The In SightCrime article without my editorial comments is posted on the Forum by Jack Hawkins.
DD Note; The situation in Mexico is very different
than what exists/existed in the the three countries that In Sight Crime refers
to in this article. In Peru and
Guatemala the paramilitary groups were mainly used for combating insurgent
rebel groups seeking to overthrow the government. In Columbia, under the command of General Oscar
Naranjo, the groups were used initially to fight the major drug cartel
operating there.
Until a few days ago, Naranjo had
been serving as a security advisor to EPN.
Insight Crime states, “there is little indication that Naranjo passed
along his paramilitary secrets” to the Mexicans.”
While there is not hard evidence to
prove he encouraged use of paramilitary forces against the Templars in Mexico, it has been rumored that
the government has encouraged or abetted the CJNG to battle the Templars.
There have also been
rumors/accusations (with no proof ) that the Government was involved in the formation
and arming of the self-defense groups. Probably
those rumors/accusations have arisen because of Naranjo’s role as “Security
Advisor”.
Naranjo has been recognized for
taking down the largest cartel in Columbia and the killing of Pablo
Escobar. But he has been criticized for
using paramilitary groups (in Columbia they are often referred to as death
squads) to accomplish this at the cost of many civilian deaths.
Naranjo became an advisor to candidate
EPN and then was brought on board when EPN became President. He has maintained a low profile since taking
that post. But barely 60 days after EPN
took office, the first self-defense groups (in effect unofficial paramilitary
groups) started emerging seemingly
simultaneously.
One theory is that he was covertly behind
the formation and arming of those groups.
When in less than a year the groups expanded and grew beyond anyone’s
imagination, even spreading to several other states, it’s possible that EPN
(PRI) feared a scandal in the brewing about the government losing control.
EPN appointed a Federal Commissioner
for Security in Michoacan, Alfredo Castillo, a close friend of EPN who had no
law enforcement or security experience, but was known as EPN’s firefighter who handled
previous potential scandals for EPN.
If that theory was/is correct, it
would explain Sec. of Interior Osario’s about face concerning the self-defense
movement. He had said numerous times
that the govt. supported Dr. Mireles and the self-defense movement because they
had hurt the CT.
Then in the same time
frame that Costillo was appointed head of security in Michoacan and General
Naranjo announced he was returning to Columbia, Osario took a 180 degree turn
around and announced the AD ‘s had to disarm and return to their hometowns.
Probably all just coincidence.
From In Sight Crime, Written by
Steven Dudley
If Mexico's government thinks that
"legalizing" vigilante groups in the embattled state of Michoacan
will solve its citizen security problems, it should have a closer look at the
three other countries in the region -- Colombia, Guatemala and Peru -- that tried similar projects under similar
circumstances with dreadful results.
The legal structure that will
govern the self-defense forces in Mexico, while preliminary and abbreviated,
formalizes them with a name -- Rural Defense Units -- and asks them to submit a
list of their members to the government.
Various points of the law are
somewhat vague. It says they can work with the municipal police, but does not
obligate them to be part of the police. It requires them to register their
weapons with the army, but does not say if they can keep their weapons, or what
kind of weapons they have to register (Mexican law allows citizens to carry up
to a .38 caliber).
The government also says it will
help the vigilantes with their activities but does not delineate clearly what
those activities entail. In fact, that remains the biggest question: exactly
what are the Rural Defense Units going to do? What is their exact role and
jurisdiction?
All of this, of course, will need to
be more clearly defined via more formal legislation, presumably at the national
level, because the militias are breaking several laws already and putting the
current administration in a terrible public relations quandary: how do you
embrace a paramilitary strategy without admitting that you have failed as a
government?
When Mexico's Congress does sit
down, it should carefully consider the efforts of three of its neighbors, who
created legal paramilitary units to help them with their own security issues.
Among these, Guatemala's was the largest in per capita terms. The so-called
Civil Defense Patrols (Patrullas de Autodefensa Civil - PAC) numbered between 500,000 and 1 million members at
their height, an incredible number considering the country's population was not
more than 10 million at the time.
The PACs were not really collectively defined by one law but many,
and were run under military despots, making their use somewhat arbitrary and,
ultimately, brutal. In fact, the army commanders who controlled the PACs used
them to systematically inform, torture and kill their neighbors, often at
gunpoint. The Archbishop's report
following the war said the PACs, together with the army, were involved in 1,799 human rights violations and 342
massacres.
In Peru, the government made a more
concerted effort to place the "Rondas
Campesinas" under a legal structure, which was loosely based on
the historic "neighborhood watch" groups that had operated for years
in indigenous communities.
The laws evolved to give the groups
weapons -- a 1991 legislative decree
even permitted the acquisition of 12-gauge shotguns. As in Guatemala, the army
used the Rondas in their dirty war against the insurgents, although not in such
spectacular and massive fashion, often putting them in harm's way. The Rondas
became easy targets for the Shining Path, Peru's brutal rebel group, which
massacred hundreds of peasants when the army left their villages.
Perhaps the most damning example of
how not to administer state-sanctioned militias comes from Colombia, where the
so-called Convivir were wrapped into a larger
law on private security only to provide the backbone to what would
become the region's largest paramilitary force.
