Vigilante Groups Legalized In Mexico

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**Ahtman**

Source

If you have been paying attention to the situation in Mexico lately you have heard a lot of stories about vigilante groups taking back their towns from the cartels, and now it seems they will become legal entities to boot.

MEXICO CITY (AP) — Mexico essentially legalized the country's growing "self-defense" groups Monday, while also announcing that security forces had captured one of the four top leaders of the Knights Templar drug cartel, which the vigilante groups have been fighting for the last year.

The government said it had reached an agreement with vigilante leaders to incorporate the armed civilian groups into old and largely forgotten quasi-military units called the Rural Defense Corps. Vigilante groups estimate their numbers at 20,000 men under arms.

The twin announcements may help the administration of President Enrique Pena Nieto find a way out of an embarrassing situation in the western state of Michoacan, where vigilantes began rising up last February against the Knights Templar reign of terror and extortion after police and troops failed to stop the abuses.

"The self-defense forces will become institutionalized, when they are integrated into the Rural Defense Corps," the Interior Department said in a statement. Police and soldiers already largely tolerate, and in some cases even work with, the vigilantes, many of whom are armed with assault rifles that civilians are not allowed to carry.

Vigilante leaders will have to submit a list of their members to the Defense Department, and the army will apparently oversee the groups, which the government said "will be temporary." They will be allowed to keep their weapons as long as they register them with the army.

The military will give the groups "all the means necessary for communications, operations and movement," according to the agreement.

**Dark Apostle 666**

Interesting - I'm not clued-up on the situation over there beyond the basics, but I'm interested to see how this one works out. Mind you, I doubt the cartels will just roll over and take this...

**Frazzled**

About damn time.

**hotsauceman1**

If it is legal, how are they vigilantes?

**Frazzled**

hotsauceman1 wrote:
If it is legal, how are they vigilantes?

Good point. They are now PDF. Break out the Lasguns and Leman Russes boys!

**LordofHats**

Please tell me they've decided to name themselves the Justice League.

**Jihadin**

EXTREMIST!!!...well they would be consider that here in the US...

**Frazzled**

LordofHats wrote:
Please tell me they've decided to name themselves the Justice League.

I was thinking the Killer Bees. They don't need no steenking badges.

**LordofHats**

Jihadin wrote:
EXTREMIST!!!...well they would be consider that here in the US...

Well they are extremists in the sense they've been forced to resort to extreme measures

Of course the proverbial flaw here is the risk that the vigilantes will replace the cartels as a new source of terror.

**Jihadin**

Its going to come down to who can commit the most terror against an organization

**azazel the cat**

This is step 1.

Step 2 is the emergence of the equivalent of FARC

**timetowaste85**

Mexican batman, huh? Instead of fighting crime at night and sleeping during the day...he just sleeps?

No, seriously. I support vigilante justice. There're just some things cops aren't supposed to do, where you need somebody to step in and do the right thing, even if its done the wrong way.

NOW SWEAR TO...zzzzz

**Ahtman**

hotsauceman1 wrote:
If it is legal, how are they vigilantes?

It isn't legal, but soon it will be, albeit only temporarily (in theory).

**motyak**

Isn't the army down there meant to be...less than reliable when it comes to cracking down on the cartels? I mean, corruption and all? If so, I can't see the vigilantes doing well if they give over lists of names...

**Envy89**

Vigilante leaders will have to submit a list of their members to the Defense Department

Oh yeah... let's hand over a list of names so someone linked to the cartels knows who's family to go kill in a horrid painful way.

They will be allowed to keep their weapons as long as they register them with the army.

Oh look! Another list so they can single out houses to search and confenscat them later.

**Dreadclaw69**

azazel the cat wrote:
This is step 1.

Step 2 is the emergence of the equivalent of FARC

Aren't FARC heavily involved in the drug trade themselves, and stand outside the law as well as directly opposing the government?

**Frazzled**

motyak wrote:
Isn't the army down there meant to be...less than reliable when it comes to cracking down on the cartels? I mean, corruption and all? If so, I can't see the vigilantes doing well if they give over lists of names...

Yes they are paid by the cartels and often actively engage in fighting or escorting shipments. Its one reason you keep hearing about the navy fighting them.

Its civil war down there.

**motyak**

Thanks fraz. Guess this will end as well as I assumed then

**azazel the cat**

Dreadclaw69 wrote:
azazel the cat wrote:
This is step 1.

Step 2 is the emergence of the equivalent of FARC

Aren't FARC heavily involved in the drug trade themselves, and stand outside the law as well as directly opposing the government?

That's basically step 17. The emergence of FARC started kinda like this (different macro-level economic problems, but the localized results were the same)

**squidhills**

Mexico has some serious problems. The police are corrupt, the military is corrupt, and the politicians are corrupt. Except for the ones who aren't, but the cartels killed all of those guys, so they don't count.

I don't approve of vigilante justice, as 9 times out of 10 things get violently out of hand, and the vigilantes just become the next batch of organized criminals. However, I don't see that the Mexicans have much of an alternative in this situation.

Maybe this will be the 1 time out of 10 when it works. I hope so.

**Ninjacommando**

Envy89 wrote:
Vigilante leaders will have to submit a list of their members to the Defense Department

Oh yeah... let's hand over a list of names so someone linked to the cartels knows who's family to go kill in a horrid painful way.

They will be allowed to keep their weapons as long as they register them with the army.

Oh look! Another list so they can single out houses to search and confenscat them later.

This

Wasn't the mexican military sent to disarm the vigilante groups and essentailly return control of the areas back to the cartels? So now its "we are going to get lists of everyone involved" Followed by "I don't know how the various cartels got this information...."

Keep going Vigilantes! I'm rooting for ya

**chaos0xomega**

azazel the cat wrote:
Dreadclaw69 wrote:
azazel the cat wrote:
This is step 1.

Step 2 is the emergence of the equivalent of FARC

Aren't FARC heavily involved in the drug trade themselves, and stand outside the law as well as directly opposing the government?

That's basically step 17. The emergence of FARC started kinda like this (different macro-level economic problems, but the localized results were the same)

I have trouble drawing parallels here. FARC started out (and always has been) a communist rebel militia intended to fight against the government with the intent of driving it out of areas so that communist zones (for lack of a better term) could be established within Colombian borders. These are common citizens fed up with organizations that aren't too far removed from FARC (aka Drug Cartels) that are banding together to defend eachother from non-government entities because the Government itself is unable to handle the situation. FARC was only ever recognized as a terrorist/guerilla organization, the Mexican government is effectively deputizing these 'vigilantes' instead and making them extensions of the law-enforcement apparatus.Its apples and oranges. While I don't doubt the likelihood that these organizations *could* (and likely will) evolve into a similar guerilla movement, there isn't much similarity in the way the two have started.

A more apt comparison could be made I'm sure, yet one escapes me at the moment.

**kronk**

Short Form: Stay the feth out of Mexico, dudes.

**azazel the cat**

chaos0xomega wrote:
azazel the cat wrote:
Dreadclaw69 wrote:
azazel the cat wrote:
This is step 1.

Step 2 is the emergence of the equivalent of FARC

Aren't FARC heavily involved in the drug trade themselves, and stand outside the law as well as directly opposing the government?

That's basically step 17. The emergence of FARC started kinda like this (different macro-level economic problems, but the localized results were the same)

**LordofHats**

We can probably take as a given that the vigilantes will become something more by the time the dust settles on this. We'll probably get some cool action flicks out of it all

**motyak**

LordofHats wrote:
We can probably take as a given that the vigilantes will become something more by the time the dust settles on this. We'll probably get some cool action flicks out of it all

Odds that a movie about mexican crime and violence has Danny Trejo in it?

**Do_I_Not_Like_That**

I've said it before, but it's not just Mexico, it's Texas as well. Watched a documentary on Al Jazeera about Texan cowboys patrolling the border for drug smugglers (as well as illegal immigrants) and some of these cowboys have been in firefights. Texas could be next to be dragged down.

**Tibbsy**

Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:
I've said it before, but it's not just Mexico, it's Texas as well. Watched a documentary on Al Jazeera about Texan cowboys patrolling the border for drug smugglers (as well as illegal immigrants) and some of these cowboys have been in firefights. Texas could be next to be dragged down.

I doubt that...

Frazzled and the weiner legions should successfully keep them off their lawn.

**Frazzled**

Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:
I've said it before, but it's not just Mexico, it's Texas as well. Watched a documentary on Al Jazeera about Texan cowboys patrolling the border for drug smugglers (as well as illegal immigrants) and some of these cowboys have been in firefights. Texas could be next to be dragged down.

Not hardly baby. Not hardly.

We're armed to the teeth, have our own air force, a battleship, and a gator class sub. I think we have a carrier in Corpus too...
But the vigilante might gain strength here, which will be bad if the border is not secured. PROTIP legalizing illegal aliens will not secure the border.

The next major Al Qaeda or Hezzbullah attack here will come from people who crossed the Southern border.

**Do_I_Not_Like_That**

Frazzled wrote:
Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:
I've said it before, but it's not just Mexico, it's Texas as well. Watched a documentary on Al Jazeera about Texan cowboys patrolling the border for drug smugglers (as well as illegal immigrants) and some of these cowboys have been in firefights. Texas could be next to be dragged down.

Not hardly baby. Not hardly. We're armed to the teeth, have our own air force, a battleship, and a gator class sub. I think we have a carrier in Corpus too...
But the vigilante might gain strength here, which will be bad if the border is not secured. PROTIP legalizing illegal aliens will not secure the border.

The next major Al Qaeda or Hezzbullah attack here will come from people who crossed the Southern border.

You talk about being armed to the teeth with battleships and subs, but if the Cartels play the congressional oversight committee card, then Texas is doomed! Doomed!

There is not a military on earth (or even in the past) that can stand up to the red tape of congress

On a more serious note, I've talked before of the US government having plans to militarise the border states if things spill over from Mexico. Best get digging that trench.