Sciences Po

PSIA – Paris School of International Affairs

Master in International Security

The Community Police and the Community Guards in Mexico

A study of the emergence of the community police, the self-defense squads and the community guards in the states of Michoacan and Guerrero.

Ingrid Muro

Master’s thesis supervised by David Recondo, Researcher, CERI - Sciences Po

Academic Year 2013 /2014

Student: Ingrid Muro

The copyright of this Master's thesis remains the property of its author. No part of the content may be reproduced, published, distributed, copied or stored for public or private use without written permission of the author. All authorisation requests should be sent to [email protected]

Introduction and Literature Framework First Section

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I. Introduction and Literature Framework

After the Mexican Revolution, the mobilization of new and old actors resulted in the unification of a new system based on clientelistic relationships. Old actors, influenced by Emiliano Zapata 1 mobilized in order to get back their lands and rectify their position as being ‘attacked’ by liberalism. New actors such as political associations and unions which emerged in the Porfirio Diaz administration (1876-1910) also mobilized. With the purpose of integrating these two actors, a new unifying system based on clientelism 2 emergedin the post-revolution period. During the Diaz administration, the regime’s policies focused on export-led economic growth which favored the concentration of arable lands in the form of haciendas 3.While the middle class was improving their quality of life, peasants loss their communal lands.The re-election of Diaz in 1910 caused isolated rural revolts and a nationwide rebellion between peasants and rich landholders, known as the Mexican Revolution. In the post-Mexican Revolution period, from 1929 to 2000, the PRI 4 ( Partido Revolucionario Institucional ) claimed the monopoly of the legitimate force by a central state. The State controlled municipalities by extending its power to caciques or rural bosses. The State and indigenous communities established an implicit agreement in which the hegemony of the PRI would be secured in exchange for the respect of customs and traditions of indigenous populations. Based on indigenous’ normative systems or usos y costumbres 5, indigenous populations organized around a sistema de cargos or charges system 6. In the state of Guerrero, Oaxaca, Michoacan and others with a considerate number of indigenous populations, the members of the community ‘gave service’ as part of an individual obligation they had to fulfill through the charges system.

1Emiliano Zapata, is an agrarian reformer and commander of the Liberation Army of the South during the Mexican Revolution. He influenced the Zapatistas movement in 1994 which is a revolutionary leftist group based in Chiapas. 2Exchange of goods and services for political support. 3Hacienda means estate or land to carry out productive activities (mining, plantations, factories). 4The Institutional Revolutionary Party. 5Uses and customs. 6Defined as a civic-religious institution highly hierarchized that serves as a mechanism that unites indigenous communities around the realization of rituals.

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With the emergence of a multi-party system in the 1980s and the social disequilibrium caused by liberal practices, the state would recognize indigenous autonomy and institutionalize uses and customs. This would assure their political hegemony by ‘renewing’ their relationship with indigenous populations. In the 1960s, the PRI’s stability was threatened by leftist peasant uprisings and social movements who fought a guerrilla campaign against the government. A second threat was the emergence of opposition parties such as the PRD 7 ( Partido de la Revolucion Democratica ) in the 1980s which directly challenged the hegemony of the PRI in municipal elections. As a result, in the 1990s, the PRI recognized indigenous practices –uses and customs-and gave indigenous populations the right to organize their own systems in the economic, social and political spheres. In the municipality of Cheran, Michoacan uses and customs also apply in the elections of their authorities based on state laws. However, in the Costa Chica-La Montaña region in Guerrero, indigenous populations elect their authorities based on political parties. In both cases, uses and customs played an important role in recently creating a community-based security system that functions in parallel to the State and as a response to high levels of insecurity in the country. Theuses and customs system is not static, is constantly redefined and is an instrument to protect the interests of multiple actors at the state and local levels. At the local level, there is a reconfiguration of communities and the production of new customs 8 that benefit indigenous populations. At the state level, these transformations are influenced by the PRI and used as a way of domination that hides a power game. For the PRI, the legalization of customs would be a way to impose authority and exclude political competition. Indigenous traditions are shaped and transformed based on local and federal interests. In fact, the case of Cheran in the state of Michoacan portrays the use of customs to justify a change in government from one based on political parties to one centeredonnormative systems or uses and customs. It was only until indigenous populations claimed their autonomy -operated at the margins of the State- and when drug organizations controlled operations that the Statewas challenged. Throughout history, the PRI was able to control and maintain certain order

7Party of the Democratic Revolution. 8 Maria Portal, ‘Caracteristicas generales del sistema de cargos de mayordomia urbana’, UAM Journal 26(1996): 42. Accessed November, 2013.

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with emergent forces. However, indigenous populations, mainly in the state of Chiapas, isolated from the functions of the State and started operating based on their own system in 1994. It was a ‘state’ inside the state. On the other hand, the agreement of the State with cartels let these organizations work freely as long as they did not hamper civilians’ life. However, the State lost control to drug cartels when the opposition, the PAN 9 ( Partido Accion Nacional ),won the presidential elections of 2000. The interactions between political actors and drug organizations can only be understood as relationships based on cooperation. Since historical times, ‘violent actors’ 10 influenced political and economic elites to develop illegal practices. These illegal actors entered into agreements with politiciansin order for the former to carry out their activities. Moreover, the politico-criminal configuration was also based on the imposition of rules by cartels rather than their subversion to state control. This is represented with the rupture of the agreement between the PRI and drug organizations in 2000. The increasing levels of violence were the result of the State’s loss of control in certain indigenous towns and with criminalgroups that operated in those localities. As a consequence, civilians responded with the formation of community police (1995), community guards (2010) and self-defense squads (2011). The first and the second takes place in rural contexts that are based on the system of uses and customs. The third often takes place in more urban contexts with the participation of both mestizos and indigenous populations. The goal of these groups is to provide security and, in certain cases, justice to their communities. However, the causes of the emergence of these groups as well as their intentions vary. In fact, each case should be treated differently based on internal and external factors. In both, community police and self-defense, the State will play an important role in trying to legalize the ‘informal’. The State would tolerate certain illegality or informality but at the same time, tries to incorporate them to the system. This essay avoids essentialist views on the relationships betweenthe State - indigenous communities and the State-drug organizations. In one hand, it goes against the common belief that indigenous communities with their‘pre-hispanic’ traditions are isolated and excluded from the State. This conclusion often leads to the idea that community police

9Party of National Action. 10 Briquet Jean-Louis and Gilles Favarel-Garrigues.‘Organized Crime and States’ (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010), accessed March 2014.

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emerged primarily as part of their old customs and their constant fight against the State. On the other hand, it is also believed that community police and self-defense groups areonly the result of increasing levels of violence which appoint drug organizations as the main perpetrators. Thus, the State is labeled as inefficient, incapable of coping with ‘external’ forces. These two views fail to understand the causes of the emergence of community police and self-defense in depth. It fails to view that there are implicit agreements, power relations and interests behind these phenomena. Having this said, the essay does not imply that indigenous communities don’t have a strong connection with their customs or that criminal organizations can’t be blamed for the increasing levels of insecuritybut it rather avoids simplistic considerations. The topic of community police, community guards and self-defense in Mexico is of interest because it impacts its citizenry at the economic, social and political level. 9 out of 31 Mexican states have a civilian self-protection group which is particularly located in Michoacan and Guerrero. They can emerge in indigenous communities or non-indigenous villages,towns and city slums. The fact that civilians arm themselves to fulfill a function that belongs to the State creates tension at all levels of governance. In fact, the State views the community police and community guards as a practice that would lead to the independence of indigenous communities from the state. At the same time, the State perceives self-defense as potential paramilitary groups. This essay focuses in the state of Guerrero and Michoacan because community police, community guards and self-defense first emerged in those states. Michoacan and Guerrero share similar socioeconomic variables that help us understand the emergence and evolution of these types of organizations. Both states are poor and have significant people that speak indigenous languages. In terms of security, both states have historically been linked to drug trafficking. Guerrero has a history of armed groups, independence fighters and revolutionaries in resistance to the central government. However, only a few revolutionary histories are related to Michoacan. This essay analyzes the case of the community police, the CRAC-PC( La Coordinadora Regional de Autoridades

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Comunitarias, Policía Comunitaria )11 in Costa Chica-La Montaña in the state of Guerrero and the community guards , Ronda Comunitaria 12 in Cheran in the state of Michoacan. The essay argues that internal and external factorslead to the emergence of community police and community guards in Mexico. First, it analyzes the emergence of community police in Costa Chica-La Montaña; second, it explains the development of self- defense in Guerrero and Michoacan; third, it examines the rise of community guards in Cheran; fourth, it provides a typology of the different types of self-defense and community police in the country; fifth, it studies the concept of the State’s monopoly on legitimate violence. Research question : What caused the emergence of community police and community guards in Mexico?Some secondary questions that guide the reader through the analysis are: What lead to the emergence of community organizations? What is community police, community guards and self-defense groups? Under what conditions they emerged? Why self-defense identify themselves as community police? What is the role of the State in preventing these community organizations from rising? Hypothesis: Independentvariable-the internal factorsthatcontributedto theemergence of community police in Costa Chica-La Montañaare: political violence in the Revolution; political radicalism and guerrillas; agrarian conflicts and inequalities; uses and customs as a legal parallel force to the State. The externalfactors that influenced the emergence of the community police are: migration; mining; and drug trafficking. In the case of Cheran, the emergence of the community guards can be read in historical consecutive events in its majority of local nature: agrarian conflicts; land disputes between communities and inequalities; commercial use of the forest; illegal logging and inequalities; political disputes; economic and political power differences; criminal groups; and uses and customs as parallel legality of the State. A dependent variable is the rise and proliferation of self-defense squads in the country.

11 Regional Coordinator of Community Authorities- Community Police. 12 Community Ronda.

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The essay is based on both semi-directive interviews and secondary sources. The interviews were directed to academia experts and NGOs based in Mexico City as well as to members of the community of Cheran, Michoacanin the month of November 2013. The essay is also based on secondary sources such as Mexican newspapers ( Reforma, EL Universal, La Jornada ), articles from online Mexican magazines such as Nexos and Proceso ; books; peer-reviewed journal articles; and official governmental websites.

A. Framework and Relevant Literature Review 1. Mexican political-administrative system

Mexico has thirty-one states and a Federal District including Mexico City and its closed surroundings. Each state has its own constitution, framed on the national charter. The federal, the state and local governments have an executive, legislative and judicial branch. Although the country has a federal structure, Mexico's political system is highly centralized. Each state depends on Mexico City onrevenue inputs. Each state transmits the received revenue to municipalities in a clientelistic manner 13 . The Federal District which comprises Mexico City and its surroundings is under the direction of the president who appoints a jefe de gobierno or Minister of Interior. TheMinister of Interior executes municipal tasks but is the head of the Department of the Federal District. The Federal District has local courts and a Representative Assembly whose members are elected by proportional representation. The assembly (local advisory body with no legislative power) elects Federal District’s Minister of Interior since 1996 14 . The head of each state’s executive branch is the governor who is elected by a majority vote for a six-year term and similar to the president, cannot be reelected. State legislatures consist of a Chamber of Deputies that meets in two ordinary sessions per year but with extended and extraordinary sessions when necessary. A deputy is elected every three years and cannot be immediately reelected. The executive dominance in the national level is replicated at the state level where the policy-making authority is resided in the governor. The state judiciary is represented by a Superior Court of Justice. Justices of the Superior

13 Tim L. Merrill and Ramón Miró, ‘Mexico: A Country Study’, accessed November, 2014, (http://countrystudies.us/mexico/). 14 Ibid.

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Courts of Justice are appointed by governors with approval of the state legislatures. The superior court magistrate assigns lower state court judges. The municipality or municipio is thebasic unit of Mexican government. In Mexico there are 2 500 municipalities which are unequal distributed in the country. The process of decentralization allowed for the municipalities to administer their budget and to benefit from inversions in social infrastructure. The municipalities have two levels, one that is head municipality and the other is municipal agencies, communities, towns or rancherias . The first (head municipalities) are administered by an ayuntamiento or local government elected every three years 15 . The second one comprises unities formed by commissaries and represented by a delegate. The head of the municipal government is the municipal president. In local elections, caciques used to vote in the name of the towns –through a clientelistic fashion-and citizens were not invited to the procedure but the multi-party system later ameliorated the electoral processes. The head municipalities name their own authorities but they can also intervene in the functioning of their subordinated commissaries. Ayuntamientos can ask for all type of tasks or work. Municipal authorities represent the Public Ministry and thus, they can detain and imprison criminals.

Article 115 of the 1917 Constitution addresses that local governments are autonomous based on the law of free municipality ( municipio libre )16 . Despite the fact that municipalities are allowed to collect property taxes and user fees, they have historically lacked enough means 17 . In fact, they depend on transfers from the federal and state governments for a great majority of their revenues. In 1984, as a result of the municipal reform, amendments of Article 115 expanded municipalities’ authority to raise revenue and formulate budgets. 18 The federal government provided municipalities with another source of revenue through the PRONASOL ( Programa Nacional de Solidaridad Pronasol) 19 . With this type of program, the federal government directed funds to the municipalities without

15 Except in municipalities whose elections are based on customary law or uses and customs. In that case, the municipality may elect its representatives every 1 to 3 years depending on the state. Oaxaca first legalized the election of authorities based on customary law in 1995. 16 Merill and Miro, 1. 17 Ibid. 18 Ibid. 19 Mexico's National Solidarity Program.

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having to pass through state bureaucracies but it promoted dependence on the federal government. In Guerrero, there has not been established a distinction between a civil government – focused on legislation- and an indigenous government –comprised of religious authorities or principals-. Indigenous communitiesintegrated religious positions and customs to the municipal organization. The president and the commissaries, apart from their civil functions defined by law, control the ritual life of the communities. With the multi-party elections, the principals and maestros no longer have a role in the selection of the municipal president. In the case of Michoacan, the government recently recognized the integration of a community-based government supported in customary law or uses and customs in the municipality of Cheran. In this sense, the dilemma relies on the agreement between members of the community to elect municipal authorities without the direct intervention of political parties. Their disagreement is based on the customs needed for the election procedure. Each faction imposes their own version of customs 20 . Not to mention that the establishment of a government based on customary law responds to certain interest from elites at the local and state levels.

2. Weber’s nation-state Machiavelli and Hobbes first observed that the motor for state-making was the monopolization of violence. Max Weber, an influential intellectual and sociologist, first used nation-state to refer to a single unit that implements authority on violence over a certain territory. A nation-state declares its monopoly through the legitimization of the use of violence 21 . This definition was predominant in the XX century. In Weber’s Politics as Vocation , a modern state ‘claims the monopoly of the legitimate use of physical force within a given territory…the right to use physical force is ascribed to other institutions or to individuals only to the extent to which the state permits it’ 22 . The state is considered the sole source of the right to use violence” 23 . In order for an entity to be a state it has to retain

20 David Recondo, ‘La politica del gatopardo: Multiculturalismo y democracia en Oaxaca’ (Mexico: La Casa Chata, 2008), 284. 21 John Dreijmanis, ‘Max Webers complete writings on Academic and Political Vocations’, (United States: Algora Publishing, 2008), 22. 22 Ibid. 23 ‘Max Weber: Politics as Vocation’, accessed November, 2014, (http://www.sscnet.ucla.edu/polisci/ethos/Weber-vocation.pdf)

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such monopoly. The state is the only legitimate unit through its police and military that can use violence. Both, public and private force can be used as long as it has legitimacy from the state. Weber: power, authority and coercion For Weber, power is "the chance of a man or a number of men to realize their own will in a communal action even against the resistance of others who are participating in the action". According to Weber, the state has authority and coercion. The first one is the type of power that citizens accept because is justified and legitimate. The other one is coercion or the type of power that citizens accept because of the threat or actual use of force. Coercion is viewed as illegitimate because citizens are forced to act under the State’s threat or actual use of violence. Hobbes: state and the legitimate use of violence Weber’s definition is similar to Hobbes’s view that the state can exercise legitimate use of violence. According to Hobbes, the fear of individuals creates the domination of the state in claiming the monopoly of legitimate use of violence 24 . The state intervenes to guarantee security or protection within a territory. The relation man to man is a dominating one supported by the mean of legitimate violence 25 . However, the problem is that since the state cannot control all forms of violence, and violence is a resource that anyone has access to, societies can also regulate violence without a state 26 . Violence within a context of society is defined as actions that infringe the physical integrity of humans 27 . Social order depends on actions against escalating violence 28 .The latter can be moderated but not eliminated. According to Luhmann, the use of force is almost independent of any social context and violence can be organized into other forms such as organized crime. 29 While Weber and Hobbes agree on the idea that the state is a superior organization that can proportionate security through its legitimate use of violence, Luhmann believes that the use

24 Iri Fernandez, ‘Politics, Violence and the State’, ( Universidad de las Americas ) accessed October 2013. (http://catarina.udlap.mx/u_dl_a/tales/documentos/lri/fernandez_g_dy/capitulo2.pdf) 25 Ibid. 26 Ibid. 27 In Klaus von Lampe and Per Ole Johansen, ‘Criminal Networks and Trust’ (paper presented at the 3 rd annual meeting of the European Society of Criminology in Helsinki, Finland, August 29, 2003) (http://www.organized-crime.de/criminalnetworkstrust.htm). 28 Ibid. 29 Ibid.

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of violence is independent of any context and that violence can be regulated with or without the state 30 . Weber and state’s legitimacy For Weber, legitimacy is the recognition of the authority that exercises domination. The state is always a violent entity because ‘if no social institution existed which knew the use of violence, then the concept state would be eliminated’ 31 . Weber defines three types of leaderships that legitimize domination or control and the use of violence. According to Politics as a Vocation , the first legitimacy is that of the “eternal past” where the authority of a prince or patriarch exercise domination by tradition 32 . The second form of legitimization is by gift of grace or the “confidence in revelation, heroism, or other qualities of individual leadership” 33 . For him, a leader needed to be charismatic since “his strength gave him power and his power of decision would legitimate his action” 34 . Weber and Schmitt recognized that strong political leaders do legitimate actions and that weak leaders fail to legitimate them 35 . However, Schmitt also recognizes that charismatic leaders function well in dictatorships and less in liberal democracies 36 . The third legitimization of domination is legality. It refers to rationally devised rules and is the most accepted 37 . The idea of a legal statute and the creation of rules based on rationality contrast the concept that “domination and the use of violence cannot be called legitimate event if done through legal means” 38 . Critics to Weber’s nation-state The problem with Weber’s definition is that nation-state is understood in terms of use of violence and domination instead of legitimacy. In Weber’s third form of legitimization, states earn their legitimacy for domination by consensus; a nation-state represents its citizens and they commit to certain rules 39 . In this sense, legitimacy is based

30 ‘Max Weber: Politics as Vocation’, UCLA Division of Social Sciences , accessed October 2013. (http://www.sscnet.ucla.edu/polisci/ethos/Weber-vocation.pdf) 31 Ibid. 2-3 32 Ibid. 33 Ibid. 34 Ibid. 35 Ibid. 36 Ibid. 37 Ibid.

38 Ibid. 39 Ibid.

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on consent and not on the claimed monopoly. Following Locke’s lines, it is through consensus that the state must establish when violence is legitimate or not 40 . For Locke, a state does not claims its legitimacy through the monopoly on the use of force but rather “by virtue of the (unanimous) consent of their members, a consent that transfers to the collectivity of those rights whose exercise by a central authority is necessary for a viable political society” 41 . In other words, the citizens of a state transmit the power to make a state legitimate. The society assigns to governments its legitimacy. Violence coming from the state cannot always be conceived as legitimate. Thus, Weber and Locke had different definitions on the legitimacy of the state. Although Weber’s definition of state introduces violence as an entity’s mechanism, it does not addresses non-state manifestations of violence. For Weber, the sate claims the monopoly of legitimate use of violence and “it is the specific means of legitimate violence as such in the hand of human associations which determines the peculiarity of all ethical problems of violence” 42 . Tilly contradicts Weber’s notion that politics refers to “the leadership or the influencing of the leadership of a political association” or the state; and the state is defined as the monopoly of violence” 43 . According to Tilly, in politics “governments, more generally individuals or organizations, that control concentrated means of coercion become parties to discontinuous, public collective claims” 44 . It is politics rather than the state that is associated with violence. According to Wimmer, Weber’s theory suggests that a state that fails to control the use of force is not a functional state. In this sense, a state that is functional supports the forms of violence that maintains social power relationships and eliminates those forms of violence that are an obstacle to it 45 . However, a state that may seem to be fragile is not necessarily so because the levels of violence within a territory does not define that state’s weakness 46 . According to Trutz von Trotha, the state’s monopoly “on legitimate violence

40 ‘Politics, Violence and the State’, 31 41 Ibid., 31-33 42 Ibid., 15-19 43 Ibid. 44 Ibid. 45 Ibid. 46 Steffan Wolff, ‘What defines a state as fragile?’, University of Nottingham, accessed November 2013 (http://www.stefanwolff.com/files/fragile-states.pdf)

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is in a crisis worldwide and with it the nucleus of what constitutes statehood” 47 . He identified “orders of violence” in several continents 48 . For example, for him, Africa has a despotic order of violence that emerged from the postcolonial period and some states may collapse but some others may witness a crash on central authority and thus, an economy of war can emerge 49 . A state also represents its population, provides services and is recognized by other states 50 . A fragile state or weak state is the opposite of a resilient one. It is unable to manage challenges and additional demands excess its capacity. A failed state represents more than its inability to claim the monopoly on the legitimate use of force 51 . Academics have stated that traditional leaders that may not have governed were able to contain violence. For example, in Somalia in 1991, when the central government collapsed, the provision of security was still possible 52 . Islamist political force provided some security in 2006 when the country was house of warlords 53 . According to Mason, non-state or religious leaders can have a role in conflict mediation and containing violence 54 . He believes that the local level and sub-national level remains important. The recognition of certain structures that manage daily life puts into a side the Western concept of a top-down approach in state-making 55 . In this case, the state is not only the entity that can provide security. Many sociologists argue that Weber’s conceptions of power, authority and legitimacy are limited. In contrast to Weber, Lukes argued that power has three dimensions 56 . Decision making –for example, government department-; non decision making –power is used to limit decisions done by decision makers. For example, when people come into contact with an ideology-; shaping desires –individuals have their attitudes and beliefs manipulated in order to accept a decision that is not in their own

47 Robert Rotberg, ‘Failed states, collapsed states, weak states’, (Brookings Institution Press, 2003) Chapter 1, accessed November 2013.(http://www.brookings.edu/press/books/chapter_1/statefailureandstateweaknessinatimeofterror.pdf) 48 Ibid. 49 Ibid. 50 Ibid. 51 Ibid. 52 Herbet Wulf, ‘Challenging the Weberian Concept of the State: the Future of the Monopoly of Violence’, (Australia: The Australian Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies, 2007), accessed November 2013. (http://www.wulf-herbert.de/ACPACS-occ-paper9.pdf) 53 Ibid. 7. 54 Ibid. 7-8. 55 Ibid. 9. 56 Ibid.

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interests-. Foucault looked at struggles and resistance in order to understand the ‘relations of power’ 57 . Based on this he developed the ‘capillary’ model of power. Foucault argued that there are a number of important struggles that are independent to class relations 58 . He mentioned that these struggle have similar elements since they are transversal (not limited to any one place or any one class); they are concerned with resisting effects of power on bodies or lives; and they are concerned with resisting the role of government in individual self-formation; they are concerned with making clear how power is used in a discrete way to change people; they are concerned with politics of self-definition and self-formation; they are concerned with resisting imposition of external standards 59 . These political struggles are local and personal in nature. Foucault is worried on the way individuals become citizens of a state and an effect of it. Habermas addresses the legitimation crisis. First, he argued that the legitimacy of regimes is based on a system perspective. In this sense, the social systems are ‘symbolically structured’; is the common-sense assumptions that individuals share in a community 60 . Crisis within a social system can emerge from an economic perspective –consumer demands are not fulfilled-; a rationality crisis –individuals question the nature of decisions made by the State and lose faith in the ability of institutions to make rational decisions.; legitimation crisis –there is a lack of encouragement for individuals to be supportive to the system-; and motivational crisis –the motivation for people is dysfunctional for the State 61 . Crisis emerges due to two factors, social integration and system integration. The first one is concerned with the way individuals related to each other. Systems integration refers to the ability of the system to deliver protection to individuals in a hostile environment and it includes the ability to maintain its boundaries. For Foucault, ‘if social integration and system integration break down, the social system will not only lose legitimacy but may also collapse’ 62 . From the weberian notion of the state, numerous conditions of a functioning state can be outlined. The first function is state-making by the elimination of external rivals such

57 In ‘Power, authority and the State’, (SAGE, 2001), accessed October 2013, (http://www.sagepub.com/upm- data/9547_017533ch2.pdf) 58 Ibid.16-17 59 Ibid. 60 Ibid. 18 61 Ibid. 18-20 62 Ibid.

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as private armies, the creation of a centralized state system and the establishment of armed forces 63 . The second one is the security function by establishing the rule of law 64 . The third one is the acquisition of the means by extracting resources from outside or inside the state by a state bureaucracy with fiscal structures and centralization and monopolization of the use of force 65 . However, these functions are being challenged by the privatization of force and security. The bottom-up privatization in which warlords, militias, rebels, organized crime have a role is a challenge to the state monopoly of force because the state, in the weberian definition, would have to eliminate them and disarm non-state actors 66 . In many developing countries and fragile state, the state is unable to guarantee order and law because their police are too weak, corrupt and unable to exercise the state monopoly on violence 67 . The environment is insecure as non-state actors take over economic and political activities. Some governments hire private security or military in order to replace the work of armed forces. Thus, the notion that the state is not always able to claim the monopoly on the use of force due to the emergence of privatization of force and security challenges Weber’s definition of nation-state.

3. The Community Police (CRAC-CP) in Costa Chica-Montaña, Guerrero

The state of Guerrero, located in South-East of Mexico, has one of the highest levels of social inequality and poverty concentrated in indigenous populations. Guerrero is divided in 7 regions - Acapulco, Centro, Norte, Tierra Caliente, Costa Chica, Costa Grande y la región de la Montaña- and 81 municipalities. In Guerrero, just like other states in Mexico, mestizos own private plots comprised of fertile and arable lowlands and indigenous communities only have title to common plots (under the ejido 68 or communal legal regimes) on less accessible and fertile soil 69 .

63 Ibid., 33 64 Ibid., 33-34 65 Ibid., 34 66 Ibid. 67 Ibid. 68 Lands communally held as part of the traditional Indian system of land administration which combines communal ownership with individual use. 69 Allison Rowland, ‘Local responses to public insecurity in Mexico’, (paper presented at theLASA 2003, in the session entitled Seguridad pública y criminalidad en America Latina, Dallas, Texas, March 2003,) (http://intercontinentalcry.org/wp-content/uploads/Guerrero_Rowland.pdf)

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In Costa Chica- La Montaña of Guerrero, located on the eastern side of the southern state of the state, its residents survive on subsistence agriculture, crops (coffee and fruits), small livestock (pigs, chickens and goats), and the sale of woven palm hats. La Costa-Chica is composed of 12 municipalities and La Montaña is integrated by 18 municipalities. It has one of the poorest municipalities of Mexico 70 and a large indigenous population comprised of mixtecos and tlapanecos . Indigenous communities in this region govern themselves with a mix of traditional and modern Mexican practices, including councils of elderly people and community assemblies and municipal authorities. Although the municipalities in Guerrero did not follow a traditional system for electing their authorities, indigenous communities implement collective work to socially benefit the community. The mayordomos are at the top of the hierarchy and take chief positions in religious festivities; they are well respected in the community and they can aspire to a higher position 71 . Moreover, the community cooperates to pay the expenses to carry out festivities. The festivities are very important for the community because it represents a ritual 72 . The cargo system is a well-organized and hierarchical organization that enforces their sense of community, solidarity and cooperation 73 . Providing security to the community is part of the cargos systems. For instance, the topiles in Oaxacaworked without retribution. However, members of the Costa Chica-Montaña went further and created an organization for providing security and imparting justice to more than one community. The community police in Guerrero is influenced by traditional guards or community guards in indigenous towns that operated in the XIX century. The spread of community police (in Guerrero in 1995; Copala Oaxaca in 2007; Urio in 2008; Ostula in 2009; and Cheran in 2011) have its origins in the Seri, Yaqui, and Mayan traditional guards that

70 Esteban Martinez, ‘La policía comunitaria, un sistema de seguridad publica comunitaria indígena en el Estado de Guerrero’, (Mexico: Coleccion Derecho Indigena INI, 2001), accessed September 2013. (http://v880.derecho.unam.mx/web2/modules.php?name=academicos_biblioteca) 71 Ibid. 72 Ibid. 73 Ibid.

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emerged in the XIX century 74 . These indigenous communities lost their battle against the federal military in order to defend their integrity as indigenous village and territory 75 . The community police of Guerrero was first established in El Rincon, under the direction of a priest, who formed theCAI 76 ,Consejo de Autoridades Indígenas ,which later received the name of Pueblos Organizados de Costa-Montaña. Its goal was to put collective pressure on governmental dependencies in order to receive public services from the government. The CAI was comprised of authorities of diverse communities. Since the beginning, the CAI initiated a project to form a community police in order to respond to problems caused by the increase in levels of criminality and concentration of benefits in few hands 77 . Therefore, the formation of the CAI, an organization that originally responded to promote the need of public services in the community, led to the creation of the community police. The government’s view of indigenous people as separated from the mestizo population resulted in disagreement of ethnic organizations. The modification of art.4 of the Constitution in order to recognize the pluriethnic and the pluricultural Mexican state served as an impulse to the formation of ConsejoGuerrense Quinientos Años de Resistencia Indigena 78 in 1991 under the direction of indigenous nahuas 79 . This demonstrates that peasant organizations responded not only to the lack of infrastructure or public services in their communities but it was also a way to defend their indigenous identity. The discourse of the community police in Guerrero is that it emerged as a response to the wave of violence in the region as well as the inability of the State to provide security and justice. Corruption, impunity and violence that indigenous communities experienced influenced the creation of the SSJC, Sistema de Seguridad y Jusitica Comunitaria 80 . It aims to exercise their definition of safety, security and justice. In 1995, the SSJCof La Montaña

74 Laura Castellanos, ‘Autodefensa expresión extrema’, El Universal , February 23, 2013, accessed November 2013. (http://www.eluniversal.com.mx/estados/89638.html) 75 Ibid. 76 Council of Indigenous Authorities. 77 De la Torre Rangel, Jesús Antonio. “Sistema comunitario de justicia de la montaña de Guerrero.” Anuario Mexicano de Historia del Derecho18 (2006): 575-578. (http://dialnet.unirioja.es/servlet/articulo?codigo=1375615)

78 Guerrero’s Council of Five Hundred Years of Resistance. 79 Ibid.,578. 80 Community System of Security and Justice.

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and Costa Chica 81 based their organization on judiciary procedures with the tasks of bringing security to the community, administer justice and ‘reeducate’ individuals(punitive model). This system is inspired by the Zapatistas uprising in Chiapas and previous peasant movements. A point of common between the community police and the Zapatistas is their fight for protecting their customs and community work. The Zapatistas impart justice in their own community, claim autonomy and follow their self-created rules. The CRAC-PC, Coordinadora Regional de Autoridades Comunitaria-Policia Comunitaria 82 , created in 1998, represents a regional jurisdiction apparatus and a mechanism that deals with security in the community through a community police. They are elected to voluntarily bring security to the communities for one year. They communicate with their own commandants and participate in the activities of the Executive Regional Committee –in charge of security issues inside the CRAC system- in detaining criminals. One of the elements of the community police is their Reglamento Interno or Internal Rules of Justice. Their rules were created by indigenous population to resolve conflicts and are integrated with elements of positive right which produce an autonomous jurisdiction system 83 . Members of the CRAC-CP claim that community traditions are based on collective cooperation to achieve a common good, dignity and ethical justice. The efficiency in implementing their justice and security tasks caused communities to legitimate or approve these groups. Since 2001, the Mexican Congress approved the Indigenous Right and Culture Law under the initiative of the EZLN 84 . The law approved the right of indigenous populations to be recognized as indigenous community; the right to autonomy and self-determination; the right to apply their own normative systems; the right to land and territory; the right to preserve their own cultural identity: the right to participation; the right to access the jurisdiction of the State and the right to social development 85 . With this law, the State

81 Community Security and Justice System of Costa Chica and La Montana is a Community Police. 82 The Regional Coordinator of Community Authorities- Community Police. 83 Ibid., 579. 84 Sarmiento, Sergio. ‘La policía comunitaria y la disminución de la delincuencia en la región Costa-Montaña’ de Guerrero”(paper presented in the First Congress on Indigenous Uses and Customs on Electoral system in Chihuaha, 2- 3 October, 2008): 24-26. (http://www.juridicas.unam.mx/publica/librev/rev/qdiuris/cont/9/cnt/cnt2.pdf) 85 Ibid.24.

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recognized indigenous population, mainly relative to their culture as long as it did not threaten the hegemony of the State 86 .However, the recognition of uses and customs or normative system is limited. While in Guerrero, reforms recognize indigenous rights, they do not respond to the practices of autonomy and jurisdiction of indigenous institutions. Despite a lack of support from the state, the community police have gained recognition from surrounded communities since the organization has improved levels of security. The members of the CRAC-CPaim to defend their town and not to confront the state and village. It controls the police by designating its members or eliminating them in case they commit illicit acts. Apart from the CRAC-CP, Guerrero is currently house of other forms of civilian self-protection that received the name of ‘self-defense’ squads. Similar to the community police, their purpose is to provide security as a result to the ‘absence’ of the State. There are different types of self-defense based on their roots, motivations, objectives and financing resources. These squads are a new phenomenon that emerged at the end of 2010 in the state of Michoacan and have proliferated to several states including Guerrero. Self-defense squads do not necessarily need to be based on legal principles or uses and customs as these groups often extent to more urban rather than rural contexts. They lack the legitimacy and legality that community police has. In Guerrero, the self-defense of UPOEG, Union de Pueblos Organizados del Estado de Guerrero 87 ,which emerged in Costa Grande, Guerrero has been well covered by the media. According to the UPOEG, the organization emerged in order to defend their communities from organized crime. In particular, the UPOEG claims to use arms in order to guarantee their ‘right’ to security. According to members of the UPOEG, their actions are fortifying security in the region and it should not be considered a violation to the law 88 . According to academia experts, Meyer and Aguayo, self-defense groups are similar to rural guards that existed in the Revolution. The State created rural guardians during the agrarian reform. They had territorial presence in landsand replaced the function of

86 Ibid., 24-26. 87 Union of Organized Towns of the State of Guerrero. 88 ‘Necesitamos que el ejercito nos respete: autodefensas de Guerrero’, Aristegui journal, August 8, 2013, accessed August 10, 2013 (http://aristeguinoticias.com/0808/mexico/tuvimos-que-agarrar-las-armas-porque- nadie-nos-defendia-autodefensas-de-guerrero/)

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authorities in order to protect them 89 . Rural guardians were trained by the military.The State provided them with armament which was less powerful than the one used by the military 90 . Aguayo established that the difference between rural guards and self-defense is that in the XXI century, the military needs support to put order in a context that differs from that of the Revolution 91 . Meyer stated that self-defense groups respond to failures of the State in providing security to its citizens. A self-defense is a non-ideological group that emerged to combat criminal insurgency of the country 92 . The rural guardians are a phenomenon that disappeared in the 1960s since there was a concern about their existence. According to Meyer, the difference between rural guardians and current self-defense is that the last ones emerged as a response from the society rather than the State and they operate through civilian population 93 .

4. Community Ronda in Cheran, Michoacan

The state of Michoacan along with Guerrero, have the largest number of communities with armed civilians product of historical social movements and violence. Michoacan is located in Southwestern Mexico and is divided into 113 municipalities. It is bordered by Guerrero to the southeast. Michoacan counts with a large presence of indigenous population and peasant movements, product of agrarian reforms of the XIX century. Similar to Guerrero, regional development -pressured by private capital to obtain concessions for the exploitation and commercialization of ejidos-created rural violence. Cheran is the municipal seat of a municipality of the same name. It is a purepecha indigenous municipality of Michoacan where illegal activities combined with land issues has generated an environment of violence. It has a population of 18 141 according to the 2010 INEGI census 94 and is considered a small town 95 . It has developed a commercial,

89 ‘Autodefensas, muy parecidos a guardias rurales de la Revolucion: Meyer y Aguayo en MVS’, Aristegui newspapers , November 18, 2013, accessed November 20, 2013 (http://aristeguinoticias.com/1811/mexico/autodefensas-muy-parecidos-a-guardias-rurales-de-la-revolucion- meyer-y-aguayo-en-mvs/) 90 Ibid. 91 Ibid. 92 Ibid. 93 Ibid. 94 ‘Michoacan de Ocampo’, INEGI, accessed October 2013, (http://cuentame.inegi.org.mx/monografias/informacion/Mich/Poblacion/default.aspx?tema=ME&e=16) 95 Lise Kirsten Nelson, ‘Remarking gender and citizenship in a Mexican indigenous community’ (PhD diss., University of Washington, 2000): 81.

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agricultural and forestry center. Since there is an absence of other townships in the municipality, Cheran dominates in terms of political and economic power. Before 1940s, Cheran was isolated from broader markets because the surrounding mountains and the Meseta were an obstacle for road-building, trade and development of modern communication connections. This situation made the community to slowly integrate into the Spanish empire and post-colonial political economic system. There are two interesting facts about Cheran. Cheran never owned haciendas 96 and in the post-colonial period, natural resources were only used for commercial interest. At the end of the XVIII, the tierras comunales or communal lands became part of the market and leasing agreements werean everyday life issue. These contract generated income to indigenous populations necessary for tax and tribute payment. At that time, there was no commercial interest in wood resources. However, illegal logging in a context of openness to external markets has caused the gradual disappearance of the forest. Cheran has 27 thousand communal territories in which 20 thousand are forest but the majority of the forest has been destroyed through logging practices. Since 2008, loggers have cut down 70 percent of the trees of Cheran’s forest. Some inhabitants of Cheran have permission to carry out certain forestry activities and thus, the community believes that illegal logging is executed by other communities. It is reported that individuals that illegally cut down trees come from ranches -Rancho Casimiro, Rancho Morelos y Rancho Seco- and the indigenous community of Capacuaro and Tanaco 97 . It has also been reported that these loggers agreed on cooperating with armed groups linked to drug trafficking in exchange of protection. Cheran formed a resistance movement against illegal logging as a response to, based on official discourse, the absence of the State and the complicity of authorities at the federal, state and municipal level 98 . They first created an independent self-defense organization that provided vigilance security 24 hours ( rondines ). 99 However, the community response no longer focuses on illegal logging but it expanded to the search of

96 A large landed estate and part of a traditional institution of rural life. Indians, who worked for hacendados (landowners) were free wage earners and kept them in an indebted state. 97 Gloria Munoz, ‘Ante la tala clandestina: Cheran organiza su defensa’, La Jornada , May 2011, accessed November 2013 (http://www.jornada.unam.mx/2011/05/14/oja169-cheran.html) 98 Ibid. 99 Ibid.

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justice and security. The events opened the doors for the community to demand the municipal president to replace the municipal police for a ronda comunitaria 100 –similar to the community police- integrated by civilians from the Cheran community. They also askedto select their authorities through uses and customs (customary law). Both demands were accepted. This case is particular because it describes the way in which a resistance movement against illegal logging converted into a ronda comunitaria which led to a change in government from one based on political parties to another founded on customary law.

5. The cargos system, uses and costumes and the community

A cargos system is a civil-religious hierarchy that represents secular and religious positions held by men or households in rural indigenous communities. According to Recondo, uses and customs refer to institutions and practices inherited from colonial times that have been transformed throughout Mexican history 101 . For the anthropologists, it represents a civil and religious hierarchy. Each municipality has their own values and customs which are normally represented in the way elections are carried out in the municipality. The election of municipal authorities is made in collective ways through assemblies that are open to municipal authorities, the elderly people or the chief of families in the community 102 . The municipal authority is unpaid. The people that are eligible are those that have a position in the city council –topil, major, secretary, treasury, elderman, municipal president, municipal major-; a position in religious festivities – mayordomia, capitania, banda municipal-; or related to land –commission of communal lands 103 -. The origins of the uses and customs are numerous and contradictory. The cargo systems have its origins in the Spanish conquest where members of a community could go up to a higher position –warriors, priest, and merchants-104 . This institution was originally imposed by the Spaniards. After the Revolution, some elements of this pre-colombian culture were preserved but also transformed. The communities appropriated and

100 Members of the community took turns to look after the community. 101 David Recondo, ‘La Política del Gatopardo: multiculturalismo y democracia en Oaxaca’(Mexico, DF: CIESAS/CEMCA, Publicaciones de la Casa Chata, 2007) 42. 102 Ibid. 42-44. 103 Ibid. 104 Recondo 50.

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reinterpreted the Spaniard institutions 105 . Recondo argues that new institutions break inherited norms but at the same time they allow for the reproduction of old conceptions and power practices. Similar to Recondo, Bartra argues that the hierarchy system of municipal positions have a colonial past to a certain degree. It is a historical process of appropriation and reinvention of institutions by societies 106 . In the XVI century, the civil cargos or positions are substituted by lineage which opened a possibility for individuals to ascend to another position. The caciques were replaced by macehuale s (peasants) and principales (nobles of second degree)who had access to the most prestigious positions of the cabildo 107 . This allowed them to participate in colonial exploitation. The Indian republic 108 had a governor that represented the municipality in relation with colonial authorities. Apart from civil positions linked to the government, there were also religious positions that now overlap with the local government or ayuntamiento . Nowadays, the mayordomia 109 is a mandatory step to have access to municipal positions. Today, the communal organizations include agrarian authorities which are a different body from civilian and religious authorities. After the Revolution, property or lands were administered in form of an ejido oras a communal land. The ejido is composed of individual parts administrated in collective ways and it comes from the division of a hacienda ; the communal properties come from the legalization of previous property titles that have a colonial origin. In the municipalities of Guerrero, almost all lands are administered as communal properties. Throughout the XIX century, the liberal governors would try to destroy indigenous communities and the collective possession of lands. The distinction between the Indian and not Indian municipalities would be finished.The society would be unified in a local government. All Mexicans would be citizens no matter race and social class. Institutions from the colonial period would be integrated in post-revolutionary Mexico. For example, a municipal president, alcalde and regidores were positions that were more or less inherited

105 Recondo 50. 106 Roger Bartra,’Violencias salvajes: usos, costumbres y sociedad civil: el mundo de la violencia’, Fondo de Cultura Económica (1998): 179-182 (http://hdl.handle.net/10391/1874). 107 Local government or municipal council in the colonial times. 108 What we now know of municipalities of values and customs which are different from political parties based-municipalities when referring to elections. 109 Local administration.Recondo 52.

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from the colonial period. The ‘free municipality’ would replace the local government of the XIX century. In the XIX century, local governments and commissaries based their elections on political parties rather than on customary law. The designation of representatives in local government of municipalities and commissaries was made through assemblies. However, in 1995, some head municipalities followed a different election process 110 . Instead of a single assembly in the town, the community had several assemblies for political parties and each one had a list of their own candidates 111 . The vote was public (by raising their hand based on their preferred candidate). The members of the ayuntamiento or local government also received their first salary. The authorities that had municipal positions was due to social linkages or relatives. In fact, communities are not based on direct democracy; they are a space of internal conflict and power relations. The power relations inside communities are articulated with those that operate outside (in the State and the political system together) 112 . In the post-revolution period, the communication with rural community is made through a vinculo clientelista 113 . The indigenous cacique is the intermediary between the state and the community. Another linkage between the state and municipality is the 1940s rural defense guards in Oaxaca under the mandate of the federal government. The rural defense was a hierarchical position and they participated in the battle against Carranza forces 114 . In times of Cardenas administration, the cacique was a broker who represented the State and its modernization project but also represented his territory and shared his marginalization 115 . However, Mexico also had caciques mestizos who had economic and political power 116 . Caciques would represent the PRI in the region by protecting the revolutionary discourse and turn away the agrarian reform. The PRI took advantage of the economic dependency of the peasants which was translated into political loyalty. At the same time, the caciquesprotected their interests by limiting the intervention of the central

110 Recondo argues that is exclusive of Oaxaca in 1995 for the election of municipal authorities. 111 Recondo 51. 112 Reconodo 53. 113 Recondo 53. 114 Recondo 54. 115 Recondo 64. 116 Recondo 56.

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state 117 . In the communities, factions multiplied and conflicts for the control of land increased along with violence. The rural teachers replaced the monopoly of the caciques and served as political intermediaries with a civilizing mission. They would help integrate communities to the national society and ‘progress’. The State and its institutions such as schools and the INI, Instituto Nacional Indigenista 118 penetrated communities 119 . The teachers, formed by the State, became the political elite of indigenous populations 120 . The assemblies would designate individuals such as the teachers since they had regular income and municipal positions were not remunerated. In the 1950s, local leaders inherited the power of the old cacique 121 . The pacto clientelar represents a double legality practice for addressing the cultural differences and integrate them in a political system. In other words, it was a mean to integrate the indigenous populations to a national culture and laws of the country. In the 1930s, with the creation of the INI, the government pretended to push the economic and social development of indigenous communities in order to incorporate them to the national market. The adaptation of community customs to the state legality would be done in different modalities. Yet, the capacity of resistance of indigenous people is reproduced in new institutions in the post-revolutionary period 122 . The community was able to control their territory using their own ways of local government. The state’s recognition of indigenous customs isthe result of the pacto clientelar 123 . The state tolerates indigenous normative systems but at the same time, it has the official discourse of integration of indigenous people to modernization. For example, the state has never legally recognized the function of the majors or topil (in charge of maintaining order in the community), the assembly and the consejo de ancianos or elderly council. The assemblies have always been a privilege mechanism in decision-making for indigenous municipalities 124 . The municipal authorities had to look for approval from the members of

117 Recondo 71. 118 National Indigenous Institute. 119 Recondo 57. 120 Recondo 58. 121 Recondo 59. 122 Recondo 171. 123 Recondo 171. 124 Recondo 75.

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the community reunited in the assembly. Although the assembly has always existed, until now it ratifies a decision from the authority and the consejo de ancianos rather than to directly choose authorities. The government (PRI)would tolerate indigenous communities’ uses and customs- mainly in the election of authorities- in exchange for their loyalty to the political party 125 . This agreement worked well until the 1990s 126 . The uses and customs was also theinstrument forlocalpolitical actors and independent organizations to protect the communities’ elites through the discourse of indigenous autonomy. The PRI could no longer maintain monopoly on indigenous municipalities and it had to supportdominant groups that were in favor of uses and customs in order to neutralize adversaries 127 . At the local level, the PRI established a negotiation with indigenous communities, in other words, the pacto clientelar is renegotiated with factions 128 . In other words, those in power at the local level tried to avoid the emergence ofanew elite by defending their uses and customs. When the uses and customs were legalized, it became a legitimation instrument in hands of groups that had municipal power. The application of normative systems is used as an instrument for indigenous communities and the government at all levels. Since the context was development and neoliberal policies, the Cardenas administration reshaped the traditional values and customs. At the municipal level, the tradition was to put as head of the community (mayordomo ) monolingual elderly people with previous experience and that protected the traditions of the community 129 . However, during the Cardenas administration, the municipal president had to be young and bilingual. In order to maintain the status quo in the repartition of lands, the elite aimed to satisfy the interests of landholders 130 . In the 1970s, the old administrators empowered by the PRI played an important role in the control and repression of those sectors that supported changes in local politics 131 . Since the 1980s, the PRI is in favor of uses and customs because it was a way of domination in the post- revolution era 132 . It gave indigenous population the opportunity to integrate in the national

125 Recondo 172. 126 Recondo 172. 127 Recondo 338. 128 Recondo 339. 129 Recondo 41. 130 Recondo 41. 131 Recondo 42. 132 Recondo 42.

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political systemwhich assured theirrelation through a pacto clientelar . However, in 1994 the PRI monopoly was threatened by the emergence of indigenous movements and opposition political parties. The agreement between local authorities and the PRI came to an end in some communities starting in the state of Oaxaca with the emergence of the EZLN.

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Factors that lead to the emergence of the Community Police in Costa Chica- La Mont aña in Guerrero Second Section

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II. Factors that lead to the emergence of the Community Police in Costa Chica- La Mont aña in Guerrero

Contrary to common beliefs, the CRAC-CP is not merely a response to the inefficiency of the formal system nor is based on ancient ‘pre-hispanic’ or ‘pre-colombian’ customs of providing security to the community. The CRAC-CP is based on customs that are constantly redefined and used as an instrument to justify interests of indigenous populations, political parties and other actors. The CRAC-CP should be understood as more than an organization that emerged for providing security to indigenous populations. In fact, the CRAC-CP responds to different historical factors at the macro (external) and micro (internal) level. This chapter of the essay argues that analyzing the political history of violence in the Revolution; land conflicts, inequalities and poverty; the implication of guerillas and state policies; and the uses and customs as a legal parallel force are necessary for understanding the emergence of the CRAC-CP at the micro-level. On the other hand, external factors such as drug trafficking and war against organized crime; migration; and exploitation of natural resource such as mining explains the formation of the CRAC-CP from a larger perspective.

Internal factors

A. Political history of violence in the Revolution

The Mexican Revolution is an armed movement that started in 1910 in order to put an end to the dictatorship of Porfirio Diaz (1876-1910) and ended with the promulgation of a new Constitution in 1917. However, violence would continue until the decade of the 1920s. Liberalism, in the second half of the XIX century, influenced the emergence of the revolution. Liberal policies and law reforms such as the amortization of lands affected indigenous populations and their communal lands. In other words, indigenous populations were deprived of their lands due to liberal government. These liberal reforms started in 1856 and

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had an effect in lands owned by the Catholic Church (at that time, it controlled more than half of arable lands in the country) and common lands. An export-led economy during the Porfiriat o133 caused discontent from Mexico’s peasant majority. The liberal caudillo, Porfirio Diaz, focused on an economic policy based on state investment which led to an export-led economic growth 134 . He stimulated foreign investment in export agriculture and supported the concentration of arable lands in the form of haciendas . While the middle class was improving their quality of life, peasants loss their communal lands to the haciendas 135 . In this sense, Diaz used the Rural Guards or rurales , a paramilitary force with repressive techniques,as a tool to accomplish his objectives. The rurales ensured investments to the country’s economic growth. The rurales comprised 2000 and 2 400 uneducated peasants or unemployed artisans that were at Diaz disposal any time. One of their tactics was to ‘beat peasants that were troublemakers’ 136 . However, by the end of the Carranza administration the rurales ceased to operate as many sympathized with peasant uprisings. When Diaz got re-elected in 1910, isolated rural revolts created a nationwide rebellion. However, he resigned in 1911 and fled to France. A provisional government was installed under the liberal reformer, Francisco I. Madero –who belonged to the nation’s wealthiest families-, but he failed to gain support from the radical peasants. The latter instead supported Emiliano Zapata who led a rural insurgency with the radicals in the South of Mexico. At first, Zapata supported the anti-reelection movement of the revolutionary, Francisco I Madero, and formed the Liberation Army of the South in order to fight for the Maderista rebellion. However, when Madero became president and did not carry out the agrarian reform (expropriation of lands) Zapata sent his troops –known as the Zapatistas- against Madero in 1912. The Zapatistasalso fought a series of battle against federal

133 Period that covers the Porfirio Diaz administration. 134 Ramon Mir, ‘Country profile: Mexico’, Library of Congress Federal Research Division, July 2008, accessed January 2014. (http://lcweb2.loc.gov/frd/cs/profiles/Mexico.pdf). 135 Ibid., 2. 136 Chris King, Andrew Campbell, Emily Hill and Mark Fletcher, Mexico and the United States (New York: Marshall Cavendish, 2003) 720.

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authorities. In fact, the most brutal violence took place in the administration of Huerta -who came in power due to a coup d’ etat -when Zapata declared him the war. Huerta responded by destroying every Zapatista through a ‘slash and burn’ policy and in Huerta’s words, to depopulate the state in Morelos, Michoacan 137 . Fighting continued among rival bands allied with Venustiano Carranza and Francisco Villa. In fact, Carranza’s Plan de Guadalupe was meant to defeat Huerta and remove him from power 138 . After Huerta’s defeat, Carranza negotiated a cease-fire among the battling factions in 1916 and restored order by accepting the Constitution of 1917. 139 However, rural violence continued in the South until the assassination of Zapata by Carranza’s forces in November 1920. From the 1920s to the 1940s, former generals of the revolutionary armies governed the country. In the 1920s,President Plutarco Elías Calles established much of the institutions that would define the Mexican political system throughout the XX century 140 . This system was based on an authoritarian, hegemonic political party headed by a president; it would limit land collectivization; it would be based on military subordination to civilian authority; and supported on resolution of social conflicts through a corporatist representation of group interests 141 . The party would use patronage, manipulation of electoral laws and electoral fraud, and intimidation of the opposition. This ensured the PRI to govern for 71 years. The system was based on a top-down control where presidents handpicked their successors, decree laws, and modified the Constitution at their will. The indigenous fights for lands during the Revolutiontranslated into a battle for indigenous autonomy in the post-revolution period. Peasant communities battled against the higher classes of society including foreign capitalists in order to protect their lands. The role of Emiliano Zapata in the South of the country influenced indigenous populations. For example, it had an impact in the creation of an armed group in 1994, the EZLN, which currently occupies several municipalities in Chiapas. This movement declared the war to federal forces and demanded the destitution of former president Carlos Salinas de Gortari.

137 Ibid. 138 ‘Emiliano Zapata y el movimiento revolucionario’, Archivo General de la Nacion SEGOB, accessed January 2013. (http://www.agn.gob.mx/menuprincipal/difusion/exposiciones/exposiciones/emiliano_zapata.pdf) 139 Ibid. 140 Ibid. 141 Ibid.

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The EZLN, under the direction of the subcomandante Marcos, has an impressive military offensive and an attire of rebel wearing ski masks that is similar to the Zapatistas 142 . It represents the left, a communist ideal against neoliberal practices that adopts elements that indigenous populations relate to. For example, phrases such as ‘we are all Indians’ attracted international attention against the national and transnational ‘neoliberal dictatorship’ 143 . Salinas failed to convince the urban middle-classes, Cardenas’s leftist supporters, indigenous organizations, intellectuals and university students to support Mexico’s entrance to the ‘First World’ 144 . The EZLN had a great influence in other states such as Oaxaca and Guerrerobecause it opened the doors to the debate on indigenous rights. With Chiapas indigenous movement, the San Andres Accords on indigenous rights and culture would be recognized followed by a modification of art. 4 of the Mexican Constitution. The influence of the revolutionaries in current indigenous uprisings and social movements reflects the connection between two periods of time. In Guerrero, peasant organizations were influenced by previous indigenous uprisings and social movements. For example, the movement led by Genaro Vazquez and Lucio Cabanas represent the fight of guerrillas against federal forces. In this sense, Guerrero has a history of caciques , gunmen and military intervention against the poorest populations. This section aimed to demonstrate the historical fight for land between peasants and the elite. The Revolution permits the reader to understand the relationship of the State with indigenous communities in the post-revolution period.

B. Political radicalism and guerrillas

The following section will describeGuerrero’s history of repressive policies against peasants; indigenous uprisings; social movements and guerrillas. This analysis is crucial to understand the emergence of the CRAC-CP as a former indigenous organization (CAI). From 1975 to 1995 Guerrero experienced political stabilityaccompanied with high levels of social instability. Social instability during those 20 years is the result of the political and military destruction of two revolutionary professors and leaders of peasant

142 Recondo 191. 143 Recondo 192. 144 Recondo 192.

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organizations, Lucio Cabanas and his Partido de los Pobres 145 and Genaro Vazquez and his Asociacion Civica de Guerrero (ACG). 146 These two organizations represented the political opposition to the government of Guerrero . The context is the agrarianism supported by peasant organizations since it would cancel land-leasing contracts and partnerships. The privation of communal lands to indigenous communities is an issue that was inherited from the Revolution. In fact, the land concentration in few hands and the almost non-existent peasant economy aggravated land conflicts. It created unequal productivity and socioeconomic inequalities. This was the result of the government’s reduction of public expense as well as the fall of resources for rural development. In fact, the agriculture credit was disintegrated and the government eliminated crops for subsidize. The few peasants that owned land depended on it for self-consumption and for the little money that they made out of it. At the same time, theweakening of the cacicazgos and the loss of prestige of the PRI 147 at the local level influenced the emergence of popular movements. In the pre-revolution era, there were no free elections but the right of the caciques to appoint authorities. This authoritarianism prolonged in the post-revolution era in which the political hegemonic party eliminated popular movements and caused civic insurgency movements such as theACG. Moreover, electoral irregularities including corruption and homicides caused locals to distrust political powers. These factors contributed to the ACG to jump from a civic organization to form part of the electoral system in order to install democracy. Although the ACG had the majority of votes, their manifestations were repressed and Genaro Vazquez was detained in Costa Grande. The ACG later converted into the Asociación Civica Nacional Revolucionaria 148 ,ACRN, which was an ‘armed battle from the town against the oligarchy’ 149 this time under the leadership of Lucio Cabanas. However, he was assassinated in the mid-1970s which led to a disarticulated social movement in

145 The Party of the Poor. 146 Civic Association of Guerrero. ‘Guerra de Guerrillas’, Nexos magazine, June 2018, accessed December 2014. (http://www.nexos.com.mx/?P=leerarticulo&Article=447915). 147 Danièle Dehouve, ‘Hacia une historia del espacio en la Montaña de Guerrero’ (Mexico: CEMCA, 1995)297. 148 National Civic Revolutionary Association. 149 Nexos magazine.

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Costa Grande. Thus, the fight for the democratization of the caciques’ single-party system has caused social conflictsand uprisings. Supporters of the 1970s guerrilla who voted in favor of the opposition in 1988 were also repressed. When Jose Ruiz Massieu was governor of Guerrero, it was expected solid material resources from the federal government due to his personal relationship with former President Carlos Salinas. However, the aid was not given. Thus, the majority of the citizenry in Guerrero supported the opposition party which was the Frente Democratico Nacional 150 , FDN, under the leadership of Cuauhtemoc Cardenas. The supporters of the FDN (later the Partido de Revolucion Democratica 151 , PRD) were supporters of the 1970s guerrilla, ex-PRI followers and communists 152 . The government of Massieu responded with the assassination of more than 70 of individuals who supported the opposition party, the PRD. The governor declared that the ‘Cardenistas are the promoters of disorder and violence’ 153 . Popular communes governed de facto and the presence of the military intensified. Those municipalities that stayed in the hands of the opposition confronted an economic wall and political harassment from the state government. The influence of the PRD grew in the 1990s at the local level. The municipal elections in 1993, the presidential elections of 1994 and the municipal elections of 1996 exemplify the increasing influence of the PRD in politics 154 . The guerrilla warfare of the 1970s and the state-sponsored repression brought changes in the political system in Costa Chica- Montaña as indigenous populations started to hold political representation in their communities. Political parties from the left gained visibility in La Montaña in 1989. For instance, in the municipal elections of 1989, the PRD was elected in Malinaltepec. However, in the official results, the majority of the votes favored the PRI 155 . This caused the occupation of the mayor’s office during a post-electoral conflict from 1989 -1990. After the protests, the PRD governed the first ayuntamiento at the local level from 1990-1993, a second one in

150 National Democratic Front. 151 Democratic Revolutionary Party. 152 Juan Osorio, ‘Guerrero en la Encrucijada’, Nexos magazine, August 1995, accessed January 2014. (http://www.nexos.com.mx/?P=leerarticulo&Article=447915). 153 Ibid. 154 Dehouve, 298. 155 Ibid.

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1994-1997, and a third one in 1997-2000 156 .Thus, the PRD gained support at the local level but the PRI did not recognize such competition. In 1993, the policy of Governor Ruben Figueroa proved to be anti-peasant since it supported the transfer of public budget to private hands. Between 1993 and1995, the Consejo Guerrenseof Costa Chica-Montaña created national mobilizations in order to demand resources for social inversions 157 . However, the government responded with repression against thisorganization.Another example of violence against peasants’ organizations is the assassination of members of the Organizacion Campesina de la Sierra del Sur 158 in Aguas Blancas, Costa Grande, Guerrero in 1994 159 . The repression against the peasant organization in Aguas Blancas occurred in a different context compared to other repression movements in the state. The community in Tepetixtla does not have a guerrilla background or a history of caciques 160 . Yet, Tepetixtla had a peasant population who supported the Cardenas administration -the opposition party- in 1988. Moreover, the government did not provie resources to carry out social projects at the local level. The Aguas Blancas massacre caused the emergence of a leftist guerrilla movement, the Ejercito Popular Revolucionario, EPR 161 . In 1996, members of the guerrilla who advocated for a socialist peasant revolution and under the influence of the EZLN, declared the war against the Mexican government. The violation of human rights and public insecurity started with Ruiz Massieu and intensified during the short government of Ruben Figueroa. Since evidence appointed the state and federal bodies as responsible for violence and insecurity, indigenous organizations created their own community police in the region of Costa Chica-Montaña (San Luis Acatlan and Malinaltepec). Although the organization asked for legalization and fortification, they didn’t have an immediate response from the government.

In this context ofpolitical repression, civilians accused the judiciary system and police forces of corruption and impunity. Costa Chica was considered to be the region with the

156 Ibid. 157 Juan Angulo, ‘El EPR, una experiencia’, Nexos magazine, September 1996, accessed January 2014, (http://www.nexos.com.mx/?p=8001) 158 Peasant Organization of the South of the Sierra. 159 Ibid. 160 Ibid. 161 Popular Revolutionary Army inOsorio, 1.

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highest levels of impunity and judiciary corruption162 . The first militarization strategy in Costa Chica implemented by the federal police resulted in human rights’ violations. Indigenous populations of Guerrero were harassed by the military searching to obtain information about guerrillas’ movements. According to a local human rights organization, Centro de Derechos Humanos de la Montaña Tlachinollan , during the governmental militarization strategies, women in Costa Chica-Montaña were victims of sexual violations 163 . The second militarization strategy took place during the President Calderon administration (200-2012). In this sense, the military was first sent to states where social movements persisted 164 . From 2007-2012, former President Felipe Calderon sent the military into public spaces for almost four years. Mexico's National Human Rights Commission issued reports of nearly 90 cases in 2007 of human rights abuses committed by the army.The commission also received complaints of nearly 5,800 additional human rights violations from 2007 to 2011 165 . Although the guerrilla activity has disappeared in Guerrero, the government continued suppressing social organizations. The government suppressesascending social organizations in order to portray the image of winners of the dirty war. In this sense, Guerrero does not have a culture of violence but is rather the violence of the caciques and politicians that prevailed 166 . For example, indigenous activists formed social movements such as la Organización para el Futuro del Pueblo Mixteco (OFPM), and la Organización del Pueblo Indígena Me’phaa (OPIM)both victims of human rights violations. In 2002, mixtecos leaders were assassinated and women were sexually violated by the Mexican military 167 .

162 Marle Castro, ‘Incumplidas, 50% de ordenes de aprehension por femicidios’, La Jornada Guerrero, March 7, 2007, accessed January 2014. (http://www.lajornadaguerrero.com.mx/2007/03/07/index.php?section=sociedad&article=005n1soc) 163 Tania Montalvo, ‘Indigenas exigen justicia al Estado por violación a manos de militares’, CNN newspapers, February 10, 2011, accessed January 2013 (http://mexico.cnn.com/nacional/2011/02/10/indigenas-exigen- justicia-al-estado-por-violacion-a-manos-de-militares). 164 ‘Denuncia en Guerrero: Las comunidades indígenas, victimas de acoso militar’, Proceso magazine, December 13, 2006, accessed November 2013 (http://www.proceso.com.mx/?p=223908). 165 ‘World Report 2012: Mexico’, Human Rights Watch, January 2012, accessed January 15, 2013 (http://www.hrw.org/world-report-2012/mexico). 166 Osorio 1. 167 ‘Graves violaciones a los derechos humanos en Mexico: AI’, Proceso magazine, May 28, 2009, accessed January 2013( http://www.proceso.com.mx/?p=115596).

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Therefore, Guerrero has a history ofsocial movements and uprisings as a response to oppression and closure of political spaces. The CRAC-CP emerged in the context of human rights violations against indigenous organizations during two consecutive repressive administrations –Massieu and Figueroa- in Guerrero.

C. Agrarian conflicts and inequalities

This section of the essay discusses internal conflicts within communities due to land issues and uneven financial flows from the government to indigenous towns. It is important to understand that communities are conflictive and fractionated since they are often portrayed as homogeneous and united. Since historical times, divisions in indigenous communities have caused internal conflicts for the hegemony of one group against the other. In this sense, the term‘community’ does not mean homogenous or similar way of thinking. Often, federal, state and municipal governments penetrate those fractioned communities to validate their interests –that goes from the construction of a dam to the building of an industrial park or mining concessions, for instance-. Governments may want to further accentuate those divisions in communities since a dived community is more vulnerable 168 . According to Parra, an expert on the topic, social uprisings such as the CRAC-CP in Guerrero are ‘the perfect excuse for some governmental officials to justify militarization in the region and exacerbate the division of communities against, for instance, mining projects which destroys their natural resources’. 169 However, the extent at which governments or enterprises divide the community is limited because even without any external force, the communities are naturally divided. That ‘natural’ division comes from historical land disputes between communities. Before the 1950s, the dispossession of land documents 170 had a collective character. Localities would receive these documents based on their acquisition of category as towns or commissaries. As a result, the head municipalities enjoyed a great agrarian power over its

168 Octavio Rodriguez, ‘Policias Comunitarias en Guerrero’, La Jornada newspapers, February 14, 2013, accessed January 10, 2014 (http://www.jornada.unam.mx/archivo_opinion/autor/front/58/35848). 169 ‘Corrupcion y violencia: origen y los grupos autodefensa’, SN Digital Tlaxcala, January 31, 2013, accessed March 20, 2014 (http://www.sndigital.mx/index.php/component/content/article/18715--corrupcion-y- violencia-origen-e-los-grupos-de-autodefensa-#sthash.HyADzn2S.dpuf) 170 The provision of lands to private property.

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subordinated towns (this explains the later shift of subordinated towns into municipalities).The dispossession documents existed until 1950s in La Montaña when the communities solicited the legalization of their communal lands. With the legalization of communal lands, the commissaries located in the same municipality passed through a redefinition process and the recently formed towns lost their agrarian independence. Head municipalities such as Malinaltepec recuperated the domination of almost all the totality of its colonial lands 171 . Once a commissary obtained the ‘confirmation of communal lands’ it was able to have back its communal lands including those lands that were already shared out to other commissaries 172 . The confiscation laws gave space for private property in municipalities. As a consequence of forced land dispossession in the XX century, commissaries (towns) opted to leave their municipality and form a new one. The penetration of political parties accompanied these new demands. For example, the commissary of Apetzuca was divided in two factions; one belonged to Tlacoapa and the other to Zapotitlan. In 1988, the faction that belonged to Tlacoapa converted into the Partido Revolucionario de los Trabajadores , PRT, and the other remained supporter to the PRI 173 . The town was reunified in 1994 in a single municipality under the leadership of the PRT. With the formation of a new municipality, interest groups appeared in order to take the contrary position and balance out the town that dominated. The shift from commissaries to municipalities was desired because it unified entities of the same size and antiquity which unlabeled them to stand; another cause is the complex agrarian history andthe expansion of the population. Thus, after the Revolution, the municipality map has changed. In the 1990s, the battle between towns that competed for head municipalities reappeared in Costa Chica-Montaña. In fact, towns aimed to become independent due to the abuse from head municipalities. The head municipality had the right to impose fines and imprison their habitants but in the majority of the cases in La Montana, the causes of dispute were agrarian. Another reason that explains competition between towns to obtain the category of head municipality is the governmental provision of financial aid and services. Head

171 Ibid. 172 Ibid. 173 Dehouve 259.

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municipalities were the main recipients of financial influxes which gave them power to control money in the region 174 . The government concentrated its attention in providing public services and programs in head municipalities175 . The category of head municipality was obtained by the support of communities. Financial help from the government to head municipalities arrived through two ways. The first one is through head municipalities, in fact, each one received more than 3 million Mexican pesos to invest in public work 176 . The second way is through opposition organizations formed by militants such as Consejo Guerrense and Los Pueblos Organizados Costa-Montaña177 , CAIN,whose members belonged to different political parties and religions. These organizations emerged for achieving an integral development in the government. In 1993, in one of the meetings of the CAIN the idea of forming a new municipality was put into the table. However, towns preferred to eliminate their commitment to the organization since the proposal benefited El Rincon and the competition to become a head municipality involved political parties. This demonstrates the towns’ lack of trust towards political parties. Acatepec became the first formed municipality of La Montaña with help of the opposition party, the PRT 178 . Therefore, political parties also play a role in the competition between commissaries or towns. The role of political parties in the 1980s, through clientelistic practices, influenced inequalities between head municipalities and commissaries. Clientelism in political power was portrayed in the repartition of food vouchers and money as the main practices of the parties in head municipalities and communities 179 . In the 1980s, political powers increased their role in the development of infrastructure in rural areas.In addition, the decentralization of public resources made the ayuntamiento in the municipality an important center 180 . At the same time, this increased inequalities between the head municipality and its commissaries. Inequalities were further aggravated since members of the ayuntamiento

174 Ibid. 175 Dehouve 117. 176 Ibid. 177 Council of Guerrero and Organized Towns of Costa –Montaña. 178 Ibid. 179 Ibid. 180 Dehouve 119-120.

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received salary but not the commissaries 181 . This explains the reason communities want to separate from head municipalities with the support of political parties. Agrarian conflicts between communities in Costa Chica-Montaña continued to be a source of dispute in the 1990s. For example, the representatives of ejidos and communal lands elected their own commissaries. During elections, a town would fight against another and destroy community symbols such as churches 182 . For example, the community of San Miguel complained about inhabitants of the head municipality, Malinaltepec, for assigning lands. 183 . This section analyzed the competition game between communities which involve politics –conflicts between official party and the opposition- and geopolitics –fights between communities-184 .The CRAC-CP, does not have a local general assembly but is rather comprised of diverse assemblies in different municipalities in contact with several organizations such as the The Union of Ejidos, La Luz de la Monta ña, the CAIN, among others 185 . This explains the multiplicity of actors and interests involved which implies internal conflicts in assemblies and/or between members of indigenous organizations.

D. Uses and customs as a legal parallel force to the State

The following section describes the way in which uses and customs is the means for interests groups to achieve their objectives. The recognition of the CRAC-CP demonstrates an implicit agreement between the government and indigenous communities in order to maintain certain stability or order in the state. The legislation of uses and customs in 1997can be understood in the context of decreasing political power of the PRI and increasing support of the PRD. As mentioned before, since the end of the 1970s the hegemony of the PRI started to decline as the electoral competition increased 186 in the municipal and federal elections. The reform of 1997is product of interests groups such as the official party, opposition parties and

181 Dehouse 120. 182 Ibid. 183 Dehouve 120-121. 184 Ibid. 185 ‘Policia Comunitaria, un ejemplo de justicia popular’, Abya Yala Colectivo, 2014, accessed January 2014(http://www.abyayalacolectivo.com/web/compartir/noticia/la-policia-comunitaria--un-ejemplo-de- justicia-popular--guerrero--mejico). 186 Recondo 206.

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independent organizations whose strategies differ 187 . In fact, the PRI would use the discourse of uses and customs in order to defend its interests. In most of the communities, the priismo of municipal authorities is based on customary law that identifies a link between the PRI and the community. At the same time, the representatives of the communities that defend uses and customs in public spaces are an elite group that does not always live in the community. These elite may operate both, outside and inside the communities. For example, they participate in the cargos systems or occupy positions in the ayuntamiento and agrarian offices (Commissariat of Communal Properties or Ejidales ). At the local level, the leaders do not necessarily defend the customs to eliminate the hegemony of the PRI. In fact, several independent organizations believe the PRI forms part of them and thus, should not be changed for another party. Therefore, uses and customs is an instrument for the PRI and local indigenous leaders. The debate on the election of authorities through uses and customs is divided in two. In one side, academics argue that normative systems are backwards, sexists, based on cacique relationships, discriminatory and originated in municipalities with profound social division 188 . For others, the lack of acknowledgement of indigenous rights causesthe emergence of social conflicts and human rights violations.Hernandez further supports this argument by attributing guerrilla conflicts rather than drug trafficking as a major factor that caused the emergence of the CRAC-PC 189 .For Escalante, the organizationrose as part of indigenous rights and autonomy. In other words, part of that autonomy is represented not only in the election of authorities but also in the formation of a community police 190 . The state’s implicit double legality gives, to a certain extent, autonomy to the CRAC-PC. The recognition of customary law 191 as a valid subdivision of national law would validate the communities’ traditional roots. Bartra argues that ‘uses and customs are a fetish of colonial domination symptomatic of the country’s lack of embracing democratic institutions’ 192 . In this sense, autonomy is not a path for a democratic future but rather is a

187 Recondo 255. 188 Paul M Liffman, ‘Huichol territory and the Mexican Nation: Indigenous Ritual, Land Conflict’ (United States: The University of Arizona Press, 2011), 196. 189 Personal interview with Rogelio Hernandez on November 28, 2013 in Mexico City. 190 Personal interview with Fernando Escalante on November 27, 2013 in Mexico City. 191 ley consuetudinaria or uses and customs 192 Liffman 196.

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‘fundamentalist, neo-medieval revival and the end of progress’ 193 . For example, the autonomy of the Zapatistas resuscitates patriarchal, factional domination on the margins of the state. Moreover, it would create human rights violations given that indigenous autonomy entails violence 194 . Bartra stressed thatuses and customs are in hands of cacicazgos or petty dictatorships in rural areas where formal laws did not function. According to Somouano, indigenous communities can have policies that either promote or put an obstacle to democracy 195 . Indigenous communities and contemporary societies are both complex, heterogeneous and submerged with social conflicts –due to violation of human rights against each other or due to competition-196 . The conflicts between communities are further deepened by violations of human rights within the community. For example, during the elections to designate authorities in indigenous communities in Oaxaca, there is gender and ethnic discrimination. In this case, women are often ‘denied the entrance to the assembly of the town and the votes in favor of women candidates for community elections are rejected or ignored’ 197 . In this sense, the community’s self-determination not always results in the respect for human rights. The violation of human rights, mainly in a gender perspective, remains a challenge to customary law. The issue on inequality of justice for women reveals inconsistencies in the practice of justice mainly through a gender perspective. Moreover, the CRAC-PC, has been accused of abuseof authority by surpassing its limits when imparting justice; other accusation refers to detaining civilians for more than the legally established time; another is to oblige communities to do community work and others are accusations for the way prisoners are treated 198 . The violations of human rights challenge the process of autonomy of indigenous towns. Normative systems are a complex institutional mechanism that physically and economically weakens its members. Uses and customs, is based on the principle of providing service –through civil, religious and agrarian or ejidalcargos (positions)-199 .

193 Ibid. 194 Ibid. 195 Citated in JorgeVaquera and Mauricio I. Ibarra, ‘Participación electoral femenina en contextos de usos y costumbres: el caso de Eufrosina Cruz’ , Veredas magazine , 114-115. 196 Castillo and Ibarra 115. 197 Ibid. 198 Ibid. 199 Recondo 373.

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These positions are mandatory, not remunerated and thus, create inequalities. The individual is obliged to emigrate and survive for a year without a job 200 . Only the maestros or professionals have a salary in their mandate. The religious positions are the most expensive since the comuneros 201 need to spend thousands of Mexican pesos in order to carry out local festivities, ceremonies and rituals. All these elements that meant to contribute to the preservation of the community end up negatively affecting the economic situation of its members. 202 The sistema de cargos in indigenous populations create inequalities. The richest members of the community have direct access to positions related to the city council, government and municipal presidency. In contrast, the poorest members of the community are never remunerated and can only reach subaltern positions such as police or topil 203 . An individual would have to be a captain of a festivity – providing financial resources to festivities- or have a position as a mayordomo in order to have a better position in the hierarchy 204 . Despite the flaws of normative systems, its collective character guarantees the participation of the community. In communities with high levels of poverty and absence of fiscal resources, the system of solidarity of the CRAC-PC plays an important role in the municipal administration and the development of infrastructure. Since the 1970s and the 1980s, the state would use the cargos system as a mechanism of solidarity in order to carry out its social policies at the local level 205 . The new development programs that the state introduced expanded the municipal cargos . The state committees that were created at the municipal level were integrated to the traditional system of religious and civil cargos 206 . The community is forced to donate more time to mandatory tasks. In several municipalities, the inhabitants of agencies have to give service to their community but also to their head- community 207 . The collective system often represented a double-weight task.

200 Ibid. 201 Name received for people that live in a community. 202 Ibid. 203 Recondo 379. 204 Recondo 379. 205 Recondo 376. 206 Recondo 374. 207 Ibid.

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The CRAC-PC ‘s Internal Rules is a symbol of autonomy, a structured and independent form of organization. However, some members have rejected to become part of their system as it may not be considered an integral and democratic.The commissaries and commandants selected by the CRAC-PC and the Executive Committee not always attend regional headquarters. The reason of their possible absence is explained with transportation problems between towns and also because the assigned work was considered a weight to their lives, according to a commandant. In fact, ‘there was no communication or transportation; they had low hygienic sanitation and barely had access to food… 208 Therefore, the CRAC-CPas part of a collective system cannot be portrayed as democratic and widely accepted in the community. Despite the limits of the cargos system, the CRAC-PC is considered to be legitimate. A collective system of security permits communities from different ethnicities to cooperate. According to Sierra, the collective participation during trials generates a strong pressure towards communities to be impartial and transparent 209 . In fact, the collective nature of indigenous security and justice system assures its efficiency.Different identities such as mixtecos and mestizos integrate the police system based on the principle of solidarity and a common background –referring to inequalities and exclusion-. The regional inter-ethnic identity surpasses local identity without eliminating it since is based on collective support 210 . The efficiency of the CRAC-PC has generated strong legitimacy in the communities where it operates. It’s believed that the community police have reduced the insecurity of the region by 90% 211 . The legitimacy obtained has caused the government to establish a de facto agreement with the CRAC-PC in order to, in theory, mutually respect their justice systems and to coordinate tasks between the official police and the community police 212 .

The state has a double discourse based on the regulation and disarmament of the CRAC-PC. The community police construct ways of regulation and justice at the state’s

208 Sarmiento 11-13. 209 Maria Teresa Sierra, ‘Construyendo seguridad y justicia en los márgenes del Estado: la experiencia de la política comunitaria de Guerrero, Mexico’ (paper to be presented in Congress VII of the RELAJU, Lima, Peru, August 4-6, 2010) 8. 210 Ibid. 211 Sarmiento 11. 212 Ibid., 9-10.

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margins and outside the established legal framework. Members of the organizationhave refused the government’s proposal to integrate the CRAC-PC to the state’s formal judiciary system. The comunero fear that with this proposal their organization may be disarticulated 213 . In fact, they claim they do not look for the recognition of the state but rather the respect of the organization. Putting the organization in hands of the control of municipal authorities would break the essence of the community police. It would be linked to a regional project and it would rather be a remunerated service 214 . Customs justify the creation of community police through the reactivation and transformation of tradition. Customs and traditions may be associated with cultural legacy but the identity is reproduced, transformed and reinterpreted to adapt and conduct change. Bartra questions the ‘traditional’ nature of normative indigenous systems and rather argues that the indigenous system represents colonial forms of domination 215 . Normative indigenous systems are political-religious colonial forms in the exercise of authority that are modified throughout time. In other words, certain features of the colonial structure were brought to the category of indigenous normative elements. These features that are refer to as indigenous demonstrate colonial versions of an indigenous reality 216 . Mestizos and the post-revolution burocracy have changed these features with the objective of maintaining the hegemony of the state in indigenous communities. The highly-hierarchized normative systems which included the administration of justice, the organization of cult, maintenance of order and organization of religious celebrations demonstrates an intertwined relationship between public and religious positions 217 . The mayordomos, topiles (who protected the community), mayors de varas , rezanderos, chicoteros and principals are all part of the same system. In addition, the CRAC-PC breaks the communities’ local identities to create one single intercommunity unit, identity. At the same time that they demand the respect of ‘traditional forms of organization’, the indigenous leaders create new open ways of organization. Therefore, normative systems including the provision of security constitute the reinvention of tradition.

213 Ibid. 214 Sierra10. 215 Sanchez 183-184. 216 Ibid. 217 Sanchez 184.

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Second, the discourse of the community police as part of uses and customs is established in order to maintain an indigenous autonomy. Uses and customs justify social mobilizations that lead to a social and political transformation. 218 In the case of the CRAC- PC, when they defend their identity, they are also defending their preference towards another form of providing security. The idea is not to preserve the old institutional revolutionary community but to subtract the communities from the control of the government and judiciary institutions 219 . Their tools are arms and the impartation of justice. They use arms to address aggressions of caciques, illegal logging, organized crime and drug trafficking. When detaining criminals and during judgment procedures the community police follows an oral justice. The justice system of the community police, contrary to the official justice system, combines indigenous jurisdictional traditions, positive rights, and international and national regulations. This demonstrates that the organization pushes for a political transformation, modify power relations and previous exclusion, and demand the redistribution of competences 220 . The CRAC-PC defines rules that are more favorable to the community which are contrary to the logic of imposition and exclusion. The renovated experiences of community justice are consolidated as a response to different processes. In one hand, there is the State with its policies of diversity and cultural recognition in order to democratize justice by opening to indigenous normative systems. On the other hand, the renovation of indigenous justice is generated in opposition or at the margin of the State. The CRAC-PC is the product of political exclusion from the government.The communities have been unable to obtain approval to govern themselves through uses and customs but the organization reflects a way to exercise their autonomy. The CRAC-PC considers that ‘post-revolutionary states have contributed in the destruction of communities without offering them an alternative’ 221 . The defense of identity and the demand for recognition pushes for a new type of development that is more egalitarian and inclusive. The discourse of uses and customs often hides games of domination or exclusion. The emergence of the CRAC-PC as part of the communities’ uses and customs

218 Recondo 394-395. 219 Ibid. 220 Recondo 395. 221 Ibid.

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demonstrates the indigenous populations’ interest for a system that differ from the formal one since the latter is perceived as corrupted and manipulated 222 .Based on the community police, each municipality selects their own municipal commandants through an assembly in order to form their casa de justicia or justice house to be integrated into the CRAC-PC system. The criterion to elect a commandant is that the individual would have to have participated in previous operational activities and once elected, he would have to stay in the position for three years. In the case of commissaries, individuals would need to limit their participation and involvement in the community where they belong. This demonstrates that commandants of the houses of justice pertain to an elite group that has previously participated in other community functions. Moreover, the designation of authorities through an assembly where members of all communities are reunited is areinvented tradition to promote spaces of more open and active participation of communities including women 223 . The CRAC-PC recurs to a legitimate tradition such as the provision of security to their communities, in order to invent new traditions that are covered with the blanket of legitimacy 224 .

The CRAC-PC pretends to modify the relations of domination and exclusion that indigenous communities are subject to. They aim for change through the construction of new relations between indigenous towns, the state and the national society 225 . In fact, the CRAC-PC demands for more democratization and inclusion. For example, they often condemned the absence of translators in the formal justice system. They also argued that the Public Ministry is corrupted because it demandedthe communities to cover gas expenses in exchange for carrying out their investigations 226 . In order to protect their system, indigenous populationscall on their right, based on the San Andres accords, to autonomy andparticipation 227 . Indigenous populations implement uses and customs in order to reshape their own identity and political project.

222 Recondo 381. 223 291. 224 Ibid. 225 Recondo 387. 226 Giovanna Gasparello, ‘Policía comunitaria de Guerrero, investigación y autonomía’,Universidad Autónoma de México, Política y Cultura, 32 (2009):61-78. 227 Recondo 387.

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The CRAC-PC involvement in social movements against political decisions ratifies that the organization’s interests are beyond the discourse of provision of security to communities. The CRAC-PC blockades of roads demonstrate their cult and continuance for social fighting against political decisions at the local and international level. This reflects their role as a political actor and their indirect fighting for inclusion and change of political order. On February 2008, the C.P protested in the road Marquelia-Tlapa in order to pay cult to the assassination of Genaro Vazquez Rojas. At the same time, they pronounced their disagreement on NAFTA (commercial treaty with the U.S. and Canada) and the Plan Merida (U.S. and Mexico agreement against drug trafficking) 228 . The main purpose of the blockade was to fight for a new homeland since ‘they live in the same conditions as those experienced by Genaro Vazquez’ 229 . The other purpose was to eliminate internal PRD electoral processes. As mentioned before, the CRAC-CP represents more than the defense of their identity, autonomy or customs, a change in the political order for one that is based on inclusion. This section addressed the way in which indigenous communities transform and invent customs (ie. the CRAC-PC) in order to satisfy their interests such as the protection of their autonomy and political participation at the local level.

External factors

E. Migration

This section discusses migration flows caused by local marginalization in the region of Costa Chica-Montaña. In the 1950s, indigenous migration was intensified due to an economic model that favored agribusiness production (farming) and forestry industry rather than peasant-based production. The production of basic grains was minimal due to the lack of subsidies and as a consequence, the prices of basic grains decreased230 . All grains that formed part of the

228 Ibid., 21-24. 229 Tania Molina, ‘Lucio Cabanas: mito que sigue representando ideales: Tort’, La Jornada newspapers, June 27, 2007, accessed January 2014 . (http://www.jornada.unam.mx/2007/06/27/index.php?section=espectaculos&article=a10n1esp ) 230 Beatriz Canabal, ‘Migracion Indigena: el caso de Guerrero’, Veredas magazine, 2009, accessed December 2013 (http://148.206.107.15/biblioteca_digital/articulos/12-396-5906byq.pdf).

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rural economy such as coffee, tobacco and cacao were no longer profitable economic activities.Other events such as political and religious conflicts, lack of health services, education, transportation and communication caused migration. Indigenous populations migrated to big cities in the country but moved back to their municipalities due to restrictions in employment, housing and services. The first destination for indigenous population migration was Mexico City temporarily or permanently in the 1950s.However, from 1987 to 1992, Morelos and the Federal districtwere the main recipients of rural migration from Guerrero 231 . By 2000, indigenous populations of Guerrero moved to other states such as Baja California, Michoacan, among others 232 .In case they were not able to find better opportunities in these states, they were forced to move back to their municipalities. Inhabitants of the region of La Montaña alsomigrated in countries withcropping fields such as the U.S.The main cause of this type of migration was the lack of local employment andabsence of productive lands and resources. Indigenous populations often worked in a region were corn is produced for self-subsistence and for local commerce in low scale. However, the region of Costa Chica-Montaña,was unable to invest in infrastructure. According to Consejo Nacional de Población 233 , Conapo, there is a correlation between municipalities with the highest indexes of migration and those with the highest levels of marginalization. From the 17 municipalities in La Montaña, there are 11 with high levels of marginalization 234 . Metlatonoc, in the region of Costa Chica-La Montaña, is the poorest municipality in the country. The populations of La Montaña migrated to cropping fields in the state of Sinaloa in order to work during ‘death’ times or tiempos muertos . The Program of Workers in Agriculture attracted population from the region Chica-La Montana who moved to these cropping regions from 1994 to 2006.Indigenous populations would leavetheir municipalities but come back to their town in order to also work in their cultivation lands. Another cause of migration of indigenous populations from Costa Chica- Montañawas the high-levels of crime and violence. However, violence is not particular to

231 Ibid. 181-184. 232 Ibid. 233 National Council of Populations. 234 Canabal 181.

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rural areas in Guerrero. In fact, the crisis of the 1994 affected large and small cities in the country. The main actors of criminal activities were groups that lacked economic opportunities and the local police. Insecurity in the region was perpetuated by young armed groups that lived in the region and were, according to witnesses, the main perpetrators of sexual violence, land dispossession and other crimes in the area 235 . According to Muñoz, from 1992 to 1995, Costa Chica- Montaña experienced the cruelest violence which was fueled with the complicity of authorities in organized crime 236 . The levels of insecurity increased in the 1990s as ‘the state police discovered that lands were covered with marihuana and young people temporarily migrated to Costa Grande for the cultivation of the plant’ 237 . The variables is the lack of opportunities in a marginalized rural area; weak presence of basic resources such as health, education, transportation; and the lack of lands due to the natural demographic growth of the biggest communities 238 . In 1990, Guerrero was the third poorest state in the country preceded by Chiapas and Oaxaca 239 . In 1995, Guerrero was the second poorest state of the country. This section studied migration as a result to the lack of economic opportunities in the region. The lack of governmental attention to local marginalization gave space for peasants to either stay in the state and work in ‘illegal’ fields or leave the state in order to work in well-maintained cropping fields.

F. Mining

This section analyzes the way in which the discourse of the protection of natural resources is used to justify the creation of the CRAC-PC. In the formal discourse, the lack of protection of indigenous rights in the defense of their natural resources is one of the factors that caused the emergence of the CRAC-PC. La Montaña is considered one of the 12 regions in Guerrero with mines. The government permitted the installation of mining plants for the extraction of minerals which

235 Martha Peral, ‘Seguridad e imparticion de justicia comunitaria regional en la Costa Montana de Guerrero: Policia Comunitaria’, (Diss., FCPYS-UNAM) 9-11. 236 Cited in ‘Casi doce años de policia comunitaria’, La Jornada newspapers, September 2005, accessed December 2013 (http://www.jornada.unam.mx/2007/09/17/oja125-policomunitaria.html) 237 Martha Peral Salcido 11. 238 Peral 12-15. 239 Canibal 210.

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negatively impacted communities 240 . There are currently two mining projects one is called Corazon de Tinieblas which involve concessions of 50 thousand of hectares given to an English enterprise Hochschild and Zalamera. A second project is La Diana or land mine San Javier which belongs to the Canadian enterprise CamSim in a surface of 15 thousand hectares in Malinaltepec, Iliatenco and Paraje Montero. From 2005 to 2010, the Federal government provided 30 concessions for mining exploration and exploitation during 50 years. Indigenous communities frame this practice as a violation of indigenous rights based on the San Andres accords but the state considersthe practice to be beneficial for the community since it promotes development and economic prosperity. While indigenous communities view the effects of mine exploitation as negative, the government portrays them as positive. According to the communities,mining exploitation has an impact in the environment and the population; it also has an effect in their culture since the mountains are considered sacred places; and it has an impact on the destruction of social relations -which makes it easier for foreign enterprises to deprive communities from their lands-. In general, indigenous communities claim to have a strong connection with their natural resources since it symbolizes the destruction of part of their identity. It violates indigenous rights recognized by the Mexican Constitution and the Agreement169 of the ILO on Indigenous Towns and Tribal Independent Countries (the right to previous consulting; the right to preservation of land and natural resources; the right to preserve the habitat; the right to planning, administration and conservation of natural resources). The discourse of ‘community unity’ and respect of ‘ancestral’ practices hides particular interests. In this sense, the communities use ‘customs’, the protection of human rights or natural resources as an instrument to legitimize their exclusion and lack of control 241 . The community is a group that is thirsty of power and political inclusion. The region counts with an electoral system based on political parties which does not allow indigenous communities to directly impose their interests. Thus, communities would use customs as an instrument to legitimize their actions.

240 ‘Panorama Minero del Estado de Guerrero’, Servicio Geologico Mexicano, August 2011, accessed November 2013 (http://www.sgm.gob.mx/pdfs/GUERRERO.pdf ). 241 Recondo 312.

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The government ‘normalizes’ the exploitation of mines by relating it with the country’s historical practice in the production of metallic minerals. According to the government,national and foreign investmentis an important factor for economic development in the country 242 . Some communities support the mining sector as it generates economic profit but some others reject its benefits as they claim that foreign enterprises create divisions in communities 243 . In fact, the exploitation of mining generates employment but the destruction of lands has an impact in the production of corn, fruits, sorghum and vegetables 244 . The majority of locals argue that all these activities generate a myriad of employment opportunities at the expense of few employments that mining offers 245 . This issue should be portrayed ascompetition between locals in order to define a ‘legitimate’ custom in an environment where ‘everybody claims to be an advocate for customs’ 246 . In this sense, customs is an instrument that locals mobilize based on their interests or objectives. The state and the elite have particular economic interests that are hidden under the discourse of development. According to the social media, the government, when providing mining concessions, neither consulted indigenous populations nor took into account the right of indigenous populations to land 247 . This is one more example of previous state’s practices of modernization, at the expense of others, that took place in the pre-revolution period 248 .In fact, natural resources and land property has historically been a source of conflict between communities and the State. The government tries to ‘modernize’ indigenous populations by bringing foreign intervention for the ‘benefit’ of the population 249 . However, the economic profit that mining brings finishes in hands of those in control.

242 ‘Panorama Minero del Estado de Guerrero’, Servicio Geologico Mexicano, August 2011, accessed November 2013 (http://www.sgm.gob.mx/pdfs/GUERRERO.pdf). 243 Written by Proceso magazine, ‘Mineria: cuando los indígenas negocian al tu por tu’, March 28, 2014 (http://www.conflictosmineros.net/contenidos/23-mexico). 244 Ibid. 245 Ibid. 246 Recondo 312. 247 ‘No Minas en la Montana de Guerrero’, November 26, 2012, accessed December 2013 (http://iliatencominas.blogspot.mx/). 248 Ibid. 249 Ibid.

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Not only the state but also the local elite such as agrarian authorities support the provision of mining concessions. In la Montaña, in the village of San Miguel, the community got together in a general assembly in order to set up a plan to protect their landagainst an English mining enterprise. While the community refused the exploration and exploitation of mining, agrarian authorities ‘promote more the mining sector and do not protect the communities and their ejidos ’250 . The office on agrarian issues in the state argued that indigenous people do not have the right to claim mining concessions since the minerals are property of the nation 251 . Mining permits the concession of lands without recognizing the right to land. This section retook previous discussion on the relationship between the state and communities but this time applied to mining concessions. The CRAC-PC is an organization that emerged not only due to security concerns but also to protect indigenous rights and autonomy.

G. Drug trafficking

The objective of this section is to analyze the extent at which criminal groups would influence the creation of the CRAC-PC.Members of the CRAC-PC condemned the increasing levels of violence in the 1990s and the penetration of drug traffickers as the main factors that influenced the creation of the organization. During the 1990s, shipments of cocaine were transported from South America to the Pacific Coast.Local residents smuggled these shipments across the mountains toward Mexico City 252 . In fact, inCosta Chica-Montañapeasants also got involved in this growing illegal network. Locals contributed in the production of heroin poppy sine it was profitable 253 .This means that some members of the communities are part of the problem. For example, members of the community of Metlatonoc and Cochoapa were accused of

250 Ibid. 251 Gloria Diaz, ‘Año uno: autoritarismo político, inoperancia economica’, Proceso magazine, December 2013, accessed December 2013 (http://issuu.com/guerrerossme/docs/revista_proceso_n.1935_a__o_uno_aut/1). 252 Rowland 7-10. 253 Guillermo Valdez, Historia del Narcotrafico en Mexico (Mexico: Santillana, 2013), 122.

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transporting marihuana in 2011 254 . Thus, some indigenous communities cooperate with criminal groups. Drug trafficking is often portrayed as the main causefor the formation of the CRAC-CP. It is viewed as an external factor that disturbs the ‘tranquility’ of communities. However, as mentioned before, communities are since historical times, complex entities based on internal conflicts that involve land issues and inequalities. External factors such as drug trafficking only aggravated the internal instability of communities. The wave of violence of the 1990s rather than drug trafficking explains the emergence of the community police. The coffee crisis in the 1990s caused an increase in levels of crime whichled to some communities to join forces to combat it. Organizations and production companies were affected by violence as they could not distribute their products and resources 255 . Therefore, the Consejo Guerrense, the CAIN and the coffee organization Luz de la Montaña along with othersorganizations join together in order to discuss the formation of the community police 256 . At the beginning, the community police worked in marginalized areas in Costa Chica- Montaña in order to provide security and detain criminals that committed minor crimes. Thus, the CRAC-PC did not emerge as a response to drug trafficking but rather as a response to increasing violence which resulted from economic crisis. In fact,drug trafficking started to become ‘visible’ only after the creation of the CRAC-PC in 1995. Drug trafficking became a problem during the Fox administration (2001), continued during the Calderon administration (2006) and extended in the current Pena Nieto administration (2012) 257 . The CRAC-PCemerged in the context of cooperation between political parties and the state. The ‘drug war’ was not clearly evident because the PRI established a solid patron- client relationship with drug traffickers. Briquet and Favarel-Garrigues argues that ‘we should avoid defining these relations in black-and-white terms as the exploitation of one group by the other’ 258 . Although drug trafficking increased, the implicit agreement between drug traffickers and the state restricted violence against civilians, limited court

254 ‘Reeducara policía comuntiaria a 5 detenidos de droga en Guerrero’, La Jornada newspapers, November 6, 2011, accessed October 2013 (http://www.jornada.unam.mx/2011/11/06/sociedad/033n1soc). 255 Elisa Cruz, ‘Sistema de Seguridad Publica Indigena Comunitaria’, UNAM, last accessed October 2013, (http://biblio.juridicas.unam.mx/libros/1/91/4.pdf). 256 Ibid. 257 Ibid. 258 Briquet and Favarel-Garrigues 154.

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investigations and established rules. 259 As a result, the PRI limited its strategy in detaining heads of drug cartels and politicians that cooperated with cartels. Only a few drug lords were captured in the 1990s, for example, Juan Garcia Abrego (leader of the Gulf Cartel). In 1998, the prosecution of Mario Villanueva Madrid, governor of the Mexican state of Quintana Roo 260 exemplifies the first time in Mexican history that an acting governor was imprisoned. In 2000, military high-officers such as Arturo Chaparro and General Francisco Quiros were accused of collaborating with the Juarez Cartel 261 . Not only politicians are connected with criminal networks but also peasant populations. Since the 1960s, the U.S. has pressured Mexico to track drugs to their original "source” and to eradicate crops where they are grown. Since then, the pattern of increasing policing in order to chase down drug-growing peasants caused a greater expansion of illicit activities into less accessible drug zones such as jungles and mountains 262 . As part ofCalderon’s strategy against ‘organized crime’, marihuana plantations had to be destroyed 263 . In this sense, the marihuana crops of peasants, a source of income, was destroyed. Escalante stated that ‘…the community police has a relation with illegal markets. Illegal markets are produced in the streets and the function of the police is to produce order in the streets too. The media defines the situation as if the organizations are more powerful. However, the reality is that nobody has power… if the business in the town is to produce drugs or avocado, the authorities make agreements so that order is produced’ 264 . For Escalante, the emergence of the community police responds to the absence of the local order. The historical relationship between peasants and marihuana plantations was in Escalante’s words, an established order. This same order existed with previous political agreements that facilitated smuggling practices. Chapter II demonstrated that internal, local factors from the region of Costa Chica- Montaña and external forces have contributed to the emergence of the CRAC-PC. For example, the influence of political violence from the Revolution; political radicalism and

259 Shannon O’Neil, ‘The Real War in Mexico’, Foreign Affairs magazine , July-August 2009, accessed December 2013 (http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/65175/shannon-k-oneil/the-real-war-in-mexico). 260 Joge Chabat, ‘Mexico's War on Drugs: No Margin for Maneuver’, Jstor journal (2002): 149, accessed December 2013, (http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/1049739?uid=3738016&uid=2&uid=4&sid=21103574370671). 261 Chabat 150. 262 Ibid. 263 Ibid. 264 Personal interview with Fernando Escalante on November 27, 2013 in Mexico City.

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guerrillas; agrarian conflicts and inequalities; and uses and customs have contributed in different degrees to the formation of the CRAC-PC. Some external factors such as migration; mining; and drug trafficking also explain the organization. Therefore, the community police in Guerrero rose in a complicated, multi-layered contextwhere indigenous populations, the stateand non-state actors fought for the protection of their interests.

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Emergence and proliferation of self-defense groups

Third Section

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III. Emergence and proliferation of self-defense groups

As the CRAC-PC gained visibility, various types of armed civilian self-organized groups formed such as self-defense squads and community guards. The purpose of this chapter is to describe the development and proliferation of self-defense squads in Guerrero and Michoacan; as well as to understand the influence of the community police in Cheran’s community guards.

A. The CRAC-PC and self-defense (UPOEG) in Guerrero

The term ‘community police’ implies ‘authority’ but the word ‘self-defense’ rather represents a ‘response to violence’. Hernandez, political scientist from El Colegio de Mexico , makes a difference between self-defense and community police …’the use of the term has to do with how much authority they have. With the title of ‘police’ one is automatically applying law, authority. The self-defense means a way of self-protection against violence in general…the use of names or labels has a sense at the local level and indicates what they are representing, a specific authority or a reaction to it’ 265 . Thus, the name can be a clue to understand the types of self-protection groups that exist in the country. The media first assigned the word ‘self-defense’ to the ‘original’ form of civilian response in Tierra Caliente, Michoacan in order to fight against organized crime. Then, the media started using the terms self-defense and community police (intercalated terms as it both meant the same) to describe the Union de Pueblos y Organizaciones del Estado de Guerrero, UPOEG, 266 in Guerrero. New forms of self-defense emerged and proliferated in the state in order to respond to the transformation of the way cartels operated since 2000 when the Partido Accion Nacional 267 , PAN, won the presidential elections. The new model consisted in a combination of drug trafficking and extraction of social rents 268 which made civilians the main targets.

265 Personal interview with Rogelio Hernandez on November 28, 2013 in Mexico City. 266 Union of Peoples and Organizations of the State of Guerrero. 267 National Action Party. 268 Morales 9.

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The term self-defense or community police may bring confusion in Guerrero. In practice, the community policerefer to the aggrupation of indigenous populations that reclaim self-determination through uses and customs. The CRAC-PC symbolizes a cultural framework, under the control of the community, to solve conflicts at the local and regional level. There are self-defense groups that refer themselves as community police and claim their rights based on normative systems. In this sense, it remains a challenge to distinguish between self- defense squads that are financed by drug organizations from those that act independently. Criminal cartels usually accuse each other for controlling self-defense. In order to distinguish the factors that lead to the emergence of self-defense in Guerrero such as the UPOEG one has to consider that this type of organization is new and is not necessarily linked to the CRAC-PC. Contrary to common beliefs, self-defense groups are not rooted in rural guardians from the Mexican Revolution. The Rural Police forces were created and regulated by the State in 1861, during the Benito Juarez administration. The former President created four bodies of the Rural Police under the leadership of the Secretaria de Guerra y Marina (1884-1937) 269 . The creation of Rural Police was the product of minor crimessuch as the robbery and assaults in roads in 1880. Its original task was to protect roads, to provide aid to urban police, and to prosecute criminals. During the revolution, the rural guardianswere used in the agrarian reform and had a territorial presence in plots of land. The military trained them but their armament was not as powerful as that of the military. The rural guardians have always remained part of the authority of the State. In fact, there is a legal framework that recognizes the functioning of the Rural Police such as chapter 3 of the Ley Organica del Ejercito y la Fuerza Area Mexicanos and the Reglamento de Organizacion y Funcionamiento de las FuerzasRurales 270 , under the direction of the Secretary of National Defense .According to the Secretary of the National Defense (1937- ), they control 26 rural bodies (13 of

269 War and Marine Secretariat. 270 ‘Reglamento para el servicio de la policía rural ’, Universidad Autonoma de Nuevo Leon, accessed February, 2014 (http://cdigital.dgb.uanl.mx/la/1020011142/1020011142_010.pdf).

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infantryand 13 of cavalry) in 22 states 271 . The current duties of rural defense bodies are to obtain information on illegal activities and to assist the military. Self-defense squads may have similar tasks when compared to the Rural Police’s duties. However, self-defense squads are not legal or necessarily legitimate. Its formation is often a response to organized crime, exploitation of natural resources or increased levels of violence under different contexts. Self-defense and the CRAC-PC share the same history of social movements exemplified in the presence of Lucio Cabanas and Genaro Vazquez in Guerrero. In fact, the UPOEG is as a self-defense that emerged in Guerrero under the influence of the successful case of the CRAC-CP in the same state. As the CRAC-PC gained more legitimacy, new forms of civilian security emerged. With the support of local residents in Costa Chica- Montaña, the community police integrated a justice system as a response to the absence of guarantees from the State and formal system’s non-justified release of criminals. When the CRAC-PC created their own justice system in 1998, the government followed a repressive policy against the organization. In fact, after the creation of the system, several members of the CRAC-PC were detained. For example, in 2002 five Regional Coordinators of the CRAC were detained and charged of committing human rights violations. The former governor of Guerrero, Rene Juarez (1999-2005), no longer insisted in detaining members of the organization but his objective was rather to dismantle or to legalize in order to incorporate them with the Preventive Police 272 . A double discourse of inclusion but rejection of the CRAC-CP followed in the following years. The proposal of integrating the community police to the formal police was promoted by the local and state authorities in 2006. Despite constant disputes between the CRAC-PC and the government, the organization expanded to other municipalities in Guerrero from 2004-2006. The CRAC-PC was recognized by the communities for its efficiency in decreasing crimes and imparting justice 273 . The communities often viewed the police and the military implicated in organized crime. Communities found a solution in normative systems and 105 communities in 14 municipalities became part of the CRAC-PC in order to protect their communities

271 SEDENA, Ley de Trasparencia , accessed February, 2014. (http://www.sedena.gob.mx/leytrans/petic/2006/marzo/13032006b.html). 272 ‘Policia Comunitaria en Guerrero’, accessed February 2014, (http://latidodelcamino.blogspot.fr/p/12.html). 273 Ibid.

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against criminals 274 . As of December 2013, there are 46 out of 81 municipalities in Guerrero that forms part of any type of self-civilian security 275 . The UPOEG is comprised of members from communities from Guerrero and Michoacan. The UPOEG is a new armed organization under the leadership of Bruno Placido (former member and founders of the CRAC-PC) that operates mainly in Tierra Caliente and Apatzcuaro 276 . The UPOEG aims to adopt the same model as the CRAC-PC in order to gain recognition. In fact, similar to the CRAC-PC, the UPOEG captures individuals accused of committing minor crimes (ie. kidnappings, homicides and extortions) and who are subject to popular trials 277 . According to Sierra, the UPOEG is inspired in the model of the CRAC-PC which emerged 17 years ago based on indigenous uses and customs 278 . Members of the CRAC-PC argued that the UPOEGformed as a result ofminor crimes (ie. aggressions against young passengers in public transportation in San Luis, Guerrero) 279 . The following subsections explain the emergence of self-defense in a larger scope. The purpose is to describe the UPOEG as another form of civilian self-organized group that developed in Guerrero; to understand the interaction between this organization and the CRAC-PC; and to describe self-defense squads in Michoacan.

1) Social demands of peasants

The UPOEG is the result of peasants’ demands on improving socioeconomic conditions in Costa Chica-Montaña and the Centre of Guerrero. In 2011, the UPOEG first emerged as an organization that demanded a preferential price on electrical energy to indigenous communities. Members of the UPOEG went on strike demanding low tariffs to

274 Comision Nacional de Derechos Humanos, ‘Informe Especial sobre los Grupos de Autodefensa y la Seguridad Publica en el Estado de Guerrero’, accessed February 2014 (http://www.cndh.org.mx/sites/all/fuentes/documentos/informes/especiales/2013_IE_grupos_autodefensa.pdf) . 275 Ibid., 12-15. 276 Union de Pueblos y Organizaciones del Estado de Guerrero, ‘Movimiento por el Desarrollo y la Paz Social’, August 27, 2013, accessed February 2014 (http://upoeg.blogspot.fr/). 277 Ibid. 278 Alejandro Olivares, ‘Los grupos de autodefensa en Mexico, alternativa ante la violencia: Dra. Maria Teresa Sierra’, Ichantecolotl magazine CIESAS, accessed January 2014 (http://ciesas.files.wordpress.com/2013/04/08_ichanabril2013web.pdf). 279 ‘Policia comunitaria de Guerrero se deslinda de grupos autodefensa’, Aristegui newspapers, March 22, 2013, accessed December 2013 (http://aristeguinoticias.com/2203/mexico/policia-comunitaria-de-guerrero- se-deslinda-de-grupos-de-autodefesa/).

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the Comision Federal de Electricidad , CFE, 280 and quit paying due to, according to residents, a low quality service. A sum of 50 million of Mexican pesos accumulated in debt by 200 thousand users in 42 municipalities in Costa Chica- Montaña, the center of Guerrero and the North of the state 281 . As a consequence, the CFE cut the electricity supply in 27 communities, half of them indigenous communities, until part of the debt (35 million of Mexican Pesos 282 ) was paid by the government after an agreement between the governor, Angel Aguirre, and the UPOEG 283 . Compared to the CRAC-PC, the interest of the UPOEG goes beyond the creation of a police system to provide security in their towns. The UPOEG is a social organization that looks for ‘development’ opportunities in their communities which included infrastructure-orientedprojects and improvement of public services. The emergence of the UPOEG is based in the state’s lack of provision of social services to municipalities. Development, according to the UPOEG, should be inclusive where all its residents –and not only business men- are beneficiaries of public policies because ‘the town has lost the power it had before’284 . In fact, the programs and projects from the federal government to municipalities are reduced to individualized financial help that did not ameliorate work conditions in the region. According to Dehouve, organizations that administered resources such as CPLADE 285 , lacked transparency and gave more space to institutions rather than local authorities and individuals 286 . Social programs such as PROGRESAcreated divisions between recipients and non-recipients of financial flows. Other programs such as FONAES 287 and regional funds from the Instituto Nacional

280 Commission of Federal Electricity. 281 Alberto Rodriguez, ‘Anuncia UPOEG que gobierno pagara adeudo e luz a paraestatal’, Novedades Acapulco newspapers, April 21, 2012, accessed January 2014 (http://www.novedadesacapulco.mx/guerrero/anuncia-upoeg-que-gobierno-pagara-adeudo-de-luz-a- paraestatal). 282 Some articles refer that the complete debt of 50 million was paid by the government Margena de la O, ‘Va la Upoeg contra los altos cobros e la CFE en comunidades indigenas’ La Jornada Guerrero newspapers, January 14, 2014, January 16, 2014 (http://www.lajornadaguerrero.com.mx/2014/01/14/index.php?section=sociedad&article=007n1soc). 283 ‘Upoeg tomo la CFE por suspension de servicio en 27 comunidades’, Despertar de la Costa newspapers, accessed December 2013 (http://www.despertardelacosta.com/index.php/estatales/2467-upoeg-tomo-la-cfe- por-suspension-de-servicio-en-27-comunidades). 284 Ibid. 285 Secretary of Rural Development. 286 Danièle Dehouve, ‘Ensayo de geopolítica indígena: los municipios tlapanecos’, (Mexico: CEMCA, 2001), 354-357. 287 National Institution of Social Econonmy.

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Indigenista 288 , INI, drove their support to those that had available information and resources to finance part of their new enterprises. These social programs and agriculture subsidize created fragmentation of local society between those that were benefactors and those who were not. It favored individual strategies and fed opportunism in groups whose only objective was to receive financial support.

2) Counterweight to the CRAC-PC

Some experts view the UPOEG as an organization that emerged with the support of the state for weakening the CRAC-PC. According to Villalobos, expert of the community police and legal studies, the UPOEG responds to external interests in order to block and combat the community justice system 289 . For him, the UPOEG ‘may have political justification but lack of theoretical and judiciary legitimization’ 290 . He gives more legitimacy to the CRAC-PC than to the UPOEG as they ‘spontaneously armed their members and detained civilians as if they were part of any police system. However, they don’t have a community system and thus, they cannot have a justice system’ 291 . Some experts believe the governor of Guerrero has an agreement with the UPOEG in order to paralyze the CRAC-PC. For example, the UPOEG provoked the CRAC-PCby taking over their installations in Ayutla. When referring to the UPOEG, Villalobos stated that ‘they are promoting the division of communities and the separation of the CRAC-PC’ 292 . This may also be a symbol of pressure from the UPOEG to the CRAC-PC since ‘they don’t want to cooperate with the governor’s project Harmony and development for indigenous populations’ 293 . According to the CRAC-PC, the UPOEG is another organization under the authority of an ex-member of the CRAC-PC that aims to institutionalize the security community system in order to subordinate it with state authorities. One member of the CRAC-PC stated that the UPOEG is in coordination with the state and tries to ‘sell’the

288 National Indigenous Institute. 289 Margena de la O, ‘Upoeg surgio para debilitar a la CRAC’, LaJornada newspapers, Febrero 22, 2013, accessed January 5, 2014 (http://www.lajornadaguerrero.com.mx/2013/02/22/index.php?section=politica&article=004n1pol). 290 Ibid. 291 Ibid. 292 Ibid. 293 Octavio Rodriguez, ‘Policia Comunitaria en Guerrero’ , La Jornada newspapers, February 14, 2013, accessed November, 2013 (http://www.jornada.unam.mx/2013/02/14/politica/024a1pol).

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organization to the government. Therefore, the UPOEG and the CRAC-PC are opposite and in conflict. The CRAC-PC only became visible with the emergence of self-defense squads in Guerrero. Before the emergence of self-defense, the CRAC-PC was unknown to the urban eye. It gained attention when the latter needed to differentiate their organization from the UPOEG. Although self-defense first emerged in Michoacan it spread throughout other states in Mexico including Puebla, Durango and Veracruz. The states that have historically known to be violent such as Ciudad Juarez, Sinaloa or Sonora, have not experienced forms of civilian police yet. A small municipality of Michoacan, Cheran, recently formed its Community Ronda, a civilian form of protection that shares more similarities with the CRAC-PC than the UPOEG. The Ronda of Cheran has certain level of stability when compared to its neighboring communities. While other parts of Michoacan have been permeated by conflicts between the military, self-defense squads and criminal organizations, Cheran has demonstrated certain stability.

B. Self-defense in Michoacan 1) Organized crime in Tierra Caliente

The emergence of self-defense in Michoacan is the result of extortions and aggressions against civilians in municipalities with strong commercial activities. The Zetas cartel fought with the Milenio Cartel for the commercial port of Lazaro Cardenas in Michoacan (served as communication channel and offered a strategic advantage). The Zeta’s power expanded when they used extortion techniques against civilians as a form of control. By 2005, they controlled part of Guerrero, mainly the region of Costa Grande. Local criminal groups, with the direction of the Zetas, produced and transferred drugs such as marihuana, poppy and methamphetamines. The main targets were avocado producers in the region of Tierra Caliente who were forced to give part of their earnings to the cartel. The first form of civilian response was La Familia. This is a criminal organization comprised of victims of criminal groups and workers reunited with the goal of fighting against the Zetas. La Tuta, leader of La Familia, was a teacher that formed part of leftist movements in Michoacan and Guerrero. The official discourse was that they were an organization founded by the society for the society. But in reality it was a new criminal

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model, under the leadership of an elite that hided its criminal nature 294 . They participated in illegal markets and criminal activities by using violence; and financed peasants who participated in the harvest of illegal drugs. In 2007, La Familia (later the ‘Knights Templars’) became part of an extortion machine and competed with the Zetas. La Familia took office of the municipal presidency and manipulated mayors and authorities. In this sense, Briquet and Favarel-Garrigues argues that there is a politico-criminal configuration in which mafia-related violence is connected with the political arena. Violent entrepreneurs are ‘actors that know-how involved in a criminal environment such as mafia or act within law-enforcement institutions. This forms part of the formation and transformation of state- power’ 295 . Given that cartels targeted civilians and carried out acts of terrorism 296 , the first form of self-defense was formed in Tierra Caliente. The formation of a civilian self-defense squad in Tierra Caliente responds to the fight between cartels and the raising of a new criminal organization. Manuel Mireles is the leader of the self-defense group Consejo ciudadano de autodefensa 297 in Tierra Caliente, the Meseta Purepecha and the Coast Michoacan. In his official discourse, Mireles argues that his organization emerged due to extortions of the Knights Templars. Thus, his objective is to eliminate this criminal group. According to Mireles, their fight is not a war against the government or the military but against organized crime in order to establish the rule of law in Michoacan. This form of self-defense is different from the UPOEG and the CRAC-PC because they directly battle criminal groups in the streets of Michoacan. Contrary to the CRAC-PC, the Tierra Caliente self-defense refers to an urban or mestizo movement as the organization is not based on indigenous collective rights. In fact, Mireles studied university and had previous local political positions in the PRI in Michoacan. It is a movement that is also directed by and for the community where one could identify a hierarchy and a leader. Contrary to the CRAC-PC in Guerrero, the power is centralized in one person. This form of self-defense has spread throughout several commercial municipalities in Michoacan. In total there are 19 municipalities with civilian

294 Valdes 314-317. 295 Briquet and Favarel-Garrigues 3. 296 Nicholas Casey, ‘Mexican Cartels Retaliates against Civilians’, The Wallstreet Journal newspapers, October 28, 2013, accessed February, 2014 (http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304200804579163840007600858). 297 Citizen Council of self-defense.

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groups in Michoacan 298 . In addition, this form of self-defense spread into other states as a valid response to the ‘incapacity of the state’ in providing security. Although the spread of this form of system varies, all these organizations respond to security concerns. In Michoacan there is also another form of civilian protection that shares similar characteristics as the community police, the community guards. The municipality of Cheran in Michoacan, is a different case because ‘they have maintained a distance with drug trafficking. In fact, the Cheran police now forms part of their system based on uses and customs and is no longer influenced by political parties’ 299 . The inhabitants of Cheran govern their communities through a concejo or board without a town council or a mayor. In 2013, the federal authorities officially recognized them and their armamentis legally registered in the National Defense Secretary 300 . Chapter III focused on the emergence and proliferation of self-defense in Guerrero and Michoacan. It demonstrated the slightly connection between this form of organization with the community police. Michoacan is the house of different types of civilian responses, there are some ‘groups that may work for drug organizations but there are also other groups that gained legitimacy and legality’ 301 . Cheran belongs to the latter and the following chapter will further analyze the origins of this form of civilian response.

298 Ibid. 299 Personal interview with Cecile Lachenal from FUNDAR (NGO) on November 29 in Mexico City. 300 Jose Gil, ‘Michoacan, Mireles el Alzado’, Proceso magazine, November 24, 2013, accessed December 2013 (http://www.proceso.com.mx/?p=358772). 301 Personal interview with Cecile Lachenal from FUNDAR (NGO) on November 29 in Mexico City.

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Factors that lead to the emergence of Community Guards in Cheran, Michoacan

Fourth Section

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IV. Factors that lead to the emergence of Community Guards in Cheran, Michoacan

This chapter analyzes the emergence of the community guards in Michoacan. It starts by describing a series of the most recent events on the issue of illegal logging in the town. The subsections describe the historical factors that influenced the creation of the recent community guards. The essay takes the reader through historical facts in order to understand the issue of illegal logging and the recent emergence of the Ronda Comunitaria of Cheran. Although illegal logging in Cheran is a problem with historical roots, it became visible with the presence of masked armed loggers in 2010. According to locals, the loggers followed instructions of El Güero or The Blonde from the Ranch Rio Seco who worked for the Knights Templars in the Purepecha Meseta 302 . Due to illegal logging in Cheran and the penetration of criminals, residents organized the ‘movement for the protection of the forest’. However, prior to the movement, the community had a vigilance system. In 2008, the president of the Committee, Jose Gonzalez, reunited the state and agrarian authorities of the communities of la Meseta in order to find a solution to illegal logging. In 2009, a vigilance system was created but later disappeared. Gonzalez demanded military intervention in the forest of Cheran but the state ignored the demand. Although the Committee renewed its strategy of vigilance, it was later interrupted by the assassination of Gonzalez and his brother. Although the locals had a vigilance system, they put aside the issue due to their political differences. In 2008, the PRD lose the elections given their internal differences. The town was divided into those that supported the PRI and those that still trusted the PRD. Despite their differences, locals formed barricades and prepared fogatas or bonfires in order to discuss logging. However, non-residents also participated in the movement and later intervened in the shift of governance from one based on political parties to one centered in uses and customs (women did not take part of the closed political circle in 2011).

302 Marcela Turati, ‘Cheran y su rebellion contra la mafia michoacana’, Proceso magazine, July 21, 2012, accessed November 2013 (http://www.proceso.com.mx/?p=314688).

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Individuals from the city of Morelia had a network in the state which served as support for the formation of the current local government. The ‘movement of the defense of the forest’ rose as a response to assaults against loggers in 2010. A woman of the community took the initiative to organize an assault against loggers on April 15, 2010 303 . She managed to organize a group and detained five loggers in a day. The municipal authorities tried to rescue the loggers according to the Cheranenses 304 . By that time, illegal logging became visible; it was no longer clandestine (at night) but also done during the day 305 . The community set up checkpoints as a response to security concerns and fear of destruction of their village. The confrontation of locals against loggers took place in a context of local political disputes. In 2011, the community decided to elect their own municipal representatives based on uses and customs and their movement for the protection of forest lead to the creation of the Cheran’s Community Ronda 306 . The movement for the protection of the forest counted with the participation of 350 individuals. This movement led to an internal form of organization where residents, seated around bonfires, discussed on illegal logging. Each commission had between 13 and 14 individuals in charge of administering some elements of the movement such as security and finance 307 . The commissions’ objective was to rebuild the social fabric and create a community vigilance system ronda or rondin (a form of community police). The movement was directed by a general commission. This last one was integrated by 13 individuals from the barrios or neighborhoods of Cheran 308 . All representatives including members of the commissions were elected in their bonfires gatherings. The movement later changed into Ronda Comunitaria which was an initiative from the Committee of Communal Lands. A resident of Cheran affirmed that the ronda ‘is a way to rescue their purepecha indigenous form of organization’ 309 . Since he was young, he reckoned that municipal authorities were never physically present in Cheran and described

303 Denisse Roman, ‘Del movimiento por la defensa del bosque al gobierno de usos y costumbres’, El Colegio de Michoacan (paper presented at the II Congreso de Antropología Social y Etnología, Michoacan, Mexico, 2012). 304 Ibid., 1-3. 305 Ibid., 4 306 Ibid. 307 Ibid., 3. 308 Ibid. 309 Personal interview with a local in Barrio 3 on November 30, 2013 in Cheran, Michoacan.

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the ronda as a ‘group of residents that volunteered based on the approval of the asamblea general or general assembly…’ 310 The ronda was ‘rescued’ only after the creation of the ‘movement for the defense of the forest’ which had the purpose of putting an end to illegal logging in Cheran. Illegal logging is usually portrayed as it came from ‘outside’ the community through criminal groups. However, illegal logging is part of the town since historical times. In other words, illegal logging is the result of internal factors such as historical agrarian disputes, commercial use of the forest, political disputes, inequalities and power differences.

A. Agrarian conflicts

The problem in the Meseta and Cheran has been concentrated in agrarian disputes since XVIII and reached its highest point on the XIX century. Discrepancies between agrarian legislation and practices in the community created social inequalities. The problem was that first, leasing contracts of communal lands lead to the concentration of lands in hands of particulars. Second, a portion of the population remained without lands. The leasing contracts were interrupted during the Revolution and annulated during the Cardenas administration. The policies on forests –except during the Cardenas and Echeverria administration- gave priority to foreign enterprises and later, national companies to exploit the forest. In fact, the commercial use of the forest (considered a common land) by foreign enterprises started at the beginning of the XX century. The excessive exploitation of the forests in the Meseta led to the creation of a law on the prohibition on the use of forest for commercial purposes. This created negative consequences such as the emergence of illegal logging in communities. In the context of liberalism 311 , the privatization of communal lands would affect indigenous communities and their cultivation lands while the forest remained communal. The Lerdo law (1856) generated confusion regarding communal properties 312 . Communal properties were classified into those lands that were cultivated by families based on rights of usufruct–called lands of communal repartition- the forests and pastures exploited in the

310 Ibid. 311 Private property was considered necessary for economic, social and political progress. 312 Ibid.

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community –ejidos and hills- and those lands that are rented to individuals that don’t have any but needed one in order to finance expenses and religious practices –owned lands-313 . The ambiguities in the law created different interpretations which would have a legal implication mainly in the management of the forest. The Lerdo law did not give legal permission for corporations to acquire property but it allowed them to participate as shareholders in agriculture or industrial enterprises 314 . In the context of liberalism and unification of societies, it became necessary to legally eliminate the community and to end with the legal privileges of indigenous populations. Liberal reforms abolished collective identities and aimed for the creation of equal citizens 315 . The law 1902 removed the community in legal terms but in practice communal property still existed 316 . The issue on lands concentrated into a debate between individuals that were in favor and against the privatization of lands. Those in favor concentrated great portions of cultivation land and the privatization would extend their properties to the forest and pasture. However, those against did no longer have cultivation lands. This group argued that the repartition of land was against ‘tradition’ since communal properties were considered to be inherited from ancestors 317 . In addition, indigenous communities were aware that during the repartition of lands, their properties were monopolized by the ‘rich’. The Cheranenses 318 did not seek for agrarian repartition or political democracy but rather desired to have back an order that was changed under the influence of liberalism 319 . For this ideology, the land and forests were considered a product and used for commercial purposes. This process was facilitated with the introduction of the railroad. Therefore, In Cheran, the local elite fought for the privatization of communal lands. Throughout the second half of the XIX century, cultivation lands were concentrated in few hands but haciendas were never formed. This was in line with the liberal notion of progress during the administration of Porfirio Diaz. During the Porfiriato (1876-1911), the intervention of the state in the economy was considered fundamental for the national development. Given the lack of resources, the state attracted foreign inversion. At the end of the 1890s, North American companies invested in

313 Ibid., 4. 314 Ibid. 315 Ibid., 5-6. 316 Ibid., 6. 317 Ibid. 318 Inhabitants of Cheran. 319 Ibid., 6.

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the construction of the railroad in the Meseta. The railroad gave access to a forestry region and opened its commercial use 320 . Before the intervention of the state in communal lands, the community exploited the forest in order to use it for survival. The property of land was proclaimed based on the legacy or inheritance of each family –without a property title-. However, the government gave permission to foreign companies to exploit the hill and in exchange, the community would ‘benefit’ since it ‘created jobs and the community would be paid for each cut pine’ 321 . This subsection explained the control of the State in agrarian issues in the period before the Revolution.The government was in charge of the administration of communal lands and provided leasing contracts to foreign companiesto promote national investment.

B. Land disputes between communities and inequalities

Territorial delimitations between neighbor communities were a main source of conflict between communities in the XX century. For example, Cheran had a conflict with Cheranastico in the XX century 322 . The community of the Cheranastico believed they had property title of part of the hill. However, the community of Cheran claimed that their land was taken from the Cheranastico leader, Vicente Bravo, and thus they had the right to use it 323 . The Cheranenses argued that it belonged to the community since it was inherited by their ancestors. In 1940, Cheranastico was added to the municipality of Paracho 324 . The conflicts continued until Cheranastico, in 1968, obtained a presidential resolution that confirmed its communal properties. The conflict between Cheran and Carapan represented another source of dispute for territorial delimitations. The Agrarian Office demanded Cheran to demonstrate the legal motivation for the community to have invaded the land that Carapan claimed to own. The argument was that in 1533 Cheran owned the lands but in 1939 the delimitation of the communities took place without the consent of the community. Since the Cheran community did not attend the reunion to divide the land, Carapan divided the territory at its

320 Marco A. Calderon, Historias, procesos políticos y cardenismos . (Mexico: El Colegio de Michoacán, 2004) 91. 321 Dehouve 256-258. 322 Dehouve 262. 323 Ibid., 269. 324 Ibid., 256-259.

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benefit by proportionating wrong data 325 . Conflicts continued and in 1969, Cheran denounced the invasion of its communal lands. Therefore, conflicts between communities focused on agrarian or land disputes. This demonstrates that land disputes were a source of conflict both, within communities and between indigenous populations and the elite. It portrays communities as conflictive as opposed to the argument that political parties separate the community; in words of a local, ‘political parties separate us, they separate society and we left aside our historical, indigenous traditions because of that…’ 326 The creation of the Community Ronda is often justified with the ‘recent’ penetration of illegal logging in the community. However, the following data demonstrates that illegal logging is historical. This subsection analyzed the way land disputes of the XX century explain the conflictive nature of communities. This is important because contrary to common beliefs, communities have local tensions that are independent from the intervention of political parties.

C. Commercial use of the forest

The ‘movement for the defense of the forest’ is the result of the historical use of the forest for commercial means and irrational exploitation. The commercial use of wood was product of liberal reforms of the XIX century. The context is the criminalization of marginalized populations, state investment projects and militarization of the region from the XX century to 2006 in Michoacan. The national policies of import substitution and concessions provided to Mexican and foreign enterprises configured practices of extraction of wood. In fact, during the 1910s and 1920s the Meseta Purepecha experienced revolutionary struggles based on foreign timber concessions 327 . Although the Cheranenses did not participated in revolutionary movements during the Mexican Revolution, the town experienced different internal conflicts from 1910-1940 328 . By the 1940s, the region’s rich forest was a source of income. The exploitation of the forest by foreign companies turned the forests into a commodity and

325 Ibid., 55. 326 Personal interview with localof Barrio 2 on November 30, 2013 in Cheran, Michoacan. 327 Lise K. Nelson, 87. 328 Ibid.

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it represented a change in social relations and community’s integration into larger markets 329 . The agrarian reform promoted by former President Lazaro Cardenas (1934-1940) is characterized by the instauration of agrarian local governments that insisted in the transformation of communal lands into ejidos. However, the reform stopped in the last two years of the Cardena’s administration. A little group of locals, that supported agrarian reforms, created a committee on repartition and governed the municipality in two periods (1929-1931) and (1935-1937) 330 . The group was comprised of resineros 331 and workers without lands. The opposition was the ‘rich’ or individuals who had various plots of lands in the community. The anti-agrarian or anti-agrarista uprising or ‘zafarancho’ demonstrated rejection to Lazaro Cardena’s project to change Cheran from an indigenous community to a peasant collectivity based on land reform 332 . While the pro-Cardenas agraristas , searched to gain access to land, the uprising rejected Cardena’s state-building project and rather supported uses and customs. The Cheranenses’ sense of identification with their territory and ethnicity –which contrasted to mestizo’s nationalist projects- started in the Mexican Revolution and prolonged in the post-revolution period. In a few words, this subsection discussed the economic integration of Michoacan and its impact in the use of the forest in Cheran.

D. Illegal logging and inequalities

In 1947, the state gave concessions for the exploitation of the forest. In the case of Cheran, no concessions were given but sawdust companies were allowed to exploit communal forests. In exchange, the communities that leased asked for 5% of the total price of wood 333 . Wood became a commercial resource and was exploited without any restrictions. As a result, between 1951-1972, the implementation of a veda forestal or prohibition on exploitation of forest caused an increase in clandestine and illegal logging practices 334 . Since the legal production was expensive, these practices became an income

329 Ibid., 85. 330 Ibid. 85-86. 331 Individuals that work with the resin of the trees. 332 Ibid., 85. 333 Ibid., 86-87. 334 Ralph Beals, ‘Cheran ,un pueblo de la sierra tarasca’, (Mexico: El Colegio de Michoacan, 1992), 52-53.

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entrance for many Cheranenses and with it, the number of sawdust companies grew (to produce furniture and crafts) 335 . The national empowering of industries, the eruption of industrial sawdust plants, and the avocado industry had an impact in the devastation of the forest in Michoacan. The industry of avocado is linked with sawdust industries (for creating wood boxes to transport the product) and logging (for changing soil for forest to soil for cultivation) 336 . The practice of exploitation of the forest has been produced under the shadow of legitimate governments and national policies on the use of the forest. Between the1950s to 1980s, the spread of the merchant sector, commercial forestry and agriculture had an impact on social relations in Cheran. Inequality and power hierarchies intensified during the integration of capitalistic markets 337 . In other words, the economic differences caused by land concentration created social hierarchies. Moreover, individuals had different access to forest resources and the wealthiest families benefited from larger timber concessions. In fact, the majority of individuals were part of a complex chain of production in less profitable markets. This social and economic relations affected political and power relations in the community. Those individuals that accessed beneficial markets hold a better position in the political and social affairs of the community. Since historical times, individuals that were wealthier could accept cargos to access power in the community 338 . A person that accepts a cargo , invests large amounts of money for the ceremonies and the community. Once the individual passed through a cargo system, the person could have access to cabildo whichis the highest governing body that controlled the offices of municipal president and representative of communal lands. This political order continued in the post-1940 period 339 . Thus, excessive logging was a practice that benefited businessman and peasants for the regional and national market 340 . It was practiced by foreigner forest companies who used it both, as an export resource and for the construction of the national railroad.However, the extraction of woodwas also used for domestic purposes in medium and large quantities.

335 Ibid. 336 Roman 9-10. 337 Ibid. 338 Ibid., 88 339 Ibid., 89-90. 340 Ibid.,

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E. Political disputes

During the administration of Avila Camacho (1940-1946), the PRI and the cacicazgo played a fundamental role in creating a new order in communities. At the end of the 1920s, indigenous populations rejected the intervention of the state in local issues. However, in the fifth decade of the XX century, indigenous populations considered necessary that the state intervened 341 . In fact, in the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s the intervention of the state at the local level continued to be relevant. After Camacho’s administration, mainly in the 1940s and 1950s, local conflicts emerged between local groups inside the community which were product of the agrarian movement of the 1930s 342 . In this period of conflict between the towns and the agraristas, the assemblyof the comuneros was little by little putting aside the function of the cabildo 343 in the designation of a representative of communal properties 344 . In fact, with the emergence of an agrarian community, this structure is secularized and the political cargos would be independent from the religious ones 345 . The change in the power structure through the elimination of the cabildo marks a new period of disputes from the local government for communal resources. In the 1930s, the total removal of the cabildo in Cheran was envisioned for the ayuntamiento to control the organization of traditional celebrations or fiestas patronales. It highlights the start of a new period in the fight between the local government and the communal resources. The emergence of the caciquismo in mid-1940s is the result of the Revolution and local political relations. Before the Revolution, local brokers or caciques exercised political hegemony through the politica clientelista and were intermediaries between the community and the state 346 . After the Revolution, the caciques maintained their power position through their subordination with the PRI. The cacique could hold office as a representative for communal lands for 20 or more years and the position could be inherited to his son. Often, elections portray the influence of caciquismo. The cacique would support a

341 Marco A. Calderon, ‘Historias, procesos politicos y cadernismos’, (Mexico: El Colegio de Michoacan, 2004) 196. 342 Ibid. 343 traditional structure articulated the public-religious cargos 344 Ibid. 345 Ibid., 197. 346 Lise K. Nelson 91.

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candidate and the candidate would be recognized since the PRI was the only political party in town 347 . The real selection process took place before the formal voting and it was easy to identify who supported the cacique due to the lack of anonymity in the formal voting. It was a system of political patronage 348 based on a patriarchal authority. For example, Toledo who belonged to a group of wealthy individuals called the Toledistas, was a cacique and controlled the representation of communal lands and the ayuntamiento from the 1950s until the 1960s 349 . He was the local broker between the community and state institutions 350 . In Cheran, the post-revolution period is characterized with appointed candidates as well as a centralized and authoritarian power. During the 1950s and the 1960s, local politics concentrated in disputes between the opposition and the PRI. The election of a leader from the opposition in the 1960s caused several problems in Cheran. Toledo opposed and dismissed the elected municipal president, Abel Gutierrez 351 . He was elected by the Cheranenses because he was considered an honorable man with good customs. However, Gutierrez opted to hand over the municipal presidency as riots under Toledo’s leadership were foreseen. Instead, Toledo and the PRI president of the local Committee, Jesus Levya, appointed Lucas Herrera as the president. This pattern –where Toledo and the PRI opposed candidates and made them renounce- was repeated in the following presidential elections. Thus, in order to become part of the ayuntamiento, it was necessary to be part of the hegemony political party. Another source of dispute was product of the election of a representative of communal lands in the ayuntamiento . The Cheranensesdemanded a change in the representation of communal lands since theybelieved Toledo not only stayed too long in power (11 years) but he did not inform the residents on the administration of natural resources 352 . The administration of communal lands changed only after the attorney investigated about Toledo’s case. The following municipal presidents and representatives of communal properties were accused of irregularities in the process of elections and inefficiency in the management of natural resources. Therefore, the authoritarian local

347 Ibid. 348 When the newly elected official appoints a certain number of individuals to jobs in the government. 349 Ibid. 350 Ibid., 92. 351 Ibid. 352 Ibid.

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politics caused disputes between the Cheranenses and the representative of communal lands. The political struggles of the 1970s against Hernandez Toledo shaped the nature and trajectory of the PRD 353 in the 1980s. By the early 1970s, Toledo lost his power in the community as a result of complex social relations and increasing presence of intellectuals 354 . In other words, the rise of the PRD in the 1980s was influenced by the national movement (against Toledo) and local political struggles 355 . At the national level, the guevonicosfirst mobilized against Toledo to access political power. The battles between the guevonico s and the toledistas led to the 1976 uprising or el zafarrancho, in which the guevonicos lost their representation in the municipal presidency 356 . The zafarrancho was an intra-elite struggle for political hegemony in the community. Thus, the division within the community was portrayed in the presidential elections because the guevonicos supported the PRD and the toledistas supported the PRI. The 1988 and 1989 events were considered a direct external threat to the community. In 1988, the PRD in Cheran was divided into two opposed factions. The tensions were too strong between the two PRD factions that out passed the competition between the PRD and PRI. At the local level, it was a centralized local PRD that controlled politics in the 1980s 357 . After 1988, and throughout the following 10 years, the PRD based their agenda on supporting ‘their’ faction through patronage politics and factionalism which re-emerged and dominated local municipal politics 358 . Those principles contradicted the PRD’s previous ideals of equality, public neutrality and citizenship. While the PRI won the presidential elections at the national level, the PRD won victory at the state level. In both, Michoacan and Cheran, those that supported Cardenas did so because of the PRI’s well-known corruption but not because they shared more radical politics 359 . The alliance of the ‘ guevonicos’ with the PRD (under Cardenas) created a local movement in 1988.

353 Partido Revolucionario Institucional or Revolutionary Institutional Party. 354 Ibid. 355 Ibid., 93. 356 Ibid. 357 Ibid., 90-92. 358 Ibid. 359 Ibid.

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Apart from the violent anti-agrarista uprising in the 1930s and the political upheaval in the 1988, there were other mass political actions which took place from 1988 to 1994 360 . The PRD social movements and the anti-agrarista uprising represented popular political movements to defend and redefine the community. The success of the PRI in the presidential elections of 1988 was considered a fraud and as a thus, the Cheranenses mobilized at the state level. In fact, various municipalities of Michoacan including Cheran, took over municipal offices, removed the PRI local presidents and installed ‘popular’ representatives 361 . The years 1989-1994 represented mass political opposition at the local level. In 1992, Cheranenses protested electoral fraud at the local level. These mass mobilizations re- evaluated previous results and finally, in 1994, the Federal Election Tribunal affirmed that the PRD candidate, Humberto Gonzalez from Cheran, officially won the governmental elections 362 . The resistance of the Cheranenses was part of a process that emerged during the Cardenas administration. It represented resistance to the local PRI and the cacicazgo . The PRD split into two factions in 1993 influenced the return of the PRI in 1998. In 1993, the PRD split because leaders looked for consolidating personal power and control on local politics in competition with each other 363 . In addition, the PRD leaders at all levels used the same old PRI’s-mechanism such as patronage politics. The PRD municipal presidents, Eduardo Salazar in 1983 and its successors, Jose Ramos and Arturo, encountered several internal and external challenges that lead to a decrease of voting of the PRD 364 . The PRI’s revival in Cheran is also the result of the party’s funds directed to development in the town such as paving projects and the Solidarity Program. The PRI aimed to reconstruct legitimacy and have back Cheran’s political support. This subsection studied the decreasing power of the PRI, the PRD’s increasing influence and the internal split of the party at the local level in Cheran.

F. Economic and political power differences

360 Ibid., 93 361 Ibid. 362 Ibid. 363 Ibid. 364 Ibid.

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The internal PRD struggles are the product of economic and political power differences between members of the same community. The selection of pre-candidates first occurs at the barrio or neighborhood level after which the pre-candidates compete for municipal PRD elections. Each faction within the PRD struggles to assure the victory of their preferred candidate. Lise Kirsten stated that the nomination process between two barrios such as Barrio Dos and Paricutin reflects the difference in political and economic power between the two neighborhoods 365 . Barrio Dos had the highest population in Cheran where the wealthiest families concentrate. Barrio Dos has continuously dominated in electing the municipal president since the last decade. Since is a wealthy neighborhood, leaders put their attention in Barrio Dos rather than Paricutin, a barrio known to befor natives or peasants 366 . Residents of Paricutin demanded more transparency and open participation in the elections. Cheran’s socioeconomic inequalities had an impact in the nomination of a candidate at the barrio level. While some barrios such as the Paricutin had little voice in the nominations others such as the Barrios Dos had greater political participation. Barrio Dos economically and politically overshadows other barrios in Cheran. The economic and political elite tend to have leadership roles in the PRD who are concentrated in Barrio Dos. Historically, the Paricutin was culturally and economically marginalized from the rest of the town. Although they preserved more the Purepecha culture, they have also gained connection to the center of the town. However, Barrio Dos population is more concentrated and thus, they have more electoral power. The geographical unevenness, the social and political power, had an impact in Cheran when the PRD took power in 1988. The difference in power between barrios and the disputes between the two factions of the PRD to win the municipal elections caused local disagreements. The electoral process began in late May 1988 when the PRD Municipal Committee called on open meetings in order to start the nomination procedure. Each barrio would present three pre- candidates to the municipal PRD Convocatoria or summons 367 . The Barrio Committee was in charge of the barrio level selection process. The Paricutin Barrio Committee rejected to

365 Ibid., 222. 366 Ibid. 367 Ibid., 225.

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approve the old 1995 Convocatoria without debate 368 . They looked forward to reform the 1988 Convocatoria since it was important for ameliorating the electoral process. However, the reform was rejected by the leaders of both PRD factions because it was considered, paradoxically, a violation of indigenous traditions or uses and customs 369 . Thus, the center and the periphery had different views on the reform. It was ironic how the periphery, where the majority of peasant lived with strong Purepecha indigenous roots, was criticized for not following uses and customs. The debate about uses and customs was a way to legitimize a struggle that had political motivations between the two factions of the PRD. The municipal presidential elections were controlled by the politically most powerful of all barrios in Cheran. Barrio Dos had traditionally nominated the candidates that later succeeded in elections. The two factions of the PRD looked for their candidate to become one of the four pre-candidates for Barrio Dos 370 . Both factions of the PRD rejected the reform of the Paricutin because it would limit their chances to win the municipal presidency. Thus, this demonstrates that internally, there was a struggle between the two factions to control the process in Barrio Dos. The barrio level committee of the PRD in Paricutin carried out different electoral procedures compared to Barrio Dos. The Barrio Committee in Paricutin was formed by PRD activists, pro-reform that were not connected to any faction within the PRD. They questioned democracy and fought for a reform of Convocatoria . Members of the Committee had a discussion on what they looked for in the candidate and the vote was secret. 371 The members of the barrio supported a sharing-power within the municipal council approach rather than a centralized authority. In the barrio election, there were disputes between factions but it did not involve threats of violence compared to Barrio Dos 372 . The PRD candidate for municipal president was hand-picked by the leaders of one faction of the political party. Plus, the election for the representative of communal lands was also nominated by the political elite. Residents accused the elections as fraud but still supported the candidate because they preferred the PRD over the PRI candidate when

368 Ibid. 369 Ibid 227. 370 Ibid. 371 Ibid., 330. 372 Ibid., 232.

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elections were held in November 1998. Thus, the fourth consecutive victory of the PRD in Cheran took place in 1998. By then, ‘buying’ votes, the system of patronage, and the internal division of the PRD translated into a decrease in votes to the PRD in 1995 from 21% to 10%. With the local elections of 2007, the PRI came back to power and internal political disputes erupted in the following years. The local political rupture in the PRD and the PRI’s back to power establishes a period of time in the management of the forest. It marked an after and a before in the government’s local management of the forest and its exploitation. The ‘movement for the defense of the forest’ was supported by the PRD. When the PRI leader, Benitez Chavez, was accused of the assassination of a PRD leader, Jimenez Uribe in 2008, the population got divided in two; those that supported the municipal government, the PRI, and those formed by agrarian authorities.

G. Criminal groups and organized crime in Cheran

Former president Felipe Calderon’s strategy against organized crime was first implemented in Michoacan. The strategy consisted in deploying the police and the military in cities and towns in order to destroy marihuana plantations and search out drug traffickers 373 . Calderon’s military strategy in the country is considered to be a ‘murderous catastrophe’ because 40,000 people died and over 6,000 of them in the first half of 2011 alone 374 . In this sense, the power was centralized in the State which caused disequilibrium at the local level. The militarization of the country finished with the local order by removing the local police and placing the military. A ‘local order’ means, according to Escalante, that all countries require the administration of social conflicts through a police capable of organizing illegal and informal markets (such as illegal logging, drugs, piracy) 375 . In the case of Mexico, all vendors in the street in the illegal or informal market pay a quota to the municipal police officer that is in charge of the area and this person also pays a quota to

373 Chabat 146-148. 374 Ibid. 375 Ana Laura Magloni, ‘El crimen no es el problema’, Nexos magazine, February 2011, accessed January 2014 (http://www.nexos.com.mx/?p=14121).

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someone else on top of the hierarchy 376 . This type of local order or social equilibrium that is done through the municipal police was broke with the implementation of Calderon’s strategy. The federal forces substituted the municipal police in many states including Michoacan and Guerrero as they ‘coopted with criminal organizations’ as mentioned in the formal discourse 377 . This would have implications in the increasing of levels of violence during the Calderon administration. The social conflicts, product of illegal markets, were no longer controlled by the municipal police. This empty space left caused disorder in the state of Michoacan, mainly in Tierra Caliente but also in Cheran. Calderon’s strategy also finished with the cooption of municipal authorities with criminal groups. This type of cooperation also created order at the state and municipal level. According to a local, the municipal police ‘was never there when illegal loggers (in their way to the mountains) assassinated and threatened comuneros in the street’ 378 . The local also stated that there is a lack of response from the state and the complicity of the municipal police to the abuses committed by organized crime 379 . This argument demonstrates the cooption of the local authorities with criminal groups or as Briquet and Favarel-Garrigues named it ‘a collusion between criminals and politicians’. In addition, according to Cheran’s inhabitants, the president of the Committee of Communal Lands had agreements with illegal networks of wood. However, the violence started in 2008 with the assassination of the ex-municipal president Leopoldo Juarez 380 . That same year, the locals manifested the presence of ‘foreign’ illegal loggers in the community. This subsection argued that organized crime did not cause illegal logging in Cheran. In fact, the issue is historical and influenced by the profitability of logging, differences between legislation and practice, and political factionalisms in communities.

H. Uses and customs as parallel legality of the State

The ‘movement for the defense of the forest’ considered that the root cause for illegal logging was political parties. In 2011 (year of elections for government, legislators

376 Ibid. 377 Ibid. 378 Personal interview with a local from Barrio 4 on December 1, 2013 in Cheran, Michoacan. 379 Ibid. 380 Roman 1-2.

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and alcaldias or mayor’s office 381 ) the Cheranenses expulsed political parties and prepared a document to the Electoral Institute of Michoacan to cancel the electoral assemblies on November 2011 382 . The document declared insecurity, organized crime and networks of authorities with illegal logging as the main problems. It was signed by 2500 individuals and supported by the government, attorney lawyer, among others. The petition was not valid since it did not mention any legal code 383 . A second try was sent to the Tribunal Electoral del Poder Judicial de la Federacion , TRIFE 384 , where they demanded the respect to their uses and customs through the ‘trial of political-electoral rights’ (norms, procedures and traditional practices to respect human rights) 385 . The purpose was to change the government from one based on political parties to one based on uses and customs. The proposal was made by a professional that lived in Morelia who developed a document on the uses and customs of the community; and presented the Pre-hispanicstructure of the Purepecha community in order to define uses and customs. The demand for traditional ways of election of municipal authorities does not demonstrate the Cheranenses’ desire to preserve their customs. In fact, the demand for change emerged from a new indigenous elite or ‘‘young educated groups that are partially urbanized but that have kept the community anchor’ 386 . Their objective is not to preserve or step back to the established order but rather to break the community wall or the chains of dependence in Recondo’s words. They are ‘agents of modernization rather than conservation’ 387 . Their defense of identity does not reflect a refusal to change but an aspiration to control it in way that communities are the most benefited. Once the second document, prepared by the elite or professionals, was finished, the tribunal decided to carry out a consultation with the citizenry. The tribunal demanded the locals if they were in favor of electing their representatives with the system of uses and customs; the consult was divided in four assemblies and the voting was an open procedure. The total of the votes were 5121 votes in favor and 8 counted against the proposal 388 . The

381 Recondo 385. 382 Roman 13-16. 383 Ibid. 384 Electoral Tribunal of the State Judicial Branch. 385 Ibid. 386 Recondo 385. 387 Recondo 384-385. 388 Roman 16-18.

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number of participants was not half of the demanded by the electoral system –IEM- but it indicated a majority and thus, the new government on uses and customs passed 389 . Once the new government was established the Community Ronda, on April 2013, regrouped forces of the community to protect their forests. The case of Cheran is particular because for the first time the federal legislation permitted a change in the political regime based on the argumentation that it was a town historically based on uses and customs, traditions. It can be said that a government based on uses and customs emerged with the creation of the movement since it had a ‘community’ component, based on the participation of all Cheranenses 390 . However, in the context of internal political disputes an environment of unity and democracy is not easy to visualize mainly because power relations formed part in the conformation of a new government. The shift from a system based on political parties to the application of customary law ‘…reflects a political foresight of the group that controls the municipal power’ 391 . In fact, more than a decision taken from the municipal authorities reflects a commitment between the different local political forces 392 . Given historical internal disputes between indigenous communities in Cheran, the shift to a government of uses and customs represent a negotiation between interests groups. A faction may threat to support the opposition instead of supporting a system based on uses and custom in order to assure a central position in the upcoming ayuntamiento. The municipal authorities are capable of executing this change because they have prestige, the legitimacy of traditions as well as power of mediation with the central power 393 . For Recondo …’this reflects an adjustment between the majority and the minorities or between a group that is dominant and legitimate and other group that would like them to move away’ 394 . The ‘ unity’ that communities demand reflects the perfect balance force between interest groups. In this case, the adoption of a formal regime based on customs reflects a negotiation between factions 395 . The transition to a traditional order –dominated by

389 Ibid. 390 Recondo 274. 391 Ibid. 392 Ibid. 393 Ibid., 276 394 Ibid. 395 Ibid 277.

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consensus as well as a situation for competition in municipal positions- open the possibility to the use of the discourse on customs as a tool. The structure of the government was centralized in a communal assembly, a decision-making organism. The consejo mayor or main council was integrated by 12 individuals from each barrio, 11 men and 1 woman, from different ages and occupations – from peasants to teachers-396 . The operative main council is comprised of representatives of 6 operative councils, the main council and treasure representatives. The operative councils are formed by 4 individuals, one for each barrio; the candidates were selected previously on meetings around bonfires and elected in the barrio assembly 397 . There are 5 operative councils for the local administration, justice procurement, social programs and communal lands council 398 . This last one depends on the communal assembly. This means that the XX century distinction between agrarian and civilian authority disappeared with the new government. The sawdust communal enterprise works again and they installed a nursery 399 . One of the challenges of this new government structure is the long-term stability. The change in government has not put a halt to violence in the town. On January 26, 2012, the Community Ronda detained trucks with wood load 400 . The responsible was a logger from Capacuaro with possible connection with organized crime networks. Another example is the confrontations in the day of the anniversary of the movement where two representatives of communal lands lost their lives. Regarding the current problem with logging in Cheran, a Cheranense of barrio 4 stated that ‘before, it was only the comuneros involved in loggings but then they authorized foreigners to intervene such as businessman. The problem was that the selling of illegal wood was not regulated. As of now, the comuneros are still logging forests…it exists because there is no employment’ 401 . As of December 2013, there has not been a clear independence of the Community Ronda from political parties. While locals found the roots of conflicts on political parties, the agencies of political parties still operate in the community hoping to get in power in the

396 Roman 14-17. 397 Ibid. 398 Ibid. 399 Ibid. 400 Personal Interview local from Barrio 4 on November 31, 2013 in Cheran, Michoacan. 401 Ibid.

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next elections 402 . Regarding the presence of the municipal police and the CR atthe entrance of Cheran, a member of barrio 4 stated that the municipal police and the community ronda work together, according to him ‘there are also rondines in Cheran that are not armed; in the 1940s the community organized rondines once a week. Today we have a ronda comunitaria that operates 24 hours and cooperates with the municipal police…’ 403 Cheran is an interesting case because, in contrast, with neighbor municipalities, the community built a communal sovereignty in parallel with the ‘official’ regime. The state of Michoacan recognized, under human rights principles, the right of Cheran as a town with traditional roots, to construct a type of ‘communal sovereignty’. The ‘communal sovereignty’ coexists with illegal and illegitimate orders parallel to the ‘official’ regime 404 . The state recognized the new regime in Cheran due to respect of the municipality’s ‘traditions and human rights’ based on article 1 and 2 405 . In this sense, Escalante, affirms that the State tolerates certain form of illegality and makes agreements with illegal actors in order to produce order 406 . The State aims to formalize illegal or informal actors. The state recognition of the Community Ronda and CRAC-CP represent forms of negotiation between indigenous populations and the State. The Cheranenses obtained the approval from the TRIFE based on international agreements ratified by the government (that addresses the autonomy of the indigenous town Convenio 169 of the ILO and the International Agreement on Human Rights, a document supported by the UN). Although uses and customs were used as an instrument to legitimize the Community Ronda, along with the community police in Guerrero, its organization is legitimate and legally recognized at the state level. The CRAC-CP and the Cheran Ronda have more similitudes than differences when compared to other forms of civilian protection such as self-defense squads. Chapter IVanalyzed the way in which agrarian conflicts; land disputes between communities and inequalities; commercial use of the forest; illegal logging and inequalities; political disputes; economic and political power differences; criminal groups; and uses and customs influenced the formation of community guards in Cheran.

402 Personal Interview local from Barrio 4 on November 31, 2013 in Cheran, Michoacan. 403 Ibid. 404 Roman 17-18. 405 Ibid. 406 Personal interview with Fernando Escalante on November 27, 2013 in Mexico City.

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Typology

Fifth Section

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V. Typology

This chapter lists the types of organizations and self-defense that exist until now. Given the constant emergence of self-defense squads, the following chapter identifies, classifies and provides a pattern of the most documented types of self-defense. The proliferation of self-defense and community police in various municipalities is a sign that public security is not working in the country. There are 37 municipalities distributed in Guerrero, Michoacan, State of Mexico, Morelos, Campeche, Chiapas, Jalisco, Oaxaca and Veracruz that count on armed civilians regrouped to fight criminal groups, loggers, or any other ‘foreign’ actor as they name it. In most cases, these groups are the result of a state’s weak security strategy that failed to provide security to its community. In the logic of the state, the fact that civilians are taking up arms and provide security or replace the function of the state is unacceptable. The fear is that these groups may become impunity spaces where they cooperate with criminal groups. Although these groups emerge due to different factors that are often attached to local issues, there are certain elements that distinguish a community police, a self-defense and community guards. The community police or community guards are indigenous institutions that have persisted, with different levels of visibility, as parallel to national institutions. In Cheran, they call it Ronda . The community police and the Ronda form are based on normative systems or uses and customs recognized in the Mexican Constitution 407 . The CRAC-PC represents a form of autonomy and a collective decision from communities in creating a system of security, justice and reeducation system for criminals. It empowers communities by mobilizing its members to solve problems related to crime and disorder. It is a complex construction of autonomy; they respond to community assemblies; they defend their communities without confronting criminal organizations; capture criminals of ‘minor’ crimes; and they protect their natural resources against state’s projects.

407 Antonio Mejia, ‘Etnicidad, Autodefensa y Ser Gobierno’, February 7, 2014, accessed March 2014, (http://ciudadanosenred.com.mx/autodefensas-carteles-gobierno-por-que-en-michoacan-mapa/).

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Contrary to the community police, self-defense is not a structured organization. They capture criminal but do not have a system of justice and reeducation; they hand over criminals to authorities; they do not respond to any community assembly –they only respond to specific groups-. In addition, the self-defense often lacks collective rights since its members do not necessarily belong to an indigenous community. The community police cannot reach an agreement because its members do not expect a governmental recognition as they respond to accords established in their general assemblies. In general, one could distinguish five subcategories of self-defense .The first are those self-defense formed by civilians that armed due to property and work dispossession; they aim to defend their patrimony in a rural context; some self-defense from Guerrero and other states such as Hidalgo, Veracruz and Oaxaca are under this category 408 . There is other self-defense that is formed by businessman, owners of ranches that decided to arm to fight against crime given the ‘absence’ of the government, for example, in Tierra Caliente, Michoacan 409 . There are other groups that claim to be self-defense when in reality work for organized crime 410 . There are others that are more linked with an ideology based on guerrillas and social uprisings 411 . There are others that are supported by the government in order to guarantee security in the towns and communities; these are financed by the government, subject to State laws and rules; some examples are located in Guerrero, Oaxaca and Veracruz. Sometimes the first and the fifth are combined in Guerrero. The first element to consider when defining a community police or a self-defense is the origins or roots of the organization. The community police have certain connection with guerrilla movements, the Zapatista uprising, and other indigenous movements that are against the established order 412 . However, the community police is not part of a long history of fighting for autonomy or exclusion from the State. In fact, the state has included normative systems and has coopted customs -through caciques- in the political order of the post-revolution period. This cooptation would come to an end with the emergence of

408 Norma Gonzalez, ‘Grupos de autodefensa’, La JornadaAguascalientes newspapers, January 1, 2014, January 24, 2014 (http://www.lja.mx/2014/01/grupos-de-autodefensa-heroes-o-villanos/) 409 Ramon Gracida and Julio Leocadio, ‘La Upoeg y la autodefensa ciudadana’, May 2013, accessed January 2014, La Jornada del Campo newspapers (http://www.jornada.unam.mx/2013/05/18/cam-ciudadana.html). 410 Jose Reveles, ‘Policias comunitarias, autodefensas y paramilitares’, August 2013, December 2013 (http://estepais.com/site/?p=46822). 411 Ibid. 412 La Jornada del Campo newspapers.

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political factions, multi-party system in the 1980s and as indigenous groups refuse the intervention of any political party (ie. Cheran). It is only until then that once can argue that the community police or the guardia communitaria are looking for independence or autonomy from the state. In this sense, community democracy had to be reshaped and fabricated taking practices that already existed but with a new sense 413 . Along with the Ronda , the CRAC-PC have reinvented and used uses and customs to legitimize new forms of organizations. Similar to community police, the community guards is a response to security concerns. The community guards are not clearly formed or organized and cannot yet be described as community police or self-defense. In the 1980s and 1990s, the wave of violence that affected coffee commercial activities lead to the organization of civilians in Costa Chica and La Montaña. Coffee production was affected for the insecurity environment since it was a risk to transport merchandise. As a consequence, the members of the communities responded with collective justice and self-organization. Cheran’s Ronda and the CRAC-PC have certain legal support and legitimacy. In general, they share similarities regarding their support on indigenous normative systems, practice and rural context. Self-defense squads emerged in the context of a post-2006 period and the shift in the way non-state actors operate. Similar to the community police and Ronda, they are a response of the inability of the State to provide security. Self-defense groups first emerged in the municipalities of Tierra Caliente, Michoacan with the aim of defending themselves against drug cartels and battle against organized crime. These groups did not organized based on indigenous customs. Some self-defense groups respond to the economic impact of organized crime in the community. The organization of self-defense also emerge to protect the production of lemon in Buena Vista; mines in Aquila, avocado in La Ruana, Apatzingan and several other municipalities of Tierra Caliente; exportation of agriculture and cattle products in Apatzingan and Tepalcatepec; mining and steel companies 414 . In this sense, organized crime search for municipalities where there is a concentration of economic activity and a

413 Recondo 397. 414 Mejia in ‘Etnicidad, Autodefensa y Ser Gobierno’.

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low density of population since they could pass unperceived and at the same time gain economic benefits through extortions and cobro de piso or quotas 415 . The majority of self-defense is located in head municipalities where the power is concentrated and where criminal groups most operate. According to Semo, academic and historian affirmed that the price of lemon and the agricultural sector are examples of the impact of organized crime in the economy or “criminalization of the market” 416 . This is an economic explanation that urges civilians to form self-defense squads against organized crime. He affirmed that origin of this criminalization is found in local police and authorities (municipal police are few and they have few resources). Extortions against agriculture producers, small stores, and transporters caused the spike of the price of lemon to a 25 % 417 and 70% is the calculated loss in lemon production. At the same time, the basic food basket and the transport is negatively affected.A similar situation occurred in the production of avocado. In fact, organized crime received 2,460 million of pesos from extortions in 2012 418 . Thus, extortions against commercial producers were the main targets for criminal groups. These self-defense groups that protect not only their security but also their business extended to other states such as Morelos, Veracruz, Oaxaca and Guerrero. The reason the conflict between self-defense groups and the Knights Templars takes place in Michoacan is because the region is a key point for merchandise and the lemon market. It is a strategic zone where the Knights Templar and self-defense group battle but is it also where the territory is being disputed between cartels (the Knights Templars and the Jalisco New Generation cartel). It is a zone where marihuana is cultivated and synthetics drugs such as crystal are fabricated. All the municipalities involved are located in the Sierra Coalcoman, closed to the Pacific Ocean and are connected to the Lazaro Cardenas Port and Manzanillo 419 .

415 Ibid. 416 Ibid. 417 ‘Crimen en Michoacan’, Carmen Aristegui, July 29, 2013, accessed February 2014 (http://aristeguinoticias.com/2907/mexico/por-extorsion-del-narco-inflacion-aumenta-25-ilan-semo-en- aristegui-cnn/). 418 ‘Templarios ganan 2,000 mdp al año extorsionando aguacateros en Michoacan’, Carmen Aristegui, October 2013, December 2013 (http://aristeguinoticias.com/3010/mexico/templarios-ganan-2000-mdp-al-ano- extorsionando-a-aguacateros-en-michoacan/). 419 ‘Apatzingan, la zona estratégica que pelean Templarios y autodefensas’, Carmen Aristegui , October 29, 2013, accessed February 2014 (http://aristeguinoticias.com/2910/mexico/apatzingan-la-zona-estrategica-que- pelean-templarios-y-autodefensas/).

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Self-defense groups differ from rural police or paramilitaries because the latter are trained by the military. Self-defense in Mexico cannot be confused with self-defense in Colombia since their context, objectives and histories are different. In Colombia, these groups were supported by different actors including politicians, military, stockmen, businessmen and civilians in order to combat guerrilla. Self-defense offered protection to counter-insurgency. However, they later formed part of drug trafficking and they converted into terrorists and paramilitaries. Even if the CRAC-C.P. is accused of having connections with guerrilla and the UPOEG is associated with the Jalisco cartel, they cannot be confused with Autodefensa Unidas of Colombia. Political parties may take advantage of the proliferation of self-defense. The spread of these groups in Chiapas, Michoacan, Guerrero, Morelos and state of Mexico, where there is a solid historic base of support to the PRD may not be coincidence. These states also have one of the highest levels of famine, child mortality and underdevelopment. These states also have a high number of indigenous populations and a background of guerrilla and social movements. Second, describing the armament and financing of each organization is a hint of the possible interests behind these organizations. It reminds a challenge to identify the connection that any of these organization may have with criminal groups, mainly in the case of self-defense. In the case of the CRAC-PC authorities tend to criminalize the CRAC- PC by stating that its members use high-caliber weaponry, riffles Heckler & Koch (H&K), which is considered to be more lethal than the AK-47 420 . The government accused some members of the CRAC-PC to bear arms that are of exclusive use of the Military and Air Force 421 .One theory of this criminalization is that the State fears they may use their autonomy to form a separate entity such as was the case of the EZLN in Chiapas. Academics argue that the community policehas a bank of arms which they acquire when detentions take place. The CRAC-PC disarms criminals and keeps the armament for their

420 Margena de la O, ‘Armas confiscadas a comunitarios son de la policia municipal de Tixtla: Molina’, La Jornada Guerrero , August 30, 2013, accessed January 2014 (http://www.lajornadaguerrero.com.mx/2013/08/30/index.php?section=politica&article=004n2pol). 421 Laura Sanchez, ‘Detienen a 6 policias comunitarias por portar armas exclusivas del ejercito’, August 2013, February 2014 (http://periodicodigital.com.mx/notas/detienen_a_6_policias_comunitarios_por_portar_armas_exclusivas_del _ejercito#.Uspcx_TuLVY).

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use. In this sense, the organization owns both low and high-caliber armament. Some of their arms are registered in the municipality of San Luis or Malinaltepec 422 . In 2013, as part of the integral strategy of the State System of Public Security, the government provided credentials to 923 members of the CRAC-PC in 48 communities of 11 municipalities 423 . The idea is to register the low caliber armament of the community police and identify the person that holds the arm. In fact, the confrontations between the CRAC-PC and the state police refer to their attempt to disarm the organization. Not only the CRAC-PC has the support of the community but the state also provides them with limited aid in the form of resources. Although the CRAC-PC has certain legality at the state level, the organization is not recognized by the federation. The case of Cheran in Michoacan is an exception because the Ronda has a collective license to bear arms except high-caliber fossils. Compared with self-defense and other groups that emerged in Michoacan, the CRAC and the Ronda is more tolerated. Based on the media, the UPOEG is less criminalized than self-defense squads in Tepalcatepec and La Ruana in Tierra Caliente, Michoacan. The self-defense in Tepalcatepec and La Ruana in Tierra Caliente is believed to have used AK-47, AR-15 and other armament that belonged to criminal groups. It was argued that the members of these movements were part of the cartel Jalisco Nueva Generacion according to the PGR and the Sedena 424 and that the cartel and civilians grouped together in self-defense squads in order to fight other cartels that operated in the state. This argument challenges the idea that self- defense use the right means to provide security; it questions their objective as organizations that only emerge for the people and by the people 425 ; intentions are hard to read when there are several armed actors in the field such as self-defense squads, criminal groups (ie. The Knights Templar, La Familia Michoacana, the Jalisco New Generation and the Zetas) and the State. The problem is that there are various armed groups that create social confusion and feeds the scenario of conflict between various groups.

422 Sarmiento 35-39. 423 Rolando Aguilar, ‘Entregan credenciales a comunitarios en Guerrero’, Excelsior newspapers August 21, 2013, accessed December 2013 (http://www.excelsior.com.mx/nacional/2013/08/21/914596). 424 ‘Policia comunitaria en Michoacan’, Cambio de Michoacan , March 9, 2013, accessed January 2014 (http://cambiodemichoacan.com.mx/nota-193850). 425 Ibid.

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While the government fears that the CRAC-PC uses its autonomy to form a separate entity, they believe the UPOEG may become an instrument of mafia, guerrilla or corrupted politicians. The UPOEG, have not been publically accused of having a connection with criminal organizations. Similar to the CRAC-PC, their armament is low and high-caliber that is argued is from exclusive use of the military. However, the UPOEG, its members do not use sophisticated armament but only those permitted in the ‘law of labor’ and peasants based on the Law of Federal explosives (i.e. riffles .22, shotgun .410 and 12). In general, the UPOEG is less criminalized than self-defense located in Michoacan. However, they lack legality and the precedence of their arms is often put into question as none of their arms are registered 426 . In fact, the only two organizations that have received legal support are the Ronda and the CRAC-PC. The rest of the organizations are considered to be a challenge to the state rule of law and the state monopoly on the use of force. A major problem is when indigenous communities are convinced to use their right to autonomy to cooperate with illegal activities. For example, in Sonora and Arizona, the reserve Tohono O’odham is one of the main routes to deliver drugs to the U.S. In this area indigenous population have autonomy but some of their members cooperate with El Chapo Guzman in his illegal business 427 . This is the reason is complicated to define the interests of communities. The formation of community police and self-defense squad needs to be treated case by case. In this sense, in Guerrero, the CRAC-PC and the UPOEG are two different organizations. Even in the most traditional, indigenous and community-based self-defense may have other intentions that differs from the purely defense of community values. In Cheran, there are concerns about the role of the Ronda in putting a halt to illegal logging. The argument is that they only detain individuals involve in minor crimes –since is less dangerous- than protecting the community against loggers 428 . Third, the way these organizations operate also varies. Similar to the CRAC-PC, the Cheran’s Ronda is financed through community donations; they set up check points and

426 Ruben Martin, ‘Autodefensa y crisis del Estado’ El Economista newspapers, July 2013, accessed December 2013 (http://eleconomista.com.mx/antipolitica/2013/07/26/autodefensa-crisis-estado). 427 Jorge Morales, ‘El Chapo Guzman reina en el desierto’, The Huffington Post newspapers, June 5, 2012, accessed November 2013 (http://voces.huffingtonpost.com/2012/06/05/chapo-guzman-desierto- territorio_n_1571076.html) 428 Roman 16- 17.

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detain criminals but they do not impart justice 429 , and instead criminals are handed over to state authorities. However, the CRAC-PC has a police and justice system that includes the reeducation or reintegration process. In the case of Cheran, the existence of opposition groups in the formation of a community police does not allow for a system such as the one implemented in the CRAC-PC. Members of the Ronda are individuals that had political disputes. The existence of opposition creates problems in their possible incorporation of an integral system. The CRAC-PC is an organization with an articulated sense of community – that although it crosses borders- allows them to organize their uses and custom system around cargos of community police. While the Ronda only brings protection to their community based on their self- administered government, the CRAC-PC provides security to a myriad of communities. This creates internal relations of power and it monopolizes the idea of community protection (one single police and one right) 430 . In fact, the commissions of the CRAC-CP are located in 13 municipalities and 30 communities that agreed on following the CRAC- PC Internal Rules. It is the protection of more than one community which makes the system goes beyond a limited border and ethnicity. In this sense, the CRAC-CP has changed the idea of community as a closed identity. While the PC and Ronda have similarities in the way they operate, the self-defense operates differently. The self-defense of Tepalcatepec in Tierra Caliente, is a movement that is thought to be motivated and financed by cattle breeder or ranchers whose economic interests got affected due to extorsions from organized crime. The UPOEG is another self- defense that is a response from kidnappings and quotas by criminals to cattle breeder, businessman and peasants from Rancho Nuevo, Plan de Gatica and Ahucachahue. But the UPOEG imparts justice outside their territory for example in Ayutla Teconoapa and Las Mesas, close to the community of El Mezon, where the CRAC-PC operates.

429 Daniel Higa, ‘La Policia Comunitaria y los grupos de autodefensa de Guerrero’, International Business Times newspapers, February 25, 2013, accessed January 2014 (http://mx.ibtimes.com/articles/31071/20130225/politica-comunitaria-seguridad-guerrero-acapulco.htm).

430 Tlachinollan,‘Ante la ineptitud gubernamental, la digna rebeldía de los pueblos’, (Mexico: Red Nacional de Organismos Civiles de Derechos Humanos, 2013), accessed January 2014 (http://www.redtdt.org.mx/d_investigacion_analisisLarga.php?id_inv=271&descargable=Tlachinollan_pueblo sGuerrero.pdf).

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In contrast with the PC and the Ronda , the self-defense is not necessarily recognized by the community. For example in the municipality of Coahuayana, they rejected the formation and help from these groups. Another example of the lack of legitimacy of self- defense is when the group entered Paracuaro took the office of security affairs in the community offices and installed their own security squads. As a consequence, a group of civilians from the municipality blocked the entrance of the municipality and the highway Cuatro Caminos-Apatzingan in order to demand the expulsion of self-defense. The mayor of the community also agreed on the expulsion of these groups. This demonstrates inconformity 431 , disagreement and lack of legitimization of self-defense in some communities in Michoacan. In this sense, communities are not homogenous as different opinions govern. However, both types of organizations, either PC or self-defense generate movement, dialogue and analysis with other collectivities. Self-defense are an ‘urban’ version of self-protection as they fight for their own individual interest (to defend themselves, their families and business) rather than for a collective interest. The self-defense squads are often formed by mestizo population who cannot exercise collective rights. Mestizo communities cannot self-govern by creating their own institutions. However, they can form their own neighborhood based organizations and reject political parties. Contrary to the PC, some self-defense squads do not impart justice. The self-defense that operates under the leadership of Mireles and Hipolito Mora do not impart justice but hand over the criminals to the authorities. However, the criminals -linked to organized crime- that the UPOEG detains are judged in communities based on the agreement from its inhabitants. For example, the community of El Mezon in Ayutla accepted that the detained criminals needed to be judged in the community 432 . Similar to the CRAC-PC, the UPOEG is also condemned by legal frameworks regarding human rights violations. The UPOEG expanded and formed the Sistema de Seguridad y Justicia Ciudadana , SSJC, with the purpose or preserving the process of community organization.

431 Ernesto Martinez, ‘Bloquean carretera contra las autodefensas en Paracuaro’, La Jornada newspapers , January 9, 2014, accessed January 10, 2014 (http://www.jornada.unam.mx/2014/01/09/politica/012n1pol) 432 Ramon Gracida Gonzalez and Julio Leocadio Castro, ‘La UPOEG y la Autodefensa Ciudadana’, La Jornada newspapers , May 18, 2013, accessed February 2014 (http://www.jornada.unam.mx/2013/05/18/cam- ciudadana.html).

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While some self-defense squads fight directly against criminal organizations there are others that work with criminal organizations. An example of a self-defense that fight against cartels (but may have joined a rival cartel to fight another) is the one under the leadership of Mireles. In fact, Mirele’s self-defense group ‘first pretended to become a separate entity from Michoacan but at the end we decided we only wanted to clean the state’ 433 . There are some self-defense squads that fight directly with criminal organizations. The Knights Templars accused the self-defense of La Ruana for having a criminal background in the U.S. and for being linked with organized crime 434 . However, some self- defense is reported to be controlled by the Knights Templars. In 2013, armed self-defense groups in Michoacan used guerrilla warfare tactics against the government. They strike against federal police first. The attacks against state authorities come “from port of Lazaro Cardenas, through which meth precursor chemicals are imported and where the Templars, under the leadership of Servando La Tuta Gomez 435 , reportedly controls”. Some self- defense such as the UPOEG adopted the rights of community police without having community backup. Therefore, the self-defense is not an indigenous movement but rather is a mestizo movement that, contrary to CRAC-PC and Ronda, does not operate under collective rights. The following charter offers a simplified version of the factors listed above according to the type of self-defense or community police. The charter takes into account elements such as background; region; objective; armament and financing; legitimacy and legality; and features. Each factor varies according to the community police, community ronda and self-defense referred to (fig.1). In order to further understand the expansion of self-defense map (fig.2) gives a summary of the municipalities that witnessed the emergence of self-defense. The gray zones highlights urban localities; the blue stripes marks municipalities with avocado production; the yellow areas highlights mining concessions as of July, 2012; the red area are municipalities with presence of self-defense;

433 Francisco Castellanos, ‘Las autodefensas se fortalecen y multiplican’, Proceso magazine, November 26, 2013, accessed January 2014 (http://www.proceso.com.mx/?p=358939). 434 ‘La Tuta: nos cobraba una cuota fuertisima’, Carmen Aristegui newspapers, April 29, 2013, February 2014 (http://aristeguinoticias.com/2904/mexico/la-tuta-nos-cobraba-una-cuota-fuertisima-a-todos-grupos-de- autodefensa/). 435 Servando Gomez, La Tuta and other founder leaders of La Familia started as professors in rural areas.Jorge Fernandez, ‘Las autodefensas tienen dueno’, Excelsior newspapers, August 8, 2013, accessed February, 2014 (http://www.excelsior.com.mx/opinion/jorge-fernandez-menendez/2013/08/08/912652).

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the purple-pink are other municipalities with civilian defense; and the purple or violet highlights municipalities with community police and community ronda. The information given in the map may not be exact but it provides an approximation of the geographical location of civilian self-defense, community police and community guards.

(fig.1) Background Region Objective Armament and Legitimacy Features Financing and Legality

Community -Indigenous Rural: Costa -against - low and high -legitimate - police and Police uprisings Chica-La comuneros that caliber and partially justice against Montana in cooperate with armament legal system established Guerrero criminals order

-resources from -protection -renewal the state and of various -uses and established community communities customs order; autonomy

-state provided -creation: credentials for 1995 low caliber armament

Community -uses and Rural: Cheran - against - collective -legitimate - detain Guards customs in Michoacan ‘foreign’ illegal license to bear and legal criminals loggers arms except high caliber fossils - no impartation of justice -state and -creation: community 2010 - independence resources from political -protects one parties community

Self-defense UPOEG -No Rural: Tierra -against drug - low and high - lack -impartation collective Caliente cartels and caliber that is legality of justice rights (Rancho organized crime argued is from Nuevo, Plan exclusive use of de Gatica, the military (Bruno Ahucachahue) Placido) in Michoacan

- possible

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-creation: financed by cattle breeder, 2010 Municipalities businessman - formation in the Centre and peasants of their own and Costa - not prisons Chica, registered Guerrero: arms Ayutla Teconoapa, Las Mesas, Cruz Grande, -no clear Tierra legitimacy Colorada

- adopted the right of community police without community backup

Self-defense -No Rural: -some fight - AK 47, AR 15 -no clear - do not indigenous municipalities against drug armament of legitimacy impart (Mireles, background of Tierra cartels due to dubious justice, Hipolito Caliente criminalization precedence Mora) (mainly in La of the market or hand over Ruana, economic criminals Apatzingan, interests Tepalcatepec) -Tepalcatepec: possible financed by cattle breeder or ranchers

Urban: -in process -those that -Mestizo Acapulco and -some work for of work for population, municipalities criminal legalization cartels use no collective of Costa organizations (2013) to a warfare rights Grande ‘rural police’ techniques against the State

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- La Ruana: possible financed by cartel Jalisco Nueva Generacion

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(fig.2)

(http://jovenesemergencia.org/mapas/michoacan_analisis_situacion/)

Chapter V addressed the different types of self-defense that have recently emerged anddifferentiated them from the community police and community guards.

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The State’s monopoly on legitimate violence

Sixth Section

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VI. The State’s monopoly on legitimate violence

According to Weber, a nation-state claims the monopoly on legitimate violence. Weber did not affirm that a nation-state ‘has’ or ‘owns’ monopoly on legitimate violence but that, contrary to other form of organization, claims the monopoly on violence. The state has the right to use violence. The state decides who is allowed or not allowed to own weapons, use violence, be part of an armed organization and it declares under what limits and context. The state can claim the right to label certain activities and organizations as illegal such as armed militia, terrorists, and drug cartels, among others. Although Weber does not address private gun possession for purposes of self-defense, his definition suggests that a modern state can claim the right to regulate private ownership of weapons 436 . The duties of the state are fulfilled through certain means. The fact that the state may exercise violence within a territory separates a modern- state from a feudal or imperial form of organization. In fact, during feudal times there was not a well-defined monopoly and territorial borders; regional authorities could oppose the government without fear of violent reactions. Weber addresses the shift from a system in which administration ‘own their own means of administration to one where this class is separate from that which they administer 437 ’. The means are concentrated to one person instead of existing analogous to a leader. Weber contrasted the modern form of governance or modern bureaucratic state with the old system of vassals owning fief as an old form of governance 438 . The latter is separated from its means of governance. The modern state is a more centralized government, decisions are concentrated at the top of the system and the ‘administrators’ which are at the low level can only carry out decisions since they do not use the means 439 .

436 Bard Rathe, ‘Politics as Vocation’, last modified January 15, 2010, (http://modernism.research.yale.edu/wiki/index.php?title=Politics_as_a_Vocation&oldid=5628). 437 Ibid. 438 David Owen and Tracy B. Strong, ‘Introduction, Max Weber: The Vocation Lectures’, (Indianapolis: Hackett, 2004) xii-xiii. 439 Ibid., 32.

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The application of Weber’s definition to a country often leads to misinterpretations. The definition of Weber which is described by the right of the state to claim the use of force or the right to use force is often misunderstood with the state possessing or owning the monopoly on the use of force 440 . This misinterpretation leads to the conception that countries such as Mexico is a ‘fragile’ or ‘less’ of a nation-state since it does not own the monopoly on the use of force. In fact, seldom a state has an absolute monopoly of coercive power since private security agencies, militias, corporations and organized crime have shared in that coercive power. This is the reason Fernando Escalante replaces labeling Mexico as a fragile, weak or failed state and rather names the phenomenon as a ‘rupture of the local order’. The government at all levels negotiates with legal and non-legal actors. In this sense, Weber’s nation-state is fictional since the nation-state is not centralized, in fact, the ‘administrators’ or the periphery play a role (even without employing the use force) in creating order. This is particularly the case of Mexico since the state’s order was threatened in two occasions, during the Felipe Calderon administration and the emergence of self- defense and community police. The rule of law tolerates various forms of illegality. The rule of law is a negotiated space that tolerates certain illegality, in words of Alejandro Hope, ‘the rule of law is always and will always be a negotiated space where it persists decoded tolerance spaces to diverse forms of illegality’. Modern states ‘administer crime’ rather than solve it the problem since crime or violence is endless. In this case, the weberian state is an illusion, in fact, the ideal State is aware of its limitations, set priorities and dissuade the worse conduct even if it implies to temporary tolerate others. In every country there are spaces of tolerance to illegality in exchange for violence to be controlled . Escalante argues that at the local level there is a complex design in which the state needs to understand actors, formal and informal institutions that produce order. Removing any illegal actor would lead to a rupture of the social balance, status quo. It cannot be argued that the state lost its rule of law with the emergence of self- defense and community police. In that case, the rule of law was ‘lost’ when non-state actors started to control territories. In poor rural areas such as communities in Guerrero and

440 ‘Max Weber, Politics as Vocation’, University of California, accessed January 2014 (http://www.sscnet.ucla.edu/polisci/ethos/Weber-vocation.pdf).

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Michoacan, illegal cropping or commodities is profit-making option that supports criminal activity or local armed actors 441 . Authorities and police forces are aware and tolerate these spaces. Often illegal groups may gain public legitimacy and popular support by replacing the state, providing employments and public goods such as is the case in Michoacan, where la Familia cartel won strong support from residents. After the Mexican Revolution, in the 1920-1930s, the state generated order by obtaining a mass base. The state deployed regulatory powers in land, labor, property, education and church; and it created a mass base with actors such as political parties, ejidos and sindicatos (land grant and trade unions). Politicians would obtain mass support by distributing resources, a practice that was corrupt but generated order, it was a negotiated space 442 . Policies of land and labor reform (ie. distribution of land and support to unions) were used as instruments to obtain mass support. The state extracted bribes to legitimate business (i.e. landowners, mining and oil companies, retailers and newspapers) but also to illegal ones 443 . In addition, the order was also generated through caciques –political cliques and bosses- . Since the Revolution, the society was structured in networks of personal fidelity or chains of clientelismo . The post-revolution period would continue with these networks of personal loyalty. A new political order emerged which passed through an internal reorganization of communities and the negotiated production of a new custom. However, behind rearranging cultural diversity in unity there are power games 444 . The legislation of the customs is the product of the crisis that the PRI passes through in the 1980s and its attempt to put a solution. The uses and customs are part of a way of domination installed after the Revolution.

The indigenous communities were integrated to the national political system which was articulated with the political hegemony, the PRI. The state assured certain local autonomy but at the same time, guaranteed the reproduction of the system State-political

441 Paula Miraglia, Rolando Ochoa and Ivan Briscoe, ‘Transnational organized crime and fragile states’, OECD International Center for the Prevention of Crime and Clingendael Institute 10 (2012): 1-36, accessed September 2013 (http://www.crime-prevention- intl.org/fileadmin/user_upload/Publications/Transnational_organised_crime_and_fragile_states_2012.pdf). 442 ‘Max Weber, Politics as Vocation’. 443 Ibid. 444 Recondo 29

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party 445 . The traditional system is associated with the unity of the official party and its relation with the State. The State established with the communities a pacto clientelar . In other words, the State set an agreement in which the State would respect the local customs and secured the territorial integrity of indigenous communities in exchange for communities to provide their massive and unconditional support to the official party in all elections. In the 1980s, this implicit agreement is disrupted by the crisis of the PRI regime. As a multiparty system emerges, parties of opposition progressed as well as an indigenous movement such as the Zapatistas in 1994 which threatened the forces that assured PRI’s hegemony 446 . This is the reason the PRI used the legalization of customs as a solution to reproduce ‘under a new form –to change it all- an old pacto clientelar –in order for everything to stay the same-‘447 . Recondo recognizes that this does not correspond exclusively to the motivations of the government, as mentioned in previous chapters this was the result of a convergence of interests. Actors involved would make use of uses and customs for their own interests. For example, indigenous organizations use it to consolidate local autonomies and liberate them from any type of control; the opposition parties aim to cut the attachment that connects communities with the State; and the municipal authorities and local elite interpreted customs in their own interest 448 . The new political order and legislation of uses and customs creates additional tension in old mechanisms of political control. This plays an important role in the local electoral system of municipalities based on uses and customs (where consensus was previously achieved by clientelistic relations). The old mechanisms of political mediation are broken down. Old and new leaders would use the legalized custom in order to assure their authority and exclude opponents. Often, the defense of customs hides power relations between local powers and the PRI. In other communities, local conflicts reflect a reset of power relations and a new negotiated political order. At the local level, the effect is more open, less hierarchized communities that fit into the national democratic process. However, this clashed with the resistance of a government that is more authoritarian. It failed to

445 Recondo 29 446 Recondo 30 447 Recondo 30 448 Recondo 30.

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articulate with the democratic change at the federal level 449 which demanded more unity and inclusion of indigenous socities. The emergence of community police does not threatens the force that assured PRI’s monopoly of power but represents a renegotiated agreement or pacto clientelar between the state and the community. The case of the CRAC-CP cannot be compared with the EZLN movement in 1994 because the latter threatened the power of the PRI. The case of Guerrero rather represents a renegotiated space. In the region where the CRAC-CP operates, Costa Chica- Montaña, the system of governance is through political parties. The region does not operate under an electoral system based on uses and customs. In this sense, parties would use legalized customs to maintain their power through an agreement with communities. This is the reason the state of Guerrero tolerates and supports the community police. In fact, the PRI maintained its monopoly even after the massacre of Aguas Blancas against peasants in 1995. The next governor, Angel Aguirre from the PRI was elected in 1996 and provided the community police with certain resources and financing. Coincidence or not, Angel Aguirre returned to power in 2011 -and still governs- but this time under the PRD (changed his political affiliation). Despite this agreement, the rupture of the local order after 2006, may explain the proliferation of community police. In 1929, the State constructed a centralized system based on political control by integrating local and regional powers – that existed since Revolution-. The state infiltrated indigenous institutions (inherited from colonial times) as part of its strategy of political integration. In words of Recondo, the PRI and customs would be the same thing. Since the administration of Lazaro Cardenas (1934-1940), the PRI acquired the form that one can see today 450 . Indigenous communities kept a certain degree of autonomy as the state shaped them as a ‘clone’ under its control. The desire of the State to control local order would have negative consequences in the XXI century. The state’s selective un-fulfillment of the law and agreements with non-state actors to try to maintain order is explained with the link of drug trafficking with politicians. Drug trafficking has always been part of Mexican politics and its transformations. The production and selling of marihuana and heroin formed part of the evolution of the PRI

449 Recondo 31. 450 Recondo 40

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since early post-revolution period. The link politics-drug trafficking would be based on an implicit pact between the political party and drug trafficking. The product would be exported; the dealers would not dispute political positions to politicians; the decisions of the federal government would be respected 451 . Moreover, the arrangement was mainly based on a ‘form of transaction of population management and tolerance of illegality’ 452 . The dealer would operate in exchange of maintaining order in the territory. These ‘illegal’ actors provide the ‘know-how to political or economic elites, which themselves develop illegal practices founded on the use of force and intimidation’ 453 . They enter in relation with the state in order to develop their activities because ‘they cannot be carried out without the help of privileged contacts within the state apparatus’ 454 . Contrary to common beliefs, there is no separation between state actors and organized crime and criminal organizations do not attempt to subvert to the political order through the imposition of their rules. In fact, the history of drug trafficking in Mexico is based on the relationship politics-drug trafficking since ‘…it cannot be examined apart from the historical processes involved in the formation and transformation of state power’ 455 .Political-criminal configurations is characterized by various types of interactions between political actor and ‘criminal entrepreneurs’ but also established different forms of organized criminal violence within the political arena 456 . Before 1985, drug traffickers had a subordinated position. They were formally excluded from politics and the rules of the game were limited but still they counted with the protection of politicians to carry out their activities. The DFS, Direccion Federal de Seguridad, would be the political police of the country that both, protected and captured dealers. At this time, the Sinaloa cartel was growing and its leader, Felix Gallardo, ex- police officer and founder of the cartel, provided protection to the governor of Sinaloa, Sanchez Celis, in exchange for political protection457 . The criminal organizations started operating in mafia-style with the involvement of entrepreneurs, administrative officials and

451 Cesar Morales, ‘La Guerra contra el narcotráfico en Mexico. Debilidad del estado, orden local y fracaso de una estrategia’, Aposta Revista de Ciencias Sociales 5-6 (2011): 35, accessed February 2013 (http://www.apostadigital.com/revistav3/hemeroteca/oyarvide.pdf). 452 Ibid. 453 Briquet and Favarel-Garrigues 3-4. 454 Ibid. 455 Ibid., 3. 456 Ibid., 4. 457 Morales 7.

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specialists in the use of violence. ‘Mafia’ refers to actors specialized in providing protection such service is linked to extortion 458 . The use of mafia methods in the political sphere is based in the collusion between political and criminal environment. The collusion between politicians and criminals was based on exchanging services or skills to join interests. The presence of mafia-style violence in Mexico’s political life has resulted in violent dead and such way of operating would persist until today. An example is the dead of the DEA agent, Camarena, by the drug dealer Caro Quintero in 1985. After 1985, the PRI demonstrated to be inefficient to control its own apparatus as well as criminal organizations as they acquired more autonomy. The crisis of the PRI started in the 1980s, since the party was moved from the executive branch, lost its absolute majority in chamber, and the opposition accessed the main positions in power. At the same time, it lost its informal agreements with drug organizations and police bodies which made them acquire more autonomy. The state was no longer the arbiter in mediating drug trafficking. In fact, the pressure of the U.S. made former president de la Madrid to remove the DFS, viewed as a corrupted political agency that had control over drug trafficking. As the state’s ability to produce control was limited and cartels gained more autonomy, the state started using the armed force in the 1990s for anti-drug trafficking operations. With the change of regime, from PRI to PAN, former president Vicente Fox also used this technique to combating drug trafficking. The state confronted criminal organizations by capturing drug dealers and disputed the control of its security institutions with cartels. The latter also developed other techniques such as territorial expansion and diversification of criminal revenue. Such loss state control and inability to manage drug trafficking and violence intensified in the following period. The Felipe Calderon administration (2006-2012) would base its legitimacy in declaring a ‘war to drug organizations’. The Calderon administration believed that the biggest problem was cartels. Calderon searched to gain legitimacy in practice in order to substitute it with a lack of legitimacy in the presidential elections of 2006. The elections were largely questioned by the majority of Mexicans. In the presidential election of 2006, the difference between the candidate of the PRI, Calderon, and the candidate of the PRD,

458 Briquet and Favarel-Garrigues 149.

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Lopez Obrador, was of less than one percentage point 459 . Mexicans were suspicious about the final decision of the electoral authorities, and thus, formed part of protests that lasted several months demanding the recount of each vote (voto por voto y casilla por casilla) 460 . The questioned presidential elections of 2006, viewed as full of regularities, made the citizenry to doubt about the legitimacy of Felipe Calderon. As a consequence, the former president, tried to restore the legitimacy that was tought to be lost not only in the ballot boxes but also in previous wars implemented by the state in the elimination of drug (crop) fields. In order to justify the militarization of the country to combat ‘organized crime’, the issue was no longer considered part of public security but rather as a national security problem. This means that the administration portrayed the issue as one that challenge the sovereignty, territorial integrity of the State and thus, it was necessary to use the military 461 . The intervention of armed forces in public spaces created disequilibrium between civil power and the military 462 . This had an impact in the violation of human rights and the increasing in violence, in fact, ‘with a weak government, the policy of an aggressive anti- drug intervention exacerbates and multiplies violence’ 463 . This may be explained with the power of retaliation of drug organizations and conflicts between cartels after the implementation of this policy 464 . Escalante argues that the intervention of federal forces in public security issues was to solve a’ crisis of municipal power’. The municipal police was removed due to corruption charges linked with organized crime or with the firing of police officers. In Briquet and Favarel-Garrigues words, it refers to a ‘dictatorship of the law’ based on ‘the monopolization of federal political space and the close monitoring of local and regional political arenas in the name of combatting the collusion between politicians and mafias’ 465 . With the strategy of Calderon in replacing municipal police forces with armed forces in public spaces caused a rupture of local agreements and an increase in violence. Escalante makes it clear that the local police often viewed as corrupted, abusive and

459 Morales 27. 460 Ibid. 461 Ibid. 462 Ibid., 16-18. 463 Ibid. 17. 464 Ibid., 16-19. 465 Briquet and Favarel-Garrigues 164.

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inefficient regulated the informal and illegal markets. All these markets flourished in the margins of legality and the State. In fact, the PRI, since historical times, used a system of political intermediation based on the ‘selective lack of fulfillment of the law’ 466 . When the order worked well the threat of use of force was non-existent but when eliminating the main character of the fragile order (local police) and substitute it a ‘strange, external’ police the result is an increasing in violence 467 . For Escalante, this explains the emergence of community police, self-defense and private police 468 . However, the emergence of the community police in 1996 cannot be explained with the rupture of the local order during the Calderon administration in 2006. Yet, it may explain the proliferation of community police after 2006. The desire to fulfill law and to impose the rule of law using aggressive methods caused the rupture of local agreements and now ‘everyone has to protect their property using their own means’ 469 . In the case of Mexico, the emergence of self-defense, community police and community guards is a response to the lack of legitimacy of the state in maintaining order. The State tried to control the situation by removing the local police and placing the military and created a local rupture. The concentration of power and control of the State had a negative impact in its citizenry. After the militarization of the country and its negative impact in the population, the citizenry lost trust or confidence on the state, described by Weber as the recognition of the authority who can exercise domination. With the rupture of the local order, result of Calderon’s strategy, the citizenry formed their own security and justice system. In this sense, Thomas Hobbes puts a limit on Weber’s argument and argues that the State only has the right to be obeyed as long as it guarantees the life and property of its citizenry but when it doesn’t, it loses its legitimacy 470 . However, the state, up until recently has been trying to officially legalize the informal and include to the system the self-defense, community guards and self-defense. The case of the community guards was different as the Cheranenses’ institutionalized their self-protection group by shifting to a

466 Ibid. 467 Ibid. 468 Ibid. 469 Morales 26. 470 Deborah Baumgold, ‘Hobbe’s political theory’ (New York: University of Cambridge, 1988) 87-89, accessed December 2013 (http://books.google.fr/books?id=KPU8AAAAIAAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=Hobbes+political+theory%E2 %80%99+Deborah+Baumgold&hl=fr&sa=X&ei=SaU2U4uHB8aH0AWwlIGIBg&ved=0CDkQuwUwAA#v =onepage&q=Hobbes%20political%20theory%E2%80%99%20Deborah%20Baumgold&f=false).

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government based on uses and customs. Moreover, their case is more isolated and they were never presented as a threat to the sovereignty, in fact, it received limited media coverage. The members of the community police and self-defense remain in a government based on political parties and thus, the goal of the state is to again, control, make agreements, with these forms of civilian protection. The issue comes when these groups operate at the margins of the State. In the case of the C.P., the relationship state-community police are marked by contradictory forces that reveal the impossibility of functionaries of the state to impose their rules and the community organization that blocks laws that disarticulate them. In formal discourse, the community police argue that they do not look for the state recognition or a law that subordinates them to the State. Although the community police have tried to change to a government based on uses and customs, their proposal was not approved. This gives the state more control over this group. In Michoacan, federal officials called on the self-defense groups to disarm, arguing that armed civilians with no law-enforcement training or accountability would inflame the already unstable situation. The governments finally succeed on making an agreement with these groups. It incorporated some of their members to a ‘rural defense force’ that would patrol in conjunction with the federal police and the military. As it appears that self-defense are now regulated by the state, the question remains on criminal groups and cartels using illegitimate use of violence. Chapter VI described the state’s implicit agreements with indigenous communities and drug organizations in order to create national instability. However, when those agreements come to an end, empty spaces are left and different actors would look to fulfill them.

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Conclusion

Seventh Section

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Conclusion

The essay analyzed the different factors that led to the emergence of community police and community guards in Mexico. In the case of CostaChica-La Montaña, political violence and radicalism; agrarian conflicts; and uses and customs are internal factors that, along with external factors (migration; mining; and drug trafficking) have contributed to the formation of the CRAC-PC. In the case of Cheran, the emergence of community guards is the result of consecutive historical events such as agrarian conflicts; commercial use of the forest; illegal logging; political disputes; power differences; the penetration of criminal groups; and uses and customs. Moreover, the essay also explained the development of other form of self-organizations, the self-defense squads in Guerrero and Michoacan. In order to organize the different types of groups, the essay provided a chart in which it classified, based on certain criteria, the actors involved. The typology provided in this essay is a new contribution to the study of civilian self-defense squads, community police and community guards in Mexico.

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‘Policia Comunitaria en Guerrero’. Accessed February 2014. http://latidodelcamino.blogspot.fr/p/12.html.

‘Policias comunitarias, autodefensas y paramilitares’. August 2013. December 2013. http://estepais.com/site/?p=46822.

Ingrid Muro - ‘The Community Police and the Community Guards in Mexico’ 124 SciencesPo PSIA - 2013-2014

‘Power, authority and the State’.Accessed October 2013. http://www.sagepub.com/upm- data/9547_017533ch2.pdf.

“Guerrero, el epicentro de las luchas de resistencia”. Digna rebeldía. Centro de derechos humanos de la Montaña Tlachinollan. Informe XlX. July 2013. Accessed January 2014.http://www.tlachinollan.org/Descargas/19-INFORME_TLACHINOLLAN.pdf.

”Cherán: primer municipio en México que repliega al crimen organizado”. April 2012. http://www.sjmex.org/descargas/cheran_abril2012.pdf.

Antonio Mejia. ‘Etnicidad, Autodefensa y Ser Gobierno’. February 7, 2014. Accessed March 2014. http://ciudadanosenred.com.mx/autodefensas-carteles-gobierno-por-que-en- michoacan-mapa/.

Archivo General de la Nacion SEGOB. ‘Emiliano Zapata y el movimiento revolucionario.’ Accessed January 2013. http://www.agn.gob.mx/menuprincipal/difusion/exposiciones /exposiciones/emiliano_zapata.pdf.

Comision Nacional de Derechos Humanos. ‘Informe Especial sobre los Grupos de Autodefensa y la Seguridad Publica en el Estado de Guerrero’. Accessed February 2014.http://www.cndh.org.mx/sites/all/fuentes/documentos/informes/especiales/2013_IE_g rupos_autodefensa.pdf.

Comisión Nacional de los Derechos Humanos. ‘Informe especial sobre los grupos de autodefensa y la seguridad pública en el estado de Guerrero’. Accessed February 2014.http://gaceta.diputados.gob.mx/Gaceta/62/2014/ene/Inf_DerHum-20140108.pdf.

El Colegio de Michoacan. ‘El patrón de cambio sociocultural de la cultura purepecha’. etzakutarakua.colmich.edu.mx/relaciones/016/pdf/AgustinJacintoZ.pdf.

INEGI. ‘Michoacan de Ocampo’. Accessed October 2013. http://cuentame.inegi.org.mx /monografias/informacion/Mich/Poblacion/default.aspx?tema=ME&e=16.

Mejia, Antonio. ‘Etnicidad, Autodefensa y Ser Gobierno’. February 7, 2014. Accessed March 2014.http://ciudadanosenred.com.mx/autodefensas-carteles-gobierno-por-que-en- michoacan-mapa/.

Merrill, Tim and Ramón Miró. ‘Mexico: A Country Study’. Accessed November, 2014. http://countrystudies.us/mexico/. Rathe, Bard. ‘Politics as Vocation’.Last modified January 15, 2010. http://modernism.research.yale.edu/wiki/index.php?title=Politics_as_a_Vocation&oldid=56 28.

SEDENA. Ley de Trasparencia. Accessed February, 2014, http://www.sedena.gob.mx /leytrans/petic/2006/marzo/13032006b.html.

Ingrid Muro - ‘The Community Police and the Community Guards in Mexico’ 125 SciencesPo PSIA - 2013-2014

Tlachinollan. ‘Ante la ineptitud gubernamental, la digna rebeldía de los pueblos’. Accessed January 2014.http://www.redtdt.org.mx/d_investigacion_analisisLarga.php?id_inv=271&descargabl e=Tlachinollan_pueblosGuerrero.pdf.

UCLA Division of Social Sciences. ‘Max Weber: Politics as Vocation’. Accessed October 2013. http://www.sscnet.ucla.edu/polisci/ethos/Weber-vocation.pdf. Union de Pueblos y Organizaciones del Estado de Guerrero. ‘Movimiento por el Desarrollo y la Paz Social’. August 27, 2013. Accessed February 2014. http://upoeg.blogspot.fr/.

Universidad Autonoma de Nuevo Leon. ‘Reglamento para el servicio de la policía rural’. Accessed February, 2014.http://cdigital.dgb.uanl.mx/la/1020011142/1020011142_010.pdf.

Universidad de las Americas.‘Politics, Violence and the State’.Accessed October 2013.http://catarina.udlap.mx/u_dl_a/tales/documentos/lri/fernandez_g_dy/ capitulo2.pdf.

University of California. ‘Max Weber, Politics as Vocation’. Accessed January 2014. http://www.sscnet.ucla.edu/polisci/ethos/Weber-vocation.pdf.

Dissertations and Thesis

‘Civil-Military criminals: An analysis of wartime and postwar violence variation in Bosnia- Herzegovina, Croatia, and Serbia’.PhD diss., Harvard University.

Faisal, Farha.’Due Process Protections in the War on Terrorism: A Comparative Analysis of Security-Based Preventive Detention in the United States and the United Kingdom’. PhD diss., Harvard University 2012.

Fuentes, Yolotli.’El sistema de Seguridad, Justicia y reeducación comunitaria del estado de Guerrero como sistema de justicia paralelo al estado’. Diss., Facultad Latinoamericana de Ciencias Sociales, 2008.

Kirsten, Lise. ‘Remarking gender and citizenship in a Mexican indigenous community’ PhD diss., University of Washington, 2000.

Peral, Martha. ‘Seguridad e imparticion de justicia comunitaria regional en la Costa Montana de Guerrero: Policia Comunitaria’. Diss., FCPYS-UNAM.

Rosenbaum, H. Jon and Peter C. Sederberg. ‘Vigilantism: An Analysis of Establishment Violence’. PhD diss., City University of New York.

Papers presented at a meeting or conference

Ingrid Muro - ‘The Community Police and the Community Guards in Mexico’ 126 SciencesPo PSIA - 2013-2014

Allison Rowland. ‘Local responses to public insecurity in Mexico’.Paper presented at theLASA 2003, in the session entitled Seguridad pública y criminalidad en América Latina, Dallas, Texas, March 2003. http://intercontinentalcry.org/wp- content/uploads/Guerrero_Rowland.pdf. Klaus von Lampe and Per Ole Johansen.‘Criminal Networks and Trust’. Paper presented at the 3 rd annual meeting of the European Society of Criminology in Helsinki, Finland, August 29, 2003. http://www.organized-crime.de/criminalnetworkstrust.htm. Roman, Denisse. ‘Del movimiento por la defensa del bosque al gobierno de usos y costumbres’. Paper presented at the II Congreso de Antropología Social y Etnología, Michoacan, Mexico, 2012.

Sarmiento, Sergio. ‘La policía comunitaria y la disminución de la delincuencia en la región Costa-Montaña de Guerrero’. Paper presented in the First Congress of Indigenous Uses and Customs, Cd de Chihuahua el 2 y 3 de October, 2008.

Sierra, Maria Teresa. ‘Construyendo seguridad y justicia en los márgenes del Estado: la experiencia de la política comunitaria de Guerrero, Mexico’. Paper presented in Congress VII of the RELAJU, Lima, Peru, August 4-6, 2010.

Interviews

Personal interview with a high-level authority during the administration of Felipe Calderon on November 14, 2013 in videoconference.

Personal interview with a local from Barrio 4 on December 1, 2013 in Cheran, Michoacan. Personal interview with a local in Barrio 3 on November 30, 2013 in Cheran, Michoacan. Personal interview with Cecile Lachenal from FUNDAR (NGO) on November 29, 2013 in Mexico City.

Personal interview with Fernando Escalante on November 27, 2013 in Mexico City.

Personal interview with local of Barrio 2 on November 30, 2013 in Cheran, Michoacan. Personal interview with Rogelio Hernandez on November 28, 2013 in Mexico City.

Personal interviews with locals from Barrio 1 y 2 on December 2, 3013 in Cheran Michoacan.

Ingrid Muro - ‘The Community Police and the Community Guards in Mexico’ 127 SciencesPo PSIA - 2013-2014

Ingrid Muro - ‘The Community Police and the Community Guards in Mexico’ 128 SciencesPo PSIA - 2013-2014