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WIth government help autodefensas to clear criminal infiltrators Posted: 07 Mar 2014 06:45 PM PST Chivis Martínez for Borderland Beat
The above is part of a message from Dr Mireles. He also sent the Nueva Italia photo, taken a couple hours ago. In the photo one can see how well he looks, and much healthier compared to how he appeared when he returned to Michoacán from his therapy. Nueva Italia was liberated on Jan 13, 2014. It appears that the return of Dr. Mireles has stabilized AD and provided the strong leadership needed for the group, and lifted the spirits of citizens.  In both Tocumbo (below forming barricade) and Cotija (above) autodefensas arrived in the company of agents of the State Preventive Police, and set up barricades in the road access to the county. Alberto Mendoza Contreras, Cotija municipal mayor confirmed the arrival of autodefensas. Leaders of the self-defense of Michoacán along with the federal government agreed to "clean" their ranks from infiltrators. Spokesmen for the community guards, Dr Manuel Mireles, Estanislao Beltran and Hipólito Mora met with Commissioner of Security, Alfredo Castillo and negotiated help in expelling those who are posing as autodefensas but are in reality criminals or having a criminal past, in order to maintain the moral authority of the group.  Autodefensas will refrain from entering the municipalities in urban areas (previous agreements was in the reverse, having AD in large urban areas with the government taking on the smaller towns) Autodefensas agreed to share information with the Commission for Security and Integral Development of Michoacán. Autodefensas to remove their barricades, in coordination with federal and state authorities, where they are no longer necessary "because of the presence of federal forces and organized groups themselves” Recognized, was that in the south of Tierra Caliente, "security has improved considerably, because there is an atmosphere of calm and certainty." Agreement for weekly meetings to be conducted between the autodefensas group, and the Commission for Security and Integral Development of Michoacán. The agreements and progress are hoped to result in gradual demobilization. Autodefensas have stated from the onset, their goal was to establish security in Michoacán, with the government conducting their duty in maintaining law and order in the region, and the capture of the seven “heads” of the Caballeros Templarios. Padre Goyo (above in Apatzingán) Padre Goyo announced on Wednesday he was taking a break and leaving to France for a couple of months. Stating he was "Too tired, too angry, it is time to pause", was subsequent to the attempted ouster of the mayor of Apatzingán, Uriel Chavez Mendoza, the nephew of "EL Chayo", premier leader of Caballeros Templarios. After Padre Goyo accused Chavez of being complicit in the disappearance of 300 Apatzingán residents, Chavez shot back accusing Padre Goyo of being a"viejo liar", a pedophile and a drug trafficker. The much respected and loved priest, was enraged and filed a slander lawsuit. I asked about Goyo and was told he remains in Apatzingán at this time. Search Continues Autodefensas have sent 300 members to the sierras to assist in the search from Chayo and La Tuta, they, along with federal forces, have identified the trail of the two maximum leaders of Caballeros Templarios.  Federal Police and AD working together..for now Autodefensas and federal police, working together continue making strides against organized crime. As they work together in the sierras, they are executing important arrests on the plaza level. An example is in the photo above, depicting yesterday the moment of the arrest of a plaza chief by federal police and the autodefensas of Yurécuaro. Javier Álvarez was stopped in a residential area, as he approached Churitnzio, a community 15 miles south of La Piedad. His BMW was confiscated (shown in the photo) The detainee is recognized as a plaza chief for Caballeros Templarios. With him was found a book containing records of quota collections and payroll payments. These types of arrests are imperative in disrupting organized crime activities on the regional level, and gathering information as to who the membership consists of, and arrest those members as well. | ||
'Chapo hero worship', is manifested by Mexico's lack of real heroes Posted: 07 Mar 2014 04:29 PM PST Borderland Beat  The demonstration in favor of Joaquín "El Chapo" Guzmán Loera in Sinaloa shows that the cartel boss constructed a social network to protect himself in his zone of greatest influence. It’s also possible that, with the lack of heroes that demonstrate honor and moral integrity, people are seeking options in figures that are tormentors, according to university investigators. “There exists in the social conscience the idea that politicians are worse. That they're full of impunity, and of cruelty... Characters like El Chapo, that come from nothing, that are illiterate, make it so that the people have an option, even if it is as degrading, as degenerate as a leader of a criminal gang.” So thought Raúl Villamil Uriarte, Research Professor from the Metropolitan Autonomous University at Xochimilco. Nevertheless, the doctor of social anthropology thinks the march was arranged by the cartel that is now using civilian society-based strategies to defend an anti-hero. He said that in these protests there is symbolism related to a kind of "subversion against the national symbols that no longer function." El Chapo, he added, embodies a criminal who has killed many people, but who is described by his defenders in Sinaloa "—that part of the population that benefits from the drug trafficking—as a good guy who gives them money, helps them and protects their people. There is a series of contradictions in the idealization and the assimilation of the heroes. But with the state of things in Mexico, the situation is truly interesting, because the idols, the heroes, who should be official figures of moral integrity, decency, and honor, don’t exist." For his part, René Jiménez Ornelas, coordinator for the Unit for Analysis of Social Violence of the Institute for Social Research of the National Autonomous University of Mexico, considered that the people that went out to protest did it because the boss “gave them work, even if it were just as a lookout, and because going to protest also is going to have some type of payoff, since, according to them, they're defending El Chapo.” He recalled that this hasn't been the only such mobilization, since there were also some in support ofLa Familia Michoacana. "This illustrates how the cartel bosses favor the population that is near them, where they live, where their territory is, because they require a social network that in a sense can shelter and protect them." More than being a benefactor for the locals, he affirmed, El Chapo represents “a type of stability.. he’s giving me work. Just for hiring me as a lookout, he pays me.” The fact that the people said that he had paid them or given them something in exchange speaks “of the great economic power of the cartel. El Chapois in prison, but as for the cartel, they are only bugging it; it already has to have five others to substitute for him; the structure is not being hit.”   |
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