Increasing Drug Cartel Violence in Guerrero Forces Citizens to Take Up Arms Sofia Lotto Persio - Newsweek
go to original May 30, 2017

A member of a self-defense group carries a weapon in a rural community (CNN.com)

Citizens in Mexico’s Guerrero state are so sick of violence in the region they are taking up arms to protect themselves from drug cartels.

Men from 10 villages around Mezcala, a thriving area for gold mining north of the state capital of Chilpancingo, have created a new vigilante group to protect their families and the mines.

“So many kidnappings, so much extortion, we are tired; we have demanded support from the government,” one of the vigilantes told Deutsche Welle. He added the government is not listening to them, saying: “We want peace and this is why we are taking arms today to defend our families.”

In their first public action on Sunday, a group of 100 men dressed in white T-shirts emblazoned with the name “Community Police” set up a roadblock and a checkpoint on a road connecting the town of Iguala to the state capital of Chilpancingo, which then proceeds toward the popular tourist resort of Acapulco. The men covered their face with baseball hats, sunglasses or bandanas and armed themselves with hunting rifles and shotguns, blocking the road for about an hour and a half.

Responding to the vigilantism, authorities said they sympathized with the self-defense group, according to local publication El Universal. Spokesman for a municipal body Roberto Alvarez said vigilantes should remember they were operating outside the law, and advocated for coordination with local authorities. However, he conceded that self-defense groups had emerged because of “the presence of criminal groups and the absence of a municipal preventive police that guarantees a constant presence which, we must note, is currently non-existent”.

The Guerrero state is the battleground for two rival drug cartels, the Guerreros Unidos and Los Rojos, who fight for control of drug trafficking routes and extort money from the mine owners.

The new vigilante group in Guerrero had already gained the support of another group that formed three weeks ago in the nearby municipality of Heliodoro Castillo, one of the country’s centers of opium cultivation and production, according to Spanish newspaper El Pais.

Read the rest at Newsweek

Related: Mexican Authorities Says They Sympathize with Vigilantes (The Associated Press)

Related: We Are After Huachicol Leaders: Osorio Chong Announced Sending of 200 Federal Police Agents to the State of Veracruz (El Universal)

Related: Mexico Police Killings Illustrate Failures of Vigilantism in Michoacán (InSight Crime)

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