APATZINGAN, Mexico, (Reuters) – Mexico will deliver “immediate change” to a troubled state in the west of the country that has been shaken by conflict between a powerful drug gang and heavily armed vigilantes, a newly named government official said yesterday.
The government this week stepped up efforts to restore order in the impoverished, agricultural state of Michoacan, where violence has stained the security record of President Enrique Pena Nieto, who took office at the end of 2012.
Large swathes of the state have been under the control of the Knights Templar drug cartel, but earlier this month, local vigilante groups began occupying much of the gang’s heartland.
On Monday, Interior Minister Miguel Angel Osorio Chong intervened, ordering the vigilantes to stand down, and on Wednesday he named Alfredo Castillo, a close ally of Pena Nieto, as federal government commissioner for Michoacan.
“The changes are going to be visible immediately,” Castillo told Mexican radio when asked how quickly the government would restore order in Michoacan. “But to get to the ultimate objective … that will happen as fast as is humanly possible.” The fighting in Michoacan this week converged on the city of Apatzingan, a stronghold of the Knights Templar drug gang where hundreds of federal police and soldiers moved in on Tuesday.
Late on Wednesday night, gunmen strafed the premises of the federal attorney general in Apatzingan, not far from where security forces were protecting the mayor’s office.
