Women take up arms to defend themselves in Mexico

EL TERRERO, Mexico. – In the place where Mexico’s “self-defense” movement originated, a new group of women only has emerged, who carry assault rifles and set up roadblocks to drive out what they believe is a violent raid on Michoacán State by violent Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG).

Some of the more than 40 women are pregnant, while others take their young children to the barricades. The rural area is crisscrossed by dirt roads, leading them to fear that armed men from the CJNG could enter at a time when Michoacán’s murder rates have soared to levels not seen since 2013.

Many of the vigilante women in the town of El Terrero lost children, brothers or parents in the fighting. Eufresina Blanco Nava said her son Freddy Barrios, a 29-year-old lemon picker, was allegedly kidnapped by CJNG men in pickup trucks. She hasn’t heard from him since.

“Many have disappeared. Many girls are young too, ”said Blanco Nava.

A woman who asked not to name her because she has relatives in areas controlled by the CJNG said the criminal organization had kidnapped her 14-year-old daughter and disappeared. “We’re going to defend those who stay, our kids who stay, we’re going to defend them with our lives,” he added.

“We are already tired of our children and our families disappearing like this,” said the woman. “They take our sons, our daughters, our relatives.”

That’s one of the reasons women decided to take up arms: there are fewer and fewer men in the hot country of Michoacán.

“Just be a man who can use a weapon, they’ll take it,” said the watchman. ‘They make it disappear. We don’t know if they took them or if they killed them yet, ”he added.

In addition to barricades and roadblocks, the vigilantes have a kind of homemade tank and a pick-up truck with steel armor. In other nearby towns, residents have dug trenches in the races leading to neighboring Jalisco state to keep criminals at bay.

Alberto García, who is also a vigilante, has seen the medieval side of the war: he is from Naranjo de Chila, a town just across the river from El Terrero and the birthplace of CJNG leader Nemesio Oseguera. García said he had been expelled from the city by the organization’s men for refusing to join the group.

“A brother of mine was also murdered,” said Garcia. “He had also been dismembered by an eight-month pregnant sister-in-law,” he added.

El Terrero has long been dominated by the criminal groups La Nueva Familia Michoacana and the Viagras, while the CJNG controls the south bank of the Rio Grande. In 2019, the Viagras hijacked and burned half a dozen vans and buses to block the bridge over the river to prevent CJNG caravans from having a surprise attack.

And that same year, rival groups in the neighboring town of San José de Chila used a church as an armed stronghold to fight a CJNG offensive. Anchored in the church tower and along the roof, they tried to defend the city against invasion, leaving the church full of bullet holes.

It is this striking division in which everyone is forced to take sides – be it the CJNG or the Nueva Familia Michoacana and the Viagras – that has convinced many that El Terrero’s vigilantes are just soldiers from the walk of one of the latter two gangs.

The vigilantes reject claims that they are part of a criminal organization, but clearly point out that the CJNG is their rival. They said they would be more than happy if the police and military did that work.

El Terrero is not far from the town of La Ruana, where the real self-defense movement was formed in 2013 by lemon grower Hipólito Mora. After successfully pursuing the Templar Cartel, Mora, like most early leaders, has distanced himself from the groups called self-defense groups that are still active today. He is now running for governor.

“I can almost assure you that they are not legitimate self-defense groups,” Mora reported. “It’s organized crime,” he said, adding that the few self-defense groups out there have infiltrated criminals.

Michoacán’s current governor, Silvano Aureoles, is more blunt. ‘They are criminals, period. Now, to spread a blanket there to protect their criminal activities, they call themselves self-defense groups, as if that were a passport of impunity, ”he said.

But somehow, Mora said, the same circumstances that gave rise to the 2013 movement persist: Authorities and police do not enforce the law or guarantee peace for residents.

Sergio García, a member of the El Terrero group, said his 15-year-old brother was kidnapped and murdered by the CJNG. Now he wants the justice the police never gave him.