There is no place for ideology in the face of violence in Guerrero.
It is the notion that underlies the attempts of the local clergy to stop the crime battles, responsible for so much death in the region.
This week, members of the criminal group Los Tlacos murdered at least 12 gunmen from the enemy organization, La Familia Michoacana.
The victors recorded their celebration on video, filled with insults and shots at the corpses, which they then burned on a pyre.
Days later, a priest, Filiberto Velázquez, familiar with the battle between these groups, announced a truce between them.
The news is not so much the truce, at least until time - and the lack of massacres, drone bombings or attacks on public transport drivers - confirms its existence.
The form, however, stands out, the construction of a pact that cannot be understood without the intervention of the four bishops of Guerrero, in addition to the bishop emeritus of Chilpancingo, Salvador Rangel, and religious such as Velázquez himself.
It is diocesan
realpolitik
, unrelated in this case to moral issues or red lines.
Guerrero is experiencing a period of extreme violence and religious people demand peace.
At whatever price.
For Bernardo Barranco, master in Sociology of Contemporary Catholicism, this mediating attitude of religious people is not something new.
“You find it in different parts of Latin America.
In Nicaragua, for example, before [Daniel] Ortega's madness, the Church had an important mediating role, in Peru too, in the years of the Shining Path,” he explains.
“And not just with criminals or dissident powers.
In Argentina, for example, Bergoglio himself [the current Pope's civilian name] negotiated with the dictatorship to protect hostages.
That is to say, the Church has that mediating spirit on the continent,” he adds.
Priest Filiberto Velázquez speaks with members of the Police, in September 2023. Mónica González Islas
Mexico has not been immune to the mediating nature of the clergy either.
Barranco recalls the case of Nuncio Girolamo Prigione, a man “very interventionist, very PRI member and close to [former President Carlos] Salinas.”
In the 1990s, Prigione met with two of the Arellano Félix brothers, leaders of the Tijuana cartel, after the assassination of Cardinal Jesús Posadas in Guadalajara.
“Then we had the case of Rangel, who was able to pacify an area in the previous electoral process.
And now, this group of four bishops.
He shows that in the absence of authority, the Church plays a supplementary role.
In the south of Italy it is the same.
The absence and complicity of the State with crime fosters alternative links to the State itself,” he points out.
It is not known how Los Tlacos and La Familia Michoacana finally reached the agreement this week.
It is known that its leaders had a conversation, bishops through, in mid-January.
That conversation failed, the dissent was great, but apparently the talks continued and finally crystallized into a non-aggression pact.
The Tlacos had killed 12 of La Familia days before.
The latter had killed at least five of the former in January, in another point of their warlike geography, the mountainous area that separates the municipalities of Heliodoro Castillo, a bastion of Los Tlacos, and San Miguel Totolapan, under the control of La Familia.
It was time to stop.
Priest Velázquez points out that religious intervention must be understood as part of a complex process, of talks between groups, of negotiation.
The bishops themselves did not want to give too many details of the mediation.
But they intervened, as the head of the diocese of Chilpancingo, José de Jesús González, surprisingly reported last week.
This newspaper has contacted González via message and call, but has not received a response.
Be that as it may, he and his colleagues from Acapulco, Altamirano and Tlapa met with the leaders of La Familia Michoacana, and forced a call with the leader of Los Tlacos.
The agreement did not happen then, but a week and a massacre later, the pact finally arrived.
A vehicle burned during an attack in the municipality of Heliodoro Castillo, on January 5, 2023. Courtesy Minerva Bello Human Rights Center
Los Tlacos and La Familia also reached their truce after the former did the same with another of their rival groups, Los Ardillos.
For more than a year, both organizations had carried out an escalation of attacks against public transport drivers in the capital, Chilpancingo, and nearby municipalities.
At the beginning of the month, after several murders of drivers in a few days, the groups finally reached an agreement.
In that case, too, the clergy was involved, this time at the hands of Velázquez and Rangel.
In the heat of news of pacts in the entity, other religious from nearby regions sanctioned the actions of their own and revealed their own approaches.
This was the case, for example, of the auxiliary archbishop of Toluca, Maximino Martínez.
This same week, Martínez said: “All [criminal groups] are called, some go, others don't.
Those who attend, welcome, and therefore they are called to return and look for the paths to be able to build peace.”
Bernardo Barranco finally points out a “political overtone” in this wave of interventions by religious people.
“In moments of vulnerability of the system, such as electoral processes, the Church has an important role, not only in mediation, but in making demands.
“The Church historically raises its demands at times like this,” he concludes.
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