Michoacan Crime Rate: Mexican State Declared A ‘Problem Of National Security’

Michoacan Violence — Members of the community police, acting in this case as vigilantes, hold parts of an AK-47 on a highway near the village of Paracuaro in Michoacan state, January 5, 2014. Some 100 gunmen from the community police from different towns entered Paracuaro and disarmed the federal police after multiple clashes to gain control over the town in an effort to rid the area of the Knights Templar cartel (Caballeros Templarios), according to local media. Michoacan has been rocked by repeated explosions of civil unrest in 2013 and vigilante groups have sprung up in the region which complain that state and federal police are not protecting them from the gangs. Reuters

Michoacan has become an ever-increasing center for drug-cartel related violence in recent months, and it seems Mexican politicians are at last admitting to the seriousness of the problem. State PRD Senator Silvano Aureoles Conejo has called on both local and federal governments to address the social instability and insecurity rampant in the country's southwest: in statement released on Sunday, Conejo wrote that the situation in Michaocan "is becoming a problem of national security."

Senator Aureoles added that the Mexican government has a responsibility to guarantee stoical, political and economic stability in each of the 32 states that make up the nation. "The federal government has to take charge of security in all municipalities: a group shouldn't be able to set fire to businesses and government houses while the army sits safely in its barracks." Aureoles called on the national government to work with local authorities to come up with a strategy to give citizens some sense of security: "it's now or never."

The Senator argued that national policy should focus on establishing peace, security and order not only on a criminal level but also at a comprhensive social level "because of the clear social decomposition." Silvano Aureoles also called on his colleagues to implement changes at a legislative level to ensure progress is made on a rapidly deteriorating security situation in the Mexican state which has witnessed a rapid increase in crime in recent months.

Indeed, Michoacan, which sits on the Pacific Coast in Mexico's south west, has become something of a violent hotspot in recent months. The Knights Templar drug cartel has become an ever powerful force with influence spreading across Michoacan and into Jalisco, Guerrero and Morelos. Recently, the Knights Templar have come up against the powerful emerging New Generation Jalisco Cartel, leading to a spate of murders and public assassinations.

The state of affairs has gotten so bad in the Mexican state that citizens have formed vigilante groups in the hopes of ousting drug cartels from local municipalities and stemming the violence. The two groups have been brought into armed conflict in recent weeks.

Tags: Crime