El Machete de Pantelhó August 1, 2021
El Machete is the name of the newly formed self-defense organization, representing the citizens of Pantelhó in the wake of the town’s seizure by outside gangsters. Several weeks ago, indigenous residents were sent running when gunfire erupted in the town. Two days later, the army and state police arrived to restore order, but they refused to make any arrests, claiming they lack warrants, so El Machete has told them to leave. Libre y Soberano have the privilege.
As first reported by El Universal, the vigilantes “arrested” two dozen people they believe are associated with the violence and other criminality, including the mayor and his wife, and they have warned AMLO in a written statement not to involve the federal government, unless the federales are willing to take on the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG), which is suspected of pulling the strings in Pantelhó. The involvement of the town’s own government is not surprising, as this is how the cartels operate—plata o plumo. What municipal official can resist the inevitable bribe to shut up, when his family is faced with assassination threats? The natural choice is to take the bite of the rotten apple that is offered—La Mordida—so that one can survive to protect his family. This is the ultimate Mexican dilemma.
Of course, accountability is required; rule of law must be established. To these ideals everyone agrees, but how to accomplish such a Herculean feat, that is, how to clean a house so thoroughly infested, must necessarily involve drastic measures. This is essentially the issue facing voters across the country today, as an unprecedented referendum is held to make Presidentes, both past and future, open to investigation and prosecution for corruption. To some, this is considered to be nothing more than a license for political retribution. For others, today’s vote is seen as a crucial step toward dismantling the “perfect dictatorship” known as Mexican democracy.
Octavio Paz argued that the Mexican constitution eliminated personal or familial dictatorships by limiting presidential terms to 6 years. In so doing, however, it created a dictatorship of the political class, which, for most of a century, was represented by one party—PRI. Also designated in the ruling document was blanket immunity for all chief executives, which allowed for a smooth flow of political power from one selected caretaker of corruption to the next, even when the opposing conservative party, PAN, finally captured national control in 2000.
The election of 2018 upset this seamless suit of lies. Morena is now the ruling party, and an entire national infrastructure of media and governance is displaced, and more than a little nervous. The change began 3 years ago when former governors from multiple states were arrested and, in many cases, extradited from countries where they were hiding the loots amassed while in office. Four of them are in jail awaiting their final verdicts. And now the leftist Morena Party of Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador has its sights set on his direct predecessors, including Felipe Calderon, who AMLO believes stole the election from him in 2006.
Posters have been hanging for weeks in the central plaza, featuring the faces of the usual suspects—Salinas, Zedillo, Fox, Calderon, Peña-Neto—their eyes covered with black tape like any other tabloid felon. Of course, they are all guilty, they all have blood on their hands, they all have absconded treasures, they all deserve to be in jail, etc.—no one I have ever talked to in this country would disagree. People here hate their presidents without exception. But the insidious depth of distrust prohibits any hope that this referendum will amount to anything. The cynicism is endemic and it is dangerous, because the alternative to a referendum is something so uncivilized, so regressive, so primitive that it hardly qualifies as justice. In Pantelhó, Chiapas, they are calling it El Machete.