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By Linda Pressly
BBC News, Cheran
In Mexico, organised crime reaches
everywhere, even into the smallest village - except for one small town
in the state of Michoacan. Led by local women, the people of Cheran rose
up to defend their forest from armed loggers - and kicked out police
and politicians at the same time.
The women met in secret to make
their plans. They were sickened by the killings and kidnaps that had
become routine and angered by the masked men who roamed their town
demanding extortion payments from small businesses. And for more than
three years they had watched, indignant, as truck after truck trundled
past their homes piled high with freshly cut logs. Mexico's cartels once focused mainly on the drugs trade, but they have diversified their business model, and now seek to dominate any lucrative industry - including timber, the foundation of Cheran's economy.
By 2011, the loggers were getting close to one of Cheran's water springs.
"We were worried," remembers Margarita Elvira Romero, one of the conspirators. "If you cut the trees, there's less water. Our husbands have cattle - where would they drink if the spring was gone?"
A forest guard, and map of Cheran (in red), in Michoacan, Mexico
A group of women went into the forest to try and
reason with the armed men. They were verbally abused and chased away. So
their plan evolved. Now they knew it was too dangerous to confront the
loggers in the forest at the spring, they determined to stop the trucks
in town where they would have the support of their neighbours.Early on Friday 15 April 2011, Cheran's levantamiento, or uprising, began. On the road coming down from the forest outside Margarita's home, the women blockaded the loggers' pick-ups and took some of them hostage. As the church bells of El Calvario rang out and fireworks exploded in the dawn sky alerting the community to danger, the people of Cheran came running to help. It was tense - hotheads had to be persuaded by the women not to string up the hostages from an ancient tree outside the church.
"Everyone in the streets was running around with machetes," says Melissa Fabian, who was then 13 years old. "Ladies were running around. They all covered their faces. You could hear people screaming, and the bells of the church just ringing out all the time."
The municipal police arrived with the mayor, and armed men came to free their hostage-friends. There was an uneasy stand-off between the townspeople, the loggers and the police. It ended after two loggers were injured by a young man who shot a firework directly at them. And Cheran - a town of some 20,000 people - began its journey towards self-government.
"It makes me want to cry remembering that day," says Margarita. "It was like a horror movie - but it was the best thing we could have done."
The police and local politicians were quickly driven out of town because the people suspected they were collaborating with the criminal networks. Political parties were banned - and still are - because they were deemed to have caused divisions between people. And each of the four districts of Cheran elected representatives to a ruling town council. In many ways, Cheran - a town populated by the indigenous Purepecha people - returned to its roots: to the ancient way of doing things, independent of outsiders.
Meanwhile armed checkpoints were established on the three main roads coming in to town.
Today, five years later, those checkpoints still exist. They are guarded by members of the Ronda Comunitaria - a militia or local police force made up of men and women from Cheran. Every vehicle is stopped, its occupants questioned about where they have come from and where they are going.
Penalties include fines and community work - such as litter-picking.
If you live somewhere unaccustomed to rampant, violent crime, you might not find this surprising. But Michoacan is one of Mexico's bloodiest states - where severed heads have been rolled across dance floors and grenades have been lobbed into crowded plazas. In July, there were over 180 murders in the state - the highest number for nearly a decade. And in the communities around Cheran - not even 10km away - stories of kidnap, extortion and murder are commonplace.
"In Cheran, I feel safe because I can walk the streets at night, and I don't fear that something's going to happen," says Melissa, who's now an 18-year old bio-medical student at a college just outside Cheran.
Cheran is not completely independent - it still has state and federal funding. But its autonomy as an indigenous Purepecha community is recognised and underwritten by the Mexican government. Its ban on political parties, meanwhile, has been upheld by the courts, which have confirmed its right not to participate in local, state or federal elections.
In the state of Michoacan, Cheran has become an oasis of hope - its peace and security a stark contrast to the fear that still dominates neighbouring communities. So why has it succeeded - thrived even - in such a cruel but beautiful region? Margarita, Melissa and Heriberto will give you the same one-word answer: solidaridad - solidarity.
Most people who live in Cheran are from the town. Social mores dictate that locals marry locals - there are very few outsiders here. Families are large, and they are close. Everyone knows everyone else. And that is the foundation of the town's unity.
With violence again on the rise in Mexico, there is anxiety in Cheran about the future - a worry that the cartels could gain a foothold once more. Other towns have tried to copy Cheran's example, but without the same success. Melissa is optimistic, and she is prepared to go out on the streets to fight for what has been achieved.
"As long as there's at least one person that wants to keep this up, we will all stand behind them. We all feel proud because we stopped something, and did something that none of the other communities dared to do."
More from the Magazine
Insecurity dominates the lives of millions of Mexicans. Caught between the murderous drug cartels and absent or corrupt law enforcement, communities are taking the law into their own hands. In 2013, in the state of Guerrero, Linda Pressly met a fledgling vigilante force that grew into an organisation numbering thousands.SOURCE: BBC/MAGAZINE





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