Is the Mexican Military Fake-Fighting the Cartels, But Bearing Down on Citizen Self-Defense Groups?

Perhaps five years ago, entering Matamoros into that wide space past Migración, but before Garcia's, formerly  occupied by food carts, vendors and chicle sales agents, a large banner hung saying basically "We are not responsible for the violence, the killings, the ugliness that has been happening in this city."  The banner was signed "CDG"(Cartel del Golfo). The stoic young soldiers, clutching automatic weapons only 50 feet from the banner, but not ripping the damn thing down, told me all I needed to know about the Mexican military.

The prospect of the Mexican Navy or any other branch of the military eradicating or even stifling the cartels is dimmed by one thing; money, the ungodly amount flowing to every sector of Mexican government and likely the military too.  Reports have estimated bribes to government officials alone exceed $500,000,000 annually.  Since the bulk of that money originates on the street corners of Newark, Chicago, Los Angeles and cities across the U.S. where illegal drugs are sold daily, there's little room for U.S. national self-righteousness.

President Enrique Pena Nieto

The dim hope that a change in the Mexican presidency would intensify the war on the cartels quickly dissipated when a prominent member of Nieto's campaign quit because of all the narco money flooding in to the campaign.  If anything, the Nieto administration has tried to merely control the flow of information about cartel operations and violence in Mexico while doing little to hinder it.

A very disturbing change in policy has been reported in several recent articles published anonymously in Borderland Beat, a website devoted to getting out the truth about what's actually going on in Mexico.  (This internet site publishes on a daily basis, not only the gruesome, horrid photos of the cartel battles, but the flow of money in bribes in various states of Mexico.)  A recent article by "DD" reported a crackdown on citizen self-defense groups who are trying on their own to do what the Mexican government is not doing.

Villagers Dance After Hampering the
Activity of the Templars Cartel

Self-defense groups, made up of citizens, are reportedly providing some relief from cartel control in six small towns in Michoacan.  Mexican authorities have warned that they will not allow this movement to spread.  The fear of the government is that this movement will lead to a "parallel state, usurping the government."

Borderland Beat reported September 17 that 3 "vigilantes," the government's term for these citizen groups, were killed after the government claimed they attacked the military.

While Mexico prohibits the use of weapons, there evidently is "some support for indigenous people to have some autonomy in self-government mentioned in the Mexican Constitution in Articles 2, 27 and 39," according to the Borderland Beat article.  In any event, this movement of "community patrols" and "community police" and the government's reaction to them bears watching.