Vigilantes Appear To Be Fighting Back In Mexico Drug War
January 20, 2009 by national
Filed under Incident Reports
Shadowy vigilante groups are threatening Mexico’s drug gangs near the U.S. border in retaliation for a wave of murders and kidnappings that killed 1,600 people in this city alone last year.
One group in the border city of Ciudad Juarez pledged last week to “clean our city of these criminals” and said their mission was to “end the life of a criminal every 24 hours.”
The emergence of vigilantes would be a new twist to a vicious drug war that killed 5,700 people in Mexico last year and forced the United States to give hundreds of millions of dollars in aid to the Mexican government.
Ciudad Juarez, a manufacturing center in the desert across from El Paso, Texas, was the scene of the worst violence in 2008 as drug cartels fought each other as well as staging kidnappings for ransom and extorting businessmen.
In an e-mail to news organizations, the “Juarez Citizen Command” said it was funded by local businessmen sick of abductions and extortion in the city, home to factories that export goods to the United States.
While none of the city’s 1,600 in the last year were undoubtedly the work of vigilantes, a body was found on January 7 with a message next to it that read: “This is for those who continue extorting.”
And six men in their 20s and 30s were shot dead and dumped together in Ciudad Juarez in October with a cardboard sign reading: “Message for all the rats: This will continue.”
Drug gangs often leave threatening messages with the bodies of their victims, but security officials said those two incidents might have been the work of vigilantes.
Another group, “Businessmen United, The Death Squad” put a video on Internet site YouTube last June threatening to go after kidnappers and criminals in Ciudad Juarez, the biggest city in Mexico’s Chihuahua state. The video is no longer on YouTube.
via Shadow of vigilantes appears in Mexico drug war – Yahoo! News.
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About time. Hola Amigos! Clean up on Aisle Numero Uno!
Yes, I know, Vigilantism is one of the basic bugbears of any Government. After all, we have The Law to preserve the rights of everyone, and Vigilantes operate outside the law of the land. However, if either The Law or the Lawmakers fail, then the next step becomes the Citizen — The Armed Citizen. Cringe all you want about the 2d Amendment, but The Founders knew what they were doing when they crafted the 2d Amendment. Because the potential for vigilantism has occurred in the past in our country, and could occur in the future, should Laws fail, the US Government minions are pretty nervous these days. A government minion who fears the power of the people is a Good Thing. Let us pray (oh, sorry, Kalifornia, did I say “pray”?) that our country will never, ever, be forced into a vigilantism such as now exists in Mexico. Personally, I think it would be the end of our Republic as we know it and a swift slide downward into a Strongman Government. Bad idea, America: no matter how venal, corrupt, feckless, smarmy, vicious or Machiavellian are our elected and appointed minions, the only practical answer for the USA to continue to muddle through.
There’s a novel, “In An Insane Society,…”, coming out that covers this very subject. Government does nothing, the people must.
God bless the vigilantes.
When criminals run unchecked and the local law enforcement is impotent along with the federal agencies, all that is left is the People to put together a decent society again. “Tree of Liberty” and all that.
I hope they water that tree plenty. Mexico needs it.
Hey, if the government can’t keep things in line, the people should. Good on them. Get it done.
This is like a real life “Man On Fire”. I hope they keep it up!
And all the vigilanties will be killed. This policing work and must be left to the Government no matter how corrupt it is. it makes no sense to risk your life at something you cannot win at. Good Luck to the Vigilanties but are they really sane to think they can stand against these type of people. I will wait for the next headline on this subject.
Is there any concern about traveling to Mexico at this time….specifically the Cancun/Playa del Carmen areas?