Traditional and indigenous community police in Mexico under fire from drug cartels

TANGAMANDAPIO, Mexico (AP) — Mexico’s traditional and indigenous community police are becoming increasingly deadly at the hands of drug cartels, authorities said Monday.

Adrián López, chief prosecutor in the western state of Michoacan, confirmed that gunmen linked to drug cartels shot dead seven members of the local police in the city of Coahuayana over the weekend.

The community guards were killed just days after seven members of an indigenous community police force were kidnapped, apparently by cartel gunmen, and sent through “hell” in another city in Michoacan before being released on Friday.

As cartel wars have drained cities across rural Mexico, many places have turned to “community police,” relatively untrained members of the city who volunteer or pay a small fee to protect residents.

More common in indigenous towns – which have centuries of experience organizing and defending themselves – community police are a more established and trusted force than the short-lived “self-defense” units that flourished in Michoacan between 2013 and 2014 to fight the cartels but quickly became corrupt.

But while they enjoy the trust of their fellow citizens, the community guards are no match for the firepower of the cartels seeking to take over their land.

According to López, the prosecutor, Saturday’s attack in Coahuayana was linked to fighting between drug cartels over control of the coastal area, a major maritime cocaine supply route.

“All this is linked to the decision of members of criminal gangs to conquer territory and carry out illegal activities, mainly drug trafficking,” he said.

Coahuayana (koh-why-YAH-nah), located on the Pacific coast near the neighboring state of Colima, is particularly attractive to the cartels. Fast boats carrying cocaine from South America sail directly here, but often dump floating bales of cocaine at sea, equipped with tracking devices, before picking them up and bringing them to land.

“The area of ​​the coast of Michoacan and Colima is ideal for picking up packages of cocaine from South America,” López said. “There have been numerous packages of cocaine seized by the Navy.”

Although no one in Coahuayana would say which gang committed the killings, suspicions immediately turned to the Jalisco New Generation cartel, which has long been active in the region.

The cartel is also suspected of being responsible for the kidnapping of seven community guards – six men and one woman – who were abducted last Tuesday and released Friday in the indigenous Purepecha neighborhood of Tangamandapio (tahn-gah-man-DAH-pee-oh) Michoacan.

These traditional officers are known as “Kuárichas” (KWAH-rich-ahs) in Purepecha. In indigenous towns, such troops have legal status to deal with minor infractions.

The seven were kidnapped on Tuesday and a massive search was launched involving helicopters, the army and state police. No one would say who had kidnapped them or what had happened to them, but suspicion fell once again on the Jalisco cartel, based in the neighboring state of the same name.

One of the officers, Brayan Javier, said after his release: “The truth is that it was hell there, because of the many things that happened.”

Another rescued guard, Luis Reyes, said their release was due to the unity and strength of the Purepecha community that helped in the search.

“Thanks to the whole city, all the Purepecha people, we are strong,” Reyes said.

Reyes and the others are confident that the indigenous people’s resilience and community ties can ward off the cartels, but that’s not yet clear.

In recent months, the southern state of Chiapas, one of Mexico’s most indigenous-populated areas, has largely fallen under the control of warring drug gangs near the Guatemalan border, causing some Chiapas residents to abandon their homes and flee to neighboring Guatemala. ___

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Armando Solís, The Associated Press