Feral Jundi

“We have support of the federal forces,” said an official of the dirt-street village. “Security is what we’re lacking.” 

    This is sickening to read.  When a town has to resort to these types of measures to defend themselves from this kind of crime, then you know things are really bad. The protection of this town would be an excellent project of a PMC, if given the contract.  Just saying.  –Matt

——————————————————————

Rural Mexican villages dig moats to repel gangsters

Ditches don’t always deter raids, but federal troops can’t be spared

By DUDLEY ALTHAUS

Houston Chronicle

March 22, 2009, 3:43PM

Julian Cardona For the Chronicle

Ruben Solis, a farmers’ leader, says these moats that villagers dug around Cuauhtémoc were “a means of preservation” for the town. The sentinels at the checkpoints to the village, however, have been removed. ?

CUAUHTEMOC, Mexico — Little town, big hell.

That proverb about turmoil in small communities has never seemed truer than in this gangster-besieged village and a neighboring one in the bean fields and desert scrub a long day’s drive south of the Rio Grande.

Since right before Christmas, armed raiders repeatedly have swept into both villages to carry away local men. Government help arrived too late, or not at all.

Terrified villagers — at the urging of army officers who couldn’t be there around the clock — have clawed moats across every access road but one into their communities, hoping to repel the raids.

“This was a means of preservation,” said Ruben Solis, 47, a farmers’ leader in Cuauhtemoc, a collection of adobe and concrete houses called home by 3,700 people. “It’s better to struggle this way than to face the consequences.”

But shortly after midnight last Sunday, villagers said, as many as 15 SUVs loaded with pistoleros attacked nearby San Angel, population 250, and kidnapped five people. Four victims were returned unharmed a few days later. The fifth hostage, a teenage boy, was held to exchange for the intended target the raiders missed, villagers said.

“We have support of the federal forces,” said an official of the dirt-street village. “Security is what we’re lacking.”

After the earthworks were dug in both villages, volunteers manned checkpoints at the remaining open entrances. Those sentinels, however, were removed when it was decided they couldn’t stop a serious attack, anyhow .

“We aren’t able to confront this sort of thing,” Solis said. “We have a few shotguns, some .22 rifles, a few pistols — nothing compared to what they have.”

(more…)