EL TERRERO, Mexico (AP) – In the birthplace of Mexico’s vigilante “self-defense” movement, a new group of women has emerged, carrying assault rifles and posting cuts to prevent what they say is a raid bloody in the state of Michoacán by the violent cartel of Jalisco.
Some of the four dozen women warriors are pregnant; some take their young children to the barricades. The rural area is crossed by dirt roads, by which they fear that armed men from Jalisco may penetrate at a time when the homicide rate in Michoacán has risen to levels not seen since 2013.
Many of the vigilante women of the Terrero hamlet have lost children, siblings or parents in the fight. Eufresina Blanco Nava said her son Freddy Barrios, a 29-year-old lime collector, was kidnapped by alleged gunmen from the Jalisco cartel in vans; she never knew anything about him.
“A lot of people, a lot of people and also young girls have disappeared,” Blanco Nava said.
One woman, who asked him not to use her name because she had relatives in areas dominated by the Jalisco cartel, said the cartel kidnapped and her 14-year-old daughter disappeared, adding, “We will defend the ones we have left, the children we have left, with our lives. ”
“Women are tired of seeing our children, our families are disappearing,” the watchman said. “They take our sons, they take our daughters, our relatives, our husbands.”
That is why, in part, women take up arms; men are increasingly scarce in the hot areas of Michoacan.
“As soon as they see a man who can carry a gun, they take it away,” the woman said. “They disappear. We don’t know if they have them (as recruits) or if they have already been killed. “
Next to the barricades and roadblocks, the female guards have a homemade tank, a sturdy van with welded steel plate armor. In other nearby cities, residents have dug trenches through roads leading to the neighboring state of Jalisco, to keep out the attackers.
Alberto García, a male watchman, has seen the medieval side of the war: he is from Naranjo de Chila, a city located next to the Terrero River and the birthplace of the leader of the Jalisco cartel, Nemesio Oseguera. Garcia said he was fled the city by gunmen from the Jalisco cartel because he refused to join the group.
“They also killed one of my brothers,” Garcia said. “He was chopped up and my sister-in-law, who was eight months pregnant.”
The Terrero has been dominated by the New Michoacán and Viagras gangs, while the Jalisco cartel controls the southern bank of the Rio Grande. In 2019, the Viagras hijacked and burned half a dozen trucks and buses to block the bridge over the river to prevent Jalisco convoys from entering a surprise assault.
And that same year, in the nearby city of San José de Chila, rival gangs used a church as an armed stronghold to fight an offensive by gunmen from Jalisco. Nestled in the church tower and along its roof, they tried to defend the city against the raid, leaving the church full of bullet holes.
It is this strong division where everyone is forced to choose sides (either Jalisco, or the New Michoacán Family and the Viagras) that has many convinced that the vigilantes of El Terrero are just standing soldiers for one of the latter two. bands.
Watchers bitterly deny allegations of being part of a criminal gang, even though they clearly see the Jalisco cartel as their enemy. They say they would be more than happy for the police and soldiers to come in to do their job.
El Terrero is not far from the city of La Ruana, where the real self-defense movement was launched in 2013 by lime producer Hipolito Mora. After successfully pursuing the Knights Templar cartel, Mora, like most of the original leaders, has distanced himself from the so-called remaining self-defense groups and is now a candidate for governor.
“I can almost assure you that they are not legitimate self-defense activists,” Mora said. “It simply came to our notice then. … The few self-defense groups that exist have been allowed to infiltrate; they are criminals disguised as self-defense ”.
The current governor of Michoacán, Silvano Aureoles, is more resounding. “They are criminals, period. Now, to hide and protect their illegal activities, they are called self-defense groups, as if it were a passport to impunity.
But somehow, Mora says, the same conditions that gave rise to the original 2013 movement remain the same: the authorities and the police do not comply with the law and do not guarantee peace to the residents.
Sergio Garcia, a male member of the El Terrero watchdog group, says his 15-year-old brother was abducted and killed by Jalisco. Now he wants justice that the police have never given him.
“We’re here for a reason, to get justice by hook or by deception, because if we don’t, no one else will,” Garcia said.
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Associated Press writer Mark Stevenson contributed from Mexico City.