Child soldiers: Inside the Mexican town arming kids as young as six to defend against cartels
'They are killing children. We have to arm children'
RINCON DE CHAUTLA — Unable to send their children to school and too afraid to step out of their enclave of 16 mountain villages in violence-plagued Guerrero state in southwestern Mexico, residents say they have been left with little choice but to train their children in the way of the gun.
When David Sanchez Luna’s mother-in-law, 56, was tortured and killed after venturing out of her small community encircled by cartel members, he let his seven- and ten-year-old daughters receive military-style weapons training.
“They do this to prepare themselves to defend the family, their siblings and defend the village,” said Sanchez Luna, a corn farmer in a rugged region which five years ago formed a self-defence “community police” militia to protect itself.
The move by the villagers to offer arms training to school-age children shocked the nation and made global headlines last month after local media broadcast images of children as young as six toting guns and showing off military maneuvers.
“They are killing children. We have to arm children,” Isabel Márquez, 25, a mother of two, told the Wall Street Journal.
While elders in the mainly indigenous community near the city of Chilapa privately concede young kids would not be used to fight cartel gunmen, they say their gambit to get the help of far-away officials in Mexico City is borne of desperation.
Ten musicians from the area were ambushed and killed last month by suspected Los Ardillos Cartel members after stepping out of the territory guarded by their self-defence militia, known as CRAC-PF. Their bodies were burnt, officials said.
Los Ardillos, which dominates the state of Guerrero, is a breakaway group of Mexico’s infamous Beltrán Leyva Cartel, specializing in heroin trafficking and once led by four brothers. Its leader Arturo Beltrán Leyva, an ally-turned-nemesis of Mexican kingpin Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, was killed in 2009.
The attack on the musicians followed a spate of murders in the area in recent years, including a beheading, that rattled the 6,500 residents whose lush land sits amid fertile poppy-growing farmland that feed Guerrero’s heroin trade and supply routes to the United States.
The grisly murders and siege-like conditions facing residents go to the heart of cartel power and state failure in modern Mexico, where runaway violence tears at society’s fabric.
The Los Ardillos want to extort the farmers and force them to grow opium for the cartel, said Sanchez Luna’s brother, Bernardino, who founded the CRAC-PF.
“We find ourselves under siege,” he said.
“This is a public cry for help by a community that’s been cornered,” said Falko Ernst, an International Crisis Group (ICG) analyst. “They’ve been trying to get assistance by federal and state government, unsuccessfully, so they’re trying to escalate the language to try to negotiate and get help.”
President Manuel Andres Lopez Obrador said those who arm children “should be ashamed of themselves” and denounced the use of children to grab attention.
“Giving children weapons and taking videos is an act of cruelty,” he said, the Washington Post reported.
Lopez Obrador’s government has struggled to get a grip on gangs and violence, with a record 34,582 murders last year.
“I don’t know how they can get the government’s attention aside by doing these sorts of things — or by dying, and even that will only get the authorities’ attention for a few days,” Chris Kyle, an anthropologist at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, told the Washington post of the locals.
The kids’ uniforms are emblazoned with “Community Police,” and they cover their faces with handkerchiefs, similar to older militants in the area. One child, Alex, 13, told the Washington Post that the training felt real, his gun heavy under the weight of its ammunition.
Alex’s father told the Washington Post that he knew the child was up to the task, from the look on his face.
“There was no fear in his eyes,” said Santos Martinez of his child. “That’s how I knew he was ready.”
“I’m preparing to defend my village,” the young boy said.
Residents remain deeply suspicious of regional authorities and the smattering of local policemen in their villages, who they accuse of being the eyes and ears of the Los Ardillos.
Local parents say their children are forced to stop formal education once they reach about 12 years of age, as the middle schools are in territory controlled by the cartel.
Abuner Martinez, 16, stopped attending school a year ago after his father was kidnapped outside CRAC-PF territory, tortured, and then beheaded.
“I got scared at that moment. I didn’t want to go to school,” said Martinez, who now wields a shotgun as he guards a checkpoint.
Luis Gustavo Morales, 13, who held a 20-gauge shotgun, told the Wall Street Journal:
“We are surrounded by the bad guys, so we have to prepare ourselves to defend our town and our families.”
CRAC-PF repelled a major attack by Los Ardillos in January 2019, but residents live in fear of the siren, a community alarm system, going off again.
Farmers tend their corn fields with shotguns slung on their backs, while armed CRAC-PF militiamen keep guard and patrol their territory round the clock.
David Sanchez Luna’s wife, Alberta, sobbed as she described receiving her mother’s body riddled with torture marks.
“It’s terrible what’s happening to us,” she said, wiping away tears.
Source: https://nationalpost.com/news/world/child-soldiers-inside-the-mexican-town-arming-kids-as-young-as-seven-to-defend-against-cartels
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