THE rule of law has long been a stranger to the sweltering lowlands known as the Tierra Caliente in the Mexican state of Michoacán. The site of battles over land in the 1940s and 1950s, the area suffered an exodus of migrant workers to California. In the 1970s the drug trade took root there, attracted by the proximity of the port of Lázaro Cárdenas and the remoteness of the federal government in Mexico City. Not content with trafficking methamphetamines, the latest mafia to lord it over the Tierra Caliente, the whimsically named “Knights Templar”, established a tight grip over its invertebrate society, co-opting local authorities, extorting protection money and raping women.That proved too much for the Tierra Caliente’s ranchers and lime-growers. A year ago they rebelled, forming “self-defence groups”. These vigilantes now control 26 of Michoacán’s 113 municipal districts. When earlier this year they threatened to storm Apatzingán, a town of 99,000, President Enrique Peña Nieto dispatched a federal official, Alfredo Castillo, and a squad of federal policemen. Mr Castillo struck agreements with the vigilantes: they will be vetted, in theory at least, and then join...
via The Economist: The Americas http://ift.tt/1m0iKvJ
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