The civilian self-defense militias
in Michoacan State in southwest Mexico that sprang up with unprecedented, heroic
force earlier this year have been much documented on this blog, and in the mainstream
press. They have been described as folk
heroes. They have been described by the Economist Magazine (here) as a threat to civil order with
dire predictions and comparisons to the right-wing militias in Peru and
Colombia that began as forces to fight traffickers and later misused their
power.
Michoacan Self-Defense Forces |
Less considered has been exactly
what pushed them over the edge to take up arms against a cartel, the Knights
Templar, which had near-total de facto control over most of the state apparatus. The Knights Templar – before the self-defense
forces went on the offensive – had control over the port, were drug
trafficking, were extorting not only shop-keepers, but also farmers, ranchers
and miners. (Background here)
News has just come out about a
much darker, much more sinister form of crime that the Knights Templar were
engaged in: kidnapping children, killing them and harvesting their organs.
This is not science fiction. This
is true.
The Mexican Attorney General’s
office and the police in Michoacan, which has been fortified by the Mexican
armed forces, have arrested the number-two of the Knights Templar, and the
nephew of the head of the cartel, on suspiction of kidnapping children to
harvest their organs. As reported by Al Jazeera (and others): Manuel Plancarte Gaspar was accused by police on Monday of being part
of the cartel’s organ-trafficking ring and the state attorney general's
office said he was "under investigation for the death of minors,
whose organs were extracted to be sold."
Michoacan's public safety secretary Castellanos Becerra said the ring
would kidnap children and take them to homes fitted with medical equipment
where they were killed and their organs removed.
The leader of a local
self-defense group fighting against the cartel said that several children from
Mexico City, who were on a beach outing, had been rescued in a refrigerated
container inside a van, tightly wrapped in blankets.
When one wonders what sort of
horrors would make ordinary people rise up against an organized, international
drug cartel, having your children kidnapped and killed for their organs is the
kind of horror that would do it. That is
the kind of evil which is nothing short of incomprehensible. If that is allowed
to go, there is no point in living. There is every reason to fight, no matter
what the cost, because, if you don’t fight, everything is lost. That is the kind of total breakdown of the
civil order which requires vigilantism. It is the kind of evil for which the repercussions
of having militias, and the long-term potential effects of them (as in Colombia
or Peru) is worth the risk. Because the alternative, doing nothing, is
impossible to comprehend. It is almost
as impossible to comprehend as the act itself.
Except that it has happened and the people have risen up to stomp it
out. Fortunately, too late, the government
has reasserted itself to aid in the fight.
No comments:
Post a Comment