JimBowie1958
Old Fogey
- Sep 25, 2011
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This is a very interesting article on self defense organizations in Mexico that leftwing journalists consider to be 'vigilantes' but they are really just defending themselves as best they can.
In Mexico’s Cartel Country, a Murderer Who Kills Murderers Tells His Story
“They call themselves community police, but they’re really no different from sicarios,” says Manuel Olivares, director of a Chilpancingo-based NGO called the José María Morelos y Pavón Regional Center for Human Rights. The NGO director also charges that the state government is complicit in allowing FUPCEG to operate outside the rule of law.
“Ultimately they’re enabled by the politicians,” he says. “The criminals could never carry out a campaign of terror without their support and permission. The level of corruption [in Guerrero] is just incredible. We have a government that cares only for itself.”
Bunker agrees with Olivares about “the authorities turning a blind eye to vigilante justice” in Chilpancingo.
“If the autodefensas want to engage in extrajudicial killings by means of death squads to take cartel gunmen and their other personnel off the streets it’s a freebie for the overwhelmed authorities. Cartel del Sur has a barbaric reputation as far as torture-killings and other deprivations go, so [FUPCEG operations] remove some of the hardcore criminal element plaguing the community.”
But Bunker also warns of the danger inherent in relying on civilian militias.
“Once autodefensas form they are immediately susceptible to outside criminal influences—such as cartel penetration and manipulation—or they can become corrupted by their new found position of power and become an armed gang in their own right.”
In Mexico’s Cartel Country, a Murderer Who Kills Murderers Tells His Story
“They call themselves community police, but they’re really no different from sicarios,” says Manuel Olivares, director of a Chilpancingo-based NGO called the José María Morelos y Pavón Regional Center for Human Rights. The NGO director also charges that the state government is complicit in allowing FUPCEG to operate outside the rule of law.
“Ultimately they’re enabled by the politicians,” he says. “The criminals could never carry out a campaign of terror without their support and permission. The level of corruption [in Guerrero] is just incredible. We have a government that cares only for itself.”
Bunker agrees with Olivares about “the authorities turning a blind eye to vigilante justice” in Chilpancingo.
“If the autodefensas want to engage in extrajudicial killings by means of death squads to take cartel gunmen and their other personnel off the streets it’s a freebie for the overwhelmed authorities. Cartel del Sur has a barbaric reputation as far as torture-killings and other deprivations go, so [FUPCEG operations] remove some of the hardcore criminal element plaguing the community.”
But Bunker also warns of the danger inherent in relying on civilian militias.
“Once autodefensas form they are immediately susceptible to outside criminal influences—such as cartel penetration and manipulation—or they can become corrupted by their new found position of power and become an armed gang in their own right.”