Michoacan Self-Defense Groups See Knights Templar Cartel 'Weakening' CNN Mexico
go to original February 4, 2014

On The Stream: Are armed civilian groups in Mexico the answer to the government's struggle with drug traffickers? (Al Jazeera English)

Three weeks after a federal security operation began in Michoacán, self-defense groups are seeing “calm” in the area, while registration of their members with the Secretariat of National Defense (SEDENA) continues.

The situation “is already calmer, because in fact we are already dismantling the structure of The Knights Templar,” who “are already weaker,” said Estanislao Beltrán, spokesman for the self-defense groups - armed citizens who have been fighting criminals - in an interview with CNNMéxico.

In the Los Reyes municipality last Wednesday afternoon, the self-defense groups confronted members of organized crime resulting in the arrests of seven people, allegedly Templars, according to Beltrán, who confirmed that since then the situation has been peaceful.

For a week, members of the military have been moving daily to distant communities in the Tierra Caliente [Hot Country] in order to fulfill the agreement signed by the self-defense groups and the government last Monday. This agreement anticipates delivery of weapons and integration of armed citizens into the Army’s Rural Defense forces.

Read the rest at Mexico Voices

Translated by Samantha Lisk

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