL
    Vigilantes control much of the area surrounding Apatzingan, a key stronghold of the vicious Knights Templar drug cartel.

    There is one rule to citizen defiance that, in my opinion, surpasses all others in strategic importance; and it is a rule that I have tried to drive home for many years. I would call it the “non-participation principle” and would summarize it as follows:
    When facing a corrupt system, provide for yourself and your community those necessities that the system cannot or will not. Become independent from establishment-controlled paradigms. If you and your community do this, the system will have one of two choices:

    1. Admit that you do not need them anymore and fade into the fog of history.
    2. Or reveal its tyrannical nature in full and attempt to force you back into dependence.
    In either case, the citizenry gains the upper hand. Even in the event of government retaliation or a full-blown shooting war, dissenting movements maintain the moral high ground, which is absolutely vital to legitimate victory. No revolutionary movement for freedom can succeed without honoring this rule. All independent solutions to social destabilization and despotism rely on it. Any solutions that ignore it are destined for failure.
    I am hard-pressed to think of a better recent example of the non-participation principle in action than the rise of Mexican citizen militias in the Western state of Michoacan.
    Michoacan, like most of Mexico, has long been overrun with violent drug cartels that terrorized private citizens while Mexican authorities did little to nothing in response. I could easily cite the abject corruption of the Mexican government as the primary culprit in the continued dominance of cartel culture. I could also point out the longtime involvement of the CIA in drug trafficking in Mexico and its negative effects on the overall social development of the nation. This is not conspiracy theory, but openly recognized fact.
    The Mexican people have nowhere to turn; and this, in my view, has always been by design. Disarmed and suppressed while government-aided cartels bleed the public dry, it is no wonder that many Mexicans have turned to illegal immigration as a means of escape. The Mexican government, in turn, has always fought for a more porous border with the U.S. exactly because it wants dissenting and dissatisfied citizens to run to the United States instead of staying and fighting back. My personal distaste for illegal immigration has always been predicated on the fact that it allows the criminal oligarchy within Mexico to continue unabated without opposition. Unhappy Mexicans can simply run away from their problems to America and feed off our wide-open welfare system. They are never forced to confront the tyranny within their own country. Under this paradigm, Mexico would never change for the better.
    Some in the Mexican public, however, have been courageous enough to stay and fight back against rampant theft, kidnapping and murder.
    The people of Michoacan, fed up with the fear and subjugation of the cartels and the inaction of the government, have taken a page from the American Revolution, organizing citizen militias that have now driven cartels from the region almost entirely. These militias have decided to no longer rely upon government intervention and have taken independent actionoutside of the forced authoritarian structure.
    The fantastic measure of this accomplishment is not appreciated by many people in America. Though many cartels are populated by well-trained former Mexican military special ops and even covert operations agents, the citizens of Michoacan have proven that the cartels are a paper tiger. They can be defeated through guerrilla tactics and force of will, which many nihilists often deny is even possible.
    NPR reported:
    Joel Gutierrez, a militia member of the Michoacan region, says residents were “sick of the cartel kidnapping, murdering and stealing.”
    “That’s why we took up arms,” says Gutierrez, 19. “The local and state police did nothing to protect us.”
    The militia men have been patrolling their towns and inspecting cars at checkpoints like this one for nearly a year. All that time, federal police did little to stop them, and at times seemed to encourage the movement.
    But that tacit approval appeared to end last weekend, when the number of the militias mushroomed and surrounded Apatzingan, a town of 100,000 people and the Knights Templar’s stronghold. A major battle between the militias and the cartel seemed imminent.
    The federal government sent in thousands of police and troops to disarm the civilian patrols. A deadly confrontation ensued. Federal soldiers fired into a crowd of civilian militia supporters, killing two.
    Militia leader Estanislao Beltran says the government should have gone after the real criminals, the Knights Templar, and not those defending themselves. He vehemently denies rumors that he takes funds from a rival group.
    “The cartels have been terrorizing us for more than a decade,” Beltran says. “Why would we side with any of them?”

    Initially, local authorities encouraged the militias, or stayed out of their way. The citizens armed themselves with semi-automatic weapons, risking government reprisal, in order to defend their homes; and so far, they have been victorious. One would think that the federal government of Mexico would be enthusiastic about such victories against the cartels they claim to have been fighting against for decades; but when common citizens take control of their own destinies, this often incurs the wrath of the establishment as well.

    The Mexican government has decided to reward the brave people of Michoacan with the threat of military invasion and disarmament.
    In some cases, government forces have indeed fired upon militia supporters, killing innocents while exposing the true intentions of the Mexican political structure.
    Mainstream media coverage of the situation in the western states of Mexico has been minimal at best; and I find the more I learn about the movement in the region, the more I find a kinship with them. Whether we realize it or not, we are fighting the same fight. We are working toward the same goal of liberty, though we speak different languages and herald from different cultures. Recent government propaganda accusing Michoacan militias of “working with rival cartels” should ring familiar with those of us in the American liberty movement. We are the new “terrorists,” the new bogeymen of the faltering American epoch. We are painted as the villains; and in this, strangely, I find a considerable amount of solace.
    If the liberty movement were not effective in its activism, if we did not present a legitimate threat to the criminal establishment, they would simply ignore us rather than seek to vilify us.
    The militias of Michoacan have taken a stand. They have drawn their line in the sand, and I wish I could fight alongside them. Of course, we have our own fight and our own enemies to contend with here in the United States. As this fight develops, we have much to learn from the events in Western Mexico. Government retaliation has been met with widespread anger from coast to coast. And despite the general mainstream media mitigation of coverage, the American public is beginning to rally around the people of Michoacan as well. The non-participation principle prevails yet again.
    The liberty movement in the U.S. must begin providing mutual aid and self-defense measures in a localized fashion if we have any hope of supplanting the effects of globalization and centralized Federal totalitarianism. We must begin constructing our own neighborhood watches, our own emergency response teams, our own food and medical supply stores, and our own alternative economies and trade markets that do not rely on controlled networks. We must break from the system and, in the process, break the system entirely.
    I am growing increasingly exhausted with the incessant rationalizations of frightened activists posing as non-aggression proponents. The pungent smog of cowardice that follows them curls the nostrils, and the obvious transparency of their fear is a bit sickening. I wish I could convey how refreshing it is to witness a group of common people, regardless of nationality, with a set of brass ball bearings large enough to face off against government supported drug cartels notorious for mass murder and decapitation.
    If you want see into the future, into the destiny of America, I suggest you examine carefully the developments of the Michoacan region. It is no mistake that good men and women are being disarmed around the world, and America is certainly not exempt. Look at what happens when we are not helpless! We can crush cold and calculating drug cartels as easily as we can crush psychopathic government entities. We are capable of superhuman feats. We are capable of globalist overthrow. We are capable of unthinkable greatness.
    The rise of Mexican non-participation groups gives me much hope for the future. For if the most corrupt and criminally saturated of societies can find it within themselves to fight, to truly fight, regardless of the odds and regardless of the supposed consequences, then there is a chance for us all. We must look beyond the odds of success and become men — real men — once again. We must face down evil, without reservation and without apprehension. We must be willing to risk everything; otherwise, there is absolutely nothing to gain.

    –Brandon Smith

    Filed Under: Conservative Politics, Personal Liberty Digest™

    http://personalliberty.com/2014/01/2...t-retaliation/
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  2. #2
    Senior Member AirborneSapper7's Avatar
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    are you awake Yet AmeriKa.. the same people that Control the Afghanistan Border where the Poppies have never grown brighter; also control the southern border where Drug Cartels are armed by politicians

    These people didnt stand a chance and yet they beat the cartel; only to be beaten for that by government

    the fix is in... all you have to do is follow the money
    Last edited by AirborneSapper7; 01-21-2014 at 05:54 AM.
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    Senior Member AirborneSapper7's Avatar
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    CONFIRMED: The DEA Struck A Deal With Mexico's Most Notorious Drug Cartel

    Michael Kelley, provided by


    Published 9:33 am, Monday, January 13, 2014



    FILE - In this June 10, 1993 file photo, Mexican drug lord Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman, is shown to the press after his arrest at the high security prison of Almoloya de Juarez, on the outskirts of Mexico City. Mexico's most powerful kingpin has won a two-year bloody battle for control of drug routes through the border city of Ciudad Juarez, U.S. intelligence has concluded, the latest indication that Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman's Sinaloa cartel is coming out on top in the country's drug war. Photo: Damian Dovarganes, AP

    An investigation by El Universal has found that between the years 2000 and 2012, the U.S. government had an arrangement with Mexico's Sinaloa drug cartel that allowed the organization to smuggle billions of dollars of drugs in exchange for information on rival cartels.
    Sinaloa, led by Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman, supplies80% of the drugs entering the Chicago area and has a presence in cities across the U.S.
    There have long been allegations that Guzman,considered to be "the world’s most powerful drug trafficker," coordinates with American authorities.
    But the El Universal investigation is the first to publish court documents that include corroborating testimony from a DEA agent and a Justice Department official.
    The written statements were made to the U.S. District Court in Chicago in relation to the arrest of Jesus Vicente Zambada-Niebla, the son of Sinaloaleader Ismael "El Mayo" Zambada and allegedly theSinaloa cartel’s "logistics coordinator."
    Here's whatDEA agent Manuel Castanon told the Chicago court:
    "On March 17, 2009, I met for approximately 30 minutes in a hotel room in Mexico City with Vincente Zambada-Niebla and two other individuals — DEA agent David Herrod and a cooperating source [Sinaloa lawyer Loya Castro] with whom I had worked since 2005. ... I did all of the talking on behalf of [the] DEA."
    A few hours later, Mexican Marines arrested Zambada-Niebla (a.k.a. "El Vicentillo") on charges of trafficking more than a billion dollars in cocaine and heroin. Castanon and three other agents then visited Zambada-Niebla in prison, where the Sinaloa officer "reiterated his desire to cooperate."
    El Universal, citing court documents, reports that DEA agents met with high-level Sinaloa officials more than 50 times since 2000.
    Then-Justice Department prosecutor Patrick Hearn told the Chicago court that, according to DEA special agent Steve Fraga, Castro "provided information leading to a 23-ton cocaine seizure, other seizures related to "various drug trafficking organizations," and that "El Mayo" Zambada wanted his son to cooperate with the U.S.

    "The DEA agents met with members of the cartel in Mexico to obtain information about their rivals and simultaneously built a network of informants who sign drug cooperation agreements, subject to results, to enable them to obtain future benefits, including cancellation of charges in the U.S.," reports El Universal, which also interviewed more than one hundred active and retired police officers as well as prisoners and experts.
    Zambada-Niebla's lawyer told the court that in the late 1990s, Castro struck a deal with U.S. agents in which Sinaloa would provide information about rival drug trafficking organizations while the U.S. would dismiss its case against the Sinaloa lawyer and refrain from interfering with Sinaloa drug trafficking activities or actively prosecuting Sinaloa leadership.
    "The agents stated that this arrangement had been approved by high-ranking officials and federal prosecutors," Zambada-Niebla lawyer wrote.
    After being extradited to Chicago in February 2010, Zambada-Niebla argued that he was also "immune from arrest or prosecution" because he actively provided information to U.S. federal agents.
    Zambada-Niebla also alleged that Operation Fast and Furious was part of an agreement to finance and arm the cartel in exchange for information used to take down its rivals. (If true, that re-raises the issue regarding what Attorney General Eric Holder knew about the gun-running arrangements.)
    A Mexican foreign service officer told Stratfor in April 2010 that the U.S. seemed to have sided with the Sinaloa cartel in an attempt to limit the violence in Mexico.
    El Universal said that the coordination between the U.S. and Sinaloa peaked between 2006 and 2012, which is when drug cartels consolidated their grip on Mexico. The report ends by saying that it is unclear whether the arrangements continue.
    The DEA declined to comment to El Universal.

    Join the conversation about this story »


    See Also:





    SEE ALSO: Here's One Reason To Doubt The New Fast & Furious Report That Exonerates Eric Holder

    http://www.sfgate.com/technology/bus...-s-5138855.php
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    Senior Member AirborneSapper7's Avatar
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    Mexican forces struggle to rein in armed vigilantes battling drug cartel

    By Catherine E. Shoichet, CNN
    updated 2:51 PM EST, Fri January 17, 2014

    A member of a self-defense group carries a weapon in Antunez, Mexico, on Thursday, January 16. The western state of Michoacan has long been a flashpoint in Mexico's drug war, and such groups have said they were forced to protect violence-torn towns from cartels. The Mexican government has now stepped in, sending federal forces to the region and ordering the vigilante groups to lay down their arms.

    Mexico tries to disarm vigilantes in drug war


    STORY HIGHLIGHTS

    • Mexico orders vigilante groups to lay down their weapons
    • The groups say they're protecting citizens against the Knights Templar cartel
    • Residents say they're caught in the middle of spiraling violence
    • Some worry the armed vigilantes could have a darker aim


    Read this article in Spanish on CNNMexico.com

    (CNN)
    -- The vigilantes came to violence-torn towns with a simple pitch: Join us and fight back before the cartel kills you.
    For some in the western state of Michoacan, long a flashpoint inMexico's drug war, it was an offer they couldn't refuse.
    They toted guns and called themselves self-defense groups as they patrolled the streets, claiming they were forced to fight the Knights Templar cartel themselves because the state had failed to protect them.
    They took over several communities and sent a clear message to cartel members and authorities: Keep out.

    Vigilantes join fight in Mexico drug war

    "
    Narco Cultura"

    Massive drug tunnel discovered in bust

    But this week, the Mexican government stepped in, sending federal forces to the region and ordering the vigilante groups to lay down their weapons.
    The smoldering situation has become a major problem for President Enrique Peña Nieto's government, which has vowed to reduce drug violence.
    In some areas, it hasn't gone smoothly, with both sides refusing to back down in tense standoffs.
    Mexican soldiers clashed with self-defense group members Tuesday in the town of Antunez, killing at least one person.And even as federal troops patrolled the city of Apatzingan, tensions ran high after a pharmacy burned down in a suspected arson attack just blocks away from City Hall on Wednesday.
    By Thursday, Mexican authorities said they'd gained control of20 municipalities in the region. But a top security official said he couldn't set a date guaranteeing when the state would be safe.
    Some vigilante groups have vowed not to hand over their guns until cartel leaders are captured.
    "We want them to go rescue the towns where the people are still being massacred by organized crime," said Estanislao Beltran, a spokesman for the self-defense groups. "When there is peace and security in our state, we will give up our weapons."
    Residents, meanwhile, told CNNMexico they're caught in the middle of spiraling violence that shows no sign of slowing. And some observers say it's not clear the government crackdown is working.
    "Federal authorities, instead of imposing order, instead of rescuing the cities, they are more like referees," Jose Antonio Ortega, president of the Citizens Council for Public Safety and Criminal Justice, told CNNMexico this week. "They are watching the civil war in Michoacan."
    And the situation could have consequences beyond the state's borders, security analyst Alejandro Hope said. It's possible, he said, that the phenomenon of vigilante groups could spread.
    "It is a real risk," he told CNN en Español. "It is a scenario that should worry the people in charge of the country's security policies."

    Resident:'We do not know who to believe'

    One Michoacan resident, who asked not to be identified out of concern for his safety, said a self-defense group gave residents few options but to support them when they swooped into the town of Tancitaro, where much of the local economy depends on avocado orchards.
    "The words of the self-defense groups were very clear: 'If you do not arm yourselves, you could be killed by the Knights Templar.' This was the central point," he recalled in an interview with CNNMexico this week.
    And even with an increase in government forces in the area, he said, it's a situation that isn't likely to stop any time soon, with so many decentralized groups spread across so many parts of the region.
    "We think that this is going to last for months, because there is not just one person who says, 'We are going to hand over our weapons to the Army,'" he said. "People are very afraid. We do not know who to believe. The self-defense groups tell us one thing, and the military tells us something else."
    But in the meantime, he said, vigilantes have set up roadblocks around the town.
    And the town's church bells have become a signal, he said, summoning vigilantes to stop cartel members from entering.

    Analyst: Problems paved the way for vigilantes

    Self-defense groups have also surged in parts of the neighboring state of Guerrero, where government troops have struggled to put a stop to cartel violence.
    "We think the government is very timid, very slow," Sergio Mejia, the head of an association of restaurant and business owners in Acapulco, told CNN last year. "If there is no immediate response, it leaves us no choice but to join the fight."
    Several factors in Michoacan have paved the way for vigilante groups, Hope said -- especially the nature of the primary cartel operating there, the Knights Templar.
    It's a group with a great focus on territory, Hope said.
    "And they tend to be much more involved in extortion, in robbery, and in different kinds of kidnapping, so they generate a lot more resistance than a traditional group dedicated to international drug trafficking," Hope said.
    Today's problems started in the state at least a decade ago, said Julio Hernandez Granados, a former Michoacan government spokesman.
    "There were many years of abandonment in many communities," he told CNN en Español.
    That allowed drug cartels to infiltrate, strengthening their grip on daily life and threatening those who didn't obey.
    "These criminal organizations would not subsist if these circumstances did not exist," Granados said. "With many young people lacking education, lacking employment opportunities, they find the only path ... is to work for criminal groups."

    Concerns groups could have a darker aim

    Some locals view the vigilantes as heroes. Others see them as villains and have responded to their arrival by destroying property and setting vehicles ablaze to create fiery road blockades to stop them.
    In the past year, Hope said, even federal officials have been "schizophrenic" about how they approach the groups, sometimes cracking down on them and other times describing them as allies.
    Critics suggest the vigilante groups contain some criminals from rival gangs who are using them as a means to win more territory.
    Leaders of the groups have consistently denied such accusations, saying their only aim is to fight cartels and protect public safety.
    But Alfredo Castillo, appointed by the federal government this week to be a new commissioner heading up security in the state, offered an ominous warning Thursday.
    In an interview with MVS Radio, he noted that the Familia Michoacana cartel -- which eventually splintered and led to the formation of the Knights Templar -- also started out as a group that aimed to defend the state's residents in a push to kick out the Zetas.
    The newly formed self-defense groups, he said, could become as ruthless as the cartels they claim to oppose.
    "You can start out with a genuine purpose," he said. "But when you start taking control, making decisions and feeling authority ... you run the risk of reaching that point."

    Read: 9 killed in Mexican jail shootout
    Read: The true godfathers of 'Narcoland'
    Read: A grisly crime surges into spotlight as Mexico shifts drug war strategy

    CNNMexico.com and CNN en Español's Rey Rodriguez and Fernando del Rincon contributed to this report.

    http://www.cnn.com/2014/01/17/world/...ilante-groups/

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    Senior Member AirborneSapper7's Avatar
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    MEXICO UNDER SIEGE

    Vigilantes hold Mexico town, tenuously, after driving out cartel

    Days after ragtag 'self-defense' fighters chased the Knights Templar drug gang from Nueva Italia in Michoacan state, many residents are grateful, hopeful and worried about what might happen next.

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    "Self-defense" militia fighters engage in a battle with suspected Knights Templar drug cartel members in Nueva Italia, Mexico. The vigilantes, now backed by federal police, have taken control of the town.(Eduardo Verdugo / Associated Press / January 12, 2014)

    Also


    Photos: Inside the house of Mexican cartel leader Enrique Plancarte


    Mexican forces in Michoacan increase arrests, patrols


    Vigilantes pose public relations problems for Mexico

    Crime still a widespread concern in Mexican cities, poll finds


    By Richard Fausset
    January 19, 2014, 8:00 a.m.

    NUEVA ITALIA, Mexico — Father Patricio Madrigal Diaz was sitting in a big, empty church describing the moment the ragtag "self-defense" forces came barreling into town bearing AK-47s — and a promise to free this farming community from the suffocating grip of the drug cartel.
    The cleric was finishing Sunday Mass in a tiny stucco chapel north of town last week when his flock was alarmed by a rumble of tires. Some ran home. Others shut the church windows tight.
    "Se va a poner feo," they told Father Patricio. It's going to get ugly.
    Moments later, he said, dozens of vigilante pickup trucks were in the town center. A number of cartel supporters engaged the invaders in a shootout, but soon fled. Next, the vigilantes moved to disarm the municipal police force, which was widely assumed to be crooked. And then …
    Abruptly, Father Patricio paused his story and gestured toward an older man praying quietly a few pews over. Perhaps, the priest said, it would be better to finish this conversation in the church basement.
    "That man," he explained, "is not to be trusted."
    Today, this city of 32,000 residents is occupied by the self-defense groups, as well as a swarm of federal police who came in their wake to show that the Mexican government still holds some authority in the volatile region of Michoacan state known as Tierra Caliente, or Hot Land. The situation is similar in a number of nearby communities that homegrown vigilantes have seized in recent days in an effort to drive out the organized crime gang known as the Knights Templar.
    It would be wrong, however, to consider Nueva Italia truly liberated. People remain aware that any neighbor may be a spy for the drug lords who wormed their way deep into the sinews of this rural society over the years. There are new rumors that the Knights Templar will return soon to rain vengeance on the civilians who have sided with the vigilantes.
    Some here are also worried that the vigilantes may not be heroes so much as useful stooges, fighting off the Knights Templar for the benefit of a rival drug gang known as the Jalisco New Generation cartel, from the state bordering Michoacan to the north and west. The whispers of concern come from residents who decline to give their full names, for fear of reprisal from forces they cannot presume to understand.
    "The people are giving them their confidence," said Miguel, 65, an army veteran who was studying the Bible on Thursday in a dim grocery store near one of the new vigilante roadblocks. "But we don't know who they are."
    ***
    By midweek, the vigilantes were concentrated at sandbagged roadblocks at the town's main entrances. They were young and middle-aged men from Nueva Italia and nearby towns. Some had once lived in Southern California. Their dress was irregular, a jumble of T-shirts, ski masks, camouflage and baseball caps. They openly displayed their assault rifles but said they always put them away when the federal police patrols came around, out of "respect," they said, for the government.
    The municipal police here had been disbanded. Security duties in the center of town had fallen to the federal officers, who stood sternly on street corners in helmets and body armor, rifles at the ready.
    All around them, life went on as it had to in a scruffy city of lime pickers and papaya growers. Trucks were repaired at mechanic shops, tacos consumed at taquerias. Men and women returned home from the fields, packed, like so much cargo, into truck beds.
    On Wednesday evening, hundreds of residents gathered on the broad concrete square. These were the people fed up with the Knights Templar, tired of the protection payments small businesses were forced to make, or the tribute demanded of the lowliest field hands. They were tired of the killing and mayhem and terror.
    Before the vigilantes' arrival, said Marta, a 62-year-old agricultural worker, "you weren't free here." She said she had paid dearly for the return of two children the cartel had kidnapped.
    The residents had convened under a full moon to elect a committee to feed and otherwise support the self-defense groups. Nominees were pushed out of the crowd and onto a stage by friends, remaining there if the crowd cheered them, and stepping down if booed. Eventually five men and a woman were selected, among them a mechanic, a doctor and a teacher.
    Municipal president Casimiro Quezada Casillas uttered a few stirring words about how challenges can unite a community. He was met with catcalls. Father Patricio said that the entire local government was widely known to be "at the mercy" of the cartel.
    But there was also a feeling that people of goodwill were gaining the upper hand. A man named Rafael Sandoval took the stage and grabbed a microphone. "Señores," he said, gesturing to the committee members, "I hope that those who are here have these."
    He grabbed his crotch, unleashing an explosion of applause.

    Copyright © 2014, Los Angeles Times

    http://www.latimes.com/world/la-fg-m...#ixzz2r1gWXI4O
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    Super Moderator Newmexican's Avatar
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    Dive they cave in or just get co-opted?


    Mexican Government Signs Agreement with Vigilante Groups
    Wednesday
    January 29,2014

    The agreement calls for the “self-defense groups” to be incorporated into the Rural Defense Corps regulated by the Organic Law of the Mexican Army and Air Force




    MEXICO CITY – The Mexican government has signed an agreement with the vigilante groups that spread across the western state of Michoacan to fight drug traffickers, opening the way for the organizations to gain legal status.

    The agreement, which was signed in the city of Tepalcatepec on Monday, calls for the “self-defense groups” to be incorporated into the Rural Defense Corps regulated by the Organic Law of the Mexican Army and Air Force.

    “These corps are temporary and will be under the command of the authority established under the applicable legal regulations,” the Government Secretariat said in a statement.

    Self-defense group leaders will have to submit membership lists, which will be evaluated and registered by the Defense Secretariat, to join the corps.

    Rural Defense Corps units are legally part of the army and air force, and they are made up of volunteers under the command of active-duty officers.

    The units’ mission, according to the law, is to “cooperate with the troops in activities being carried out, when they are asked to by the military command.”

    The agreement signed by the government and the vigilante groups opens the way for the organizations’ members to join municipal police forces so they can help protect their communities, “as long as they follow the law and are approved by the city council.”

    The agreement requires self-defense group members to register their weapons with the Defense Secretariat, while security officials must provide the groups with the equipment and transportation needed to do their jobs.

    Measures will be taken so that self-defense group members arrested on arms charges and placed on probation “can report in the state of Michoacan, without having to go to other federal entities,” the agreement says.

    Commissioner for Security and Development in Michoacan Alfredo Castillo, who was recently named to his post, Michoacan Gov. Fausto Vallejo and the leaders of the different community self-defense groups operating in the state signed the agreement.

    “We are all happy, all the leaders and all the members of the self-defense groups,” Hipolito Mora, leader of the self-defense group in La Ruana and founder of Michoacan’s vigilante movement, told Grupo Milenio.

    The first community self-defense groups were formed in Michoacan in February 2013 to fight the Caballeros Templarios drug cartel.

    Los Caballeros Templarios, which was founded in December 2010 by former members of the Familia Michoacana cartel, deals in both synthetic drugs and natural drugs.

    The federal government deployed soldiers and police in Michoacan on Jan. 13 in an effort to end the wave of violence in the state.
    http://www.laht.com/article.asp?ArticleId=1532788&CategoryId=10718

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