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dream to nightmare. At the end of January last year, 1,368 inhabitants of the Nahua community of El Coire voted to obtain their direct budget and have their indigenous self-government
Seven months later, they celebrated the 319th anniversary of their founding with flag honors and a great popular festival with sports events, dances and regional food.
Their joy did not last long. In just one year, the celebration turned into horror. Between August 13 and 19, Jalisco cartel commandos New Generation ( CJNG) spread terror in the town centre. Their objective is to control the territory and depopulate it for plunder.
Heavily armed, in numerous trucks, with camouflage uniforms, those with the four letters They took the village. They murdered two young community members (Rafael Bautista Cruz, from the village of Estopila, and Eutimio Medina Herrera, from the Chacalapa area), made seven others disappear, beat and tortured dozens of people, raped many women, and robbed and looted houses and businesses in the community center.
El Coire has some 54,500 hectares of communal lands in the municipality of Aquila, in the coveted mountain-coast of Michoacan. It borders the Nahua communities of Santa María Ostula and Pómaro, as well as the municipality of Coalcomán to the north and the Pacific Ocean to the south. The communal capital is located in the mountains. Careycito beach is 19 kilometers away. It has 17 land tenure commissions.
Municipal authorities in Aquila have counted at least 211 displaced people, 76 of whom are under 12 years old. They estimate that the number of unregistered displaced people is probably much higher. Those who have been forced to abandon their homes by organized crime live in overcrowded conditions in the municipal capital of Aquila and in the neighboring municipality of Coahuayana. The municipalities of Chacalapa, Zilapa, El Diezmo and El Salitre, as well as the municipal capital, are almost deserted.
The criminal enterprise took advantage of the absence of law enforcement in the area. Although since February the community of Santa María Ostula has demanded that the federal and state governments establish a base of operations on the border of the municipalities of Aquila and Chinicuila, on August 13 an Army battalion remained in the communal capital of El Coire for less than two hours. If the base of operations had been established, there would be no tragedy to mourn.
On June 15, the term of the commissioner of communal property Celerino Álvarez Mauricio was due to end, but he refused to call the assembly to elect the new representative. In fact, through him, the CJNG began to infiltrate the community.
Not all that glitters is gold. Celerino was the one who promoted, with the support of the state government and a group of academics, the formation of a so-called indigenous self-government
which has a direct budget from the State. This is how a new government structure emerged with a Nahuatl Communal Council of El Coire, a Council of Security and Justice, two commanders and two police officers or communal guards for each of the Order positions that make up the community. However, rather than an expression of genuine indigenous autonomy, this structure of self-government
served organized crime to infiltrate the community. Unfortunately, its commanders and many members of its communal police are folded to the CJNG.
Hand in hand with the integration of this indigenous self-government
the community has suffered a wave of violence and murders perpetrated by those who lead it. From the very beginning, Dionisio Silva Cruz, the first commander appointed, managed the structure of the communal guard as he pleased, without respecting the internal rules of the community. The communal guards who did not want to serve his interests were arbitrarily removed from office or disarmed. Those in charge of law enforcement in Chacalapa and Valdovinos were imprisoned for the simple reason of not agreeing with his actions.
Others fared worse. The arbitrary actions of the community police indigenous self-government
There are countless of them. On July 5, 2023, the young Juan Orcino Reyes was handcuffed, tortured, and extrajudicially executed. On June 27, members of the self-government summoned Jesús Pantaleón Álvarez Rentería and Alberto Contreras Herrera, those in charge of order in Zilapa, at 10 a.m. After the meeting, the president of the surveillance council, Francisco Javier López, ordered the arrest of those summoned. And, Commander Dionisio Silva Cruz asked his escort Juan Orcino Ávila: “Are you going to kill him or am I going to kill him?” The guard fired his AK-47 assault rifle at Álvarez Rentería’s back. The rest of the entourage managed to escape. As if that were not enough, on May 29, the self-government’s community police arrested, handcuffed, and murdered Cipriano Medina Rentería in the El Coire cemetery.
The violence in that region goes beyond El Coire. The dioceses of Apatzingán and Lázaro Cárdenas, the Disappeared People of the Coast and Femicides of Michoacán have reported criminal attacks against communities in Aquila, Chinicuila and Coahuayana.
On September 8, Carlos Torres Piña and Juan Carlos Oseguera, Secretaries of Government and Public Security of Michoacán, went to the Lighthouse, in charge of El Coire. There they said that they could help the displaced people get their things out. But what about guaranteeing security? Governor Alfredo Rodríguez Bedolla announced yesterday, Monday, that the requested inter-institutional operations base will be established on the border of the municipalities of Aquila and Chinicuila. We hope that this will happen soon.
X: @lhan55
