Satanic Knights Templar vs. 20000 Vigilantes: New Gov't 'Trick'

Autodefensas, a self-defense organization confronting the satanic Knights Templar drug cartel in Mexico’s western state Michoacan reached a “deal” with law enforcement forces, after months of firefighting gang members as federal police and troops watched and American Fast and Furious scandal leaders worried. The bloody scene is also fueled by ore mining. Some Catholic priests are sceptical, saying the government deal is not in the best interest of the people.

Mexico’s government announced Monday that Autodefensas vigilante leaders will incorporate their armed civilian groups into an old, largely forgotten, quasi-military Rural Defense Corps. Vigilante leaders estimate having 20,000 men and women under arms.

Government officials and Autodefensas leaders met in the municipality of Tepalcatepec, 340 miles west of Mexico City.

“The self-defense forces will become institutionalized, when they are integrated into the Rural Defense Corps,” the Interior Department said in a statement.

“The agreement this week aims to contain the advance of informal self-defense groups, which entered at least 15 communities over the past 11 months in an attempt to expel members of the Knights Templar,” Christian Science Monitor says.

The Knights Templar drug cartel has been accused of crimes throughout the state, from rape to kidnap to extortion. It, however, claims to be a quasi-religious creed, one that appears Satanic to victims.

“I don’t believe this agreement. I have my doubts,” Father Andrés Larios, one of several Catholic priests defending Autodefensas in Michoacan said. “The government was scared because they saw that people in these communities could do things on their own… It’s a way of controlling them and manipulating them.”

Vicar Gregorio Lopez Geronimo of Apatzingan had hoards of cudgels he ordered for 1,000 citizens to use against federalies opposing law and order. If federal police don’t act to arrest top gangsters, he said, he’d rouse his parishioners to take to the streets and go after the police with the clubs, to pummel and bind them with rope.

(Above: Vicar Gregorio Lopez Geronimo models bulletproof vest he now uses when celebrating Mass at the Cathedral in Apatzingan, a small city in Mexico’s Michoacan state. TIM JOHNSON — MCT)

Vigilante groups began springing up almost a year ago against Knights Templar that was brutally ruling many Michoacan community and towns, demanding extortion payments from businesses, farmers and workers.

The civilian forces have recently seized a number of towns, sometimes after intense gunbattles against the cartel.

President Enrique Pena Nieto has drawn criticism that his administration brought on the vigilante armed groups by failing to stop the cartel’s abuses. Now he hopes the agreement will help restore order and get it back under control, a major task with the U.S. supplying guns and ammo to Mexicans in trade for drugs, for U.S. streets and the lucrative American prison complex.

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Department of Defense officials have been involved in supplying weapons to the Mexican drug mafia, contributing to 40,000 deaths and 23,000 Mexicans signing a petition to ICC.

January’s escalation of the vigilantes called Autodefensas brought more police and soldiers to the region. The vigilantes refused to lay down their arms and go home until all the cartel’s major leaders are arrested.

Monday, under pressure, officials finally nabbed one of the cartel’s top four leaders.

Police and soldiers were already tolerating and, in some cases, working with, the vigilantes, many armed with assault rifles that civilians are prohibted from carrying.

New deal

Vigilante leaders are to submit a list of their members to the Defense Department. The army will supposedly oversee the groups, a “temporary” arrangement, government says. The government also says the vigilantes can keep their weapons, provided they register them with the army.

“We have no interest in weapons. We want them to put an end to this organized crime and we’ll go back to our work,” said Estanislao Beltrán, a lemon farmer-turned  Autodefensas leader .

The AP reports, ”The military will give the groups ‘all the means necessary for communications, operations and movement.”

Vigilante leaders, including farmers, ranchers and some professionals, met with government officials to discuss the agreement, but say it was not yet clear for them how it would work.  Misael Gonzalez, a leader of Autodefensas in Coalcoman, said leaders accepted the government proposal, but nuts-and-bolts “are still not well defined.” They’re finalizing negotiations this week.

Vigilante leader Hipolito Mora said the agreement allows those qualified to join local police forces.

“The majority of us want to get into the police,” he said. “I never imagined myself dressed as a policeman, but the situation is driving me to put on a uniform.” (Milenio Television)

Government officials said soldiers and police arrested one top Knights Templar leader, Dionicio Loya Plancarte, alias “El Tio,” or The Uncle, on Monday before dawn in Morelia.

National Public Safety System secretary Monte Rubido said Loya Plancarte was “hiding in a closet,” accompanied only by a 16-year-old boy.

In September, the army arrested over 40 members of Autodefensas in Aquila, a Michoacan mining and ranching town.

Naturalized US citizen and aspiring community activist Nestora Salgado was among those. Today, Salgado still sits in a Mexican federal prison, nabbed by the government’s earlier push-back against the armed self-defense movement sweeping the country’s southern Pacific coast.

In a videotaped interview with Guerrero media, uploaded to YouTube shortly before her arrest (see below), Salgado argued for continued and tougher action against both gangsters and officials.

“We are just trying to provide security,” she said. “This is a town that has organized and they aren’t going to reverse things. I don’t fear the assassins or organized crime. I fear the government.” 

While some accuse Aquila’s vigilantes of working for gangsters, “they are more likely players in an internal political dispute over royalties from an ore mine operated by Ternium, an Italian-Argentine steel maker,”  Insight Crime reported.

Sources: Associated Press,  Before It’s News, Insight Crime, Christian Science Monitor, McClatchy, Milenio Television