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Wednesday, July 12, 2017

One Mexican Town Revolts Against Violence and Corruption

Posted by Yaqui for Borderland Beat from LA Times




CAPTION:       The townspeople of Cheran, Michoacan have thrown out Politicians, Police, and the Mayor to Rid itself of Violence and Illegal Logging


                                   Cherán: Six Years in and the experiment is working

Patrick J. McDonnell
July 10, 2017

Checkpoints staffed by men with assault rifles, camouflage and body armor greet visitors at the three 
major entrances to town. The guards are not soldiers, police officers, drug enforcers or vigilantes. They are members of homegrown patrols that have helped keep Cheran a bastion of tranquillity within one of Mexico’s most violent regions.

The town of 20,000 sits in the northwest corner of Michoacan, a state where authorities say at least 599 people were killed between January and May, an increase of almost 40% compared with the same period last year. Cheran hasn’t had a slaying or other serious crime since early 2011.


That was the year that residents, most of them indigenous and poor, waged an insurrection and declared self-rule in hopes of ridding themselves of the ills that plague so much of Mexico: raging violence, corrupt politicians, a toothless justice system and gangs that have expanded from drug smuggling to extortion, kidnapping and illegal logging.

Six years in, against all odds, Cheran’s experiment appears to be working.

“We couldn’t trust the authorities or police any more,” said Josefina Estrada, a petite grandmother who is among the women who spearheaded the revolt. “We didn’t feel that they protected us or helped us. We saw them as accomplices with the criminals.”

Abuela Josefina  Estrada / photo: Cecelia Sanchez, LA Times
Indeed rural areas in the state have sent so many immigrants to the US, the criminal syndicates that have long dominated Michoacan are part of the reason, along with rampant poverty, that Cheran and other  othenited States.

Cheran’s scourge were the "talamontes", illegal loggers who worked at the behest of larger mafias and raided the communal forests that are vital to its economy and culture.

The timber thieves would parade through town on hulking trucks, ferrying illegal loads of pine, brandishing weapons and threatening anyone resisting.

Rafael Garcia Avila resisted. He belonged to a town committee that monitored forest use and had taken a stand against illegal logging. He and a colleague were kidnapped by gunmen on Feb. 11, 2011, and never seen again, joining the multitudes of “disappeared” who have vanished during Mexico’s war on drugs.

“My husband loved the forests, the woods, the natural world,” recalled his widow, Maria Juarez Gonzalez, tears welling in her eyes.

The disappearances — along with other killings, assaults, threats, and the plunder of the town’s ancestral forests — became unbearable in a community whose residents retain their identity as Purepecha Indians, one of the few indigenous groups in the area that did not succumb to the Aztec empire.

“The "talamontes" would drive by in their trucks, laughing at us,” recalled Estrada, a mother of eight — six of them living in the United States — who sells health shakes from a small storefront. “It wasn’t safe to be out at night. It wasn’t safe to be in the forest…. Sometimes I just went home and cried and cried.”

Finally, she called some other women and decided to strike back.

Call to Revolution: Man Rings Cheran's Church Bells
photo: Liliana Nieto del Rio/ LA Times
On April 15, 2011, before dawn, the people of Cheran sounded the bells at the Roman Catholic Chapel of the Calvary and set off homemade fireworks to summon help. Few had firearms, so they brought picks, shovels and rocks.

Then they struck, seizing the first timber truck of the day, dragging its two crew members from the cab and taking them hostage. Lacking rope, they tied up their prisoners with  rebozos, or shawls.

As more people responded, an initial crowd of about 30 swelled to more than 200.

Residents dug ditches and placed timber barricades to block entry to the town. As the sun went down, the people of Cheran set tires ablaze and lit campfires to ensure no one would pass. Eventually, they took five loggers hostage and torched seven of their trucks.The gangs retreated and hostages were returned.

But the revolt lived on. Known simply as the “uprising,” it entered the lore of violence-plagued Michoacan state, where gangster exploits in recent years include rolling five human heads onto a dance floor.

The townspeople grasped an essential fact: The talamontes were part of a larger criminal network that controlled drug trafficking and worked hand-in-hand with politicians and police.

“To defend ourselves, we had to change the whole system — out with the political parties, out with City Hall, out with the police and everything,” said Pedro Chavez, a teacher and community leader. “We had to organize our own way of living to survive.”



They decided to target the nexus between crime and politics that has haunted Mexico and do away with the police, the mayor, the political parties.

The town recruited outside legal expertise to exploit provisions of Mexican law that allow communities with indigenous majorities to set up a form of self-government, incorporating traditional “uses and customs” into their rule.

The political parties and their patrons resisted the radical transformation. The case eventually made its way to Mexico’s Supreme Court. Finally, in 2014 Cheran’s provisional system of self-government was declared legal. The town remains part of Mexico but runs its own show.

On the surface, Cheran seems no different from other places in rural Mexico.

Stands set up in the colonial-era central square hawk foodstuffs, cheap clothing and other items. Each afternoon, residents gather to enjoy an ice cream, sip a juice drink and share gossip and small talk, often about loved ones and neighbors now in the United States.

But something is missing: There is no sign of the political slogans and emblems that are ubiquitous in much of the country.

Electioneering is forbidden inside the town limits, as are political parties. Even motorists entering Cheran are obliged to remove or cover up party bumper stickers. Residents can cast ballots in state and national elections, but they must do so at special booths set up in nearby towns. 

Instead of the traditional mayor and city council, each of the town’s four barrios is governed by its own local assembly, whose members are chosen by consensus from 172 block committees known as "fogatas" — after the campfires that came to symbolize the 2011 rebellion.

Each assembly also sends three representatives — including at least one woman — to serve on a 12-member town council.

The town receives all the funds — the equivalent of about $2.6 million per year, officials say — that are its due from the state and federal governments. Salaries of 200 or so town employees max out at the equivalent of roughly $450 US Dollars a month, leaving money to help fund the municipal water system and other services, including a trash recycling program that is a rarity in Mexico.

The armed guards at the town entrances are part of a locally selected police force of 120 or so, known as "la ronda comunitaria". No one enters or leaves without inspection.


Cheran was ahead of the curve in the so-called auto defensa movement, which saw many Mexican towns, especially in crime-ridden Michoacan state, set up local militias starting in 2013 as a response to gang-related violence. But other local militias have often turned to the dark side, integrating into existing criminal rings or forming new ones, or have simply disbanded with time. In Cheran, the community police force has stuck and become an integral part of the town’s security.

Without any major crime in Cheran, local officials handle minor offenses such as theft, drunk-driving and disorderly conduct, typically imposing sentences of community service.

Specialized squads also patrol the forests.

“These forests are our essence, they were left to us by our forefathers for protection and nurturing,” said Francisco Huaroco, 41, a member of the forest patrol, as he and a team trekked past stumps that attest to former ransacking. “Without these woods, our community is not whole, is not itself.”

Selective or "Salvage" Logging
Swaths of bald earth slice through former woods, the scars of looting by the talamontes. Between 2008 and the revolt in April 2011, roughly half of Cheran’s 59,000 acres of forest was illegally felled, authorities said.  “If it had gone on much longer, we would have had nothing left of the forests,” said Roberto Sixtos Ceja.

Sixtos said he left Cheran as a teenager to work in North Carolina — a destination for many here — but returned in 2010 to help the community confront the escalating crisis.

Now 47, he helps manage a vast tree nursery where pine cones are grown into saplings, part of an effort to replenish the hillsides. The nursery holds more than 1 million young trees, of three indigenous pine varieties. The town only allows harvesting of diseased timber or logs downed by storms or other natural causes.

Cheran natives who live in the United States have been closely following events here.

“We never stop being members of this community, people of Cheran,” said Ramiro Romero Ramos, 61, who left almost four decades ago but now heads the Cheran Club of Los Angeles. He recently was visiting to inaugurate a new roof on a primary school playground — a project partially funded by L.A.-area residents from Cheran.

At the Cheran town hall, a multi-hued mural of Emiliano Zapata, the Mexican revolutionary icon, bears the inscription: “Cheran will neither surrender nor be sold!”
                                                                                                     
Other towns have endeavored to copy Cheran’s transformation, with limited success. The model has relatively little application elsewhere in Mexico, where the vast majority of the population is of mestizo, or mixed-race, origins. Self-rule laws for indigenous communities do not apply.

Not that Cheran doesn’t have its problems, including poverty, lack of opportunity, petty crime.

“But the problems of today don’t compare with what it was like before,” said Estrada, the rebellion organizer. “Now we can go out at night. Before the community felt a great fear: Everyone went inside at 9 o’clock at night and shut their doors.”

With slayings, kidnappings and extortion plaguing areas just outside of Cheran, all here are aware that it would take little for turmoil and conflict to reemerge. The governor of Michoacan has publicly threatened a court case to reverse the town’s system of self-government.

“We in Cheran remain vigilant,” said Juarez Gonzalez, who, six years after her husband’s disappearance, is now a "fogata" coordinator. “We all know the criminals are close by, and may try to return any time.”


NOTE: Cecilia Sanchez of The Times Mexico City bureau and special correspondent Liliana Nieto del Rio in Cheran contributed.

27 comments:

  1. Very cool, wish this could happen more often.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Simply beautiful!
    The love of its townspeople and their environment. Furthermore, impressed as to the odds against these individuals who formed their own political structure. Especially where political candidates and parties try and gain footholds.
    Best wishes to them. And commend them for their actions to protect and serve their citizens.
    Now this is a good posting.
    GOTTA LOVE IT!!!!!!!

    E42

    ReplyDelete
  3. Dont post much anymore,but always said Mexican women are outta sight,they suffer and endure violence,and still stand up

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. La Comandanta Nestora learned her lesson and went back home to her new country...

      Delete
  4. Yaqui...you made my day. Listen to manu chao with an iced coke, reading this story...good see hope and some light in all This dark

    ReplyDelete
  5. And now that town is going to get erase from the map jahaha

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Wish your comment wasn't posted! Hope you get erased from your existence. Idiots like you never help change. You alway hold it back. You know what that is called??? I'll wait for another comment the fill in the blank. But you sir are a (....................)

      Delete
    2. 10:50 you need to grow a pair and call shit for what it is, at least the poosey way, call the guy a POSER.
      but never advocate for comments to be deleted, we have too much of that already, and citizens complaining that they did not say anything bad coupled with cynical comments like'
      "...some coments are too good to share..." from our beloved Chivis, no less, you have to admire her diplomacy,
      others love her, warts and all🐐.

      Delete
  6. bravo, brave ppl of cheran, viva cheran.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Small local government is a lot better than federal government taxing you and taking your money to Mexico city or Washington dc
    Congratulations very proud of u wonderful people. Best regards a Grimgo in the USA

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yeah and I bet you supported Hillary after saying that

      Delete
    2. Hilary is for tax cuts???? and state local community. Keeping their tax dollars ????? She is for more federal taxs

      Delete
    3. 8:57 Hillary could not buy even pirated no brand panties from the dollar store with you "tax money", NO MAMES GÜEY!

      Delete
  8. People from michoan are some brave people. I think all Mexican communities need to get together and do the same thing.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Honestly I always thought Michoacanos were the mero gallos (not the narcos) not like other states like sinaloa jaliso zacatecas claims to be

      Delete
    2. It would be an ideal goal for other towns to do same. However, political parties would not allow such due to their pay cut( stealing). Political dominance and government corruption is key to their success. Moreover, a rebellious stance against government. And that is a category of an enemy of the state.

      E42

      Delete
    3. The michuacanos are under the boot of the federal government's police, army, marinas, and epn's favorite narcos, I don't blame them, it is all about government control, and el PRI shenanigans, but meth precursors import-export lobby and Arcelor-Mittal say what is up there.

      Delete
  9. Amazing story. Others should do the same even if not indigenous, they should rebel against the useless government.

    ReplyDelete
  10. Time to send Castillo back in. The PRI can not allow an uprising against thier cartel partners.

    ReplyDelete
  11. Doc Mireles says there fight was patterned after cheran.

    Here is another great article explaining in detail what happened. we have many cheran article...type cheran in search bar.

    http://www.borderlandbeat.com/2012/07/the-fight-of-cheran-day-it-began.html

    ReplyDelete
  12. Perupechas are in the history books way back to the Aztec impire that tried many times to take their land and tax them but never succeeded. Aztecs went all over central America and all of Mexico to collect taxes from the locals. But purepechas were not having it. The Aztecs even went to Sinaloa, mazatlan is in Aztec name meaning the people who believe in Aztec gods. (Just throwing it out there after I read a comment yesterday that said people from sinaloa had no indigenous blood)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. All of Mexico has indigenous influence in the names of places and with the people; even within U.S.A., you just have to investigate a little closer. - alias la sabiduria

      Delete
    2. 7:07 AM
      Good back sory comment,intelligent conversation instead of the endless whining and hate,your words have piqued an interest,could listen to more

      Delete
    3. If the corrult US government were not supporting the corrupt mexican government with training, weapons and money, sicarios and "Sovereign Impunity",
      michoacan would not be having these problems...

      Delete
  13. The actor from twilight is a purepecha indian I but don't know if he's from cheran though. His last name is meza, he's a the wolf in the movie.. I wonder if he sends them funds

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. 6:40 Well, be must be buying some meth,
      seems to have no fat on the six pack, we all do what we can.

      Delete

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