Mexico Town Under Drug War Siege: "We'll put down our arms when the Knights Templar leave"

Milenio: Juan Pablo Becerra-Acosta

Michoacán • A week before Mother's Day, Milenio went to La Ruana, population of 10,000, in the municipality of Buenavista Tomatlán in the Tierra Caliente [Hot Country] of Michoacán. The town is surrounded by the Knights Templars [drug cartel]. It has been under siege for weeks, out of gas, with little food and medicines, and the production of limes has been ruined.

It's where the residents created a self-defense group with their neighbors from Tepalcatepec to fend off the narcos, although they are accused of receiving support from the New Generation Jalisco Cartel. So far, the result of the war [between the two cartels] is twenty killed in a massacre of lime growers and two clashes. Before Mother's Day, during a mass protest--a demonstration of hundreds of people in front of the Milenio cameras--frightened housewives warned:

"We are threatened for May 10 [Mothers' Day]; they say they have a gift for us, that they will kill all of us like dogs."

We returned [after May 10] to La Ruana. They didn't kill them. There was no confrontation or massacre. What stood out was the site. The desperation and the lack of people. Days and weeks pass, and the gas stations remain closed. The residents jump on pickup trucks to buy drums and buckets of fuel sold to them by free-lance vendors who bring it from Jalisco and Colima, states that border on La Ruana and Tepalcatepec.

Eight out of ten shops are closed. There are an increasing number of signs offering commercial spaces. Nobody rents them. The few open stores look completely empty; others have products with expired dates.

"None of them come: Pepsi, Sabritas [potato and corn chips], Bimbo [bread], no one. We have almost no money, and we are spending what little savings we had. Is anyone going to help us, sir?" laments the owner of a grocery store.

But there is no shortage of junk food. Nor of tortillas. The gas-powered corn grinders were paralyzed, so production has to be done with wood. Just this Saturday, a Jalisco bottled gas company dared to ignore the threats from organized crime and supplied gas to stores and homes that it could reach. Kitchens have been useless; everything is cooked in microwave ovens or on grills fueled by wood on patios.

Something similar happened with fruits and vegetables. A family that has a shop dared go towards Apatzingán, where the Templars operate, where there are roadblocks operated by a squad of lookouts. The family was lucky. They were only psychologically harassed; there was some slapping, the goods confiscated, but their lives were saved. They don't want to speak on camera. Wow, in their fear they don't even allow the reporter to write in his notebook. Their eyes show their terror; their looks, their helplessness.

In pharmacies the situation is similar: 

"The drug suppliers don't even call to take our orders. Look, people who are sick for a day can get by with [common] remedies, but people who require daily medications, the chronically ill, they are in trouble. Some have gone to another place," says an old woman who attends one of the pharmacies. 

Sad and angry, she exhibits a peso bill and some change: "This is today's sale, look, 60 pesos [US$5.00]".

Some men pass the time playing dominoes outdoors under the shade of trees. No one smiles.

Many streets and gardens, including the main kiosk, are deserted. Suddenly the wind blows and raises the dust. It looks like the streets of a ghost town. A town of the Old West ...

***

Hipolito Mora heads the self-defense group of La Ruana. He just finished watching a video from The Knights Templar. They invited him to dialogue to end the violence, but they didn't reach an agreement. So they challenged him ... to a duel to the death. A duel to the death in May 2013; the Old West in the Tierra Caliente of Michoacán.

In an interview with Milenio, surrounded by his men ("My Boys"), some with rifles, others with farmers' shotguns (he carries a 9 mm), the man, 58, gray haired, wearing a hat and white pants, his gold watch gleaming, says he isn't a millionaire, but he does "well" with limes and livestock. He puts his gun in his belt, sucks on a cherry ice and prepares to answer.

Milenio: Tell me what caused all this ...

"The problem was when the first cartel, La Familia Michoacana, arrived; they charged fees to those who made drugs."

Milenio: To those who cooked methamphetamine in laboratories? ...

"To those who cooked, but then that wasn't enough money and they started to mess with legal businesses. The people got fed up when they took control of the lime packing for themselves and their producer friends."

Milenio: Why didn't you complain before arming?

"Nobody agreed with them, but no one said anything either, because they were afraid. If someone said something, they killed him. There were people here who had dealings with them, and we didn't know where they were."

The man's good looks are unusual in self-defense groups. He seems like an actor in a film or a priest of liberation theology from the 70's. Or perhaps an entrepreneur.

Milenio: Do you know how to use weapons?

"I do. And I proved it the day of the confrontation here (two weeks ago, there were 14 deaths). It was my turn."

Milenio: With what did you shoot them? ...

"With an AK-47."

He looks straight ahead, unfazed.

Milenio: You live here like in the Old West ...

"We have to. We have no choice. It's as if I came to your house and wanted to do as I please with you and your family. What reaction would you have? It's the same. Would you let them massacre your family and take away your income?

Milenio: I would go to the authorities ...

"What if they ignored you?"

Milenio: Do you have ties to a cartel?

"That is false, and I say that firmly and without hesitation. Yes, there have been organized crime people who want to contact me. Yes, there are. There have been offers. I have not accepted them, nor will I accept them."

Milenio: What kind of deals?

"Money. So that I might let them in, and they get to work in drug trafficking. If I accept, I am part of the spoiled ones, or I am consenting, but I have not accepted nor will I accept, no matter what happens."

He swears that if the Templars leave, he will not lead a local cartel and that people are not going to produce and transport drugs. That said ...

Milenio: And the guns, don't they come from a cartel?

"Here we have a few guns that have cost us a lot of work to buy. Besides, we still lack weapons."

Milenio: How did you acquire them? MV Note: in Mexico, guns can be purchased legally only at a single store run by the Army on its base in Mexico City.

"We purchased them little by little. One on one day, another fifteen days later; so it goes, little by little. We began with a shotgun. And right now we already feel like big shots with the weapons we carry."

Milenio: It's against the law ...

"Yes."

Milenio: You're aware of that?

"Yes, it's outside the law. Yes, I am aware. The weapon I carry is prohibited. For this I could get five years or more in prison. I'm aware, but I don't misuse it. It is to defend my people, and I will continue doing that."

Milenio: You are outside the law.

"I have had forceful discussions with the military, and they don't agree that we can go around armed, but they don't leave us any other way. Why haven't they done a good job? We aren't happy with the weapons here. We don't sleep much. We are best in the fields. Why didn't they do their job well? They still have time. Do it and we will retire! We will put down our weapons when the Templars leave."

Milenio: You're at war ...

"It's not a war. We are defending ourselves. Nothing more. We don't attack anyone. We don't go out to look for them. We are doing nothing more than taking care of the people, so that they don't enter here. We aren't at war, nothing more than defending ourselves."

Milenio: They are going to die from bullets?

"If they want. We have to defend ourselves. If someone comes along, I won't stop or cross my arms. I have to do my duty, which is to defend myself."

Milenio: Is this the last village in the Mexican West?

Laughing, he gets up and the interview is ended.

***

Bimbo bread company refuses to risk employees

Javier Gonzalez Franco, Bimbo CEO, admitted that there are food shortages in some villages of Michoacán, due to the restrictions imposed by organized crime groups.

In an interview with Milenio, the businessman said that there are no workers who are threatened. He assures that they have complied with all restrictions in order not to risk the lives of staff.

"We don't like to risk our people and they know it; considering any type of risk, we try to cover these areas as well as possible," he explained.

He said they are in constant communication with the government of Michoacán, including through the chambers of commerce and business associations of which they are part.

"We're not the only ones who go through these situations; there are many providers who are in the same circumstance. From the moment that we go out to sell, I would say there are days we can't get in [to these communities] and on other days we can," he said.

"We attempt to get there, but sometimes, because of a situation, we can do nothing about the shortage. As far as possible, we try to correct it; in some states, we have the problem. Workers aren't threatened; we respect any type of restrictions" he said.  

 Spanish original