On Monday, December 14, Doña Librada was in church when, at about seven in the afternoon, she received an unexpected call.

"Quick," a voice on the other end of the phone rushed her. She rings the bells.

Presta, the 48-year-old woman in charge of guarding the temple, left her chores and began to pull some ropes that shook the two bells that crown the light blue tower of the Donaciano Ojeda parish, a small indigenous community located in the middle of the Reserva de la Monarch Butterfly Biosphere, in the eastern part of Michoacán.

The rhythm of the bells was frantic. Crazy. Very different from the serene doubling of the mass and the slow peals that announce death.

Immediately, at the warning signal, the neighbors began to leave their houses towards the town's main square to meet up to wait for news. Meanwhile, just five minutes away by car, in the neighboring town of Carpinteros, a group of men combed the forest chasing seven men who were carrying two kidnapped people aboard two trucks, a Ford F150 with American license plates, and a black Volkswagen Tiguan that was stolen that same morning at a checkpoint.

Four community members who narrate the events on condition of anonymity for security reasons, explain that the "gangsters" they were persecuting were from La Familia Michoacana.

They know it well, they emphasize in an interview, because the day before those men called their houses to demand food and blankets, and they saw that they had the words 'LFM', a tiger, and the emblem 'el Sobrino' tattooed on their necks and shoulders; a member of La Familia Michoacana arrested on October 23, also dubbed by the local press as "the terror of Zitácuaro."

That same Monday, before the persecution broke out in the mountains, the community members went at 10 in the morning to the National Guard barracks, on the Zitácuaro-Toluca highway, to denounce the presence of this armed group in Carpinteros from the Sunday. But no one paid any attention to him: "They told us that they had no staff and that they couldn't help us."

At the same time, the command had been harassing the community for hours: armed with R-15 assault rifles and wearing vests full of chargers, they set up roadblocks where they collected fees, stole a truck from a neighbor, and shot a car that did not want to stop at the checkpoint, killing a woman from the community of Francisco Serrato after hitting her several times in the column.

And it was after this murder that the community exploded: minutes after the ringing of the bells, hundreds of people were already gathered in the church, fired up and ready to join the hunt with machetes and shotguns.

But that day the situation did not go any further: the community members say that 10 hours after they asked for help, the National Guard arrived in Donaciano together with the state police to contain the mob and disarm it.

Faced with threats from drug trafficking groups, the inhabitants of several communities decided to defend their forests, the butterfly, another form of livelihood through tourism. Photo: Jñato HM

The narco fee: 12 thousand pesos per hectare of cultivation

The neighbors interviewed agree that the arrival of drug traffickers in their towns and their forests has been gradual. Before, the violence was only heard in the municipal seat, in Zitácuaro. But for a couple of years, criminals have been looking for different ways to enter the indigenous communities of Donaciano Ojeda, Carpinteros, Crescencio Morales, Francisco Serrato, and their semi-virgin forests where millions of monarch butterflies arrive each winter, traveling more than 4,000 500 kilometers from the cold prairies of Canada and the East Coast of the United States to hibernate in Mexico from November to March.

“They started out very discreet; throwing some drugs here and there, and looking for accomplices inside the ranches to weave the network”, they explain.

But now those attempts are no longer discreet. Especially since 2020, when the upsurge in violence in the eastern part of Michoacán and the neighboring State of Mexico – a powder keg where La Familia and the Jalisco Nueva Generación Cartel dispute the area along with 26 other groups – has generated that the drug trafficker seek to expand and expand your business in the face of criminal competition for territory.

A month after the first attempt by La Familia to establish itself in the communities, on January 16 they tried again: another group called Los Cristaleros - a redoubt of the Knights Templar - entered Donaciano offering "help" to the indigenous communal authorities.

“They told us that they do not charge fees and that they do not finance loggers who destroy our forests and the monarch, as La Familia does,” says Martín, one of the many peasants who were victims of extortion: “They called us and made us go down to Zitácuaro to pay the Nephew a fee of 12 thousand pesos per hectare of avocado”.

Faced with the abandonment of the authorities, the communities decided to organize their own indigenous police to restore peace in the Monarca Reserve. Photo: Jñato HM

In exchange for their protection, the Templars wanted to sell crystal (methamphetamine) in the communities.

The indigenous authorities rejected the offer and demanded that the group leave immediately. They refused, entrenched themselves in the Carpinteros forest, and a delegation of community members went the next day, Sunday the 17th, to the National Guard barracks to ask for help, with the same result as a month before: they did not have enough.

The delegation returned with the news and a group of around 40 community members made the decision to confront the criminal group that received them with bullets in the forest. The balance: nine dead, according to the State Prosecutor's Office, 11 according to the community members, of which three were defenders of the forest.

It was there when, faced with the abandonment of the authorities, the communities decided to organize their own indigenous police to restore peace in the Monarch Reserve.

“Either we organize, or we die”

Luis is originally from Crescencio Morales and has been studying the Monarch Butterfly Biosphere Reserve for more than 10 years. This reserve is a protected area that covers 56 thousand 259 hectares -from the municipality of Senguio, north of the eastern part of Michoacán, to San Juan Xoconusco, in the south-, and that was created by a decree of the Mexican government in 1980 -extended in 1986 and 2000-, after Canadian zoologist Fred Urquhart reported in 1976 the location of the hibernation sites of monarchs in the forests of Michoacán.

But Luis, whose identity he changed for security reasons, explains that government decrees have not stopped groups like La Familia.

"The narco sponsors the loggers," he says. "They give them protection so they can sell the wood on the black market, demanding a fee in exchange."

And, at the same time, this illegal logging causes many other consequences.

In the first place, Luis explains, "the voracious logging" causes the rivers to change their flow and that many plant species, such as pine and oyamel trees, are devastated by the lack of water and humidity.

This, in turn, directly impacts the monarch butterfly, which loses its food, water, and habitat. So much so that, despite current federal and international conservation programs, the downward trend in hibernating monarchs has not been halted.

According to the most updated data by WWF (World Wide Fund for Nature) just released in February 2021, the number of butterflies fell 26% compared to the previous year. The community members say that they are not surprised by the data given the ineffectiveness of a conservation model that diminishes the local capacity to protect the forest.

In turn, the presence of organized crime in the forests means that monarch sanctuaries such as El Rosario, about 40 kilometers from Donaciano and 35 from Zitácuaro, see reduced visits by local and foreign tourists who travel from various parts of North America to the Oyamel forests to admire and photograph the hibernation of the monarch.

“Tourism has fallen a lot due to the pandemic, yes. But also because people are afraid to come,” says Luis, who provides another piece of information that closes the perverse circle: the lack of tourism and income means that many families are forced to dedicate themselves to illegal logging and pay fees to drug traffickers.

Between 2019 and 2020, at least 38 activists were killed. And two of the most recent cases were, precisely, characters historically connected with the monarch butterfly. Photo: Jñato HM

In addition, organized crime does not only see business in illegal wood. The forest is also an ideal place to set up drug laboratories, where they make unlimited use of the water and natural resources within their reach. In fact, the water that they illegally sell to populations with scarce access to this resource is another of their businesses, along with avocados, a crop from which they make profits by charging farmers land rights.

"The drug trafficker is dispersing his businesses by appropriating the forest," summarizes Luis, who also blames some community members for the uncontrolled expansion of avocados to the detriment of the forest.

“The community members do not cut down the forest. Traditionally it has been protected by them and their 'grandparents' of Mazahua or Jñato origin as they call themselves. But there is also a lot of ambition on the part of some people who are doing well with avocados and who intend to expand their orchards to the hills. And how can they do it if the community does not allow it? Luis asks. Well, with the help of organized crime. They are the ones who do the dirty work of threatening the communities and those of us who defend the forest.”

Precisely, on this last point mentioned by Luis de las aggressions, organizations such as Amnesty International recall that Mexico is one of the most dangerous countries in the world to defend nature.

Between 2019 and 2020, at least 38 activists were killed. And two of the most recent cases were, precisely, characters historically connected with the monarch butterfly: Homero Gómez, who administered the El Rosario sanctuary and was found in a water well after disappearing in January 2020. And Raúl Hernández Romero, tour guide of the monarch who was assassinated just a few weeks later.

“The narco is like a cancer, a disease without a cure -the academic concludes with a metaphor-. And there is no cure because no authority takes action. That is why the communities are organizing ourselves. Because if we don't, they kill us, or we have to leave our land, or we have to work for them and lose our freedom”, he concludes.

“We don't trust authority; does nothing to help us”

More than a month has passed since the January 17 confrontation. But Juan, a farmer from Carpinteros, says tension has returned to the indigenous communities of Zitácuaro.

Wearing a straw hat and protected by a mask that covers his face, the farmer says that just last Wednesday, February 17, they buried an 18-year-old boy who was traveling along the federal highway to the head of the municipality when he was ambushed and shot to death.

Officially, there is no version of the facts. But Juan has no doubt: it is a drug dealer's revenge.

Questioned why they don't file a complaint with the Michoacan Prosecutor's Office, the peasant snorts loudly: "Because they are no longer trusted," he replies resignedly. “They are asked for help and they don't listen. They only come to raise the dead after everything is over."

They do not trust them so much, he emphasizes, that they not only seek to defend themselves from criminal reprisals, but also from the authorities. "Especially from the Michoacan Prosecutor's Office," Juan specifies. Especially after it opened an investigation after the clashes on January 17, which is understood by the community members as a way to intimidate them.

"The Prosecutor's Office knows many ways to incriminate someone," he says. And it is enough that we go out one day to sell our things to Zitácuaro, for them to stop us and take us prisoners inventing anything.”

Animal Politico sought out the State Prosecutor's Office to request an interview about the events of January 17, but limited itself to responding in writing that "the institution has carried out and is carrying out investigations in relation to the facts of which it is aware, under a premise of guaranteeing access to justice and that the facts do not go unpunished”.

While the Michoacan governor, Silvano Aureoles, told local media on February 15 that the claims of the community members of Zitácuaro have "another background." "These complainants are being manipulated by criminals in the region," accused the president in statements that are interpreted by the community members as an attempt to criminalize their self-government and indigenous defense movement.

León Pérez is an activist with Advisory Services for Peace (Serapaz) and has been working on the ground for years in indigenous communities on the Purépecha plateau in Michoacán, such as Arantepacua, Comachuén, or Nahuatzen, where, following the example of Cherán in 2011, neighbors expelled political parties and also decided to form their own indigenous police to stop loggers and drug traffickers. And he speaks with full knowledge when he says that the fear of the community members of the Monarch Reserve is not unfounded.

“There are patterns of criminalization and disrepute towards defenders of the environment and communities,” he says. “There are even cases of logging companies linked to organized crime that try to make people give up their territories through threats. And if they don't, they are accused of crimes they didn't commit."

Just one example of this is the cases of José Luis Jiménez Meza and José Antonio Arriola Jiménez, members of the Nahuatzen Indigenous Citizen Council, who have been imprisoned since 2018 for defending the autonomous government of their community.

The State Prosecutor's Office accused the two activists -and a third person, the merchant Gerardo Talavera Jiménez- of stealing two Tsuru cars and a dump truck belonging to the municipal government on November 1, 2018, for which they were charged with theft crimes. and sabotage. However, on the day of the alleged robbery, the three were in a meeting in Pátzcuaro. Even so, the community members are still imprisoned two years later and their case is in the hands of the Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation, reported Serapaz.

"We don't want the same thing to happen to us," says Juan now, who insists that the indigenous communities of Zitácuaro have already installed barricades on the highways with rudimentary canvas tents, sandbags, and groups of armed people who guard the passage.

“Now the communities are united, and the enemy, whoever he is, will have to think hard to come here. We are more than 20 thousand people ready to defend ourselves”, he warns.

Inhabitants demand the recognition of the Zitácuaro authorities of the Indigenous Guard that will be chosen by the Indigenous Security Council. Photo: Jñato HM

"We don't want a fight, but we don't ask for alms either"

Alberto, an indigenous community member from Crescencio Morales, has a less combative tone. He emphasizes that the communities are not violent and that they are simply reacting to the attacks of criminals. Hence, what they seek is to maintain a dialogue with the authorities, he says.

"We do not want to fight with any government, although we are not going to beg for money either," the community member clarifies. “Because the law is required. And what we ask for is the right to protect ourselves, and to protect our forests and the monarch.”

On January 26, they already delivered to the authorities a list of petitions with three key points: the Zitácuaro authorities' recognition of the Indigenous Guard that will be elected by the Indigenous Security Council; the direct allocation of budget and administrative power to manage it; and the non-intervention of any judicial power that "performs or carries out retaliation or persecution of our community members."

Although there have already been several approaches with the authorities of the three levels of government -the last meeting was on February 23-, they have not yet reached a definitive agreement so that the State recognizes these indigenous police, and also trains them, equips them , and give them a salary.

Even so, regardless of whether an agreement is reached or not, Alberto emphasizes that the process of self-government and the Indigenous Guard is already unstoppable.

“Whatever happens, this is going to continue,” he insists. Because if it weren't for the organization of the communities, the forests, the monarch butterfly, and many of us, we would already be dead."

What we do at Animal Politico requires professional journalists, teamwork, maintaining a dialogue with readers and something very important: independence. You can help us continue. Be part of the team.Subscribe to Political Animal, receive benefits and support free journalism.#YoSoyAnimal To better understand>Edomex drops charges against Misael Zamora, environmentalist accused of loggers December 5, 2020 >Forced displacement in the Tarahumara: forced to leave your community and forest October 18, 2020