Mexican Self-defense Groups - 2021
Self-defense groups, or the so-called "community militias," are a social phenomenon that has been multiplying throughout the Mexican territory.
In a desperate attempt to end a cycle of violence, traditional communities organize themselves into a force antagonistic to government authorities and drug cartels.
Based on the customary law of the Mexican constitution, which guarantees some form of self-determination for indigenous peoples, civilians resort to methods reminiscent of Latin American conflicts of the last century to defend themselves.
In the mountains of the state of Guerrero, indigenous people from the small village of Ayahualtempa resort to desperate forms of resistance. Between state abandonment and drug trafficking, nearly all the men in the community have enlisted as part of the community police. So far, Guerrero is the state with the most armed civilians: 23 self-defense groups operating in 70% of the territory, according to a report by the State Coordination of Reconstruction and Peace.
Avahualtempa, a town of 837 inhabitants, mostly of Nahua ethnicity, is mainly engaged in subsistence farming and animal husbandry.
After a string of disappearances and massacres, dozens of residents abandoned their homes, leaving everything behind.
In an attempt to prevent the arrival of drug consumption, forced labor, and daily threats that are already a reality in neighboring municipalities, the CRAC-PC (Regional Coordination of Community Authorities) organized itself to create a headquarter in the center of the community.
With shifts of up to 10 hours, day and night, the members of the indigenous community police do rounds around the edges of the farms, along trails often used by traffickers.
Self-defenses in this region have existed for more than four years, and every kilometer of land is disputed.
The community, deeply distressed by recent events, decided to teach children basic survival and guerrilla warfare tactics, following a of poorly covered demonstrations in the national media.
In a ceremony aimed at attracting government attention, local police invited boys and girls aged 10 to 15 to military positions in the village's sports plaza.
Many of the participants are orphans, victims of the violence in the region, and are trained to defend themselves, as they may soon find themselves without protection. Older children practice with unloaded rifles, while younger ones use rifle replicas or even sticks to mimic the movements they’ve been taught.
A thousand kilometers away from there, in the small town of Pantelhó, in the state of Chiapas, a group of armed men nicknamed "El Machete" rose up against the lack of state presence in the situation of extreme violence that hung over the region.
The armed social movements had been dormant for more than 20 years in the poorest state in the country, known historically for the Zapatista revolution of 1994.
In the month of July 2021, in a matter of weeks, about 200 men took over the village with clashes and arrests of alleged cartel members. In the first days of the conflict, approximately 3,000 people fled the area.
The village of mostly indigenous Tzotzil, during the days of conflict was left looking like a ghost town marked by white cloths calling for peace amidst burned and bullet-riddled walls.
The armed civil organization burned down the town hall building and set up a community kitchen to serve the population. Isolated from neighboring towns for fear of reprisal, soldiers of the new community police set up camps on the main access roads to Pantelho.
At the end of the month, during a military operation with armored convoys and high-caliber machine guns, religious leaders mediated a peace process between representatives of the state of Chiapas and the guerrilla group "El Machete".
The dispute for control of vulnerable territories in Latin American countries is relentless and the forms of organic resistance are not always peaceful. It is estimated that there are currently at least 50 self-defense groups in Mexico, many not yet recognized by the federal government.
This project was screened on the
international festival Visa Pour L'Image.
- France, September 2022 -
Mexican Self-defense Groups - Visa Pour L'image