EL TERRERO, Mexico (AP) – In the birthplace of Mexico’s vigilante ‘self-defense movement’, a new group made up entirely of women has emerged, carrying guns and placing roadblocks to ward off what they believe is a bloody raid on Michoacán state by the violent Jalisco cartel.
Some of the four dozen women warriors are pregnant; some carry their small children to the barricades with them. The rural area is crisscrossed by dirt roads, leading them to fear Jalisco gunmen could invade at a time when the murder rate in Michoacán has soared to levels not seen since 2013.
Many of the female vigilantes in the hamlet of El Terrero have lost sons, brothers or fathers in battle. Eufresina Blanco Nava said her son Freddy Barrios, a 29-year-old lime picker, was kidnapped by alleged Jalisco cartel members in pickup trucks; she has never heard from him since.
“They’ve gone a lot of people, a lot, and young girls too,” said Blanco Nava.
One woman, who asked not to use her name because she has relatives in areas dominated by the Jalisco cartel, said the cartel had kidnapped and disappeared her 14-year-old daughter, adding: “ We’re going to defend those who we still have, the children we have left with our lives. ”
“We women are tired of seeing our children, our families disappear,” said the vigilante. “They take our sons, they take our daughters, our relatives, our husbands.”
That is partly why the women are taking up arms; men are becoming scarce in the lime-growing hotlands of Michoacan.
“As soon as they see a man who can carry a gun, they take him,” said the woman. “They’re disappearing. We don’t know if they have them (as recruits) or if they’ve already killed them.”
In addition to the barricades and roadblocks, the female vigilantes have a self-made tank, a heavy pick-up truck with welded steel armor plates on top. In other towns nearby, residents have dug trenches on roads leading to the neighboring state of Jalisco to keep out the attackers.
Alberto García, a male vigilante, has seen the medieval side of the war: he comes from Naranjo de Chila, a town just across the river from El Terrero and the birthplace of the Jalisco cartel leader Nemesio Oseguera. Garcia said he was walked out of town by Jalisco cartel gunmen because he refused to join the group.
“They also killed one of my brothers,” said Garcia. “They cut him to pieces, and my sister-in-law, who was eight months pregnant.”
El Terrero has long been dominated by the New Michoacán Family and Viagras gangs, while the Jalisco Cartel controls the southern bank of the Rio Grande River. 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 launching a surprise attack.
And that same year, in the next town, San Jose de Chila, the rival gangs used a church as an armed ramp to repel an offensive from Jalisco gunmen. Hidden in the church tower and along the roof, they tried to defend the city against the invasion, leaving the church full of bullet holes.
It’s that grim rift where everyone is forced to take sides – either Jalisco, or the New Michoacán Family and the Viagras – that has convinced many that the El Terrero vigilantes are just foot soldiers for one of those last two gangs.
The vigilantes bitterly deny being part of a criminal gang, though they clearly see the Jalisco cartel as their enemy. They say they would love it if the police and soldiers did their job.
El Terrero is not far from the town of La Ruana, where the real self-defense movement was launched in 2013 by lime grower Hipolito Mora. After successfully dislodging the Templar cartel, Mora, like most of the original leaders, has distanced himself from the so-called self-defense groups that remain and is now a candidate for governor.
“I can almost assure you that they are not legitimate self-defense activists,” Mora said. ‘They are organized crime. … The few self-defense groups out there have allowed themselves to be infiltrated; they are criminals disguised as self-defense. “
Michoacán’s current governor, Silvano Aureoles, is more emphatic. ‘They are criminals, period. In order to disguise themselves and protect their illegal activities, they call themselves self-defense groups, as if that were a passport to impunity. “
But in some ways, Mora says, the same conditions that gave rise to the original 2013 movement remain: Authorities and police don’t enforce the law and don’t guarantee peace to residents.
Sergio Garcia, a male member of the El Terrero vigilante group, says his 15-year-old brother was kidnapped and murdered by Jalisco. Now he wants justice that the police never gave him.
“We’re here for a reason, to get justice with a hook or a crook, because if we don’t do it, no one else will,” Garcia said.
___
Associated Press writer Mark Stevenson contributed from Mexico City.