Mexican Government Orders Michoacán Self-Defense Forces to Disarm, They Refuse

In a sign of the growing problem for the Mexican government in Michoacán state, in Southwest Mexico, last week, as the self-defense forces battling the Knights Templar drug cartel advanced on the main cartel stronghold of Apatzingan with thousands of troops.  The military, fearing a civil war, ordered the self-defense forces to disarm, and said that they’d take over.  Euronews reports that  the self-defense forces refused, knowing that once the military left, they would be massacred by the cartel.

Michoacan self-defense forces

The Knights Templar are the remnants of La Familia Michoacan, one of the oldest and strongest cartels in Mexico that has had de facto control over the state for years.  Over the past year, the citizens have risen up in what is in practical effect, a civil war for control. As we said before, if the government refuses its most basic job, to monopolize the legitimate use of force, eventually the people will take the law into their own hands and form a shadow government.  That’s exactly what has happened. We’ve been blogging on it for some time.

The government has seemingly finally gotten the hint at the range of the problem.  It was reported earlier that the government has retaken the port (the second largest port in the country) from the cartel, and realized that the cartel had taken control of mining, as well as extorting farmers as well.  (see earlier coverage here). The people had enough and started taking back small towns, defying Mexico’s harsh gun laws, arming themselves and setting up their own jails and courts.

The prospect of thousands of self-defense forces circling a city of 100,000, however, was too much.  But, rather than fight the cartel (as the prior president had tried to do), the army ordered the self-defense forces to disarm, which they refused.  Most of the rest of the world saw this and asked the obvious question, “Why don’t you go after the criminals, rather than the self-defense forces?”

The government seemingly got the clue and the federal police moved into Apatzigan and took over the municipal police and city hall, with army support, leaving the self-defense forces outside town at their bunkers.

It’s a critical time for Mexico in its fight against the cartels. The people, at least in Southwest Mexico, have had enough and created their own government.  If the central government wants to govern, they need to come in and govern. If not, the people will fight the criminal gangs themselves and it will look like what it is, that the central government has no real presence in the southwest.  The people of Michoacán will have gotten independence not by choice, but because the government neglected them into taking it for themselves.