My NewsSign Out Sign InCreate your free profileSections news Alerts 24.Pedro Pardo / AFP - Getty ImagesHooded men stand guard outside the Justice palace 24.Pedro Pardo / AFP - Getty ImagesArmed men guard the Justice palace from a car 24.Pedro Pardo / AFP - Getty ImagesA female guard watches over 27 people arrested by a residents' police force in Ayutla de los Libres in the Guerrero state of Mexico on Jan 25.Pedro Pardo / AFP - Getty ImagesHundreds of men and women in the southern Mexico state of Guerrero have armed themselves with rifles pistols and machetes to defend their villages against drug gangs that local police are unable or unwilling "There isn't one of us who hasn't felt the pain ... of seeing them take a family member and not being able to ever get them back," said the young civilian self-defense patrol member, who identified himself as "just another representative of the people of the mountain." Continue reading Associated Press article. home to the Pacific resort town of Acapulco has been one of Mexico's hardest hit states by drug violence which has left more than 70,000 people killed across the country since 2006 In late January I traveled along winding mountain roads in Guerrero state to witness the opening of a new chapter in the country’s enduring battle against organized crime a drug eradication mission conducted by the Mexican Army or an operativo by the Federal Police to nab cartel chiefs I was there to document a burgeoning movement of “Auto Defensa,” or autonomous uprisings by campesinos who pushed to the breaking point by criminal gangs operating in their communities decided to take back control of their towns and villages The event generally credited with sparking this movement occurred on January 5th in Ayutla de los Libres A group of locals decided to combat the kidnappers freed the comesario and took his captors prisoner in Ayutla that takes its historical precedent from the concept of “Uses and Customs” that the Mexican government affords indigenous communities in some parts of the country allowing them a level of self-governance that includes the formation of community police forces This contemporary incarnation of community policing in Ayutla It was not mediating land disputes or arguments over livestock Donning masks and wielding shotguns and machetes these self-deputized protectors were willing to confront — head on — the sort of crime and lawlessness that has turned parts of Mexico into North American killing fields There have been 60,000 murders in Mexico since 2006 and large tracts of the country are virtually ungovernable in Guerrero — as remote and impoverished as it is — drug gangs have operated with near-impunity and in collusion with corrupt security forces The threat of extortion and kidnapping hangs like a pall over every farmer stall owner and businessman — most of whom pay protection money to local mobsters manifests itself in the epidemic of violence Residents of La Costa Chica in Guerrero could not leave their houses after dark and entire villages were paralyzed with fear until the community banded together and kicked both the municipal and federal police out of Ayutla (they have since returned) and began rounding up known delinquents and clearing the streets of criminals The Ayutla uprising has been so successful (residents say criminal activity has dropped 90% since early January) that it caused a ripple effect in villages all over La Costa Chica and in other indigenous communities throughout Guerrero The group from Ayutla and the district of Teconapa (known as UPOEG) have even gained recognition from State Governor Ángel Heladio Aguirre Rivero who has publicly praised their fight against crime The movement is not without its own dark underbelly newspaper reports began appearing detailing the operations of the Policia Communitaria operating what seemed like a program of social cleansing arresting criminals and those suspected of crimes and detaining them in makeshift prisons in the Guerrero hinterlands It was rough popular justice: the accused were often paraded and shamed before crowds of hundreds Critics of the Policia Communitaria suggest they are not merely operating outside the law but are violating human rights and denying accused criminals due legal process What will happen to the Auto Defensa movement remains to be seen but for now spirits are high in the villages of Ayutla El Pericon and many of the other places I visited in the mountains of Guerrero The people have turned the tables on the criminal gangs and have managed in a couple of weeks to do what the central government has failed to do for years: impose order Ross McDonnell is a photographer and filmmaker born in Dublin. LightBox has previously featured McDonnell’s work on Irish public housing projects and Enrique Metinides Contact us at letters@time.com SaveSave this storySaveAt first glance, Ross McDonnell’s ambrotypes resemble 19th century portraits of desperados Then you see the semi-automatic weapons and the ballcaps and realize McDonnell’s retro images depict men on the front lines of Mexico’s most fraught contemporary struggles An ambrotype is a photograph created on a glass plate that has been coated and sensitized in a chemical bath When the glass plate negative is turned around and placed against a black background McDonnell used the technique to great effect in Vigilantes a series documenting Mexico’s Auto Defensa—bands of vigilantes who protect communities against the violence of the cartels they have all but replaced the ineffective policing of federal forces The movement spread westward from the state of Guerrero to Michoacán The groups have enjoyed some success in those areas because the people there have little faith in the central government They are more likely to respect and trust those from within their community He’s provided material for television news reporting using a variety of approaches and techniques “It has been great to work on a story like this and see how the meaning and ambience of the work can change depending on the context in which it is presented,” he says His decision to use ambrotypes grew from a collaboration with Galeria Grafika LaEstampa a gallery in Mexico City that specializes in vintage photography “I was initially a little bit skeptical about the process,” he says “but the fact the plates are unique editions and their beautiful ethereal nature of the results quickly convinced me that it would be a success.” The Auto Defensa are a response to a drug war between the government and powerful cartels a war that has seen more than 70,000 people killed Rural areas like La Costa Chica in Guerrero Auto Defensa police guard villages in these areas around the clock arresting and detaining those suspected of crimes and trying them in popular courts a quasi-religious cartel that specializes in systematic kidnapping and torture one might question McDonnell’s decision to use ambrotypes and argue he is aestheticizing violence and trauma McDonnell doesn’t believe this to be the case; he points to Mexico’s history of revolution and upheaval and how photographers have documented it from the earliest days of their medium McDonnell also believes there is a powerful visual tension between the historic process and the vigilantes’ modern-day garb. “An audience must ask themselves if these armed men appear to them to be good guys or bad guys,” he says. “In a way it says much about the level of crime and corruption in Mexico that armed, hooded vigilantes ostensibly represent the side of good in certain parts of the countryside, places where law and order have ceased to exist.” “And, they are masked for their own safety.” It is the essential source of information and ideas that make sense of a world in constant transformation The WIRED conversation illuminates how technology is changing every aspect of our lives—from culture to business The breakthroughs and innovations that we uncover lead to new ways of thinking The food, like the kitchen, was concertedly rural. Bubbling away in clay cazuelas were dishes including mole de queso, salty curds of fresh cheese half melted into a thick red sauce nutty with chile costeño, and mole de platano, bananas in a sweet-sour sauce of onions, garlic, chiles and tomatoes, like Mughlai court cooking by way of the Caribbean. Food In a special bonus episode of ‘Off Menu,’ Food columnist Lucas Kwan Peterson goes to Mexico City to sample a variety of Mexican food. Tornés, who uses his maternal surname (he’s never had a relationship with his father), is a gentle giant with a messy tumble of long black hair and the huge melancholic eyes of a saint. In the first year of the restaurant’s existence, he spent hours hunched over his black stone metate, grinding corn that he nixtamalized on site into a fragrant masa to be shaped into tortillas or sold by the kilo. He was, at the time, one of few people in the city’s central neighborhoods selling heirloom-corn masa, still widely seen as a luxury product in the capital, where most tortillas are made from the industrial corn flour Maseca. “I’m convinced that the whole problem in Mexico’s food system comes from our inability to value things as they are,” he says. “The question is simple: How much do you value a tortilla?” Blue corn masa is prepared to make tortillas at Expendio, where the menu changes daily. (Claudio Castro / For The Times) Though invariably revelatory, eating at Expendio was an exercise in patience — you ate what Tornés wanted you to eat at the pace he wanted to serve it: It was, and is, a place of both devotional seriousness and joyful informality. Even for people who knew about the rich diversity of Mexico’s regional cuisines, the flavors coming out of Tornés’ kitchen were unfamiliar: There were rajas (thin strips of green poblano chile) cooked in coconut oil and a briny shrimp mole and a banana-stuffed enchilada bathed in a pale mole of pine nuts and white cacao, a dish, Tornés says, that he’s made only once. Equally unfamiliar was the story Tornés told about his homeland. Ayutla, just inland from the Pacific coast, is best known today as the home of Guerrero’s notorious autodefensas, a network of community police forces that emerged in 2012 after years of escalating drug violence. Though some of the autodefensas have succeeded in restoring a kind of order to their communities, many others have since succumbed to the same systems of corruption and exploitation that they were meant to combat. From left: Requesón tamal and blue corn tortillas; pumpkin mole, ayocote mole, beef and red salsa from Expendio; hoja santa taco, nixtamalized corn, squash blossom, cheese and avocado. (Claudio Castro / For The Times) Restaurants that pay homage to, and often romanticize, the cooking of rural Mexico have been common in the capital at least since Enrique Olvera opened Pujol in 2000, serving his now-legendary bull’s-eye of aged mole on stark white haute cuisine flatware. But no one has ever translated the spontaneity and ordered chaos of a country kitchen to the city so faithfully. Tornés says he learned much of what he knows about cooking in secret. As a child, he followed his grandmother around like a shadow, from the bakery, where she made pan dulce to sell at the local market, to the kitchen, where he watched her nixtamalize corn over an open flame; watched the fluid roll off her wrists as she ground the softened grains into a thick paste; and watched the rotation of her hardened hands as she pressed the masa into tortillas. “My first school was in the streets of Mexico City,” he says. “That’s where I learned to value popular culture.” Tornés didn’t begin to value the culture of Ayutla, though, until he moved to Puebla for culinary school in 2007. For his five years as a student, he lived on 100 pesos per day, cooking with inexpensive ingredients from the Mercado Miguel Hidalgo and biking out to surrounding villages each weekend rather than spend money eating in town. “I always felt more comfortable in rural communities, and going out on my bike, I realized how good it felt to be in those places, and that’s when I started to recuperate the rural part of my identity,” he says. “People would ask where I was from and I would say Mexico City. But then, with time, I started feeling proud to say that where I was from and what I knew was Guerrero.” In April 2011 the people of Cheran, an indigenous Purhepecha community in Michoacan, Mexico, took up arms to expel the illegal loggers who had decimated their forests. In the years since, the wild mushrooms that had gradually disappeared through decades of deforestation have returned. That part of his identity has since become the basis of his livelihood through the company he founded with his mother — called Siva de Metate, Mixteco for chocolate ground on a metate. Siva de Metate imports ingredients farmed around Ayutla, first to Puebla and then to Mexico City, where he moved in 2012. Clockwise from top: Pineapples, sweet and astringent in flavor, on display in Ayutla de los Libres; the view of the Guerrero’s mountain range from the village of Tepuente; lagoon shrimp taken from Laguna Chautengo in Guerrero. (Claudio Castro / For The Times) “We’re not doing anything innovative,” he says. “For me, it’s about making food from the region through respect for the ingredients from the region.” The result at Expendio was a rural cooking less obsessed with “authenticity” than with reading food as a historical text. Ana Gonzalez, chef de cuisine at Expendio. (Claudio Castro / For The Times) “In some ways, it’s like we’re still living at the beginning of the 20th century,” Tornés says, “when people preferred to be seen eating French food and would eat their tortillas in private.” Climate & Environment California Subscribe for unlimited accessSite Map Mexico – Not far from the glimmering water of Acapulco the hills to the northeast of this tourist destination were marauded by criminal gangs that did as they pleased without interference from courts and police Sergio Loza Moreno says merchants paid the gangs protection money teachers had to turn over part of their paychecks to them and ranchers were charged a "tax" for each head of cattle "It was a cancer that kept growing," said Loza "People saw the police as part of that cancer." masked vigilantes armed with hunting rifles sticks and machetes became the law in this municipality of indigenous settlements people in 36 communities have organized to take responsibility for security in their villages since Jan The emergence of these community police forces reflects the ongoing difficulties in combating organized crime in Mexico and the depth of the distrust in the institutions that are supposed to protect people from the gangs It also may impede the preferred priorities of President Enrique Peña Nieto who is trying to focus on the economy and is speaking sparingly about security since his Dec "The situation continues being as bloody as ever … (but) they're not speaking as much about this sort of news," says Raymundo Díaz director of an Acapulco-based human rights group the Collective Against Torture and Impunity Peña Nieto has shunned the hard language against the drug lords here and talks more of stopping crimes affecting ordinary citizens such as kidnapping and extortion He has promised to improve security by spending more on social programs instead of sending more soldiers into the streets Years of violence and victimization have convinced many Mexicans in crime-plagued towns that the government is no longer a source for a solution They are arming and going after criminals themselves the desperation of these groups is linked … to the inability of the government to enforce the law," said Roberto Campa an undersecretary in the Interior Ministry The National Human Rights Commission warned about "the existence of armed groups with interests distinct from self-defense." "Nothing justifies that a group of persons decides to take justice into their own hands and attempt … to place themselves above the government," it said Rebellion has been ebbing and flowing for years in Guerrero state which includes Ayutla and some of Mexico's poorest municipalities Guerrilla groups operate in the region and there have been massacres "This is one of the zones of the country where the state has traditionally been absent," says Alejandro Hope security analyst with the Mexican Institute for Competitiveness set up roadblocks and apprehended suspects The towns organized tribunals for the accused for alleged crimes that ranged from drug trafficking to kidnapping to extortion The Union of Peoples and Organizations of Guerrero State was the main organizer of the uprising in Ayutla and it held as many as 54 detainees in secret locations the group turned over 20 of its detainees to the authorities lawyer with the Tlachinollan Human Rights Center office in Ayutla But he says he also understands why the people took matters into their hands and points out that it worked "This movement is an example to the Mexican government that people can guarantee a state of security," he says Community police are not without precedent in Guerrero A force known as the Regional Coordinator of Community Authorities (CRAC) – which has been at odds with the leadership of the Ayutla group – has patrolled seven municipalities since 1995 It was formed to calm a region rife with crimes ranging from cattle rustling to road robberies to a disturbing number of sexual assaults CRAC's justice coordinator in the municipality of San Luis Acatlán says crime has plummeted 90% since the community police's formation Patrols of uniformed and unpaid police have confronted the powerful drug cartels destroying poppy plantations for heroin and stopped a shipment of 1,500 pounds of marijuana CRAC members now patrol corn-farming communities in pickups armed with pistols and assault rifles that were seized from gangs at CRAC checkpoints CRAC also detains suspects that Guzmán says are judged by local leaders and later "re-educated" through work on community projects that can last more than two years Guzmán brushes off claims that his police officers are not acting professionally and says they have training in basic policing they know whose is acting out of line," he said Ayutla appeared quite calm on one recent day Villagers kept their doors open well into the evening Sergio Loza Moreno says he endorses the community police approach But he suspects many of those detained were low-level figures "They're probably waiting for a lapse before reappearing," he says of the criminals Slate is making its coronavirus coverage free for all readers. Subscribe to support our journalism. Start your free trial And then there is Mexico’s Andrés Manuel López Obrador López Obrador’s recklessness would perhaps be less damaging if his administration hadn’t followed his lead Mexico’s government chose to delay most of the quarantine measures other Latin American countries had already implemented when the authorities called on Mexican citizens to voluntarily quarantine to flatten the rate of contagion “This is our last chance,” deputy health minister Hugo López-Gatell said an eloquent epidemiologist who has become the government’s public face during the crisis outlined the emergency in a television broadcast on Tuesday alongside foreign minister Marcelo Ebrard Such antics demand an explanation. Why is López Obrador so brazenly defying his own government’s recommendations in a matter as threatening as the coronavirus pandemic? What drives such recklessness? In another Twitter video his opponents—“the conservatives”—would try to fill the void “That’s what they want: for a vacuum to happen so that they claim control of the country,” he claimed López Obrador is the country’s most powerful president in decades Through sheer numbers and political dominance His daily press conferences are dutifully covered Even more relevant: Mexico’s next significant election won’t happen until mid-2021 López Obrador is guaranteed to stay in power until 2024 Perhaps the problem lies in López Obrador’s self-doubt. With his approval rating sliding dramatically Mexico’s president seems compelled to remain in a quasi-permanent campaign History will not judge him on the number of hands left unshaken but rather on his efficacy as the head of government of a country under tremendous stress Karla Zabludovsky covers Latin America for Newsweek she reported for the New York Times from Mexico the effects of the drug war on the general population and miscellaneous topics (fish smuggling Her work has also appeared in The Economist and The Guardian.  either observed and verified firsthand by the reporter or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources Translations may contain inaccuracies—please refer to the original content A Mexican research organization has developed an algorithm to organize and parse previously unreadable data Analysts at the Mexican Institute for Competitiveness (IMCO) released a report this month revealing there are 1,442 teachers on the government payroll between the ages of 100 and 105 and all but one of those were born on December 12 The report which is based on statistics from Mexico's Education Ministry also revealed that 70 teachers in Mexico earn more than President Enrique Peña Nieto 19 work at schools that have failed or barely passed the national standardized test According to a 2013 report by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development Mexico spends the highest proportion of its education budget on teacher salaries and compensation of staff the report reveals that education statistics are disorganized and largely impenetrable "We have a kind of accounting anarchy," says Juan Pardinas the Hidalgo state government reached out to his team suggesting some of the discrepancies were the result of an engineer incorrectly filling out the payroll information by using a salary code for other types of payments but it has proved largely futile: Four out of 32 states have not handed over payroll databases for the last trimester of 2013 and eight states have handed over empty or incomplete databases particularly those who work within the public school system and are members of the powerful union—the largest labor syndicate in Latin America—have for decades enjoyed almost total autonomy from official authorities who was seen by political experts as one of the most influential political players in the country famous for her love of brand-name clothes and a penchant for collecting multiple properties But last year, Gordillo, whose aura of untouchability had grown steadily throughout the previous decade, was accused of embezzling millions of dollars from the union for personal use and went to prison. Forbes included Gordillo in its 2013 list of the most corrupt Mexicans noting her $4.7 million house in Coronado Cays featured "a private dock with a boat and jet ski." Congress approved an overhaul of the education system instituting evaluations of teachers at public schools and enacting an open competition among university graduates to fill teaching positions Experts hailed the reform as a major step toward transparency while cautioning that it had been watered down in response to violent protests chased legislators from Congress buildings and at one point blocked off access to Mexico City's international airport in an effort to stop the overhaul from reaching the president's desk Despite Gordillo's arrest and the legislative overhaul Pardinas and his team discovered 536 telesecundarias or secondary and high school programs available in rural areas via satellite that apparently operated without electricity They also found an undisclosed number of "phantom schools," which are unregistered and may very well not exist The report found that the average monthly national salary for Mexican teachers is $1,954 that the teacher with the highest salary lives in Oaxaca state and earns $46,849 a month and that there is a school in Guerrero state that has a single student enrolled but keeps six employees on its payroll whose salaries add up to $6,644 per month "There is a collision between a legacy of opacity a will toward transparency and disorganized accounting and accountability," said Pardinas told local reporters that as soon as the study was released the Education Ministry began modifying its data though she said IMCO would put the original documents on its web page where most of the century-old teachers were listed deputy secretary of the Education Ministry But Congress seemed more convinced about the validity of the report a group of senators requested an investigation into the study as well as the supposed modification of data They also requested that should the inquiry reveal wrongdoing the responsible parties should be sanctioned has been working on an analysis of the same databases as IMCO He says he has found troubling data manipulations he said Tamaulipas state reported to federal authorities that it has five commissioners or teachers that are allowed to perform a different activity temporarily while still receiving their teaching salary that there were at least 1,200 commissioners "Misuse of public education funds is not corrected because it is the authorities themselves who are violating the law Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground Newsletters in your inbox See all On Jan. 4, members of the “autodefensas” -- self-defense militias, or community police, which have taken up arms in an attempt to drive out the Knights Templar, New Generation, and La Familia drug cartels from their towns in Mexico’s Tierra Caliente region -- took control of the municipality of Parácuaro, in south-central Guanajuato state. Now, La Jornada reports nearby residents are trying to drive the militias out they blocked the highway providing access to the town and burned three trucks delivering products from Coca Cola But neighbors and militia members say they’re linked to the cartels The Associated Press wrote that a self-defense group from elsewhere in the Tierra Caliente had taken Parácuaro on Saturday by setting up checkpoints at the town’s entrance they disarmed some police officers thought to be accomplices to cartels working in the area One unidentified man was reported killed during a gunbattle as the militia seized control of the town headquarters La Jornada writes that protestors who gathered on Thursday afternoon near the entrance of the access road to the lime-growing town where they stopped the three trucks before setting fire to them had warned members of the self-defense militia that morning that if they did not leave the town by evening they would start burning vehicles that entered the town The Knights Templar and New Generation cartels have been involved in a bloody turf war in the Tierra Caliente and rumors -- often put out by the cartels themselves -- frequently circulate that various self-defense groups there have been infiltrated by members of either cartel The Mexican government views the autodefensas as illegitimate and on more than one occasion has sent in federal police to confiscate the groups’ weapons and free police officers who were “arrested” for alleged complicity with the cartels hundreds of masked men wielding old shotguns revolvers and machetes have claimed to be the law in the rugged mountains outside the faded resort of Acapulco Manning roadblocks and patrolling by the truckload these citizen posses have been rounding up accused drug dealers killers and rustlers under the wincing but winking watch of state and federal security forces.Last week the vigilantes paraded 54 captured men and women in front of thousands of their neighbors the vague and unsubstantiated charges against them read aloud over loud speakers “Organized crime,” intoned a community leader as the accused were escorted into the covered square in El Mezon a mostly Mixtec indigenous village belonging to Ayutla township Mexican justice remains cut from the thinnest of fabrics Tens of thousands of purported criminals rot for years in state and federal prisons as they await trial The convictions handed down for every 100 arrests can be counted on one hand has vowed to move away from his predecessor’s strategy of military-led offensives against drug trafficking gangs the president plans to focus more on the robberies extortion and violence that affect mostly ordinary Mexicans Mexican security analysts say he will need better local policing and criminal prosecutions The villagers in these mountains aren’t holding their breath “The federal and state governments haven’t been able to do anything,” said Evert Castro “And we don’t have the capacity to fight these criminals So the people got tired and decided to act on their own Following negotiations this week between community leaders and Guerrero’s governor most of the detainees seem likely to be turned over to state prosecutors “They must be subjected to the established laws and institutions,” Gov Angel Aguirre recently told local reporters in the state capital “We are going to continue working to provide security and confidence so that a climate of harmony returns in communities where this problem is focused.” a founder of the volunteer forces that comprise the bulk of the vigilantes told the crowd last week that the accused would remain in community custody for at least two more weeks when another public assembly would be held “This is not taking justice into our own hands,” Placido Valerio told villagers Only a handful of the prisoners stand accused of murder and kidnapping One youth was arrested for tending to three marijuana plants at his house—and for smoking the harvest “Considering that he’s a parasite on society we want him to be judged according to the uses and customs of the people,” intoned the speaker of the supposed rustler referring to the traditional justice that exists a world apart from official law Punishment can mean everything from community labor to expulsion More than half the prisoners seem to have been taken for being “hawks,” or street corner lookouts for a local criminal group headed by an Ayutla native known only as “El Cholo.” The gang leader’s wife father and mother were all among the detainees But Cholo himself had slipped through the dragnet The tightly-packed crowd murmured and shook their heads as the vigilantes read the most serious charges Necks craned for glimpses of particular perpetrators “He’s from my village,” whispered a shotgun-toting man of one alleged murderer Anchored by Acapulco—which ongoing gang wars placed it among Mexico’s deadliest cities last year—Guerrero state stretches hundreds of miles along the southern Pacific Coast the high Sierra Madre range running through it like a backbone More from GlobalPost: Drug war rages on the edges of Mexico City Many urban Mexicans have long considered these mountain hinterlands as “untamed.” Popular wisdom holds that the rough and ready people living here are best not riled “They call us the wild people,” concedes Evert Castro have earned a sordid place in Mexico’s history Ayutla was the birthplace of a 1854 rebellion launched against Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna a leftist guerrilla movement that swept through the Sierra Madre was eventually crushed by a ruthless military campaign The state police put down a similar rebellion in 1988 Police dispatched by a governor ambushed and killed 17 unarmed protesting farmers near Acapulco in 1995 Soldiers in 1998 killed 11 suspected guerrillas and local village leaders meeting at a rural schoolhouse outside Ayutla criminals began to besiege Ayutla and other nearby towns about six years ago when gangster violence erupted along the US border and down both coasts many of them going to work for the dealers as lookouts “It was very quiet here and then from one day to the next it seemed to all go bad,” said Celerina García a housewife taking in the late afternoon air at Ayutla’s crowded plaza “You couldn’t leave your house at night.” García and other residents say things have calmed considerably since the vigilantes started patrolling have set up highway checkpoints of their own in recent days keeping a wary but respectful distance from the village militiamen ongoing talks with the governor aim to return the armed farmers to their plows “We are going back to the fields but we are not going to give up our weapons,” Placido Valerio told the assembly last week “We are going to start building a system of justice.” This story first appeared Feb. 3 on Global Post Photo by Keith Dannemiller, GlobalPost Mexico: campesinos bear arms against narcosWorld War 4 Report Indigenous communities rise up in MichoacánWorld War 4 Report MEXICAN PEACE CARAVAN OCCUPIES WALL STREETby David L. Wilson, New York IndymediaWorld War 4 Report MEXICO’S RESURGENT GUERILLASfrom Frontera NorteSurWorld War 4 Report 2013Reprinting permissible with attribution Cometieron ese crimen contra mí porque somos pobres Es una victoria del pueblo; los soldados ven a las indígenas como botín de guerra Tenía 24 años cuando tres soldados del 48 Batallón de Infantería con sede en Cruz Grande agredieron sexualmente a Inés Fernández Ortega en la cocina de su casa curtida ya no sólo en la lucha social de su organización sino en las grandes ligas del derecho internacional aún monolingüe –sólo habla me’phaa (tlapaneco)– pudo escuchar de boca del secretario de Gobernación en representación del presidente Felipe Calderón: a su esposo Prisciliano Sierra y a sus hijos Noemí les ofrezco las más sentidas y sinceras disculpas por los hechos ocurridos hace casi una década en los que resultaron gravemente lesionados sus derechos Fue la única frase en el discurso de Poiré en la que no la tuteó Jamás aludió que el lamentable hecho fue un ataque sexual La respiración de Inés Fernández se agitó; estrujó un pañuelo que tenía en la mano Como lo había expresado antes en su discurso Abel Barrera sólo tu corazón sabe lo que esta disculpa significa Y había aludido al revés de la moneda del Estado pero que durante 10 años te llamaron mujer mentirosa y dudaron de tu palabra Inés Fernández había estado de pie frente al micrófono sin dar tregua a los funcionarios de los tres niveles de gobierno que se habían dado cita en los portales del ayuntamiento de Ayutla de los Libres para dar cumplimiento a uno de los 16 resolutivos de la Corte Interamericana de Derechos Humanos que en octubre del 2010 había declarado culpable al Estado mexicano por las violaciones de Inés y Valentina Rosendo Instantes antes de recibir una disculpa por parte del Estado mexicano Inés Fernández volvió a sentir el latigazo de la discriminación racial con la cola de caballo despeinada y sandalias de hule subir al estrado donde se estrechaban ya las manos el secretario de Gobernación Los militares de guayabera blanca y armas mal disimuladas le cerraron el paso Nadie les advirtió que ella era la pieza central en el acto público que se celebraba en los portales del palacio municipal Por eso cuando le tocó hacer uso del micrófono estaba indignada sólo sonreía como si estuviera recibiendo flores cuando Inés le echaba en cara desatenciones e incumplimientos: Cometieron ese crimen contra mí porque somos pobres Y no sólo contra mí sino contra otras personas Yo por eso tuve que ir a buscar justicia a otro lado Que hoy nos diga qué puede hacer y qué no puede hacer Y enumeraba los hechos de una agresión que continúa; los retenes el asesinato de su hermano Lorenzo como represalia a su denuncia penal las órdenes de los sucesivos presidentes municipales de no entregar recursos a Barranca Tecuani o a Barranca Bejuco Los soldados siguen sin dejarnos mover libremente en nuestras comunidades En este momento se encuentran entre nosotros que nunca dejó de apoyarla pese al estigma que suele caer sobre las mujeres violadas que siempre sostuvo su lucha por la justicia Rompiendo el ánimo solemne y protocolario que las autoridades quisieron imponer desde la sillería estallaban los aplausos y el apoyo de delegaciones que llegaron a presenciar el momento: campesinos de Atoyac estudiantes de la Normal Rural de Ayotzinapa reclamando justicia por los dos compañeros asesinados en diciembre el único representante de las fuerzas armadas el director de Derechos Humanos de la Secretaría de la Defensa no pronunció palabra ni cruzó saludo alguno con la víctima que era objeto de desagravio en ninguno de los discursos de los funcionarios –la procuradora Marisela Morales Poiré y el gobernador Aguirre– se mencionó que los perpetradores de la agresión sexual fueron integrantes de la institución castrense La procuradora exhibía el semblante maquillado e impávido que la caracteriza pedía auxilio con la mirada cuando la señora Fernández ilustraba la negligencia y las promesas incumplidas recordando su compromiso de hace tres años de poner alumbrado público en la comunidad de Inés La agraviada no respondió con algún gesto de reconocimiento a las palabras de Poiré que tampoco supo imprimir emoción a su discurso: hace una década fuiste víctima del ataque de un desleal (en realidad fueron tres los agresores de quienes se tienen retratos hablados pero no las muestras de ADN porque el Ministerio Público local porque apenas se van cumpliendo los compromisos Pero si seguimos caminando juntos verás que iremos avanzando presidenta de la Organización del Pueblo Indígena Me’phaa ofreció el contexto histórico de la lucha popular y la represión en esta región de la Costa Chica donde fueron asesinados 11 mixtecos en 1998 la esterilización forzada de medio centenar de hombres de estos pueblos el secuestro y asesinato de los líderes Manuel Ponce y Raúl Lucas detenciones ilegales y otras violaciones no denunciadas porque los militares ven a la mujer como un botín de guerra “Esta disculpa pública a Inés –concluyó Obtulia– es una victoria del pueblo organizado.”