New Clashes in State of Michoacan Call Federal Strategy Into Question News-Journal.com
go to original January 12, 2015

Federal police patrol last week in Apatzingan in Michoacan state, Mexico. (Rebecca Blackwell/Associated Press)

COLONIAS, Mexico — New clashes between vigilante groups and government forces in Mexico’s violent western state of Michoacan are calling into question the strategy of a federal commissioner appointed a year ago to restore order.

Top cartel leaders have been captured or killed, and President Enrique Pena Nieto’s administration has held up Michoacan as a success in battling drug violence. But now former vigilantes are fighting with government forces and each other. All sides are accused of being infiltrated by drug traffickers trying to take over from the Knights Templar, which controlled commerce, politics and daily life in much of the state until self-defense groups rose up in February 2013.

In the most recent bloodshed, nine civilians died Tuesday during federal operations in the community of Apatzingan.

One was hit by a car while fleeing from federal forces seizing the city hall from armed civilians, and eight were killed later after they allegedly opened fire on a federal police convoy, said the federal commissioner, Alfredo Castillo. He first said they were killed by the army, then by federal police. Now the government investigation is leaning toward a third version — that six of the dead were killed by friendly fire, according to an official who spoke Saturday. The official, who could not be named because he was not authorized to speak to the press, said the government would give more details on Monday.

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