les carnets de clarisse

Dans Le Figaro du 28 septembre :

Pour la première fois depuis le début de la guerre de la drogue, un groupe armé prétend cibler un cartel de trafiquants.
Pendant longtemps, les paramilitaires n’étaient qu’un fantasme au Mexique. Il y avait bien eu quelques soupçons lorsque le maire de la riche bourgade de San Pedro Garcia avait créé son «commando de durs» au sein de la police locale. Mais rien n’était allé aussi loin que le groupe des Mata-Zetas qui a émergé dans le Veracruz, au centre du Mexique.

Et bien non, ce n’est pas « pour la première fois« , et les Mata Zetas ne sont pas le seul groupe armé qui brandisse l’étendard de la vertu : les Caballeros Templarios (Chevaliers Templiers) sont aussi présents sur le terrain.

Les Mata Zetas

Les MataZetas sont connus depuis 2009 :

Vidéo – July 1, 2009 · 6:29 am
Mata Zetas on YouTube: Zetas’ Cuban/Chinese Smuggling

Quelques articles récents :

The rising influence of paramilitarism: « Mata Zetas»  issue a new communique
Sunday, September 25, 2011
The campaign for the hearts and minds of Mexican society by the country’s drug cartels is apparent in the latest communiqué from the “Mata Zetas”, a paramilitary organization also known as the CJNG, Cartel de Jalisco Nueva Generacion, which reportedly operates as part of the Sinaloa cartel.
This is the latest evidence of the rising influence of paramilitary groups, as drug cartels increasingly resemble insurgent armies in response to the militarization of the drug war, and the role of drug cartels in society increasingly resembles that of a parallel state.
And maybe with this video communiqué we are beginning to see an attempt by a criminal organization to legitimize itself into a “movement”.

Mexican Group Takes ‘Justice’ Into Own Hands
Saturday, October 1, 2011
More on the issue of MataZetas, here Al Jazeera’s Adam Raney reports from Veracruz:
A group calling themselves the Matazetas, or ‘Zetas killers’ in English, has emerged in the Meixcan city of Veracruz.
As the « armed wing of the people» , they have vowed to take on the well known Zetas drug gang and proudly claim they were involved in the killing of 49 people last week who they say were associated with the Zetas.

Mexican Government Examines Videos from Anti-Cartel Vigilantes
“Only by fighting them on equal terms can the Los Zetas cartel be eradicated from the root,” said the man, who instructed “officials and authorities who support Los Zetas to stop doing so.”
Following the appearance of the clips, some analysts said the group could be an independent death squad that enjoys some support from the authorities or from business leaders tired of being extorted by organized crime elements.

Les Caballeros Templarios

Au Mexique, la croisade contre les narco-templiers
13 août 2011
Le gouvernement mexicain a entrepris de s’attaquer à un jeune cartel adepte du crime faussement codifié : les Chevaliers templiers de Michoacan, qui dissimulent leurs trafics et méfaits derrière un étrange folklore mystico-médiéval.

Caballeros Templarios enter Guerrero
Sunday, October 2, 2011 | Borderland Beat
With the familiar vigilante message reminiscent of previous banners hung in Michoacan, los Caballeros Templarios (CT) announced their entry this past Wednesday into Guerrero’s Costa Grande tourist zone of Ixtapa-Zihuatanejo.
In all, three banners were hung from pedestrian overpasses over thoroughfares in the city of Zihuatanejo.

For Three consecutive days, Narco Canvases have `appear’ in Michoacán
Saturday, August 27, 2011
Morelia, Michoacan. Several narco canvases with photos of a criminal group were offering a reward of up to $500,000 dollars for whoever gives information on their whereabouts. They started appearing Friday morning on the distributor road and pedestrian bridges, exits to Quiroga and Ciudad Universitaria.

Mexico’s Crusade of the Deadly Knights Templar
At first, the amateur video shows a normal evening in the seething valley town of Apatzingán, in Mexico’s western Michoacán state. But as residents and stall owners mix jovially on the sidewalk, the calm is broken by the sinister appearance of masked men gripping machine guns mounted on more than 50 pickup trucks, Hummers and Jeeps. The gangsters cruise openly down Apatzingán’s main drag, a frightening show of force even by the brutal standards of Mexico’s drug-war bloodbath. The propaganda video was sent to media outlets by the newest players in that conflict, the bizarrely named Caballeros Templarios (Knights Templar). As the name suggests, these narcos are inspired by the Jerusalem-based crusaders who fought in the name of Christ between 1119 and 1312, at which point the Pope disbanded them. But unlike their medieval idols, these thugs cook up methamphetamines, or crystal meth, and have left scores of mutilated corpses strewn about Michoacán since their emergence as a group in March.

Quelle solution ?

Répondant lundi dernier à une question de la salle sur « Quelle réponse apporter à la violence de la criminalité organisée au Mexique ?»  lors de la journée d’étude « L’avenir de la guerre»  organisée par l’IRSEM, Jean-François Gayraud a été pessimiste : « Certains problèmes n’ont pas de solutions.» 

Force est de constater qu’au Mexique, aucune solution rationnelle n’apparaît réaliste ou réalisable. Resterait donc aux citoyens démunis la voie de l’irrationnel : en terre mexicaine, prier pour l’apparition d’une figure christique non-violente à la Gandhi ou pour un miracle de la Vierge noire de Guadalupe…

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Sources complémentaires sur les cartels mexicains :

Protective intelligence lessons from an ambush in Mexico –Stratfor
On the afternoon of May 27, a convoy transporting a large number of heavily armed gunmen was ambushed on Mexican Highway 15 near Ruiz, Nayarit state, on Mexico’s Pacific coast. When authorities responded they found 28 dead gunmen and another four wounded, one of whom would later die, bringing the death toll to 29. This is a significant number of dead for one incident, even in Mexico. Whether the objective of the ambush was simply to trap and kill a
Zeta military team conducting a raid or to steal a high-value load of narcotics, a look at this incident from a protective intelligence point of view provides many lessons for security professionals operating in Mexico and elsewhere.

Special Report – If Monterrey falls, Mexico falls – Reuters
In just four years, Monterrey, a manufacturing city of 4 million people 140 miles (230 km) from the Texan border, has gone from being a model for developing economies to a symbol of Mexico’s drug war chaos, sucked down into a dark spiral of gangland killings, violent crime and growing lawlessness.

How a big US bank laundered billions from Mexico’s murderous drug gangs
As the violence spread, billions of dollars of cartel cash began to seep into the global financial system. But a special investigation by the Observer reveals how the increasingly frantic warnings of one London whistleblower were ignored.

Extreme Barbarism, a Death Cult, and Holy Warriors in Mexico: Societal Warfare South of the Border? -Small Wars Journal (pdf)
This short essay is about impression—gut feelings combined with a certain amount of analytical skill—about recent trends taking place in Mexico concerning the ongoing criminal insurgencies being waged by the various warring cartels, gangs, and mercenary organizations that have metastasized though out that nation (and in many other regions as well).
The authors spent over eight hours sequestered together about a month ago on a five-hundred mile there and back again road trip to attend a training conference as instructors for the Kern County Chiefs of Police. Our talks centered on Mexican Drug Cartels, 3rd Generation Gangs, 3rd Phase Cartels, Criminal Insurgency Theory, etc.
Our impression is that what is now taking place in Mexico has for some time gone way beyond secular and criminal (economic) activities as defined by traditional organized crime studies.3 In fact, the intensity of change may indeed be increasing. Not only have de facto political elements come to the fore—i.e., when a cartel takes over an entire city or town, they have no choice but to take over political functions formerly administered by the local government— but social (narcocultura) and religious/spiritual (narcocultos) characteristics are now making themselves more pronounced.

Infographie sur les cartels
Électrosphère donne un lien vers une infographie des cartels.

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Photo CT © El Diario de Zihuatanejo