Mexican town stands up to drug gangs with a barricade, clubs, machetes, and guns they stole from the police
How the townspeople do what the police and the Federales won’t:
Read the whole thing. Our neighbor to the south is falling apart, and community organizers are arming in self-defense.Masked and wielding rifles, the men of this mountain town stand guard at blockades of tires and sandbags to stop illegal loggers backed by drug traffickers. Their defiance isn’t just about defending their way of life; it’s one of the first major challenges to the reign of terror unleashed by Mexico’s drug cartels.
The indigenous Purepecha people of this town surrounded by mountains of pine forests and neat farmland took security into their own hands last month after loggers, who residents say are backed by cartel henchmen and local police, killed two residents and wounded several others.
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But rogue loggers have become more violent as they align themselves with drug cartels, said Rupert Knox, a Mexico researcher at London-based Amnesty International, which has investigated the crisis in Cheran.
“Illegal logging has gone hand-in-glove with criminal gangs. They have moved into that sphere and controlled it with extreme brutality and corruption of local officials,” Knox said.
The animosity came to a head in Cheran when residents captured five illegal loggers on April 15 as their truck attempted to smuggle out illegally harvested wood.
Two hours later, a convoy of armed men rumbled into the town to free the detained loggers, accompanied by local police, according to Pena and Amnesty International. One Cheran man was shot in the head and remains in a coma. But the townspeople, through force of numbers, managed to drive out the gunmen.
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Mexico is a failed state. The big cities still look normal (if you don’t count Juarez, at 1.2 million, as big) but there are areas without any government control at all.
In this photo taken Saturday May 14, 2011, local masked men, one holding a machete, stand guard at a barricade in Cheran, Michoacan State, Mexico. (AP Photo/Miguel Tovar)The good guys are wearing the masks. More great photos at the link.