Special forces of the Mexican Army stand guard on a highway in Aguililla, on February 9. ENRIQUE CASTRO (AFP)
A man who worked on his plot in the municipality of Aguaje, in Aguililla (Michoacán), has died after stepping on a mine planted by drug traffickers in the area.
His son has been seriously injured and is being treated at a hospital.
The body of the farmer destroyed by a homemade explosive represents the latest outrage by drug traffickers in this region of Tierra Caliente, dominated by organized crime and where federal forces have moved these days to seize the powerful Jalisco Nueva Generación Cartel from its main headquarters.
The use of this type of device is reminiscent of the terrorist strategy used by the Colombian guerrilla against the population and is a reflection of the escalation of violence and power that the drug cartels have accumulated without an authority preventing it.
The body of the farmer who was checking his plot of land in the rural municipality of Aguaje was left lying on the dirt floor when the authorities came to rescue his son.
The man, Cristóbal “N” —the name without a surname provided by the Prosecutor's Office— died instantly when he stepped on an antipersonnel mine planted on his land this weekend.
His son is being treated at a hospital in Apatzingán, 46 kilometers away.
According to the authorities, the area surrounding Aguililla and at least a dozen municipalities are planted with this type of homemade explosives with the ability to kill anyone who crosses the roads.
The objective: soldiers deployed by the federal government, although crimes like the one committed by this family occur along the way.
Two weeks ago, on the border between Aguililla and Tepaltepec, another mine was triggered by the passage of a military convoy crossing a gap.
The explosion destroyed the armored vehicle and one of the soldiers was seriously injured.
The Ministry of Defense (Sedena) has deployed a bomb squad to the area and, although they have not yet managed to delimit the risk areas, they have considered the area a "minefield".
The military have reported the discovery of this type of explosives in at least half a dozen towns and ranches in the municipalities of Aguililla and Tepalcatepec.
The mines have been found in parcels, cattle ranches and dirt roads, most of them camouflaged among the brush and others buried.
According to Sedena, the most common type of explosive made by organized crime is made with a one-inch-thick metal tube, filled with gunpowder and metal fragments.
The device has scratches that serve as splinters at the time of the explosion, with a destructive capacity similar to that of a fragmentation grenade.
The minefield referred to by Sedena surrounds the stronghold of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel.
Aguililla is the land of its leader, Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes, alias
El Mencho
, one of the most wanted criminals by the United States Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA), who has offered a reward of 10 million dollars in exchange for a clue about his possible whereabouts, one of the highest.
In 2010 he founded the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG).
And he becomes the armed wing of the Sinaloa cartel, then at war for control of the Gulf of Mexico with Los Zetas, the group led by elite ex-military men whose terrifying mutilations went around the world.
In September 2011, the emerging cartel left its letter of introduction in an exclusive area of Boca del Río (Veracruz), in the heart of Zeta territory: 35 corpses on the asphalt of Ruiz Cortines Avenue.
The massacre earned them the nickname of Matazetas.
And in 2015, after a failed operation to arrest Mencho,
Members of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel took control of Aguililla last year.Cuartoscuro
The Mencho organization has been growing in the shadow of others better known as Sinaloa, Los Zetas or Los Caballeros Templarios.
While the security forces focused on breaking the back of the big mafias during Felipe Calderón's war (2006-2012) against drug traffickers and which Enrique Peña Nieto continued until 2018, the relatively young Jalisco New Generation Cartel was taking over , like a reptile of the niches that their enemies abandoned.
Today the cartel has extended its tentacles to practically the entire Mexican territory, except Sinaloa.
There is not a corner in the country, except the one mentioned, in which some criminal cell has not allied itself with those of Mencho and presume in their executions to be from
The Four Letters
, as they are also known.
And this major expansion has made his group the most powerful.
Michoacán is, therefore, their home, where they are strongest, the land through which El Mencho's men parade with impunity showing tanks, heavy artillery, equipment and clashes in the mountains more typical of a Middle Eastern war.
And Aguililla, the main stronghold of the cartel.
Last Tuesday, soldiers and members of the Secretary of National Defense (Sedena) and the National Guard, helped by the state police, recovered the municipality of Aguililla, which has been under siege by organized crime for several years.
There was not a single detainee, only presence.
According to Sedena, the Armed Forces arrived in the municipality this week to "carry out operations to strengthen the rule of law" in the Tierra Caliente region, the bureaucratic formula for saying that they had made an appearance in one of the hottest areas of the country.
The arrival in Aguililla is part of the three-phase strategy launched by the State, local and federal, or to recover its presence in the area.
The first stage was to liberate the roads and nearby rural areas, avoiding confrontation.
The second, according to the Army, was the arrival of paratroopers, special and infantry forces, National Guard and Michoacán police personnel, who entered Aguililla from different itineraries.
And the third, according to the Government, will be one more of a social nature that will be accompanied by social programs and money for educational programs.
The coordinator of the Security and Violence Reduction Program in Mexico Assesses that he has worked in the area, Romain Le Cour, denounces that what happened this weekend in Michoacán is a "very serious event, which shows all the complexity of what It happens in Michoacan.”
“Many people will use this type of event to give it a hint of armed conflict or civil war.
We are not in such a context, but rather a worrying, dramatic evolution of the tactics of violence used by criminal groups in Michoacán, increasingly closer to armed groups, not because of ideology, but because of their firepower and operational capacity. ”, adds the expert.
And he warns: “What seems extremely important to me is the specificity of Michoacán as a political laboratory of violence in Mexico,
after more than 15 years of violent practices that are innovative in the country and that later spread to the rest of the territory.
That is why it is important that it be resolved and addressed, something that the federal government is not doing correctly.”
The first consequences of the federal deployment in the area were observed on Sunday.
An armed attack against soldiers in the municipality of Cuitzeo who were patrolling near some Pemex oil pipelines when they were besieged by two vehicles full of armed men.
They were shot and then fled.
There is no detainee.
The wounded soldiers were taken to hospital, although Sedena has not reported how their health continues.
This Monday, the soldiers of the anti-bomb squad review any indication in the plots of land to find more homemade explosives like the one that killed Cristóbal.
Abandoned farmlands that have become their main terror tactic against the authorities.
If there is any persecution in these lands, one of these devices will do its job.
At the moment, Sedena has not reported an estimated amount of explosives planted by the Jalisco Cartel in the area.
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