A ghost town, the acronym of the cartels tagged on the walls, his vandalized house: Miguel is back in Palmas Altas, in the state of Zacatecas (north), pearl of baroque Mexico, which has become a new battleground between drug traffickers the most violent in the country.
Escorted by soldiers, Miguel, whose first name has been changed, finds his small ranch, each room of which has been ransacked.
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Taken back in mid-March by the National Guard and the army, the village is deserted, apart from a few dogs walking around under a blazing sun.
A burnt-out pick-up is abandoned at the entrance to this locality which extends over an arid plateau at the foot of the Sierra des Cardos.
“Here, it is the four letters that command”, proclaims a graffiti signed “CJNG” for “
Cartel Jalisco Nueva Generation
”.
Its leader Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes, known as "El Mencho", is one of the most wanted men by the United States, which is offering ten million dollars for his capture.
"Either you go or you die"
A few walls further, the acronym "CJNG" is painstakingly replaced in black paint by three other letters, "
CDS
", for Cartel de Sinaloa, which survived the arrest of Chapo Guzman, sentenced to life imprisonment. in the USA.
Since 2020, these two cartels have been fighting over Palmas Altas and the state of Zacatecas, the route to the American drug market and the ports of the Pacific and the Gulf of Mexico.
"
History changed last year, on Ash Wednesday February 17, 2021
," recalls Miguel, a good-natured grower in his 40s.
“
They started kidnapping and beating people.
They killed a gentleman and his son.
Fear drove us away
.”
At the start of 2022, there were only five families left.
"
Either you leave or you die
”.
Message received.
The village has been deserted since early February.
Miguel took refuge in Jerez, about twenty kilometers from Palmas Altas.
Thanks to the security forces, he hopes to be able to return in time to prune his fruit trees: “
Because alone, we cannot
”.
Read alsoIn Mexico, a national guard against violence
The region has a total of 2,000 displaced people, according to the authorities.
“
We want them to return home
,” promises Jerez Security Secretary Marco Vargas, comfortably installed in his office in the heart of this “
magical village
”, the label awarded to tourist towns like Jerez.
“
We will maintain law enforcement to prevent possible incursions or a return of organized crime
he adds, his voice covered by an orchestra playing traditional music on the terrace of a restaurant.
Zacatecas was the site of clashes between the Gulf Cartel and the Zetas in the 2010s. Jalisco and Sinaloa have taken over for one or two years, in the remote areas of the Sierras.
Violence is daily.
On March 15 alone, a scrap metal worker was killed at midday at his workplace in Fresnillo, another town in Zacatecas considered one of the most dangerous in Mexico.
A shooting broke out a few minutes later in a nearby street.
Patrol of the National Guard in front of the Palace of the Governor of Zacatecas.
PEDRO PARDO / AFP
At the beginning of January, ten bodies were found in an abandoned van in front of the governor's palace, next to the cathedral, in the historic center.
“
A provocation
”, thundered the President of the Republic Lopez Obrador.
In his cathedral with its finely sculpted facade, the bishop of Zacatecas, Sigifredo Noriega Barcelo, admits that he would like to speak with “
people who do evil
”, as he modestly calls them.
“
Unfortunately, there are no interlocutors.
There are many groups, which divide and subdivide
,” he confides after the Sunday sermon.
baroque festival
On that day, the hypersecure city center of the regional capital was calm.
Mexican tourists take the cable car up to La Bufa, the highest point in the city.
In the evening, a clown entertains children sitting with their parents on the steps of a staircase next to the cathedral.
"It's not just violence in Zacatecas"
sighs the director of the museum of Guadalupe Rosita Franco, pushing the doors of a library which preserves a thousand books dating from the 16th to the 19th century.
The King of Spain Felipe VI lingered for a long time under the woodwork of the museum galleries during his visit in 2015 with his wife Letizia, she continues in front of a portrait of one of the king's ancestors, Carlos III.
But Rosita Franco refuses to comment on the violence that strikes as far as Guadalupe, on the outskirts of Zacatecas-capital.