Mexico Legalizes Vigilantes
By Joshua Keating
The AP reports that “ ‘[s]elf-defense’ groups confronting a drug cartel in the western state of Michoacan have agreed to join government law enforcement forces after months of firefights with gang members.”
Armed vigilante groups have become more common in Mexico since last year, particularly in the western state of Michoacán, parts of which had fallen under the control of the Knights Templar drug cartel. The vigilantes had often operated with the tacit approval of the authorities, who have evidently decided it would more productive to work with the armed groups rather than attempt to disarm them.
As an International Crisis Group analysis last year noted, the issue of vigilantism in Mexico “is complicated by the fact that many communities, particularly indigenous, have a centuries-old tradition of community policing.” However, many of the recently formed, well-armed autodefensa groups are not comprised of members of these communities, and some may even by fronts for the cartels themselves.
The government of Mexico—a rising economic power and in most parts of the country, a fairly safe and stable one—understandably bristles at talk in Washington of a “failed state” south of the border. But given that monopoly over the legitimate use of force is generally considered one of the primary definitions of a functioning state, the presence of self-organized armed groups providing security in areas where the government has failed to do so definitely doesn’t look good either domestically or internationally.
Source: http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_world_/2014/01/28/mexico_legalizes_vigilante_groups_to_fight_cartels_in_troubled_michoacan.html
Keating ignores that both America and Switzerland are functioning states WITHOUT a government monopoly of force. Even in Israel soldiers are required to keep their primary weapon at home because if war breaks out, there might not be time to go to the armory.
As a friend pointed out, “with the DEA arming drug cartel and giving them a pass to sell drugs where they want I guess it would make sense that Mexico would do what is unthinkable to them and allow citizens to have guns for protection.”